Government Functions Research Articles

Governance in times of war: Public procurement in Ukraine.

Wars increase the importance of government functions, yet they also constrain their ability to fulfill these functions. In particular, wars hinder economic activity, thereby limiting governments' capacity to raise the revenues required to maintain stability and meet the heightened needs of citizens. Effective governance is therefore severely undermined in times of war. However, empirical research on how wars affect government procurement is limited. We address this gap by exploring procurement dynamics using over one million public purchases of goods and services in Ukraine between January 2021 and October 2022, corresponding to the Russian invasion of the country. We document a large fall in the total number of purchases since the invasion and an increase in the share of successfully completed procurements. This higher success rate comes at the cost of efficiency, with the government paying more to source their goods. This can be attributed to the decline in the share of government purchases via online auctions and the reduced competition. Thus, the prioritization of the quick acquisition of goods and services forced governments to sacrifice cost-effectiveness. In summary, the war did not lower the successful purchasing of private goods and services, and transparency was not decreased. However, the trade-off of speed and transparency for greater costs may become increasingly problematic with the growing budget constraints resulting from the war. This article contributes to our understanding of the Ukrainian government choices during the early phase of the war. The results also highlight the importance of ensuring procurement efficiency and transparency when the war ends as reconstruction efforts will require substantial increases in government procurements.

Among Independence, Sovereignty and Autonomy: The Dutch Caribbean

This paper critiques the structure and functionality of the 21st century nation-state through analysis of emancipatory decisions in the former Dutch Caribbean colonies of Aruba, Curaçao, and Suriname.Suriname, the most culturally Dutch of the Caribbean territories, was the first of the former colonies to secede from the Netherlands. Although Suriname achieved independence in 1975, the economy remained heavily reliant on the policies of the United States. As such, the Surinamese government prioritized the interests of NATO and struggled to reconfigure its preexisting relationship with the suzerain. This dynamic strained Surinamese relation with Latin American nations more actively resisting US imperialism and isolated Suriname politically.Aruba became a constituent country in 1986; however, this shift was not contemporaneously reflected in Curaçao. Curaçao had headed the former Colony of Curaçao and Dependencies, and independence would have weakened its influence on the other islands whose governing structure would have remained unchanged. While Aruba had the opportunity to claim equal status with Curaçao, it instead pursued emancipation. Demographically Mestizo unlike neighboring islands, Aruba was eager to distinguish itself from Curaçao, where advocacy for decolonization arose with support from regional Black Power movements. Aruba and Curaçao had a long history of human exchange with Latin American continent from the pre-Columbian period. The inhabitants, especially those of African descent excluded from citizenship on the basis of race, moved to Spanish colonies where citizenship was granted upon conversion to Roman Catholicism. The people could use religion to obtain citizenship. They had no loyalty to the European empire nor a sense of belonging to any European kingdom. What they wanted was citizenship and human rights.Around the time Suriname declared independence, European governments began to promote neo-liberal policies that advanced smaller or limited government function. The former Dutch empire was itself abandoning its role as sovereign of a nation-state. Aruba, which had witnessed Suriname’s predicament post-independence and where sense of belonging within the nation-state was historically weak, finally elected to retain within the Dutch Kingdom. To become an independent nation would have entailed severing preexisting ties with Europe and rendered the territory more vulnerable, since globalization often facilitates interference from supranational institutions and military alliances such as the EU and NATO. The trajectory of Aruba prompts questions regarding the true definition and function of the 21st century nation-state.Today, even independent nations comply with international regulations and belong to multinational free trade spheres and military alliances. Due to Dutch disinterest, Aruba and Curaçao enjoyed a greater degree of autonomy. Thus, dependent territories such as Aruba that are capable of maintaining intercontinental and supranational affiliations do not immediately necessitate full independence

Multidimensional Attribution and Governance Optimization Path of State Audit to Promote Rural Revitalization in the Information Age

Abstract With the in-depth implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, it is of great significance to study the supervision and governance mechanism of national audit in the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. As the main components with smaller contribution rates will be discarded when evaluating and analyzing the influencing factors of rural revitalization, it may affect the analytical judgment of the actual problem. Therefore, based on stepwise regression, this paper adopts ridge regression to correct multicollinearity, with the help of the ridge trace diagram to judge the correlation between independent variables intuitively and quickly, and through the ridge calculation as much as possible to retain the independent variables that have a greater impact on rural revitalization. The principal component-ridge regression model is proposed because it takes into account the advantages and disadvantages of various regression methods. To solve the problem of unstable regression coefficients caused by multiple covariances, to analyze the important influencing factors of state auditing on rural revitalization according to the regression coefficients, and to establish the governance optimization path of state auditing to promote rural revitalization. According to the regression results, the government audit variable has a significance level of 1%. The comprehensive governance function of government audit has a regression coefficient of -0.038 that shows significant and negative results at a 1% confidence level. The performance scores of rural sustainability as well as financial dimensions are in the range of 0.8 to 1, which is a good level.

РАЗВИТИЕ ГРАЖДАНСКОЙ СЛУЖБЫ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ: ЭКСПЕРТНЫЕ ИДЕИ И ПРАВОВЫЕ РЕАЛИИ

The purpose of the article is to summarize the positions of modern domestic scientists on key problems in the development of the civil service, to assess how these problems have been solved in recent years at the regulatory level, and to develop recommendations for further directions of development. An institutional approach, methods of bibliometric analysis of scientific publications and subject-thematic classification by key (thesaurus) words were used. The method of comparative legal analysis was used to assess the degree of fulfillment of the tasks set in the “Main Directions for the Development of the State Civil Service of the Russian Federation” and plans for their implementation in 2016–2018 and 2019–2021. Some proposals for the development of the civil service institution of the Russian Federation are formulated using methods of legal modeling and thought experiments. Some proposals are developed related, in particular, to highlighting the status of an official as a qualifying feature when adjusting the legislation on the civil service, as well as to extending the status of public officials to all types of public sector organizations. The potential of digital transformation is proposed to be used to fix the connection between the volume and quality of implementation of government functions (powers), on the one hand, and the number of civil service positions and budgetary expenditures for their financing, on the other.

Improving complementary feeding practices, programs and policies for optimal early childhood nutrition in Kenya: What would work?

Complementary feeding practices are greatly influenced by local contexts. Therefore, national home-grown evidence, policiesand guidelines are critical to improving infant and young children's diets. This Special Issue has provided a comprehensive, evidence-based analysis of the situation, gapsand context-specific opportunities for improving young children's diets in Kenya. The primary research findings of the Special Issue supported the identification of a set of recommendations articulated across the four systems (food, health, water, sanitation and hygiene[WASH]and social protection) to improve food availability and accessibility in Kenya at the national and subnational levels. It is anticipated that the decentralised government functions seen in Kenya provide a strong opportunity to develop and mainstream context-specific recommendations into action. This Special Issue recommends adopting a multi-sectoral systems approach, including a shared vision, joint planning, implementationand monitoring, towards improving young children's diets with a focus on service delivery as well as scaled-up community social behaviour change interventions. In particular, the approach should entail advocacy for policy revisions for service delivery that support complementary feeding and development of costed implementation strategies in support of the same, across four critical systems-food, health, WASHand social protection, along with, the strengthening of national coordination, monitoringand accountability structures as per the Kenya Nutrition Action Plan. Finally, the development of a legal framework for enhanced accountability from all relevant sectors towards sustainable, nutritious, safeand affordable children's diets. These recommendations provide a clear direction in addressing the complementary feeding challenges, which the primary research of this Special Issue has presented.

Existence and Dynamics of Hajj and Umrah Guidance Groups in Bogor and Jember Regency

The community highly trusts Islamic boarding schools as religious, educational institutions in religious formation. Many Islamic boarding schools are participating in the Hajj and Umrah guidance business by establishing the Hajj and Umrah Guidance Group (KBIHU). This article aims to analyze the dynamics of Islamic boarding school-based KBIHU in guiding the Hajj and Umrah in Bogor Regency and Jember Regency. This article uses an ethnographic approach with data collection techniques through interviews and observations conducted at KBIHU in Bogor and Jember. The results of this study show that the presence of KBIHU helps the government's duties and functions in carrying out guidance to Hajj pilgrims as regulated in the Decree of the Director General of Hajj and Umrah Organization (Dirjen PHU) Number 59 of 2019 concerning Operational Guidelines for Guidance Groups. The existence of Islamic boarding school-based KBIHU generally depends on the quality of human resources in management and supervisors. Kiai, as Islamic boarding school caregivers, have qualified knowledge but still need to be competent in guidance and have certificates. They must be more competent in secretarial procedures, guidance agreement documents, participant data, and guidance plans. The supervisory agencies for KBIHU, such as the Directorate General of PHU, the PHU Division of the Regional Office, and the PHU Section of the Ministry of Religion, have not fully implemented the Decree of the Director General of PHU 59 of 2019 in terms of guidance, supervision, control and reporting by the provisions of this decision. In carrying out accreditation, the Regional Office of the Ministry of Religion must involve professional institutions to guide KBIHU in reporting, documents and all its obligations. KBIHU reporting and documents must be done digitally using the PUSAKA Application as the Ministry of Religion's Super Apps. Increasing the capacity of KBIHU based on Islamic boarding schools can contribute to the development of foundations/Islamic boarding schools and provide knowledge to the community.

Mediating and moderating function of corporate governance on the relationship between tax planning and tax disclosure

This study analyzes the moderating, mediating, and direct effects of corporate governance (CG) proxy mechanisms on the relationship between tax planning (TP), measured by effective tax rate components, and tax disclosure (TD). We tested the hypotheses using a 4-step hierarchical regression with Malaysian-listed non-financial companies using a balanced sample of 858 observations. We found that companies positively assessed their TP activities. Inspection of the implications of CG mechanisms as moderation on TP-TD association displayed the absence of an important constant correlated to any of the interactive variables. This makes it difficult to understand the nature of this relationship. The results illustrate the high and significant mediated impact of board compensation (BCOMS) on the TP-TD association. We further studied the sensitivity of the results and the outcomes were examined for the robustness and strength of the model specification using OLS effect estimators and the absence of TP-related factors. These test findings show no effect on the TP-TD association. This study shows that firms try to avoid taxation as far as possible by disclosing relevant tax information. These results suggest that firms express a trade-off between tax advantages and TD when choosing their TP. It meaningfully subsidizes the argument about TD concerning “comply-or-explain”, as the CG Code proposes.

Collaborative Approach on Digital Government Transformation in West Java.

The world is witnessing exponential growth and rapid change brought about by the advent of the digitalisation era. This change offers an opportunity to revisit the strategic approach on using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to improve the delivery of public value. Considering that governments around the world are now facing declining levels of public trust. Using so-called digital transformation, governments adapt the wide use of ICTs to better support government functions, services, and citizens, encouraging their participation in policy-making processes. Successful government digital transformation often depends on the ability of multiple government or non-government organisations to collaborate towards shared objectives. However, most governments are far from fully exploiting the benefits of ICTs, and often forget that in some social groups, access to ICTs is limited at the point of digital inequality. This article provides an overview of how the Indonesian local government implements its digital-based policy, which is centered on an electronic-based government system in Indonesia (SPBE), linking cross-sectoral central government agencies. In recent years, government organisations have spent a large part of their budgets on information and communication systems and rely on these systems for their functioning. However, the complexity of the digital transformation still requires considerable effort, especially when it comes to a lack of ICT infrastructure, human resources, and bureaucratic culture. By using qualitative methods, knowledge is formed through the perspective and way of interpretation that comes from the participants included in the research, not limited to the research implementer. The data will be collected through literature study, in-depth interviews, and observations. The aim of the research is to describe how collaborative governance contributes to the policy process of using ICTs to deliver inclusive policies by local governments.

Decision-making: The Process Contributing to Professional Public Administration

This article analysis one of the main issues of public administration theory and practice, which is helpful in government functioning and policy-making. Research study includes the discourse on how to plan and make decisions on behalf of democratic attitude. Public administration is utmost outcome, and the success or failure of the government depends on it. Theoretical debate on decision-making process, accordingly, surveys the fundamental perception on rational and incremental decision-making processes. It refers basically to the administrative institutions. Decision making is important for organizational effectiveness because of its central role in the overall process of directing and controlling. Decisions do not automatically guarantee all programmed outcomes, but denoting actions with professionalism and public support. As a valuable process it is likely to be a central element of management and leadership. Comparative study of examples of developed democratic systems shows the high responsibility of public institutes and government as key actors. Particular attention is paid there to the professionalism of government, which is a vital characteristic of any democratic public administration and virtually a policy quality. Findings of current research shows that decisions are not based solely on laws and regulations. Moreover, as the study shows, many other appropriate skills of decision-makers are important that will be seen with the close linkages with strategic governance.

From demand-side to supply-side regulation of government consultants: Recent trends in three OECD countries

IMPACT Both practitioners and academics now grapple with concerns raised in legislatures and the media surrounding the use of consultants in the public sector. Issues around declines in public service capacity and conflict of interest have featured prominently in these concerns, along with value-for-money considerations. The relationship between consultants and government purchasers has mainly been governed through demand-side regulation designed to control government purchasing behaviour, including greater transparency and monitoring of contracts. While the USA has prohibited the use of consultants for ‘inherently governmental functions’, countries like the UK, Canada, and Australia have also aimed to create a more robust system of regulation by improving the quality of the advice, and avoiding conflict of interest through regulating the supply-side of consulting. This article discusses the recent moves adopted by these countries along this regulation trajectory, including implementing limits on the ‘revolving door’ of ex-government members transmuting into consultants immediately after leaving office, and proposals to replace the current weak certification of consultants with stronger forms of professional self-regulation and licensing.

ANALISIS PATROLI PERINTIS PRESISI POLRES METRO TANGERANG KOTA MENGGUNAKAN BROKEN WINDOW THEORY

The function of the police as one of the functions of the state government is in the field of maintaining security and securing the community, law enforcement, protector, protection and service to the community. In carrying out its function of eradicating disorders of deviance and crime, the motivations behind these crimes have been explored. Structural social conditions are not always the only trigger of criminal acts, where the circumstances and physical condition of the environment or infrastructure become a strong stimulus for crime and irregularities. Physical damage to an environment gives offenders the perception that the area is prone to crime and that people are so frightened that they will do nothing to stop the crime. This paper aims to explain the process of preventing and maintaining public safety and security in the jurisdiction of the Tangerang City Metro Police carried out by the Perintis Presisi Patrol team. This study uses the theory of broken windows as support analysis. This writing uses a qualitative descriptive approach. The data sources used are primary data, as field observations and interviews and the secondary data as literature studies in the form of books, journals, and the results of previous studies with conclusions drawn. The results of the study show that based on the broken window theory, the decrease in the crime rate contained in the report chart of the Tangerang City Metro Police is the result of good cooperation carried out between the police institution and the community for concern for all forms of community security, regardless of the size of the disturbance or criminal act, even in micro level. The broken windows theory offers a clear, plausible and compelling perspective for police and the public to understand how best to deal with the increasing levels of crime and disorder in their areas.

Using EBPF to identify ransomware that use DGA DNS queries

In today's world, where the Internet has become an integral part of the functioning of government and corporate institutions, the integrity and availability of information is becoming a key issue for many organizations and individual users. The issue of protection against crypto viruses and attacks, in particular, using DGA (Domain Generation Algorithms), a method used by attackers to automatically generate domain names for client-server (Command & Control) communication in the DNS-based virus ecosystem, is particularly relevant, making it difficult to detect and block them due to the way DNS is used in modern computer networks. Given the growing number of attacks that use DGA, there is a need to develop new methods that are faster and can analyze large traffic flows in real time and provide functionality for detecting and blocking them. eBPF (Extended Berkeley Packet Filter) is a modern tool that allows you to create small programs to monitor and analyze various aspects of the system in real time, including network traffic. These programs are executed directly in the operating system kernel and/or at the network card level. In this study, we consider the possibility of using eBPF to detect DGA activity in DNS traffic. The goal is to determine the effectiveness of real-time ransomware detection. We developed a ransomware analysis lab environment where we developed eBPF-based modules, tested them, and simulated an attack. In addition, a cloud-based data analysis environment based on Splunk was set up and rules for detecting a DGA attack were developed based on this analysis. This article presents the results of developing an eBPF-based program for analyzing DNS traffic, conducting DGA attacks, and methods for detecting them. These results can be an important contribution to the development of strategies to protect against malicious attacks in the network.

Kapasitas Inovasi Program Dana Pembangunan Wilayah Kelurahan dalam Mendukung Percepatan dan Pemerataan Pembangunan Daerah

The Subdistrict Regional Development Fund Program (DPWK) is an innovation from the Cilegon Municipality Government which aims to improve the administrative function of subdistrict government in providing services to the community, encourage accelerated and equitable regional development and encourage the acceleration of regional poverty reduction. The aim of this research is to determine the innovation capacity of the Village Regional Development Fund Program (DPWK) in supporting accelerated and equitable development in Cilegon Municipality. This research method uses a descriptive method with a qualitative approach. Data collection was carried out through interviews, observation and documentation. The research results show that the Subdistrict Regional Development Fund Program has been running well, although there are still several problems such as limited community empowerment programs and only prioritizing regional infrastructure development programs and the low collaborative capacity of program implementers. Because the Cilegon Municipality government is paying more attention to community empowerment programs, intensive communication with the implementers of the Village Regional Development Fund (DPWK) program in Cilegon Municipality in creating ideal collaboration and prioritizing regional infrastructure development programs

District Regulation Surveillance System In Framework of Creating District Autonomy

The purpose of this study is to find out district regulation surveillance system in framework of creating district autonomy. The method used in this study is qualitative method. The results obtained are repressive supervision of local regulations by authorized officials with such measures. The strong impression is no different from testing in the context of maetril testing of laws and regulations carried out by the judiciary. However, repressive supervision by authorized officials on local regulations, which is formed based on the vertical division of authority based on laws and regulations, is not only limited to the formulation in existing laws and regulations, but can develop and be expanded on the basis of government policies in granting autonomy, government policy (central), provincial and other regions in accordance with government functions placed in the government and regions. Kesimpulan yang didapatkan yaitu the supervision provisions of Regional Regulations according to the legal system in Indonesia, are known for preventive supervision and repressive supervision. Preventive supervision is temporary prevention which prevents the authority from being placed on authorized officials. Although explicitly preventive supervision is not expressly stated, it is normatively regulated in Law No. 32 of 2004 which states that local regulations must have criteria that must not conflict with public interest, other regional regulations and higher laws and regulations

Awareness of People on Functions of Local Government in Nepal

The article aims to investigate local people's awareness level of the functions of local government in Nepal and identifies the primary factor contributing to raising awareness. The author analyzed 2020 social inclusion survey data using SPSS software, performing a Chi-square test and logistic regression. Results show a high association between gender and awareness level, and development plans are the most significant contributor to increasing awareness levels. Researcher has found that the overall awareness level of people in Nepal is moderate. The author only investigates awareness level and contributing factors of awareness in this article.

Why do stock markets negatively price democracy?

We employ panel data from the Economist Intelligence Unit, covering more than 65 countries, to assess the impact of their Democracy Index on the stock market performance. This index is measured by the level of government functionality, civil liberties, political participation, and other related factors. Our analysis demonstrates an inverse relationship between Democracy Index and stock market performance. Our results exhibit robustness when clustered for countries' characteristics. We posit that a larger degree of democracy correlates with increased scrutiny and unreciprocated excessive accountabilities within financial markets, leading to inefficiencies. Furthermore, we illustrate how key constitutional factors impact democracies, consequently influencing stock market returns and volatility. This study holds significance due to the substantial heterogeneity among countries concerning democracy, as only 5.7% of the world's population resides in a full democracy. Collectively, the level of democracy emerges as a pivotal determinant in the examination of global financial markets, incurring associated costs.

The involvement of internal audit in environmental, social, and governance practices and risks: Stakeholders' salience and insights from audit committees and chief executive officers

We conducted 31 interviews with audit committee (AC) members, chief executive officers (CEOs), and chief audit executives (CAEs) to investigate the role of the internal audit function (IAF) in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) processes and related risks. We find that multiple possible combinations of the maturity of companies' ESG practices and CAE's perception of the IAF stakeholders' salience drive the type of IAF's involvement in ESG. In ESG‐mature companies with more salient ACs, the IAF provides assurance over ESG practices, ESG reporting, and reputation risks related to ESG, and it focuses on the governance dimension of ESG. When the CEO is perceived as more salient, the type of IAF's involvement includes both assurance over ESG controls in the supply chain and consulting on ESG activities. In contrast, in low ESG maturity companies with more salient AC, the IAF's role is limited to providing assurance over internal controls established to comply with environmental, health, and safety legal requirements, and prevent managers' unethical behavior. Finally, we discuss the implications for the IAF's ability to add value to the organization. We contribute to the underexplored research area of IAF's involvement in ESG practices and related risk.

Of One’s Own Making: Leadership Legitimation Strategy and Human Rights

Why do states and their agents abuse citizens? Traditional explanations focus on contentious politics, the presence of institutions, and international pressures. Despite this, accounts dissecting the state and its agents in this context of abuse remain largely theoretic in nature. This article offers a breakthrough for within-the-state accounts of human rights abuses by focusing on state leaders and their relationship to broader government institutions and function. We posit that personalist leaders have fundamentally different relationship with institutions that foster human rights respect, arguing that leaders relying on their own merits and qualities are less likely to either activate or manipulate institutions of accountability for human rights abuses. Using data from 1991 to 2019, we show that the presence of leaders legitimizing themselves within personalist framing can worsen human rights conditions.

A coordinated approach for a three-echelon solar-wind energy supply with government intervention

In the contemporary era, renewable energy sources are employed globally. Their uncertain and intermittent nature conduce to a hybrid system that fully meets the electricity demand. This paper proposes a three-echelon hybrid (solar-wind) supply chain with government intervention and considers two approaches: (1) The decentralized model (non-cooperative Nash game) and (2) The government model with demand-side and supply-side subsidy policies. The optimal values obtained from the Nash game are put in the government function to acquire tariffs, and the paper aims to select the best policy. Finally, sensitivity analysis and managerial insights are presented.

The academic governance body: What’s its role and who decides?

In this essay, I introduce the term governance inversion to describe a situation in which a university administration repositions a governance body in such a way as to limit its legitimate governance function. Structural conditions might make governance inversion more likely, but narratives might also be deployed to make the inversion appear as the common-sense order of things. To illustrate, I examine how a university president has deployed a legalistic narrative to manage the university’s senior academic governance body, General Faculties Council (GFC), and to relegate its role to that of a de facto advisory body, while the president is left free (without any similarly narrow reading of the president’s own role under the governing legislation) to assume the position of the dreamer and mover of the university’s future. This situation raises important questions about who articulates—and who is seen to have the legitimate authority to articulate—the mission, vision, and goals of the public university, as well as whose interests are ultimately being served by governance inversion. I suggest ways in which academic staff might organize so that governance inversion becomes recognizable and so that they might collectively set an inversion aright.