Government Restructuring Research Articles

Multilateral collaborative governance of Arctic shipping safety: Examining the impact of the Arctic Council via collaborative network analysis

Global climate change has dramatically reduced Arctic sea ice, opening new potential shipping routes, which has garnered international attention. This study explores the role of the Arctic Council in the collaborative governance network focused on Arctic shipping safety. For this purpose, a collection of 49 collaborative events initiated by international organisations and the Arctic Council was used as the data sample. These events are divided into two groups, one containing all the events and the other excluding those initiated by the Arctic Council. As a result, two collaborative networks are developed and evaluated based on network density, average path length, network transitivity, centrality indices (degree, closeness, betweenness), and clustering analysis. The results demonstrate that the Arctic Council significantly enhances the network density and transitivity of the international collaboration network, and reshapes core-periphery dynamics and cohesive subgroup structures. For instance, under the influence of the Arctic Council, Canada, France, and Japan surpass the United Kingdom in centrality (degree, closeness, betweenness). Results of the clustering coefficients reveal the Arctic Council's impact on connections among states, leading to shifts in collaboration patterns. Additionally, subgroup cohesion and density coefficients confirm the Arctic Council's role in promoting collaboration among states and restructuring governance networks.

Navigating Planning Crises: Karachi’s Response to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has invariably highlighted the critical role of spatial planning in managing public health emergencies, particularly with the need for social distancing. Historically, effective spatial planning has been essential for governments in navigating crises such as floods and earthquakes, employing strategies like designating containment zones, repurposing infrastructure, and constructing temporary facilities. The research focuses on Karachi’s response to the pandemic. It examines how the city’s spatial planning strategies were adapted to meet the challenges of its dense urban environment and socio-economic diversity. As Pakistan’s largest city and economic hub, Karachi confronted significant challenges in balancing public health measures with financial activities. The study investigates how state institutions implemented awareness campaigns and emergency spatial planning, including the creation of quarantine centers, isolation zones, inoculation centers, and modifications to public spaces. Similar to other mega-cities, Karachi is vulnerable to natural disasters and emergencies, as it balances a range of issues that require effective spatial and urban planning. The city’s response to COVID-19 reflects broader trends in emergency planning, highlighting its approach to managing crises through strategic interventions. The study aims to uncover the complex relationship between spatial planning and crisis management by illustrating response timelines, temporary structures taxonomy, and infographics. It offers insights into how cities can better prepare for and respond to future crises. It emphasizes the importance of restructuring governance and adaptive and context-specific planning in urban health management.

Shadow prices of agrochemicals in the Chinese farming sector: A convex expectile regression approach

The use of agrochemical inputs has significantly enhanced agricultural yields in China; however, their excessive utilization has also caused a range of environmental issues. This paper examines the costs associated with reducing agrochemicals by employing shadow prices, which represent the value of the marginal product of agrochemicals, to further develop cost-effective environmental policy measures for reducing their usage. To this end, the shadow prices of agrochemicals have been assessed by adopting a newly developed convex expectile regression approach and using statistical data from 31 provinces in China spanning from 2005 to 2020. Furthermore, the present study investigates the disparities between shadow prices and market prices for different agrochemicals across various regions in China. The findings suggest that the costs of reducing chemical fertilizers are higher than those of reducing pesticides and plastic films. Moreover, the results indicate that central China exhibits relatively high potential for decreasing agrochemical usage. Finally, these findings can inform the Chinese government's restructuring of producer support and environmental policy in a cost-effective way to mitigate agrochemicals use in the future. Additionally, the research method employed in this study holds potential for extension to other agrochemicals-dependent countries.

The Construction of a Human Development Index at the Household Level and the Measurement of Human Development Disparities in Punjab (Pakistan)

ABSTRACT The key objectives of this research study are to construct a valid and reliable household-based Human Development Index (HDI) and to estimate human development disparities in 36 districts of Punjab (Pakistan) by analysing Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey microdata. The household-level HDI, a composite index, is constructed by applying the arithmetic mean of the household-level health, asset, and education indices. The district of Lahore, among all the 36 districts of Punjab, has the highest HDI score of 0.743, followed by districts Rawalpindi, Jhelum, and Gujrat. Four neighbouring districts from South Punjab: Rajanpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzzaffar Gar, and Rahim Yaar Khan, have the lowest HDI scores of 0.492, 0508, 0.531, and 0.566, respectively. This paper has used the Palma-ratio and Gini-coefficient to estimate human development disparities in Punjab. The highest human development disparities are observed in the Rajanpur district with a Gini-coefficient of 0.38 and a Palma Ratio of 1.55. Both the Gini and Palma Ratio methods produce similar district rank orderings of inequality. This research recommends that additional efforts be made to uplift the districts with the lowest human development in Southern Punjab through local government restructuring and devolution of relevant powers, including the formation of a separate province.

Evolution of government and market under China’s reform era: through the perspective of state capacity

There are two main stream theories explaining China’s rapid economic development in the reform era: new institutionalism and developmental state theory. Realizing the weaknesses of two main stream theories and based on China’s unique experience as both a transitional economy and developing economy that experienced rapid industrialization and marketization, scholars also developed other theories with some revisions of the above two mainstream theories. While these theories have very different focuses, they agree on the importance of state capacity. The author argues that the Chinese Communist Party composes the institutional foundation of state capacities to promote economic growth and build market institutions, and discusses three important aspects of how party strength and state capacity helped the market transition, government restructuring and enterprise reform. The future challenges are discussed in the conclusion.

Authors of misfortune: interpretation and expertise in a model disaster

AbstractSince 2001, beetles have killed two‐thirds of the pine trees in British Columbia, Canada, decimating the predominant commercial tree species in one of the world's largest timber economies. Attempts to construct and circulate computer models of the infestation and its aftermaths, however, have obscured destabilizing changes across state institutions for environmental research. Juxtaposing literary conceptualizations of distributed authorship with ethnographic critiques of technoscientific bureaucracy, this article examines how the proliferation of computer models in contemporary resource planning institutions has altered the ways experts participate in and sanction interpretive communities. The dynamic conceptualizations of authorship produced through these exchanges challenge existing portraits of anticipatory governance, an emergent mode of administration that often relies on models for procedural implementation and narrative framing even as it circumscribes modellers’ voices to specific moments of interpretation and critique. While modellers make claims on distant futures to provoke discussion among diverse actors, later interpreters may highlight a model's apparent precision or its radical uncertainties to defer criticisms of problematic interventions and government restructuring. Such modes of attribution have deepened many scientists’ sense of estrangement from the interpretive communities their models help to engender.

Measuring the Effect of Total Injection Elements on Economic Growth in Iraq for the Period (2004-2020) Using the Error Correction Model

Purpose: The paper aims to measure the impact of the dynamic relationship between the elements of total injection (private investment spending, comic spending, exports) on the one hand and the GDP growth rate that expresses economic growthusing the ARDL model. Theoretical framework: The elements of total injection are one of the main components of total demand: private investment spending, government spending, and exports. Private spending is one of the main activities that play an essential role in the country's economic development Government spending is one of the most crucial fiscal policy tools used by the government to influence and stimulate economic activity. Good export performance is an essential indicator of that government's foreign trade. All these elements significantly impact economic activity by producing and employing these elements in GDP and its growth. Design/methodology/approach: To test the hypothesis that there is a direct relationship between the elements of total injection and GDP growth. Quarterly data were used for the duration of (2004-2020). Findings: The results of the non-tests showed a common complementarity and a long-term equilibrium relationship between the total injection and the rate of economic growth. Therefore the results of the models proved the validity of the paper's hypothesis. Research, Practical & Social implications: the article suggested the need for the government to support the private sector, build complementary relations with it, restructure government spending and seek to increase its productivity to achieve financial returns. Originality/value: The research provides the government with support to the private sector, building complementary relations with it, restructuring government spending, and striving to increase its productivity to achieve financial returns from it, in addition to the need to diversify the economy and try to get rid of the unilateral economy.

English-Medium of Instruction (EMI) in Tanzanian Secondary School: Students' and Teachers' Perceptions and Challenges

The The purpose of this study is to examine secondary school students' and instructors' attitudes of using English as a teaching medium in Tanzania. The study was held in three schools in the Unguja North region. The study was based on answering research questions; first, what are the perceptions of Tanzanian secondary school students and teachers toward the English language medium of instruction? as well as what obstacles do students and teachers face while employing English as a medium of teaching in school? It is a mixed method study that collects and analyses data using qualitative and quantitative methods. Furthermore, the researcher employed a questionnaire to answer the first research question. The research discovered that teachers and students had a favorable opinion of English as a teaching medium and that students feel at ease in English-taught subjects. The study discovered several obstacles teachers and students face while utilizing English as a medium of education, such as low student competence in English, the effect of primary school language of instruction, overcrowded classes, and instructional approaches. The research will assist teachers in revising their teaching methods and strategies, as well as the government restructuring the national secondary school curriculum and revising the national language policy. Furthermore, the study will shed insight on future studies on English language medium of instruction and second language learning in Tanzania based on qualitative, quantitative, or mixed method research.

Forging a new path for multi-cultural fishery management

In 2007, the state of Michigan and five tribes entered into a consent decree that provides for collaborative fishery management. The parties desire a productive co-management relationship and realize the need to understand perspectives towards fishery management. State and tribal participants were interviewed, with some tribal agency participants being non-tribal member employees. The findings revealed a lack of understanding between the groups for management priorities and a wide cultural distance between backgrounds in either the Indigenous and/or Western knowledge systems. State employees described their qualifications through Western education and individual learning while tribal member employees identified theirs as community experiences and relations with the natural world. The responsibility to manage was described through the public trust doctrine by state participants, whereas tribal participants described sacred responsibilities, and protecting treaty rights and culture. The purpose of fishery management as described by state participants was through sustainability of the resource and harvest while tribal participants spoke of balance within the Circle of Life concept and suggested the term ‘management’ was inappropriate. The tribal agency employees who were non-tribal members, used both knowledge types expressing scientific concepts while using Indigenous expressions learned partially through their normative presence in tribal communities. Opportunities exist for dismantling cultural distance, forming a collective identity, and sharing power, if state governance structures adapt to include Indigenous knowledge and practices. This may require restructuring governance arrangements to promote power sharing and the normative presence of cross-trained employees within the respective communities where structured learning exist and cultural sharing begins.

Preventing social isolation: Otsuchi town after the Great East Japan Earthquake

ABSTRACT On 11th March 2011, Japan was struck by an earthquake of tremendous force, the Great East Japan Earthquake. A social issue that emerged during the early stage of reconstruction after the disaster was social isolation. This study aims to explore a process by which community action of the affected people can be promoted to prevent them from experiencing social isolation. The process was applied in the temporary housing estates built in Otsuchi town, Iwate Prefecture, after the great tsunami. In this case study, we analysed the processes of local government restructuring and community development as well as intervention effects developed by us in this process. Consequently, the barriers to the development of community actions for preventing isolation were identified: inefficiency in the local management system; a lack of cohesion in stakeholder perceptions; and disconnectedness between the system and interventions. These findings have implications for reconstruction planning, which include (1) a reconstruction strategy that defines the goal and shares a prevention policy, while addressing the treatment needs of the rapidly emerging of stakeholders and communication training for the staff supporting the affected people and (2) the community interventions that build consideration of community readiness and linkage to the local system.

Venture philanthropy in public schools in Australia: tracing policy mobility and policy networks

ABSTRACT The paper studies the emergence of venture philanthropy in public schools in Australia, focusing on policy networks and policy mobility. It seeks to analyse how policy is mobilised and leveraged via networks, focusing on the initiative of a national education charity with deductible gift recipient status, and a national research education institute. By drawing on network ethnography, and following people, things, and money, the paper studies the restructuring of traditional government and its relationship to, and with, policy networks. Policy networks, as shown in this paper, are highly diverse in shape and form, consisting of powerful human actors, but also influential non-human actors that take on lateral scope including government reports, policy documents, and parliamentary legislation. The restructuring of the state apparatus is not a hollowing out of the state, but rather the state performs a central node within a policy network, challenging the notion that non-state actors supersede the role of the state. Policy networks represent highly valuable commodities and tend to be characterised by their reproductive values. These networks are tangibly reshaping the way money and commodities are circulated, offering a transactional currency and commodity within a marketplace, and reaching into public schools.

Komunikat NSZZ Solidarność KWB Bełchatów

Statement of the Solidarity Union in Brown Coal Mine Bełchatów The statement concerns the threats to the functioning of the company resulting from the government restructuring program of the Polish power industry.

Power and Politics in the World-System

While various researchers and practitioners agree that it will be hard to restructure our current global and local systems to adapt to and mitigate climate change, there is unsurprisingly great disagreement in how and if this can be accomplished and on what level(s), or if this is even what needs to be accomplished. These conversations have continued with the introduction of the “Anthropocene.” The dominant interpretation of the concept poses several solutions, one being national government restructuring to support environmental efforts and encouraging behavioral change. To join conversations that critically evaluate the conceptualization and implications of the Anthropocene with the world-systems perspective, we consider how the effectiveness of national environmental governance in reducing CO2 emissions varies by a country’s position in the global hierarchy. Using two-way fixed effects regression, this article tests how one aspect of this environmental governance, environmentally related taxes as a percentage of total tax revenue impacts CO2 emissions for 75 countries from 2000 to 2011. Given inequities in the global division of labor, which reinforce the dominance of higher-income countries and the exploitation of lower-income countries, we expect the effectiveness of environmental governance to vary tremendously by global position. Our results support the idea that the impact of environmental governance on CO2 emissions varies across countries at different income levels in the world-system, and this is due to external constraints. Such external influence is unsurprisingly neglected in dominant interpretations of the Anthropocene. In line with previous critical research, we argue that these external constraints undermine climate change solutions because they fail to address mutually reinforcing global, political, economic, and environmental inequalities.

Re-shaping Built Environment Higher Education: The Impact of Degree Apprenticeships in England

ABSTRACTThe Richard Review of the United Kingdoms (UK) Apprenticeships in 2012 proposed degree apprenticeships (DA) as a new model for the unification of academic and vocational learning. Apprenticeships have long been acknowledged as a practical vehicle to develop the vocational skills and educational achievements of the UK employee resource. The UK Government set a target of 3 million apprenticeship starts between 2015 and 2020. In order for higher education institutions (HEI) to participate in the new apprenticeship marketplace, they need to consider distinct factors that do not surface in traditional Bachelors programmes. Cognizant of these challenges this paper evaluates the development of the new degree apprenticeship programmes for built environment education through the research lens of HEI. This paper evaluates extant literature and primary data collected from qualitative interviews carried out across the UK HEI sector during 2017. Research findings are presented following analysis using NVivo. Narratives on the barriers, benefits, and opportunities, of degree apprenticeships, including academic quality assurance, governance, and pedagogic dimensions are presented. The findings include industry designed curriculum producing a different graduate output, redefining the purpose of HE, restructuring governance and resource, additional contractual obligations for stakeholders and the embedding of work-based learning strategies.

Does privatisation reduce public deficits?

This paper provides the first ever analysis of the two-way relationship between the privatisation of government services and fiscal balance. It uses data from 22 European countries between 1995 and 2013 to examine the factors that promote privatisation policies and the effects that privatisation then has on public finances. This is important because privatisation has been promoted by both the European Union and the International Monetary Fund as a way of responding to financial crises, and in an era of austerity it is important to have robust empirical evidence about the extent to which privatisation has achieved this. Our analysis demonstrates that governments often adopt privatisation policies in the hope of improving their fiscal balances, but that political ideology is important since left-wing administrations are more likely to see it as a means of also restructuring government services.

Urban Identities and Belonging: Young Men’s Discourses about Pikine (Senegal)

Suburbs in many parts of the world fall victim to discriminating assessments from the outside. Pikine, an urban area within the Dakar region of Senegal, which was one of urban Africa’s major government restructuring projects, is no exception. The frequently evoked and generalised narratives of urban lifeworlds often fail to describe the heterogeneous characteristics of neighbourhoods in precarious large agglomerations throughout the world. In particular, the youth in this urban quarter are important drivers of economic growth and means with which to combat poverty and strengthen social cohesion. This chapter, based on 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Pikine between 2011 and 2013, will illustrate how resourceful young men organise their lives. On the one hand, they have equipped themselves with distinct identities and switch them depending on the situation. On the other hand, they have resurrected their feelings of solidarity, courage and local pride in the notion of Pikinité as a ‘self-revaluation-standard’. Because of increasingly precarious realities and rising unemployment, individualistic tendencies—combined with the aspiration of self-realisation—have gained ground and challenge these stratagems.

Cyber-securing our elections

ABSTRACTThe 2016 U.S. Presidential election highlighted the cybersecurity threat of hostile state interference in democratic processes. A large body of evidence has emerged demonstrating how Russian operatives hacked the Democratic National Convention and leaked sensitive documents to undermine voter trust; spread disinformation and propaganda to polarise and divide American citizens; and suppressed voters with targeted advertisements and paid trolls. But hostile interference is a global threat and there are lessons to be learned from the U.S. election that could enable faster and more effective responses by governments around the world. This paper describes three preventative measures: the development of norms around influence operations – at a minimum, between like-minded states; internal government restructuring for improved real-time decision-making; and innovative mechanisms for public-private cooperation through trusted intermediaries. While there is no straightforward solution to protecting democratic processes, governments can begin taking steps to secure future elections from influence operations.

Balancing Local Concerns and Global Views: Western Administrative Theory in China's Reform Practices

China's five‐yearly governmental restructuring has always taken place in lockstep with the Communist Party of China National Congress. Moreover, the theme of every administrative reform in the past three decades has complied with that of theoretical research by foreign scholars during the same period. The Chinese government draws lessons from theories of foreign public administration to explore ways to reform its practices. By means of evaluating the gains and losses of the Chinese government in the abovementioned process, this article points out that theories of Western public administration meet local challenges while contributing to China's reform practices. Through their analyses, we use China's practices as examples to highlight the balance between local concerns and global views and to suggest how scholars can better advise governments in the process of administrative reforms in other developing countries.

Operationalizing austerity: the role of transnational professional service firms in local government restructuring

Since the 2008 economic crisis, the “Big Four” professional service firms (KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, Ernst and Young) have aggressively targeted the public sector with the aim of expanding their market in management consulting. As a part of these efforts, they have packaged and promoted service delivery reviews to local governments, offering consultations with the aim of identifying areas where savings can be accrued and services streamlined. Taking up Toronto’s Core Service Review (2011) as a case study, this paper examines the efforts of KPMG consultants to operationalize austerity through generating a metric that classifies and gauges the relative necessity of public services. Drawing from the recent literature on neoliberal governmentality, urban policy mobilities, and the sociology of expertise, I examine the conditions of possibility for the production of this metric. Specifically, what kinds of schema were deployed in determining whether a service is a “must-have” or merely a “nice-to-have”? What forms of expertise were relied upon? And to what extent were these experts able to position themselves as authorities in speaking to the proper levels of service delivery? Finally, exploring the public response to KPMG’s final report, I trace the various ways in which local actors have contested the logic of austerity, advancing alternative understandings of public service standards rooted in moral economies of community well-being and accountability.

(The Effect of the Fast-Track Corporate Rehabilitation Program on the ICR of the Companies Under Court Receivership)

Korean Abstract: 최근 부실기업 처리과정에서 워크아웃 제도의 한계가 노정되면서 시장주도적 기업구조조정 기반 마련의 필요성이 강조되는 가운데 부실기업 구조조정에 대한 법원의 역할도 강화되고 있다. 법원에서는 신속한 회생절차 진행을 위해 패스트트랙(Fast-Track) 기업회생제도를 도입하는 한편 최근에는 워크아웃과 법정관리의 장점을 결합한 회생전문법원(서울회생법원)도 설립하였다. 이러한 배경 하에 본고에서는 기업회생에서 자산가치 하락 등 영업기반 붕괴 때문에 신속한 회생절차 진행이 매우 중요하다는 점을 감안하여 신속한 부실기업 처리를 위해 도입된 패스트트랙 기업회생제도의 효과를 평가해 보고자 한다. 분석방법으로는 정책실시 전?후 효과를 비교?분석할 수 있는 계량적 기법인 이중차분(Differences- in-Differences) 모형을 사용하였다. 분석결과 동 제도가 법정관리 기업의 회생척도로 간주되는 이자보상비율 개선에 미친 효과는 긍정적으로 나타났으나 통계적인 유의성은 떨어지는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 법정관리 시작 전후 기업의 영업기반이 훼손된 데다 법정관리 종료 이후에도 과거 법정관리 기업이었다는 낙인효과(bankruptcy stigma) 등으로 동 제도의 효과가 제한된 데 기인한 것으로 보인다. 이러한 결과는 기업규모 및 주요 업종별로 구분하여 추정해 보아도 동일하게 나타났다. 한편 최근 정부에서 구조조정을 추진하고 있는 철강, 화학 및 조선업에 대한 패스트트랙 기업회생절차 제도의 효과를 분석해 본 결과 화학업을 제외한 여타 업종에 대해서는 통계적인 유의성이 떨어졌다. 화학업은 국내 기업의 높은 경쟁력에 힘입어 패스트트랙 제도를 통해 회생정도를 높일 수 있었으나 철강, 조선업은 중소기업을 중심으로 한 산업 경쟁력 약화로 패스트트랙 제도의 효과가 제한된 것으로 해석된다. 이러한 분석결과는 다음과 같은 시사점을 제시한다. 첫째 기업회생에 대한 패스트트랙 기업회생제도의 효과를 제고하기 위해서는 법정관리 기업에 대한 낙인효과 등에 기인한 신용등급 하락, 높은 위험 프리미엄 부담 등 불이익을 줄이기 위한 제도적인 노력이 요구된다. 다음으로 철강, 조선업에 대한 실증분석 결과에서와 같이 산업 경쟁력이 약화되어 있을 경우 동 제도의 효과가 제한될 수 있으므로 사업재편 등 구조조정 노력도 필요할 것으로 생각된다. 이러한 점들이 개선될 경우 패스트트랙 기업회생제도의 효과가 점진적으로 나타나 동 제도가 성공적으로 정착하는 데 큰 도움이 될 것으로 보인다. English Abstract: The limitation of the work-out system, revealed in the process of addressing insolvent companies, brings the necessity for markets to prepare the grounds of corporate restructuring. In addition, the role of the court in restructuring insolvent firms is emphasized. The court employees the Fast-Track corporate rehabilitation program for swift rehabilitation proceedings; and recently, the rehabilitation-specialized court has been set up, combining the advantages of work-out and legal management. Given the fact that a swift rehabilitation procedure is very critical due to the risk of the collapse of business foundation (e.g. falling asset value), this paper analyzes the effect of the Fast-Track program, introduced for a swift rehabilitation procedure. We use a Differences-in-Differences model, an econometric technique, to analyze and compare prior-and-post effects of policy implementation. The analysis result shows that the effect of this program on the ICR of the companies under court receivership is positive except enough statistical significance. Their business foundation has been undermined before and after court receivership and they have difficulties in securing funds due to bankruptcy stigma even after the termination of receivership, resulting in curbing the effect of the program. The same result is observed in the estimation by size and business (e.g. large companies, small and medium companies, and manufacturing). As for certain industries, subject to government restructuring, we do not find enough statistical significance in the analysis of Fast-Track effect, except for chemistry. In the case of chemistry, the Fast-Track program is helpful to increase the chances for rehabilitation owing to domestic companies’ strong competitiveness. For steel and shipbuilding, however, the effect of Fast-Track seems to be not enough; their industrial competitiveness has been weakened, notably, in small and medium sized companies. This result has following implications. First, to improve the effect of Fast-Track, institutional efforts are required to reduce disadvantages induced by bankruptcy stigma (e.g. a fall in credit rating and high risk premiums). In particular, specific measures are needed for companies, graduating from court receivership, to do business as normal companies. Next, as observed in the empirical analysis of steel and shipbuilding, the effect of Fast-Track may not be exercised to the full with weakened industrial competitiveness. Therefore, restructuring efforts such as business reshuffle seem to be necessary. If these issues are resolved, the Fast-Track effect will be gradually improved, and consequently the Fast-Track program will be successfully settled.