Local Government Decision Research Articles

The Migratory Transformation of China

Since the beginning of the 21st century, China has been undergoing patterns of migration unlike any in recent world history. It is as yet difficult to fully assess the scale and consequences of these trends. Within a few years, the peasant migrations of the 1980s and 1990s became unprecedented in size and scope. The dramatic and continuing growth in rural unemployment, expected to reach 250 million by the year 2020, will further add to the migration pressure, both internal and external. This paper analyzes empirical data collected by Chinese researchers and examines the early central and local government decisions that first triggered and regulated migration.

Thinking globally, acting locally — institutionalizing climate change at the local government level in Durban, South Africa

Durban is unusual among cities worldwide in having a municipal government that has developed a locally rooted climate change adaptation strategy. This paper considers how climate change came to be considered by local government against four institutional markers: the emergence of climate change advocates among local politicians and civil servants; climate change as a significant issue in municipal plans; staff and funds allocated to climate change issues; and a serious consideration of climate change issues within local government decision making. Considerable progress has been achieved on the second and third of these — but less so on the first and fourth. The paper highlights how climate change issues need to be rooted in local realities that centre on avoiding or limiting impacts from, for instance, heat waves, heavy rainfall and storm surges and sea-level rise, and also the ecological changes and water supply constraints brought about by climate change. To date, international agencies have paid little attention to adaptation, as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) has been prioritized. This paper also stresses the importance of building local knowledge and capacity about climate change risks and adaptive responses. Without this, decision makers will continue seeing environmental issues as constraints on development rather than as essential underpinnings of and contributors to development.

Yardstick competition and public sector innovation

The paper addresses the incentives of the public sector to implement new technologies in public service provision. The focus is on the role of local governments under decentralization. Exploiting variation in the level of innovation in a large sample of US school districts, the impact of yardstick competition on the choice of public sector technologies is identified. It is shown that the impact of other districts’ innovation activity on a district’s innovation score is much stronger in communities where incumbents face a high risk of being elected out of office. This finding suggests that under decentralization, yardstick competition is an important force shaping the decisions of local governments to adopt new technologies.

Do Institutional Arrangements Make a Difference to Transport Policy and Implementation? Lessons for Britain

The authors describe local government decisionmaking in transport in three areas of the United Kingdom—London, West Yorkshire, and Edinburgh—in which major changes in local government decisionmaking structures have taken place over the last decade, and between which arrangements are now very different. They discuss whether institutional change has had a beneficial or adverse effect, and whether any of the current structures provides a more effective framework for policy development and implementation. The results suggest that, although the sites share a broadly common set of objectives, there are differences in devolved responsibilities and in the extent to which various policy options are within the control of the bodies charged with transport policy delivery. The existence of several tiers of government, coupled with the many interactions required between these public sector bodies and the predominantly private sector public transport operators, appears to create extra transactional barriers and impedes the implementation of the most effective measures for cutting congestion. There is, however, a compelling argument for the presence of an overarching tier of government to organise travel over a spatial scale compatible with that of major commuter patterns. The extent to which such arrangements currently appear to work is a function of the range of powers and the funding levels afforded to the coordinating organisation.

Evaluation of the Wetland in Yencheng, China

The wetlands of China are components of hydrological systems that, when well managed, provide water in periods of shortage, important flood controls in periods of heavy rain or snowmelt, food for millions of people, and breeding and feeding habitat for many wild species. In July 2006, I participated in a monitoring and evaluation mission of a UNDP-GEF project on Conservation and Sustainable Use of Wetlands in China. The project in Yancheng aims at establishing wetland biodiversity conservation as a routine consideration in national, provincial and local government decision making and action. Started in June 2005, the project ends by the end of 2007. The evaluation team reviewed the progress achieved so far and identified implementation problems.

Organizing Space in a Dynamic Economy: Insights for Policy from the Irish Experience

In this paper, we first outline Ireland's macro-economic performance, including its causes, and the organizational structures that have been put in place to make it happen. Next, we outline the spatial implications of this for the Greater Dublin region, and the Irish policy model that is in place to manage space. We then use a transport strategy for the nation and the region recently announced by the national government to exemplify the lack of convergence between decisions on investment in infrastructure, and local and regional government decisions concerning land-use planning. We conclude with some implications and conclusions. (A)

Measurement of urbanization process and the paddy soil loss in Yixing city, China between 1949 and 2000

This study used GIS technology, remote sensing images of 1949, 1966, 1981, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000, to analyze the spatial process of urbanization and its impact on the soil resources in Yixing city, southeast China. The results showed that the urban area grew more than three-fold during 51 years and the loss of paddy soil accounted for 82.9% of all soil loss. According to the expansion dynamics and the results of spatial metrics, the urban expansion process in Yixing could be divided into four steps, the initial step (1949–1966), the almost standstill step (1966–1981), the preparation step (1981–1984) and the rapid growing step (after 1984). The study also indicated that the urban expansion was encouraged by the transportation system, however, restricted by the rivers, lakes and hills. The local government's decision also affected the spatial process of urban expansion. The spatial process of Yixing urban expansion might reflect the spatial process of urbanization of southeast China, the region with a rapidly growing economy.

Institutionalizing Participation and Governance? New Participative Structures in Local Government in Ireland

Public service providers and elected levels of government around the world are continually being encouraged to involve citizens in decision-making. Various means of achieving this have been employed by local authorities in different countries. These include local referenda, customer surveys, online discussion forums and citizens’ juries. This article draws on the example of new participative committee structures within Irish local government. These seek to involve identified stakeholders (including business, trade unions, the community/voluntary sector and environmental interests) in local government decision-making. These structures were inspired both by international trends towards participatory democracy and Ireland's experience of neo-corporatist ‘social partnership’ at the national level. This article considers the new committee structures and their composition and examines some of the problems encountered. It demonstrates that recent research into these new structures supports many of the concerns that have been raised in the literature on varying participative mechanisms practiced in other countries.

The Impact of Subsidized Health Insurance for the Poor: Evaluating the Colombian Experience Using Propensity Score Matching

This paper evaluates the impact of Colombia's subsidized health insurance program (SUBS) on medical care utilization. Colombia's SUBS program is a demand-side subsidy intended for low-income families, where the screening of beneficiaries takes place in decentralized locations across the country. Due to the self-selection problems associated with non-experimental data, we implement Propensity Score Matching (PSM) methods to measure the impact of this subsidy on medical care utilization. By combining unique household survey data with community and regional data, we are able to compute propensity scores in a way that is consistent with both the local government's decision to offer the subsidy, and with the individual's decision to accept the subsidy. Although the application of PSM using these rich datasets helps to achieve a balance between the treatment and control groups along observable dimensions, we also present instrumental variable estimates to control for the potential endogeneity of program participation. Using both methods, we find that Colombia's subsidized insurance program greatly increased medical care utilization among the country's poor and uninsured. This evidence supports the case for other Latin American countries implementing similar subsidy programs for health insurance for the poor.

The Norwegian hospital reform of 2002: Central government takes over ownership of public hospitals

Starting in January 2002, the majority of the Norwegian Parliament transferred the ownership of all public hospitals from the county governments to the central state. This round of reforms represents the most recent attempt by the central government to resolve major problems in the Norwegian health care system. In this paper, we describe these reforms and the problems they are intended to remedy. We also indicate further proposals that we believe need to be accomplished to ensure that the reforms become successful. The main lesson to be learned from the Norwegian experiment is that central government involvement in local and county government decision-making can lead to ambiguous responsibilities and a lack of transparency. This appears to be particularly the case when central government involvement implies shared responsibilities for the financing of particular services.

School Exclusion: The Will to Punish1

ABSTRACT: This paper examines perspectives on student disaffection in education at the levels of culture and policy. It considers the balance between punitive/exclusionary and therapeutic/restorative positions. The paper engages with concepts of retributive punishment (Murray, 2004a; 2004b), social welfare ideologies (Esping-Andersen, 1990) and discourses of social exclusion (Levitas, 1998). The conclusion is that policy choices are made about how disaffected, at risk young people are to be provided for, and these policy choices are not contained simply within an education policy and practice setting. The policy responses emerge from national and local government decision-making. They correlate with national indicators of punitiveness in the criminal justice system and the scale of inequalities tolerated. Policies resonate with deep-seated cultural positions which are linked to the willingness to pay – for prevention or for punishment – and with the propensity to allocate blame either to individuals and families or to societal failures. Opportunities for intervention at points in the reinforcing cycle of punitiveness are indicated.

Ethics in Local Government Budgeting: Is There A Gap between Theory and Practice?

The original question underscoring this research is: What role do ethics play in the budgetary decision-making in Oklahoma's local government? To answer this question, this article presents an overview of the budget process and the roles of key actors. Then it describes typical day-to-day dilemmas local budget actors face. By examining how city managers and chief financial officers respond and the sources of guidance they turn to, the authors are able to construct an operational definition of ethics-in-action. Using the information from this analysis, they then compare what occurs in practice with what is expected and is prescribed in the literature. One conclusion to be drawn from this research is that a gap exists in that the literature does not adequately consider the roles that individual value and preferences play when resolving budgetary dilemmas.

Producers and Predators in a Multiple Community Setting

Abstract This paper analyzes an extension of a model of production and predation due to Grossman (1998) to a multiple community setting. In a multiple community setting, defense expenditures in any one community have the property of a local public good. Such expenditures produce effects on other communities. These effects include changes in the distribution of population among communities, the redistribution of predatory effort over communities, and an induced change in the predator/producer ratio in the economy as a whole. The question we address is whether the level of defense chosen by local governments so as to maximize the per capita consumption of their own producers, given defense levels elsewhere, always produces a second-best outcome. Our analysis shows that if the number of communities is fixed, fully rational local government decision-making leads to the same level of defense activity and equilibrium per capita consumption as would be chosen by a central planner. However, if individual local governments are boundedly rational, in the sense that they do not anticipate the effects of their own defense activity on the equilibrium predator/producer ratio and distribution of producer activity, then competition among local governments never achieves a first-best outcome. Furthermore, the equilibrium associated with competition among boundedly rational local governments can sometimes yield a lower consumption per capita in equilibrium than would be achieved if there were no local governments and each agent who chose to be a producer also chose his/her own level of defense.

Regional Governance: Some Unresolved Issues

Since 1997 the New Labour Government have introduced a number of significant (and potentially far reaching) reforms to the governance of Britain. They include the creation of a parliament in Scotland, assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland, an elected mayor and assembly in Greater London and development agencies and assemblies in the English regions. At the same time reforms to the structure and decision-making at local authority level have been introduced. The changes to local government decision making with the option of directly elected mayors or cabinet style leadership have, to some extent, been overshadowed by the formation of Local Strategic Partnerships. The Government has announced its intention to legislate for referenda on the creation of directly elected regional assemblies. This article reflects upon the unresolved issues, which this latest proposal highlights. In particular, it examines the extent to which directly elected assemblies have the potential to redress the democratic deficit at local and regional levels. It suggests that the model on offer cannot be imposed without a significant renegotiation of the political, economic, organisational and social settlement at the local level. A regional level of decision-making leaves unanswered the complexities of arrangements at the local and sub-regional levels. The article draws upon the experience of the North East and North West where competing city regions and the needs of rural areas may conflict with the concept of a known and recognised region.

The Determinants of Central vs. Local Government Investment: Institutions and Politics Matter

This paper uses econometric models of public investment to investigate the institutional and political determinants of central vs. local government decision-making. I use a remarkable database from Bolivia's recent, radical decentralization program. I find that local government policy decisions are progressive both economically and in terms of need, and largely determined by a competitive interest group dynamic which provides poorer citizens, as well as private sector firms and civic institutions, with political voice. This ensures that accountability is binding for elected officials. By contrast centralized investment - more insulated from grass-roots pressures - is regressive in both dimensions. The results suggest a healthy picture of local democracy in which voters are able to influence local government through both their civil institutions and the electoral mechanism. Where local government works well citizens have voice, providing an effective counterweight to the power of private firms and government's own politico-bureaucratic interests.

'Professionalising' Participation: From Rhetoric to Practice

Local government is increasingly seeking to encourage young people's participation in local government planning and decision-making. This paper examines the relationship between professionals in local government and the young people who are the focus of local government participatory initiatives. We argue that whilst the move towards developing participation initiatives is welcome, there is a need to adopt a process of critical reflection with regard to these initiatives. The case of one New Zealand city is examined where young people express their views on the effectiveness or otherwise of their council's participation initiatives. Our findings suggest that whilst well intentioned these initiatives have had limited success in facilitating meaningful participation and perhaps the participation process as currently practised is in urgent need of review.

An electronic voting service to support decision-making in local government

This paper presents details of a web-based, database-oriented “electronic voting service”. Rapid world-wide growth in Internet and Web use has stimulated many initiatives aimed at applying information and communication innovations to create what has been called a “digital” or “electronic democracy”. Internet voting is already widespread in a variety of forms, some serious, most not. A new set of opportunities is offered to facilitate closer links among citizens, between citizens and politicians and direct democratic participation through online voting and interactive polling. Local government decision-making procedures can be enhanced by the application of a electronic voting service to evaluate citizens’ responses to certain issues and to canvass the possible solutions they have in mind. The main characteristics of this electronic voting service were developed on the basis of strong lengthy experience of and a good deal of consultation with local authorities. This interaction revealed a demand for an easy to use (for novice users) and administer tool, low cost with a minimum set of security mechanisms, but still able to provide valid results. The systems services were planned and implemented to be easily expandable. The application is based on state-of-the-art software platform, integrating WWW and database. The system aims to become a pilot for implementing efforts to support on line voting procedures. The service provides the capability to create a questionnaire/poll, view the subject and participate in the voting procedure. Only authorised users can use the system to vote or create a questionnaire. All users can view results from previous voting procedures.

The ‘Modernisation’ of Political Management Arrangements in Post Devolution Scottish Local Government

While devolution has brought central government geographically and politically closer to local government it has not shielded it from pressures to ‘modernise’ its political management arrangements. However, devolution has created a different political context to other parts of the UK and this has allowed Scottish local government to voice its views on ‘modernisation’ with perhaps greater weight than is the case elsewhere. Moreover, ‘modernisation’ has not resulted in the decline of political parties and the diminution of the ‘political’ nature of local government decision making. Equally internal council political hierarchies remain important in the decision making processes of councils. However, while the language of ‘modernisation’ appears to be alien to many Scottish councillors, many of its associated activities are not. While different political parties view the issues relating to ‘modernisation’ in different lights it is important to note that when councillors form part of a local administration their views on the core issues of ‘modernisation’ are more similar than the party divide may suggest. Many of the core objectives of ‘modernisation’ are being delivered within Scottish local government but the forms that ‘modernisation’ is taking may not be those that Tony Blair or other prominent ‘modernisers’ may have chosen.

Junk Car Clash on the Rural-Urban Fringe: A Case Study in Local Government Decision Making

This decision case is intended to provide an example of the complexity of local government decision making on the rural—urban fringe. In this case, a county is faced with making a decision about outlawing the existence of junk cars on personal property. Instructors can use this case to introduce topics such as zoning, takings, property rights, local government policy making, and the impact of the community on government decisions. Other issues could be explored, such as the role of culture and stereotypes in policy making, and how growth can impact local culture and lifestyle.

Endogenous Policy Decentralization: Testing the Central Tenet of Economic Federalism

The economic theory of federalism is largely built around the premise that more heterogeneous preferences result in more decentralized policy making. Despite its prominence and importance, this central tenet of economic federalism has never been empirically evaluated. This paper presents the first formal test of the link between preference heterogeneity and endogenous policy decentralization using as a case study liquor control in the United States over the period 1934–70. The results are reassuring: States with more heterogeneous preferences are more likely to decentralize liquor control and allow for local government decision making.