Central-local Relations Research Articles

Economic Assistance, Central–Local Relations, and Ethnic Regions in China's Authoritarian Regime

AbstractWhen a central government deals with local demands, it may strengthen political accountability of the local governments by political decentralization or offer benefits through economic assistance. An authoritarian regime uses economic assistance policy because political decentralization may contradict regime survival. Although economic benefits can be used to buy political support, the distribution of these benefits is seldom equal. We argue that the unequal distribution is more salient in regions where ethnic minorities reside because the unusual demographic composition of those areas make it difficult for the national government to evaluate the performance of the local government who is responsible for the distribution of the economic benefits. As a result, economic assistance may backfire in ethnic regions and intensify their existing conflicts. We develop a simple formal model to illustrate our arguments and explore the cases of Xinjiang and Hong Kong for empirical analysis.

Efling íslenska sveitarstjórnarstigsins: Áherslur, hugmyndir og aðgerðir

Í þessari grein er fjallað um þær áherslur, hugmyndir og aðgerðir sem miðað hafa að því að efla sveitarstjórnarstigið á Íslandi, frá miðri 20. öldinni til dagsins í dag. Fjallað er um hugmyndir, greinaskrif, lagasetningar, átaksverkefni um eflingu sveitarfélaga með fækkun þeirra og stækkun og annað sem telja má hafa verið hluti af þeirri viðleitni að efla sveitarstjórnarstigið á Íslandi á þessu tímabili. Jafnframt er reynt að meta hvernig þróun til eflingar sveitarfélaga á Íslandi fellur að greiningarramma ítalska stjórnmálafræðingsins Bruno Dente um það hvernig ríki hafa reynt að lögmæta ríkisvaldið með því að laga það að þjóðfélagsþróuninni með endurskoðunar- og umbreytingarferlum m.a. á neðri stjórnstigum. Upphaf hugmynda sem lotið hafa að því að efla sveitarstjórnarstigið á því tímabili sem skoðað var má rekja til greinar Jónasar Guðmundssonar sem birtist 1943 í tímaritinu Sveitarstjórnarmál. Síðan þá hafa ný Sveitarstjórnarlög verið samþykkt á Alþingi árin 1961, 1986 og 2011. Einu sinni hafa verið sett sérstök lög um sameiningu sveitarfélaga, árið 1970. Þá hefur tvívegis verið efnt til átaksverkefna með því að efna til víðtækra kosninga um sameiningu sveitarfélaga; fyrra skiptið árið 1993 og í það síðara árið 2005. Tvívegis hafa stórir málaflokkar verið fluttir úr umsjá ríkis til sveitarfélaga; grunnskólinn frá 1996 og málefni fatlaðra frá 2011. Meginniðurstaðan varðandi greiningarramma Dente um umbreytingar á sveitarstjórnarstigi er sú að finna má aðgerðum, hugmyndum og áherslum á Íslandi víða stað í greiningarramma Dente. Sameiningar og verkefnaflutningurfrá ríki tilsveitarfélaga hafa þar lengst af verið meginstefið. Efling sveitarfélaga með innri breytingum er nokkuð sem fyrst og fremst hefur komið til eftir síðustu aldamót og þá einkanlega í formi lýðræðisumbóta.

Puzzling Agency in Centre-Local Relations: Regulatory Governance and Accounts of Change under New Labour

Research Highlights and Abstract The article seeks to make a contribution in the following areas: It seeks to establish a new research agenda in centre-local relations, which builds on explanations of local practice and the political and affective dimensions of the work of officers and politicians. In so doing, it suggests that we should further dissolve the often over-determined boundaries between the centre and the local. In recasting centre-local relations, it draws particular attention to the capacity of local agency and the role of regulatory intermediaries; it explores such agency through an original case study of the take-up and use of the Power of Well Being. It offers a critical assessment of existing accounts of regulatory governance under New Labour. The UK Coalition's espoused commitment to Localism has re-ignited debates about the state and nature of centre-local relations in England. This article explores this contested space through the practice of regulatory governance under the New Labour government. It identifies two dominant interpretations of centre-local relations under New Labour, which it characterises as state-centric dirigisme and disciplined pluralism. This analysis draws attention to the capacity of local agency to shape the potential and limitations of regulatory governance. This capacity is explored empirically through an examination of the take-up and use of the Local Government Well Being Power introduced in 2000. The article suggests that centre-local relations should be recast to examine critically local practices and the political and affective dimensions of what local officers and politicians actually ‘do’ and it sets out an agenda for future research.

Legal and Institutional Framework: The “Achilles Heel” Of Local Authorities and Raison D’etre of Ministerial Intervention in Zimbabwe

Centre-local relations have been an area of controversy in Zimbabwean local governance both as a discipline and as a practice. Local authorities have traded blows with central government particularly accusing the responsible Ministry of reducing them to spectators in their own field through excessive ministerial intervention. Meanwhile the ministry of local government has cracked the whip on local authorities accusing them of mismanagement and compromised service delivery. The independent media has described the scenario as a “Bloodbath” in local authorities. What appears to be misconstrued by many however is the fact that the governing legal and institutional framework of local governance in Zimbabwe provides room for the responsible Minister to legally enable or disable local authority administration. This governing framework has been and is still the “Achilles heel” of local authorities and the raison d’être of ministerial intervention in Zimbabwe.

The transformation of regional governance in China: The rescaling of statehood

Urban entrepreneurialism and intensive inter-city competition prevail in post-reform China, which has been extensively documented in the literature. However, decentralization is not the only characterisation of China's changing central–local relationship since 1978. Since the 2000s, economic development and agglomeration in China have created more scope of and need for collaboration. Regional collaboration is valued and driven by both central and local government. The aim of this research is to present various types of ‘regionalisation’ initiatives and examine the development of regional governance in China. It is found that there are two main actors leading the current regional practices, that is, the central government (the top-down mechanism) and local government (the bottom-up mechanism). Nevertheless, in terms of institutional arrangement, there has been no formal regional institution or informal regional coalition for either of the mechanism thus far. Moreover, both bottom-up and top-down regional governance initiatives lack substantial participation and multilateral negotiation between cities. There are essentially two different readings of the rationale of regional governance. While the bottom-up collaborative development is envisioned by the local entrepreneurial government to use regional competitiveness to promote local development, the top-down national and regional agenda is used by the central government to tackle discretionary local development. Therefore, the emerging regional governance in China is hybrid and complicated. With reference to the Western theoretical perspectives of state spatiality, state rescaling and politics of scale, this study argues that the emerging regional practices in contemporary China represent another round of changing statehood after governance downscaling to the urban level. This is in response to the territorial problems such as administrative fragmentation and excessive competition caused by earlier decentralisation and localism. It is held that, however, the state rescaling process is not a straightforward process but ridden with conflicts and tensions. Different actors at different spatial levels are articulating their vested interests at the regional scale. The building of regional governance is hence contested by complex inter-governmental politics, especially the division of central–local power and responsibility.

Public Participation and Public Service Modernization: Learning from New Labor?

The public participation agenda is a significant element of public service reform in Europe and beyond. This article examines how citizen participation in local public services was conce ived and enacted under successive New Labor governments in the UK during the period 1997–2010. It is suggested that the emphasis on public participation was central to the ethos of New Labor. This accounts for the persistence of the participation agenda even in the face of scant empirical evidence that specific engagement and empowerment initiatives were successful. Significantly, there was no single New Labor participation narrative. There were instead several distinct strands, drawing variously from the Party's received traditions of State welfarism, corporatist central-local relations, municipal socialism, Blairite managerialism, and, lastly, mutual cooperativism. The article assesses the legacy of New Labor and public participation in the UK before drawing wider conclusions relating to international experience.

Stimulation, Segregation and Scandal: Geographies of Prostitution Regulation in British India, between Registration (1888) and Suppression (1923)

AbstractThis paper explores the regulation of prostitution in colonial India between the abolition of the Indian Contagious Diseases Act in 1888 and the passing of the first Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act in 1923. It challenges the commonly held assumption that prostitutes naturally segregated themselves in Indian cities, and shows that this was a policy advocated by the Government of India. The object was to prevent the military visiting these segregated areas, in the absence of effective Cantonment Regulations for registering, inspecting, and treating prostitutes. The central government stimulated provincial segregation through expressing its desires via demi-official memoranda and confidential correspondence, to which Rangoon and Bombay responded most willingly. The second half of the paper explores the conditions, in both India and Ceylon, that made these segregated areas into scandalous sites in the early twentieth century. It situates the brothel amongst changing beliefs that they: increased rather than decreased incidents of homosexuality; stimulated trafficking in women and children; and encouraged the spread of scandalous white prostitutes ‘up-country’, beyond their tolerated location in coastal cosmopolitan ports. Taken alongside demands that the state support social reform in the early twentieth century, segregation provided the tipping point for the shift towards suppression from 1917 onwards. It also illustrates the scalar shifts in which central-local relations, and relations between provinces, in government were being negotiated in advance of the dyarchy system formalized in 1919.

Back to the Local? Recalibrating the Regional Tier of Governance in England

By contrast to the far-reaching devolution settlements elsewhere in the UK, political agreement on the governance of England outside London remains unsettled. There is cross- party consensus on the need to ‘decentre down’ authority to regions and localities, but limited agreement on how this should be achieved. This paper explores the welter of initiatives adopted by the recent Labour government that were ostensibly designed to make the meso-level of governance more coherent, accountable and responsive to meeting territorial priorities. Second, it explores the current Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition's programme of reform that involves the elimination of Labour's regional institutional architecture and is intended to restore powers to local government and communities and promote local authority co-operation around sub-regions. Labour's reforms were ineffective in achieving any substantial transfer of authority away from Whitehall and, given the Coalition's plans to cut public expenditure, the likelihood of any significant recalibration in central–local relations also appears improbable.

Book Review: Kai Kajitani, The Fiscal and Financial System in Modern China: The Economics of Globalization and Central-Local Relations (in Japanese)

Book Review: Kai Kajitani, <i>The Fiscal and Financial System in Modern China: The Economics of Globalization and Central-Local Relations</i> (in Japanese)

‘You can't play politics with people's jobs and people's services’: Localism and the politics of local government finance

Despite growing cross-party support for the principles of localism, the coalition's radical devolution agenda looks set to provoke a level of tension in central–local relations not seen since the 1980s. This article argues that the central cause of this friction, the front-loading of cuts in the local government financial settlement for 2011–2013, must be understood as the centrepiece of theConservatives’ agenda for local government reform. It is argued that, as with the introduction of the poll tax after 1987, the Conservatives have adopted a high-risk political strategy that will require the government to persuade voters that cuts in services arise from the failings of local councils. Evidence from opinion polls in the first half of 2011 suggests that the public is yet to be convinced that the blame lies with local government, but that they remain open to persuasion. However, a regionalized analysis of projected public sector job loss and voting patterns at the 2011 English local elections suggests that voters look set to blame central government in the areas where the cuts will hit hardest. If future local elections repeat this pattern, the limitations of the political strategy behind the localism agenda will become highly apparent.

Conflict and Compliance in Swedish Health Care Governance: Soft Law in the ‘Shadow of Hierarchy’

Soft law, or non‐legislative modes of policy making, is becoming increasingly common today. The Nordic countries have a long tradition soft law, not least in central–local relations, where non‐binding agreements are frequently used to coordinate policies. A key question springing from soft law theory is that of compliance. Why do independent actors comply if they are not formally obliged to do so, and what happens if they do not comply? This article addresses the question of how compliance can be achieved during policy conflict between actors at different governing levels by investigating a case of health care reform in Sweden. An important finding in the study is that compliance was reached ‘in the shadow of hierarchy’. The central government resorted to the threat of regular legislation to force the county councils to comply. This finding points to the fact that sanctions and the presence of a hierarchical order may play an important role even in soft law governance. The study also shows that an additional important reason that the voluntary agreement between the county councils and central government was honoured in the end by both parties can be attributed to the efforts of a mediating actor: the organization representing the county councils in their negotiations with the government. Finally, the study also illustrates how various forms of informal social pressures such as shaming, peer pressure and moral responsibility can help enforce local compliance in a case of open policy conflict. Arguably, all these compliance mechanisms also have relevance outside the Nordic setting.

Run of the Red Queen: Government, Innovation, Globalization and Economic Growth in China – By Dan Breznitz and Michael Murphree

Run of the Red Queen: Government, Innovation, Globalization and Economic Growth in China – By Dan Breznitz and Michael Murphree

Rereading Central-local Relations in China: The Fundamentals and Premise?

Scholars both Chinese and foreign were, are, and will be studying central-local relations in China, but China still functions with problems. This paper reviews central-local relations in China and reveals that scholars have mistakenly named “central-local relations” when the proper classification is political and economic. Meanwhile, this paper shows that relations between the center and localities function like federalism with regard to the economy yet as a unitary state politicically. So, scholars study political and economic relations separately, and there will be two types of measures for central-local relations. Since the birth of the People's Republic of China, scholars have sought to make central-local relations in China function well, but this goal is an uphill climb in a country with many difficulties. Thus, researching this theme never stops. In the long history of research, there are two different periods to discern, one is before the time of informing and opening China, the other is after. Consequently, research gathered at each time are different. However, the problem is that both cannot have given effective measures making central-local relations working well. Therefore, scholars must rethink and re-realize the research to discover the problems inherent in the research and how to resolve and avoid it. This paper tells us several important things: 1. What are central-local relations in China? This basic question was unfortunately ignored by many scholars, especially after reforming and opening. This paper reinterprets what comprises central-local relations in China and identifies its qualities for the reader. 2. What is the situation of researching central-local relations in China? There are two main and different perspectives researching this theme: “local” and “overseas.” Scholars of the local school clearly realized differences between China and western countries and tired to find a countermeasure. Conversely. scholars of the overseas school pointed out that we must have learned from the federalism-oriented western countries of federalism. the local nor overseas perspectives are completely correct. The key is which can interpret and solve problems of central-local relations in China. 3. What are measures for us? For us, giving measures is much more important than just defining problems. Thus, we must seek new research methods that are suitable for actuality of China.

Towards Strong Local Governance: Current Reform Scenario in Fiji

This article examines how the historical context of poor central-local relations and inefficient service delivery structure is used by the current military-led government in Fiji as a ploy for its local government reform agenda. Based on an analysis of secondary information on local government structure and a review of the reforms undertaken by the Review/Reform Committee, this article identifies the concentration of economic and political power at the central level as one of the major obstacles towards empowering local governance in Fiji. The article emphasizes the need for effective institutional reforms to devolve governance and resources from the centre to the grassroots.

Expectations, Assumptions and Realities: Scottish Local Government Post-Devolution

This article reviews developments in Scottish local government post-devolution. In doing so it outlines some expectations, assumptions and realities about local government in Scotland. Three assumptions are examined and rejected: 1999 was ‘Year Zero’ for Scottish local government; central–local relations are characterised by a cohesive centre versus a cohesive locality; central–local relations in Scotland are nothing more than a fuzzy microcosm of central–local relations in England. The article argues that Scotland increasingly offers a different ‘story’ of central–local government relations with pre-existing differences accentuating in the context of minority government, different processes of governance and attitudes to the welfare state.

Domestic governance arrangements and Europeanization: The case of central-local relations in England, Ireland and Denmark

Research emphasizes the uneven impact of Europeanization. While different mechanisms of Europeanization, including minimalist framing mechanisms based on identifying best practice and peer review, can place adaptational impulses on national governments, an institutionalist perspective suggests that such initiatives are typically mediated through domestic traditions and that domestic governance arrangements can be resilient to change. This article examines such claims empirically by drawing on research into central-local mechanisms to involve local government in domestic deliberations on new EU environmental proposals in three member states. It finds that despite impulses arising from European peer review initiatives, national governance arrangements remain robust, with actors preferring to rely on established domestic routines rather than adopting approaches used elsewhere.

Institutional Change and Continuity in Korea`s Central Agencies, 1948-2011

This article analyzes Korea`s central agencies, which have been organized and reorganized to support presidential executive leadership since the foundation of the Republic. Each central agency has carried out the standardization of a core administrative function which is essential to the operation of administrative apparatuses, including policy planning and coordination, budgeting, organizing, staffing, legislation, public relations, central-local relations, control and performance evaluation, etc. The six decades of institutionalization can be characterized, based on the central agencies` proportion of the total administrative apparatus, into three phases: high (more than 35 percent, 1948-1961), middle (around 20 percent, 1962-2007), and low (about 10 percent, 2008-present). Regardless of the changing size and organizational configuration of the central agencies, however, their roles and influence as core executive apparatuses have remained largely unchanged, especially since the early 1960s. More than 67 percent, on average, of the heads and deputy heads of CAs have been former public servants, less than 18 percent have been former politicians, and about 15 percent have been former outside experts. This strong bureaucratic background has oriented Korea`s core executive policy direction significantly toward long-term, consistent, and plan rationality rather than short-term, flexible, and democratic responsiveness.

Underrated localism in urban regeneration: The case of Liverpool, a shrinking city

This paper considers central–local relationships in the UK’s response to processes of ‘shrinkage’ (depopulation) in its major cities during recent decades. Such policies have most frequently taken the form of urban regeneration initiatives. The paper discusses the concept of shrinking cities, and places the UK in a European and global context. It then outlines the literature that discusses the extent to which regeneration has, or has not, been associated with an increasing centralisation of power, before presenting a series of examples of institutional evolution in Liverpool over the past two decades. The paper concludes that, while many scholars argue that the UK has seen increased centralisation of urban regeneration policy, the case of Liverpool illustrates that local mobilisation has been a significant factor, and that the situation is therefore not quite as simple as often presented. In providing such illustrations, the paper aims to contribute to the understanding of central–local relations in this field of policy, as well as substantiate theoretical perspectives which point to the significance and potential contribution of local actors in the urban regeneration process. Such considerations are particularly timely following the announcement in the May 2010 Queen’s speech of the new UK Government’s plans for a localism and decentralisation bill.

Revenue Mobilisation Performance of Union Parishad in Bangladesh: Is It Convergence of Central-Local Relations?

Despite several local revenue sources, Union Parishads (Councils) in Bangladesh are yet to perform optimal local revenue mobilisation. This paper evaluates Unions revenue trend and performance, budget and planning practices, effect of central grants on local revenue in the backdrop of central government recent initiative for Unions capacity building. Analysis includes three representative Unions, in a comparative perspective, and uses secondary and primary data (from Parishad functionaries, local citizen, government officials and national experts). Findings show that open budget discussion, discretionary and performance grants have positive impact on local revenue collection while this study raises question about sustainability of the revenue augmentation due to disparity of deconcentrated allocations system and feeble local democratic governance. Study recommends making adjustments in local revenue shares, increase discretionary grants, and validation of local participatory governance. This study has implications for local revenue mobilisation through convergence of central-local policy and strategy, specially for developing countries having similar local socio-economic and revenue source footings.

UNEVEN POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN RURAL CHINA

Several theories are employed and analyzed to study the central-local relations existing in China, which in turn helps in understanding the unevenness that exists in the implementation of different policies in the rural parts of the country. The applicability and effectiveness of the application of different measures for enhancing the situation are also discussed.