Hierarchical Governance Structures Research Articles

국제개발협력에서 디지털 공공재의 역할과 과제에 관한 연구

Purpose: This study examines the role and challenges of Digital Public Goods (DPGs) in international development cooperation. Emphasizing openness, it analyzes the socio-technical dimensions of DPGs, identifying key considerations and constraints for their development and application. Originality: DPGs are emerging as a strategic tool to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and address digital inequality. However, questions persist about whether technical openness alone can ensure successful development outcomes, suggesting the need for a broader analysis. Methodology: Using a socio-technical systems approach, this study reviews scholarly work on open-source software and open data in the Digital for Development (D4D) field over the past 15 years. Result: The findings show that DPGs enhance public service efficiency, support service expansion, and foster innovation through open access to data and knowledge. Despite these benefits, challenges such as technological complexity, infrastructure limitations, gaps in stakeholder awareness, capabilities, and trust, and hierarchical governance structures reveal tensions between technical and social dimensions. Conclusion and Implication: For effective implementation, DPGs require not only technical openness but also open governance structures, sustainable financial and technical capacities, and context-specific strategies. Governments and international organizations play a critical role as coordinators, while the formation of intermediaries and tailored strategies is crucial. This study contributes to the growing body of DPG research by offering a comprehensive analysis through a socio-technical lens.

Digital platform governance structures: A case study of Yandex Taxi

The study of governance structures in digital platform ecosystems remains relevant not only for economic research, but also for qualifying the legal status of platform workers, as well as for the development of economic policies that affect the labor market, rights and obligations of platforms and their workers. The paper presents the results of an empirical study of the conditions and mechanisms used by the Russian digital platform Yandex Taxi to incentivize and control platform workers (drivers) in 2022—2024. Mechanisms of transaction governance between platform participants are described, the dual role of algorithms is demonstrated: as systems of matching and coordination of participants, as well as incentives for legally independent drivers. The paper shows that digital platforms use hierarchical governance structure, controlling the parameters of transactions, quality standards and conditions of service provision. It is concluded that the platform system of rules and mechanisms is internally logical, which allows the platform to be regarded as a regulator of economic relations.

Prefigurative Politics at Bread and Puppet Theater

Abstract Bread and Puppet (B&P) Theater is one of the oldest, most influential, and well-known puppet theaters both in the United States and abroad and has been at the forefront of puppetry, performance, and political protest for more than half a century. B&P also functions as a site of tension in prefigurative political theory, between creative world building and alternative decision-making structures. B&P fosters a powerful lived experience of prefigurative politics. The political process of envisioning alternative realities took place through performance, puppets, and the shifting sense of temporality in an isolated location. At the same time, B&P operates in a state of flux, at the center of a constant stream of apprentices, volunteers, and audience members. They rely on hierarchical decision-making to facilitate order, which challenges the prefigurative ideal of a democratic community. B&P models a mediated form of prefigurative politics in which a hierarchical governance structure and creative world building exist in tension with one another. The theater has worked within this tension to survive and even flourish. B&P complicates prefigurative politics in social movement theory and practice, as the hierarchy helps preserve some sense of order but conflicts with the more egalitarian vision of the world represented in their performances. B&P's intervention in prefigurative politics offers lessons to social movements and artistic practices in the contemporary resurgence of prefigurative politics.

Rebel Governance Structures and Violence in Apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT What role do rebel governance structures play in deterring rebel-on-rebel violence? I argue that variation in rebel governance is an important factor. In 1990s South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) and its armed wing, the MK, employed different governance strategies over pro-ANC militias. In the Sharpeville township, the MK imposed a hierarchical governance structure, which contributed to inter-factional ANC violence. In the Thokoza township, the ANC formed a cooperative governance structure between the ANC and the militias. As a result, Thokoza experienced less internecine conflict. Evidence for my argument comes from archival research and interviews with former pro-ANC militants.

Facilitating Community Transition to Sustainable Land Governance: A Study of a Communal Settlement in South Africa

Land is a fundamental resource that provides a foundation for the economy. Despite a wide range of studies on land governance systems, there is a lack of literature that analyzes the ability of communities to manage a change to different land governance systems. The study aimed to analyze the potential for the Goedverwacht communal settlement in the Western Cape province, South Africa, to transition from a hierarchical governance structure to one based on a communal land governance system. This aim was addressed by answering the research question: What are the roles, expectations and management strategies of the institutions and stakeholders participating in land governance? The study considered the community’s desire to maintain its communal settlement’s existence, and the choice between communal or individual freehold land governance. To understand these issues, the study utilized a framework that includes three theories: the theory of planned behaviour, the theory of institutional capacity, and the critical theory. (2) Methods: Through a survey, qualitative interviews, and focus group discussions, the study analyzed various underlying factors that influenced land governance and the land governance system desired by the community. (3) Results: The findings reveal that power dynamics and conflicting interests significantly affected the community’s ability to manage potential modernization resulting from land reform. While establishing land rights can positively impact economic growth and social mobilization, the lack of the communal settlement’s central government’s capacity to manage modernization effectively can lead to instability.; (4) Conclusions: The paper concludes that balancing institutionalization and modernization is crucial for effectively managing the transition to new land governance systems.

Expanding narratives of governance constraints to improve coral reef conservation.

To understand and address the failures of reef governance, it is critical to understand the perceptions of diverse policy makers and practitioners about the challenges they face in achieving their goals. Examining the discourse of policy makers and practitioners can reveal the extent to which these perceptions capture the full spectrum of potential governance challenges, including those related to management, institutional structures and processes, the values and principles underpinning governance, and the social and environmental context. We conducted semistructured interviews with 110 policy makers and practitioners across multiple sectors, scales, and contexts in Barbados, St Kitts and Nevis, Belize, and Honduras. We used thematic qualitative analysis informed by theories of interactive governance and governability to examine the challenges perceived by governance actors. Perceived governance challenges were broadly consistent across countries, but differed by sector (V = 0.819, F6,60 = 1.502, p = 0.01) and by level (community compared with national) (V = 0.194, F1,10 = 2.178, = 0.026). Management inputs and outputs, challenges relating to the socioeconomic context, issues of leadership and power, and stakeholder engagement were commonly cited challenges (>75%). Few respondents discussed challenges relating to the ecological context, governance processes, or the values and principles underpinning governance. We argue that examining perceptions can inform efforts to improve governance and assess the appropriateness of particular management tools under context-specific governance constraints. Furthermore, expanding the narratives of governance challenges to encompass the subtle values and images underpinning governance, and the scale of the challenges faced, can help identify a wider set of opportunities for change.

An Old Puzzle and Unprecedented Challenges: Coordination in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the US

Major emergencies and crises require action from all levels of government and the involvement of numerous organizations from the private and nonprofit sectors. Thus, interorganizational coordination is a crucial element of emergency and crisis management. This study first addresses how interagency coordination is structured in American policies and frameworks within the context of public health emergencies. Then, the significant coordination-related challenges that exist at the federal level are discussed, as well as how such challenges manifested in a severe shortage of critical medical resources at the outset of the pandemic. A series of government reports are then reviewed to further explore these coordination failures. Finally, recommendations are offered regarding ways to integrate network governance into the hierarchical governance structure for better crisis coordination. This research contributes to a broader understanding of interagency coordination in response to large-scale public health emergencies.

How a hierarchical governance structure influences cultural heritage destination sustainability: A context of red tourism in China

A growing recognition has been observed regarding destination governance in tourism sustainability. Given the hierarchical structure still takes an essential role in destination governance, how this governance structure impacts the sustainability of heritage tourism destinations remains unclear. This research focuses on red tourism destinations in China to analyse how a hierarchical governance structure may incur destination sustainability issues. Using a qualitative case study, the results summarized two streams of conflicts in destination management process: vertical conflicts between central and local governance levels, and horizontal conflicts at local governance level between different stakeholders. Results show that both vertical and horizontal conflicts influence the cultural heritage sustainability in terms of preservation and enhancement, and the conflicts originate from the attributes of hierarchical governance structure. The research supplements the current knowledge of how the hierarchical governance structure influences the sustainability of heritage destinations and provides practical implications to Chinese red tourism destinations.

Experimenting with sustainability education: the case of a student-driven campus initiative in Finland

ABSTRACT Experiments are deemed not only useful, but necessary in sustainability transformation to enhance local decision-making. This is especially apparent in Finland where national government programmes and city administrations promote sustainability experimentation and bottom-up initiatives in the interest of equitable participation. At the same time, universities are expected to respond to societal calls for major infrastructural transformations, while neoliberal principles shift responsibility from authorities to individual citizens. This paper examines the case of a student-driven sustainable campus initiative called “Test Site” in a university committed formally to sustainability education. The students questioned whether sustainability should be taught in air-conditioned classrooms, what topics were socially just and worth pursuing, and rather sought material engagement, creative exploration and autonomy. Invested faculty members were dependent on demonstrations and proof of impact, or at least convincing visuals, to sustain the initiative. The outcome of experimenting most valued by the students however was the material-based social learning on how to self-organise. The meaning of such “minor” experiments thus becomes muddled, involving local, situated power dynamics among university management, faculty and students and what is regarded as useful space and activity for learning. The case illustrates how an experimental site partly removed from university constraints rendered explorations of self-organising participants as valuable yet depended on visible proofs to justify this very exploration as worthwhile. Even within a neoliberal and highly hierarchical governance structure, some participants are able to make small gains to pursue socially just solutions.

The political economy of feudalism in medieval Europe

Why did enduring traditions of economic and political liberty arise in Western Europe? An answer to this question must be sought at the constitutional level. Within the medieval constitutional order, traditions of representative and limited government developed through patterns of constitutional bargaining. The politically fragmented landscape that emerged following the decline of the Western Roman Empire and the barbarian migrations was conducive to those patterns. In particular, that landscape was characterized by polycentric and hierarchical governance structures; within those structures, political property rights holders were sovereign and residual claimants to governance returns. I elaborate on why this environment of polycentric sovereignty promoted constitutional bargaining in the direction of good governance and greater liberty.

The over-cascading system of cadre evaluation and China’s authoritarian resilience

China’s cadre evaluation system – the personnel management system used to assess the performance of government officials in the party-state – is considered an important tool for upper-level governments to supervise and regulate lower-level agents. This system is one of the key factors contributing to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) authoritarian resilience. Deficiencies of this system are exemplified by the ‘blind pursuit of GDP’, selective implementation, gaming, collusion, and data fabrication. The CCP has been reforming this system to strengthen its monitoring and political control over local government cadres, especially at the county level, and it is a crucial component in the step-by-step hierarchical power structure. While current literature focuses largely on the assessment content of such reform, this article pays specific attention to the changes in the cascading evaluation structure of province to prefecture to county. The article identifies a new dynamic of ‘over-cascading’ whereby provincial governments bypass prefectural governments and directly evaluate county officials, resulting in the co-existence of prefecture-county and province-county evaluations. This article also explores the functioning mechanism of this dual structure and argues that this structural change in the cadre evaluation system is breaking the traditional hierarchical governance structure and enhancing authoritarian resilience of the CCP because it provides a new route for over-cascading governance between provincial and county governments. This research contributes to the conceptualization of the over-cascading governing structure of the CCP and fills gaps in the literature on structural changes in China’s cadre evaluation system.

Rhetoric and reality in Bangladesh: elite stakeholder perceptions of the implementation of tourism policy

ABSTRACT National tourism policy in Bangladesh is a relatively new development and this research is the first to focus on the implementation of tourism policy in Bangladesh. Taking a social constructivist perspective, interviews were carried out with 13 elite stakeholders, from the public and private sectors, who are associated with the creation and implementation of tourism policy in Bangladesh. The data were analysed qualitatively using a content analysis approach to examine perceptions of the policy implementation process, and its success. In the case of Bangladesh, it is the persistence of hierarchical governance structures that appears to be hindering the effective implementation of tourism policy. This can be seen in the selection of priority areas by the government, the preferred policy instruments, and in the ways in which the private sector is being incentivised to support national tourism development.

The Political Economy of Feudalism in Medieval Europe

Why did enduring traditions of economic and political liberty arise in Western Europe? An answer to this question must be sought at the constitutional level. Within the medieval constitutional order, traditions of representative and limited government developed through patterns of constitutional bargaining. The politically fragmented landscape that emerged following the decline of the Western Roman Empire and the barbarian migrations was conducive to those patterns. In particular, that landscape was characterized by polycentric and hierarchical governance structures; within those structures, political property rights holders were sovereign and residual claimants to governance returns. I elaborate on why this environment of polycentric sovereignty promoted constitutional bargaining in the direction of good governance and greater liberty.

POTENTIAL OF BIG DATA FOR PRO-ACTIVE PARTICIPATORY LAND USE PLANNING

The presence of (spatial) big data presumes that citizens can more actively collect and analyse data for their own land use goals. This article evaluates that claim. Given that land use planning heavily depends on participation and citizens’ own contributions the core question is whether and how (spatial) big data can enhance and/or complement current land use planning endeavours. The article starts by defining and conceptualising the various phases and objectives of land use planning. This is needed to verify where citizen participation can play a crucial role and where bottom-up influence can actually emerge. The article is fundamentally explorative. It relies on evaluating existing websites and documentation which conceptualise (spatial) big data and smart application, with a particular emphasis on ‘smart people’. A number of specific cases are explored in order to verify how and in which type of land use planning activity citizens are actively. The evaluation indicates that many the smart applications making use of big data are still largely driven by conventional hierarchical governance structures. The choice of data and associated analytics are still largely confined and the opportunities whereby the designs of the new and alternative land use options by citizens are accepted or adopted is still limited. The take-home message is that adoption of big data for the purpose of empowering citizens is still limited. There probably needs to be more exemplary projects and various forms of capacity development and exploratory pilots before the full potential of (spatial) big data can be employed for bottom-up land use planning.

Welfare effects of forming a criminal organization

This paper develops a simple model to examine the economic consequences of two different criminal market structures in the private protection and extortion industry: (1) horizontal (decentralized) governance and market structure and (2) hierarchical (centralized) governance and market structure with a criminal organization. Forming a criminal organization produces positive or negative effects on its members and social efficiency. These results depend on the potential competitiveness among criminals and the ability of a criminal organization’s boss to target more valuable extortion victims.

Hierarchy versus Flat: The Effect of Governance Structures on Conflict in Development Cooperatives

Development organizations attempting to alleviate poverty increasingly utilize market-based approaches. These efforts consist of identifying unmet market opportunities and organizing local individuals into cooperatively owned enterprises to collectively exploit these opportunities. However, such cooperatives often struggle with high levels of intra-group conflict that hinder their functioning and long-term sustainability. Existing theory suggests that the choice of governance structure can play an important role in mitigating conflict, but a longstanding debate exists as to whether flat versus hierarchical governance structures are more efficacious. To add further understanding to this debate, we conducted a field experiment involving 40 newly formed development cooperatives within rural Ghana that were randomly assigned to either a flat or hierarchical structure. The quantitative results of our field experiment and subsequent qualitative data suggests that flat structures lead to higher levels of collective psychological ownership, which in turn resulted in lower levels of conflict as compared to hierarchical structures. However, our results also suggest that the extent to which flat governance structures are more effective depends on the salience of informal governance structures.

Estruturas de governança híbridas em redes de cooperativas de crédito brasileiras e canadenses sob a ótica da teoria dos custos de transação

This paper aims at building a theoretical model that characterizes the influence of Hybrid Governance Structures (HGS) in Transaction Costs (TC) of credit cooperatives networks in Brazil and Canada. From the characterization of the variables that influence the TC, it's possible to perform a discrete analysis of hybrid forms of governance which is characteristic of strategic networks of credit cooperatives canadian Desjardins and brazilian Sicredi. The case studies analysis proved that the evolution of HGS was simultaneous with the evolution of the legal and institutional environment, in a dialectical process. However, one can see that while evolving from different legal and institutional environments, there is a tendency to homogeneity in these networks, at least in the creation of ad hoc institutions to deal with the most significant TC. An equation was inferred at the final section of the work, to perform the comparison of the costs of HGS with the transaction of financial intermediation of credit cooperatives networks. The model can be used to compare the analysed TC with the correpondent costs of lean financial institutions. According to this equation, the cost to carry out internal transactions to the network, in addition to the costs arising from the political and social pressures present in this type of institution, must be less than or equal to TC of financial institutions with hierarchical governance structures. This not only corroborates the discriminating alignment hypothesis of Williamson (2005), but adds elements for classification and analysis of these costs.

Managing cancer care through service delivery networks: The role of professional collaboration in two European cancer networks

Background The study examines two meso-strategic cancer networks, exploring to what extent collaboration can strengthen or hamper network effectiveness. Unlike macro-strategic networks, meso-strategic networks have no hierarchical governance structures nor are they institutionalised within healthcare services' delivery systems. This study aims to analyse the models of professional cooperation and the tools developed for managing clinical practice within two meso-strategic, European cancer networks. Methods Multiple case study design based on the comparative analysis of two cancer networks: Iridium, in Antwerp, Belgium and the Institut Català d'Oncologia in Catalonia, Spain. The case studies applied mixed methods, with qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews ( n = 35) together with case-site observation and material collection. Results The analysis identified four levels of collaborative intensity within medical specialties as well as in multidisciplinary settings, which became both platforms for crosscutting clinical work between hubs' experts and local care teams and the levers for network-based tools development. The organisation of clinical practice relied on professional-based cooperative processes and tiers, lacking vertical integration mechanisms. Conclusions The intensity of professional linkages largely shaped the potential of meso-strategic cancer networks to influence clinical practice organisation. Conversely, the introduction of managerial techniques or network governance structures, without introducing vertical hierarchies, was found to be critical solutions.

Mapping the cybersecurity institutional landscape

PurposeThere is growing contestation between states and private actors over cybersecurity responsibilities, and its governance is ever more susceptible to nationalization. The authors believe these developments are based on an incomplete picture of how cybersecurity is actually governed in practice and theory. Given this disconnect, this paper aims to attempt to provide a cohesive understanding of the cybersecurity institutional landscape.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from institutional economics and using extensive desk research, the authors develop a conceptual model and broadly sketch the activities and contributions of market, networked and hierarchical governance structures and analyze how they interact to produce and govern cybersecurity.FindingsAnalysis shows a robust market and networked governance structures and a more limited role for hierarchical structures. Ex ante efforts to produce cybersecurity using purely hierarchical governance structures, even buttressed with support from networked governance structures, struggle without market demand like in the case of secure internet identifiers. To the contrary, ex post efforts like botnet mitigation, route monitoring and other activities involving information sharing seem to work under a variety of combinations of governance structures.Originality/valueThe authors’ conceptual framework and observations offer a useful starting point for unpacking how cybersecurity is produced and governed; ultimately, we need to understand if and how these governance structure arrangements actually impact variation in observed levels of cybersecurity.

State health managers' perceptions of the Public Health Action Organizational Contract in the State of Ceará, Brazil.

The Public Health Action Organizational Contract (COAP) / Decree 7.508/2011 aimed to seal health agreements made between federated entities to promote the cooperative governance and management of Health Regions. A qualitative study was carried out adopting a hermeneutic approach to understand state health managers' perceptions of the elaboration and effects of the COAP in the State of Ceará. Open-ended interviewees and documental analysis were conducted. It was observed that the COAP led to the strengthening of regionalization in the government sphere; institutional gains through the implementation of ombudsmen and the National System of Pharmaceutical Care Management; increased information about the state health system's workforce; and health budget transparency. The following problems were (re)visited: institutional weakness in the operation of the network; limited state capacity for regulation of care; and underfunding. Regional governance was restricted to the government sphere, coordinated by the state, and was characterized by a predominantly bureaucratic and hierarchical governance structure. The COAP inaugurated a contractual interfederative model of regionalization, but revealed the institutional weaknesses of the SUS and its lacks of capacity to fulfill its principles as the structural problems of the three-tiered model go unaddressed.