Central Government Sets Research Articles

A genealogical and archaeological examination of the development of corporate governance and disciplinary power in English local government c.1970–2010

The paper seeks to enhance our understanding of the interaction between the development of disciplinary power in western liberal society and Foucault's writings on governmentality, through examination of the political processes resulting from the largest public scandal in the UK, the Poulson scandal of the early 1970s. The first research motive is to uncover any additional insights or hidden understandings that can be derived by applying Foucauldian historiographical and governmental perspectives as strengthened by Dean's (2010) analytics of government to the history of corporate governance in English local authorities over the forty years following Poulson. We argue that the continual process of intervention, investigation and prescription by central government set in motion by the scandal resulted in an increase in disciplinary power within local government by changing the expectations of council officials, elected representatives and politicians in Westminster through the normalisation of these intrusions and the spirit of dependency and compliance which resulted. Secondly, the paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of the analytics approach in a complex situation involving many genealogical disruptions to the status quo over a long time-period; and whilst the paper found the method helpful, limitations emerged regarding its claims to empirical certainty through precise questioning. Finally, the paper examines the significance of countering corruption as a motivating factor in the rise of disciplinary power in English local government, which it finds as limited.

Whose energy sovereignty? Competing imaginaries of Mexico's energy future

Mexico started down a path toward renewable energy in 2013 when the central government set ambitious targets for clean energy and carbon emissions through long-term electricity auctions and clean energy licenses. In 2018, these efforts came to a drastic halt when President López Obrador was elected. Since then, efforts to transition to renewable have been stalled, and even reversed to some extent. At this moment of fundamental political, societal, and technical uncertainty, different futures are being debated. On the basis of 24 narrative interviews conducted with experts in the Mexican energy sector and extensive document analysis, we discuss how energy futures are imagined in different assemblages of institutions, technologies, and political power. Notions of energy sovereignty take central stage in discourses employed by actors seeking to materialize their imaginaries. Using the sociotechnical imaginaries framework, we identify and discuss both the dominant imaginaries and three counter-imaginaries, as well as their expression within notions of energy sovereignty. We conclude that this politicization may present an opportunity to include broader notions of energy sovereignty in imaginaries of energy futures.

Planning System of England to Respond to ‘Housing Crisis’ and Policy Implication to Korea

The purpose of this study is to explore the implications from the recent changes in the English planning system. In England, the ‘housing crisis’ led to changes in the planning system aimed at expanding the housing supply: The central government set strategic aims for housing supply which were linked to the local plan; a standard calculation method for housing needs was used; and local plans including the housing needs and supply were used to determine whether to permit planning applications. However, in Korea, the central government produces the comprehensive housing plan by itself, and the link between the plans of the central and local governments is not clear. The method of estimating housing demand and needs is not uniform, so reliability and comparability are low. And, the housing plan made by local governments is not being used to assess the adequacy of development projects. The fundamental reason for such a difference is that Korea’s housing policy is being implemented by the central government. In order to develop a new planning system suitable for decentralization, it is necessary to consider a planning system that the central government’s strategic aims are compatible with local governments’ leading role in the implementation of the plan.

A Stackelberg game model with tax for regional air pollution control

The command-and-control regulation is likely inefficient and costly. This study investigates a regional pollution control scheme with tax (RPCST) under which the central government sets the tax rate under a given pollutant reduction quota and local governments determine their pollution removal rates based on the central government’s policy. First, a one-leader-multi-follower (OLMF) Stackelberg game model is formulated, in which the central government is the leader and the local governments are the followers. Then, a procedure based on bilevel programming and relaxation method is applied to solve the OLMF model. Finally, a case study analyzing the SO2 reduction of the Yangtze River Delta in China is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the RPCST. The results show that RPCST works better than the current command-and-control scheme. Our analysis provides a guideline for governments to design optimal tax schemes to effectively solve the regional air pollution crisis.

Efektifitas Pelayanan Jemput Bola Kartu Identitas Anak (KIA) Dinas Kependudukan Dan Pencatatan Sipil Kota Payakumbuh

Indonesian citizens aged 17 years and over have an Identity Card (KTP) as their iden- tity. Children also have their own identity cards. The government has implemented MCH by issuing Minister of Home Affairs Regulation Number 2 of 2016 concerning Child Identity Cards. Permendagri Number 67 of 2020, the central government sets a target in achieving the Issuance of Child Identity Cards (KIA) for Provinces and Regencies/Cities throughout Indonesia. The targets that must be realized by Provinces and Municipalities from 2020- 2024 are: 20% in 2020, 30% in 2021, 40% in 2022, 50% in 2023, 60% in 2024. MCH Policy
 in the City Payakumbuh is still not fully known by the public. Some of the people do not know about the existence of MCH and the benefits of MCH. For people who already know about MCH, they also have a lack of awareness to manage MCH where people think MCH is not really needed, especially for children under 5 years old where all children’s activities are under the supervision of their parents. So that the issuance of MCH in Payakumbuh is still low. In addition to the lack of public knowledge about MCH, the community is also reluctant to take their children to the Population and Civil Registration Office on the grounds that the children are in school, the location of the Population and Civil Registration Office is quite far or the community lacks time to take their children so they can have a Child Identity Card ( KIA) because they work. The purpose of this study is to describe the effectiveness of the ball pick-up service carried out by the Population and Civil Registration Service in increasing MCH ownership and to find out the supporting factors and inhibiting factors in the Payakumbuh City Population and Civil Registration Service. This type of research is qual- itative research
 In the study, it was found that the number of residents aged 0-17 years less than 1 day who had a Child Identity Card (KIA) in Payakumbuh City was quite a lot and almost met the targeted MCH ownership standards. This is sufficient to prove that the MCH services provided are adequate by implementing the Ball Pick-up program, namely direct services to various places in Payakumbuh City including the Kelurahan office, schools and others to provide direct services with the aim of making it easier for the community to manage MCH. However, the services provided are still experiencing various kinds of obstacles where the ball pick-up service has not been scheduled due to an inadequate budget, besides that the facilities and infrastructure are still inadequate. to the center and the lack of socializa- tion specifically to the community regarding the importance of MCH so that the community considers MCH as a form of service for population administration documents that are less important so they are lazy to manage it.
 Keywords : Effectiveness, Ball Pick-up Service, Child Identity Card (KIA)

Policy disparities in response to COVID-19 between Singapore and China

ObjectiveThe study analyzed the common points and discrepancies of COVID-19 control measures of the two countries in order to provide appropriate coping experiences for countries all over the world.MethodThis study examined the associations between the epidemic prevention and control policies adopted in the first 70 days after the outbreak and the number of confirmed cases in China and Singapore using the generalized linear model. Policy comparisons and disparities between the two countries were also discussed.ResultsThe regression models show that factors influencing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in China: Locking down epicenter; activating Level One public health emergency response in all localities; the central government set up a leading group; classified management of “four categories of personnel”; launching makeshift hospitals; digital management for a matrix of urban communities; counterpart assistance. The following four factors were the key influencing factors of the cumulative confirmed cases in Singapore: The National Centre for Infectious Diseases screening center opens; border control measures; surveillance measures; Public Health Preparedness Clinics launched.ConclusionsThrough analyzing the key epidemic prevention and control policies of the two countries, we found that the following factors are critical to combat COVID-19: active case detection, early detection of patients, timely isolation, and treatment, and increasing of medical capabilities. Countries should choose appropriate response strategies with health equity in mind to ultimately control effectively the spread of COVID-19 worldwide.

Taxation and the stagnation of cotton exports in Brazil, 1800–60†

AbstractBrazil's northern region supplied 40 per cent of the cotton imported into Liverpool during the last decade of the eighteenth century. In the following decades, however, cotton exports stagnated, and Brazil became the only major international cotton producer that decreased its exports to European countries. This article shows that the fiscal policies of Brazil's central government had a significant role on the decline of cotton exports. The central government set export taxes to maximize revenue from higher‐quality long‐staple cotton, decreasing the profitability of short staples, which saw the largest increase in demand during the nineteenth century.

Are Central Government Rules Okay? Assessing the Hidden Costs of Centralised Discipline for Municipal Borrowing

In the EU, the specialty municipal banks have been the traditional funding source besides tax sharing and governmental transfers for Local Governments (LGs). With the decentralization process, LGs experienced different market-based options so that banks were no longer the only source of funding. However, with the onset of the Eurozone crisis, public sector debt is no more risk-free, and the cost of borrowing became unstable over time. To minimise such risks, Central Governments forced LGs to adopt general principles of control of local borrowing. Previous studies evidenced that centralised controls affect unitary countries more than federations. This paper investigates the Centralised Discipline and Control Model to understand whether it generates hidden costs. For such a purpose, the paper compares municipal bonds against borrowing from banks in Italy, a European unitary country. This paper highlights the existence of hidden costs for Italian LGs because the Central Government set up an expensive system for controlling the entire public sector debt. Policy makers should pay particular attention to which model of control to adopt by considering their country’s specific characteristics and the potential impacts of the different models on them, according to the present economic circumstances.

SOCIAL DISTANCING: INDONESIAN POLICY REPONSE TO THE CORONA VIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19)

Coronavirus becomes a pandemic disease faced by more than two hundred countries that impacts multi-dimensional aspects, the various policy is carried out as an effort to tackle the coronavirus, it is polarized into 2 (two) policy, namely lockdown and social distancing. Indonesia as a country infected by the coronavirus does the same thing, but empirically the policy taken is debated. On the one hand, the central government sets social distancing policy, on the other hand, some regional governments set local-scale lockdown policy. This article uses a qualitative approach with a descriptive analysis method, the data sources in this study are based on two sources both the primary data obtained through focused observations in the Bandung City and literature studies of various documents that relevant to the coronavirus topic. The results revealed that the driving factors.The inhibiting factors in the implementation of social distancing policy consist of 3 (three), namely: First, the capacity of the organization both at the central government level and the regional government level. Second, the different strategies implemented by the government in which the central government implements a social distancing policy strategy, while the regional governments implement a lockdown policy strategy. Third, community obedience where there are still many people who violate social distancing policy.Keywords: Coronavirus, COVID-19, lockdown, social distancing, policy

The vital importance of prevention

The vital importance of prevention

PD43 Value-Based Procedure For Updating The Italian Health Benefit Package

Introduction:In Italy, the central government sets the health benefit package (denominated “Livelli Essenziali di Assistenza” - LEAs) of the National Health System (NHS), which must be provided to all residents. In 2004, the Italian Ministry of Health established a new technical body, the National LEA Commission, responsible for updating LEAs.Methods:Recently, the Ministry has commissioned to the National Institute of Health (NIH) the development of a new value-based procedure for updating the health benefit package for the Italian NHS, supporting the National LEA Commission. A review and comparison of value frameworks and decisional models was performed in order to select a framework and a model that can be applied to the Italian context, design an administrative process for the update procedure, and propose approaches for: (i) the assessment of services currently included in the health benefit basket and of those planned to be incorporated, (ii) the process of appraisal and decision-making to be adopted by the Commission.Results:The NIH outlined an evidence and value-based three-step (i.e. priority setting, assessment and appraisal) administrative process that integrates roles and responsibilities of the different Italian healthcare institutions involved in LEA updating and HTA.Conclusions:The NIH is proposing to the Ministry of Health and to the National LEA Commission a new evidence and value-based procedure for updating the health benefit package for the Italian NHS. This procedure is entering a pilot phase in which potential gaps can be identified and minimized for its subsequent implementation.

FISHING FROM THE SAME POOL: THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE ON LOCAL CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIONS IN SCOTLAND AND THE US PACIFIC NORTHWEST

The impact of environmental governance on the delivery of local climate change plans is examined by comparing two transatlantic sub-national jurisdictions which have adopted stringent targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions: Scotland and the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. The former relies on dirigiste top-down environmental governance, through which central government sets targets and imposes statutory duties that apply equally to all local councils. In the latter, a bottom-up multi-level form of environmental governance has emerged to compensate for the absence of a federal mandate. Specific action plans from a climate change pioneer in each location are assessed to test the strengths and limitations of these alternative modes of environmental governance: Portland in Oregon and Fife in Scotland. The Scottish dirigiste approach offers its local councils a consistent policy framework, allowing them to focus on specific measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while avoiding concerns about free-rider effects from non-participating councils. The asymmetrical uptake of climate change measures by United States municipalities exposes their domestic market to the risks of carbon leakage that America sought to avoid in global markets during negotiations over the Kyoto Protocol.

The use of a goal for SO2 mitigation planning and management in China's 11th Five-Year Plan

Using the goal of a 10% reduction of SO2 emissions in China's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010) as a case study, this paper analyses how environmental goals are used in a large country with multi-level governments and insufficient rule of law. After the central government set up the goal, the mitigation burden was shared among local governments, and mechanisms were designed to enhance their commitment to the goal. This paper found that in the 11th Five-Year Plan, both the central and local governments were much more committed to SO2 mitigation than previously, which could help to explain China's recent significant reduction of SO2 emissions. The case indicates that goals can effectively plan and manage environmental protection and other national government agendas.

“An inconsequential boil” or a “terrible disease”? Social perceptions of and state responses to syphilis in the late Ottoman empire

AbstractFrom the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state started to perceive syphilis as a dangerous menace threatening the security of the state and the welfare of society. It therefore began to undertake measures to contain the disease and prevent it spreading. In particular the province of Kastamonu became the hub of the campaign against syphilis and the central government set up an invasive system of enforced pre-nuptial health checks, regular controls of the hamams and barber shops there, as well as imposing restrictions on the mobility of local residents, controls which had a direct impact on the everyday lives of the population. Among these measures the effective application of pre-nuptial health checks, directed at both male and female subjects of the province, was hampered by the resistance of the population, who did not perceive syphilis as dangerous, and in consequence the local and central governments and their agents, such as the medical personnel, who were responsible for the imposition of such measures, were forced to modify some measures and ignore others in order to avoid a confrontation with the local population.

Strategic Disaster Reduction Planning with Government Stakeholder Collaboration - A Case Study in Nara and Kyoto, Japan

Japan’s central government sets strategic disaster reduction goals against mega earthquake disasters such as the Tokai-Tonankai-Nankai, and Tokyo metropolitan area earthquakes. These goals focus on mortality and economic loss, and many other local governments are now working on their own related plans. In order to accomplish national goals of disaster reduction, efforts by local stakeholders to build community resilience are, in fact, indispensable. So it is necessary to develop disaster reduction planning schemes involving both local and national stakeholders in order to comply with national disaster reduction goals. This paper discusses strategic disaster reduction planning with stakeholder involvement. Case studies were done in the Nara and Kyoto prefectural governments.

How Should Standards Be Set and Met?: On the Allocation of Regulatory Power in a Federal System

Abstract Regulation often takes the form of a standard that can be met through the implementation of any of a number of different policies. This paper examines how the authority to set the standard and the authority to choose the combination of policies to meet the standard should be allocated between a central government and local governments. In the context of the United States, for example, should standards regarding such public goods as the environment or education be set and implemented by the federal government, by individual state governments, or by both? Because decisions about setting and/or meeting the standard can be non-contractible, an incomplete contracting approach is used. A central finding is that "conjoint federalism" (the central government sets the standard while the local governments meet the standard), which is the regulatory structure often used in federations such as the United States and the European Union, can be the least efficient form, while a reverse form of delegation, in which local governments choose their own individual standards which the central government then decides how to collectively meet, can be the most efficient.

Ancient Chinese anti-fever cure becomes panacea for malaria

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The son of peasants, Professor Zhou Yiqing was born in 1929. He joined the Eighth Route Army (later part of the People's Liberation Army) at the age of 16. During the Sino-Japanese War and the War of Liberation (Chinese Civil War) he served as a nurse, head of a nursing squad, assistant physician and eventually doctor-in-charge. In 1960, he graduated from the Shanghai No. 2 Military Medical University and later became a researcher at the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology (IME) of the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS). In April this year, Zhou Yiqing and his team won the 2009 European Inventors of the Year award (in the non-European countries category) for developing the first artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) for known as Coartem. He talks to reporter Cui Weiyuan about this achievement. Q: Did malaria ever affect people in China? A: Malaria was an epidemic disease in China for more than 3000 years. The symptoms were described in ancient writings. For example, Nei Jing (the Canon of Internal Medicine) described them as early as 270 BC. When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, malaria was endemic in two-thirds of Chinese counties, but it has not been a major public health problem since the 1980s. Q: What was your first experience of malaria? A: In the battle to cross the Yangtze River in 1949, I contracted the disease for the first time and suffered recurring bouts. No effective medicine was available. The pain left a sharp impression on me. I received an arsenic injection and, later, Atabrine (quinacrine) pills. The pills made me turn bright yellow. Although the side-effects were serious, I survived. Some female comrades suffered psychosis from drug toxicity after being treated. Q: Is that what spurred you to do research to find antimalarial drugs? A: While I worked as a battlefield doctor, one thing bothered me most: wounded soldiers begging me to save their lives because sometimes I just could not help them. I had only four years' primary school education. I vowed to improve myself. In 1960, I graduated from medical school and was assigned to become a researcher at the Chinese AMMS but was first sent to the Soviet Union for further study. Contracting malaria made me realize how bad the disease can be. However, my official participation in the research project stemmed from the Viet Nam War. When I returned from the Soviet Union in 1964, the war had broken out. I was ordered to conduct field research on tropical diseases in Viet Nam. China was supporting North Viet Nam and providing it with medical aid. Following orders, my comrades and I travelled along the Beibu (Tonkin) Gulf and through the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the jungle--it was the only way to maintain supplies for North Viet Nam because the United States of America had bombed it so intensely. We were accompanied by showers of bombs during the trip. There, I witnessed rampant malaria that reduced the combat strength by half, sometimes by up to 90% when the soldiers became ill. There was a saying, We're not afraid of American imperialists, but we are afraid of malaria, although in fact the disease took a huge toll on both sides. Later, we submitted a report to Chinas Central Military Committee, stressing the importance of developing Chinas own antimalarials. Taking our advice, the central government set up a panel of more than 500 medical military and civilian experts to develop new anti-malarial treatment for stricken soldiers. This was classified as a top secret state mission named Project 523, after the date, 23 May 1967, it was established. Q: What made you and your team think of using artemisinin to treat malaria? A: Project 523 included two groups engaged in antimalarial drug development: one to devise chemical medicines, another to examine traditional Chinese medicines. The latter group included researchers as well as traditional Chinese medicine doctors, who, as part of Chairman Mao's barefoot scheme, scoured the nation to collect folk remedies. …

Reply to So, Perelman, and Post

I am grateful to the three reviewers for making the effort to respond critically yet constructively to my paper (Webber 2008). In this brief response, I want to place the comments of Perelman (2008, this issue), Post (2008, this issue) and So (2008, this issue) within the theoretical framework that I use in the paper. I start by developing an observation that Michael Perelman makes in his comparison of British and Chinese experiences. Perelman points to differences between Britain and China in the timing of primitive accumulation in relation to industrialisation, in the forms taken by primitive accumulation and in the complexity of the process. I would extend this argument, claiming that the timing, forms and complexity of the processes of primitive accumulation differ in different parts of China. As I stressed in the conclusion to the original paper, China really should not be thought of as one place. The central government sets the general rules, true?but even then often in reaction to local experiments. In some places, primitive accumulation is preceding industrialisation, in others following; in some places dispossession from the land (and so loss of self-provisioning) is important, in other places not; in some places ethnicity, environmentalism and insensitivity interact with greed, but in other places processes of dispossession or the market seem quite simple. This claim has an important bearing on the observations made by the two other commentators.

Corrupt local governments as resource farmers: The helping hand and the grabbing hand

In our model, the central government sets the tax rate and its share of revenue, while local governments maximize their private benefits, by engaging in two classes of activities. The first one consists of providing public goods which help firms to make more profit, thus enlarging the tax base. The second one consists of extortionary activities. We show that given any initial capital stock, there are corresponding threshold levels of transparency of governance, tenure length, and local government tax share, above which the economy will grow without bound, and below which it will fall into a poverty trap.

Local e-Government in the Netherlands: From Ambitious Policy Goals to Harsh Reality

The Netherlands took up e-Government development relatively early and was considered to be one of the leading nations in e-Government developments. In recent years, it has slipped back in the various international benchmarks, and also other signs show that the country no longer is at the front of e-Service development. This paper discusses possible causes for the decline of Dutch e-Service delivery development. Important factors in the explanation can be found in the structure of the Dutch public sector which can be characterized as fairly decentralized. The central government sets ambitious policy goals, but lacks the means to have them realized on the local level which is the primary level at which public service delivery takes place. The municipalities on the other hand are incapacitated by relatively small scale, the large number of services they provide and the lack of real incentives to move service delivery online. As a result, e-Service development on the local level is inefficient and progresses relatively slow. There are signs though that things are changing: the central government takes on a more active stance, and local authorities join forces to develop services together.