Levels Of Government Research Articles

How to build an agribusiness giant: the role of rural extension services in Brazil during the 20th Century

In this article, we argue that Brazil’s ‘exporting vocation’ is not a natural tendency but the result of national political and economic projects aligned with the international context and external interests. To support this thesis, we reconstructed the trajectory of rural extension services during the 20th century in three distinct phases, according to the official philosophical and pedagogical perspectives adopted in each. Based on extensionist reports and an interdisciplinary bibliographical review, our objective is to present the sociopolitical and economic panorama along with the motivations, general characteristics, and consequences of the extension service in establishing Brazil as an agribusiness giant. We conclude that rural extension services assisted rural and agrarian development that favoured the agrarian elite in the concentration of land, resources, and knowledge. It also consolidated agribusiness as an intensely active political category at all levels of Brazilian government.

Adaptive governance and evolution of a groundwater-based resilient city: a case study of Kure City, Japan

ABSTRACT Discussion on adaptive governance is criticized for being overly conceptual and limited in application beyond environmental issues. To fill this gap, this paper examines how adaptive governance functions in specific contexts, such as addressing post-disaster water supply cut-offs. In Kure City, Japan, different levels of government and NGOs helped local well owners emerge as informal water suppliers after the 2018 flood. This research identifies four elements of adaptive governance (polycentricity, participation, self-organization, social learning) underpinning this initiative. Furthermore, it reveals the importance of financial incentives for well owners and pre-registration of local wells as policy lessons for emergent groundwater utilization.

Ethical Dilemmas and Their Impact on Accountability in Local Governments: A Study of the Greater Kigezi Sub-Region in Uganda

This study examines the impact of ethical dilemmas on accountability in local governments within the Greater Kigezi sub-region of Uganda comprising of Kabale, Kanungu, Kisoro, Rubanda and Rukiga local governments and therefore, sufficient enough to represent and enable generalization of findings to other local governments in the country. Over the past few decades, public sector reforms have sought to enhance transparency, efficiency, and service delivery. Despite these efforts, Uganda continues to face challenges in maintaining strong accountability systems, particularly at the local government level. Ethical dilemmas—stemming from conflicts of interest, political pressure, resource constraints, and cultural norms—undermine accountability and transparency, leading to corruption and diminished public trust. The study investigates these dynamics by exploring how ethical challenges affect governance in local governments through the aid of questionnaires and interviews with stakeholders drawn from the local governments and opinion leaders who represent the voices of the grassroots. Focusing on the Greater Kigezi sub-region, the research highlights widespread governance issues such as nepotism, political interference, and weak institutional oversight. Findings reveal that ethical dilemmas hinder public sector performance by compromising decision-making and oversight processes. To address these challenges, the study suggests enhancing ethical training, strengthening oversight institutions, fostering civic engagement, and developing clearer policies on ethics and accountability. By implementing these policy reforms, stakeholders can create more transparent and accountable local governance systems that better serve community needs

Spatial-temporal variations of cultivated land compensation and its compensation mechanism in mainland China

Cultivated land compensation can alleviate the conflict between cultivated land protection and socio-economic development. Exploring the spatial-temporal trends of cultivated land compensation, and formulating a scientific and reasonable compensation mechanism are important to achieve sustainable development. To analyze the spatial-temporal changes of the area, comprehensive non-market value, and compensation amount of cultivated land in mainland China, this paper constructed a comprehensive non-market value evaluation framework including positive ecological, negative ecological, and social values, and designed a feasible cultivated land compensation model. In terms of cultivated land area, the cultivated land area indicated an overall surplus condition, and the total net surplus area during 2000–2021 was 54.4 million hectares per year. On a spatial scale, the net surplus districts were concentrated in the north and the center of China, while the net deficit districts were in the developed areas along the southeast coast. In terms of comprehensive non-market value, except for negative ecological value, all other non-market values had increased. On a spatial scale, the coupling relationship between comprehensive non-market value and regional economic development was obvious, presenting a higher value observed in the southeastern coastal developed provinces, and a lower one in the developing inland provinces. In terms of compensation amount, the total payment amount of the payment districts was difficult to cover the total compensation amount of the compensated districts, a certain compensation gap between the two appeared, averaging 6.03 trillion RMB during 2000–2021. On a spatial scale, the payment districts were mainly distributed in the southeastern coastal area, and the number of the payment districts was smaller than that of the compensated area. It is suggested that we should clarify the subject of cultivated land compensation and identify its rights and responsibilities, highlight the leading role of the central government and give full play to the main role of all levels of government, adopt diversified market financing instruments according to local conditions, and formulate relevant supporting security systems.

Poor Financial Management in South African Municipalities: Assessing Factors Contributing to Undesirable Audit Opinion

South African municipalities are the entities closest to citizens in local communities across the country, and they are required to provide services to them. The sustainable provision of services is heavily reliant on sound public finance management in all levels of government. It is unfortunate that municipalities in South Africa are failing to effectively manage and use public funds to improve service delivery. Most South African municipalities have received negative audit opinions for years, and their current financial situation is deteriorating year after year. This is concerning for a country that has recently celebrated 30 years of democracy; it is unfortunate that democratic gains are being reversed due to issues within South African municipalities such as irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure, non-compliance, a lack of skills, a lack of consequence management, political infighting, corruption, and poor leadership, to name a few. Citizens are the ones who pay the price at the end of the day when services owed to them are not delivered by municipalities due to poor financial management. The objective of this paper is to examine the causes of unsatisfactory audit outcomes in the South African local government sector and recommend solutions to for improving financial management in South African municipalities. To achieve this objective, a systematic literature review was chosen as the appropriate research methodological strategy for this paper

Energy Citizenship in Energy Transition: The Case of the Baltic States

The governance of energy systems is undergoing a transformative shift, vital to advancing the energy transition. Understanding the dynamics of energy citizenship and the factors that influence citizen engagement in energy matters is critical for driving social and institutional change. This paper informs on the key results of a comprehensive analysis of 54 energy citizenship cases in the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania). The study explores the role of citizens in the energy transition and characterizes the socio-economic and geopolitical factors shaping energy citizenship activities in the region. The governance of energy systems represents a significant transformational shift that is essential for energy transition. A more comprehensive understanding of the current state of energy citizenship and the factors influencing the energy transition process could inform the social and institutional changes necessary for the involvement of citizens in energy matters. This desk study represents a crucial element of the EU Horizon 2000 EnergyPROSPECTS project, which aims to map the landscape of energy citizenship in Europe. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of 54 cases from the Baltic states. The findings provide insight into the role of citizens in the transition process and the underlying factors and conditions that shape energy citizenship activities within the specific socio-economic and geopolitical context of the region. In general, energy citizenship in the Baltic states can be seen to exist on a spectrum between reformative and transformative practices. Overall, progress is being made toward systemic changes in the energy sector, with a focus on the democratization of processes. Nevertheless, additional measures to enhance and reinforce energy citizenship, coupled with the advancement of enabling conditions, are imperative at all levels of governance and across all energy transition scenarios.

Digitally Driven Urban Governance: Framework and Evaluation in China

With the rapid development of digital technology, the role of digitalisation in urban governance continues to emerge. Building a theoretical analysis framework and evaluation system of digitally driven urban governance has important theoretical and practical significance for stimulating the efficiency of digital technology tools and improving the energy level of urban digital governance. This paper aims to explore the mechanism of urban governance enabled by digital technology, innovatively change the previous thinking mode that only attaches importance to facility construction and e-government platforms, adopt ecological thinking, and comprehensively consider the role of “soft elements” such as strategic support, industrial support, the security environment, talent support, and the market environment. Then, the extreme value variance method and the coefficient of variation method are used to calculate the overall capacity and secondary index scores of each city, and the standard deviation of secondary index scores is used to represent the sub-environmental balance of the cross-sectional data of China’s provinces. In order to further explore which indicators restrict the improvement of China’s urban digital governance capacity, this study also constructs an obstacle degree model. The results show the following: (1) The overall capability of China’s digitally driven urban governance is low, with a total score of 27.25, indicating that China’s digitally driven urban governance is in its infancy. (2) There is a significant development imbalance among Chinese provinces, with Beijing ranking first with a score of 81.16, and Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, and Ningxia scoring less than 13.30 points, ranking as the bottom 5 among the 31 provinces. (3) The shortcomings of talent support, industrial support, and the security environment restrict the improvement of the entire digital ecological governance ability.

“If government is saying the regulations are important, they should be putting in funding to back it up.”- An in-depth analysis of local authority officers’ perspectives of the Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulations 2021

BackgroundAs part of the UK government’s obesity strategy, the Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulations 2021 were implemented in October 2022 to restrict the prominent placement of products high in fat, sugar, or salt (HFSS) in most retail settings. Local authority (LA) officers have been tasked with enforcement of these regulations. This qualitative study examined the perspectives of LA officers including, trading standards, environmental health, and public health officers to understand enforcement approaches and requirements to optimise business compliance with the regulations.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted via MS Teams with a purposive sample of LA officers across England. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis.ResultsThe 22 participants comprised 13 officers from Trading Standards, six from Environmental Health, and three from Public Health teams. The key messages include the following: (i) the regulations are complex and do not align with existing enforcement approaches, (ii) officers’ professional background will result in variable enforcement practices, and (iii) compliance assessment is an arduous task. LAs are facing resource and workforce constraints and have to prioritise regulations addressing high health risks (e.g., allergens). Therefore, officers will mostly apply a light touch approach to enforcement, raising awareness and engaging with businesses rather than issuing notices. To develop a consistent enforcement approach across LAs, officers asked for (i) further leadership from central government in the form of funding, training, and tools to determine in-scope businesses and products, (ii) cross-departmental collaboration to raise the regulations’ priority at local and regional levels, and (iii) greater consumer demand for healthier retail environments.ConclusionIt is crucial to address both structural challenges such as resource allocation, workforce, and prioritisation issues as well as the inherent complexity of the regulations to strengthen enforcement efforts. Our findings highlight the necessity of supporting enforcement activities at national and regional government levels to avoid potential false conclusions about ineffectiveness of regulations.

Research on Employment Discrimination Against Suburban Rural Youth in the Process of Urbanization: A Case Study of Hebei Province

With the acceleration of urbanization, the employment issues of suburban rural youth have become increasingly prominent. This study, using Hebei Province as an example, explores the discrimination faced by suburban rural youth in the employment process within the urbanization context through a questionnaire survey and empirical analysis. The study finds that suburban rural youth generally face discrimination in terms of education, household registration, and social relations during their job search, which not only affects their employment quality but also hinders rural economic development. The study further analyzes the main factors contributing to employment discrimination and proposes countermeasures at the levels of government, enterprises, social organizations, and the rural youth themselves, aiming to provide theoretical references for policymakers and related organizations.

Examining the efficacy of core competencies of municipal leaders in transforming local government in South Africa

PurposeThis study aims to examine the efficacy of municipal leaders’ leadership competencies in transforming local government in South Africa. Specifically, it focuses on identifying core competencies and obstacles that influence successful governance outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThe research employed a mixed-methods approach. Qualitative focus group interviews were conducted with n = 50 municipal leaders, stakeholders and experts. Additionally, an online survey was administered to N = 121 municipal leaders. The sample was drawn from eight local municipalities across South Africa, including Emfuleni Municipality, Ehlanzeni Municipality, Mbombela Municipality, Bushbuckridge Municipality, Msunduzi Municipality, Okahlamba Municipality, the City of Johannesburg and Tshwane MunicipalityNelson Mandela, Matlosana, Emfuleni, Ehlanzeni, Mbombela, Bushbuckridge, Msunduzi, Okahlamba, Mbombela Local Municipalities, the City of Johannesburg. Data analysis encompassed thematic coding and statistical analysis.FindingsThe findings suggest that the practical application of core competencies by municipal leaders is crucial for navigating complex challenges, fostering innovation and improving organizational culture and employee morale within local government agencies.Research limitations/implicationsResearch limitations include sample bias, reliance on self-reported data, contextual specificity to South Africa, potential for subjective interpretation and lack of long-term impact assessment.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the key competencies required for effective municipal leadership can inform training and development programmes for current and aspiring leaders. Practical application of these competencies can enhance governance outcomes, foster innovation and improve employee morale.Social implicationsEffective municipal leadership can contribute to social cohesion and service delivery, thus impacting the lives of citizens positively. By empowering employees and engaging stakeholders, municipal leaders can drive enduring outcomes and contribute to the overall well-being of communities.Originality/valueThis study fills a gap in existing research by examining the efficacy of leadership competencies within the context of South African municipal leadership. By identifying core competencies and obstacles, it provides valuable insights for improving governance and service delivery at the local government level.

Non‐Status Citizenship and the Paradoxes of Immigration Regimes in a Sanctuary City

AbstractNon‐status people face a socio‐legal precariousness that contradicts the promises of an inclusive city. Marking Toronto's tenth anniversary of its “sanctuary city” policy, our research assesses the progress and potential of social planning and municipalist agendas to support irregularised residents. Drawing from interviews with service providers, city officials, and non‐status citizens in Toronto, we propose a decolonial politics of urban citizenship recognition we call “non‐status citizenship”. This concept addresses specific paradoxes related to irregularisation, access, jurisdiction, and regularisation. By framing our discussion around these paradoxes, we highlight the discomfort and transformative potential of non‐status citizenship for immigration regimes in sanctuary cities. We argue that recognising non‐status citizenship goes beyond notions of urban citizenship to claim formal recognition and security, which resolves the four paradoxes theoretically, politically, and practically. We also emphasise the role of cities in expanding service delivery and calling out the failure of planning across levels of government.

Appealing for Local Control and Spatial Inequality: Reforming Governance and Development Rationalities in Southern California

Several limitations have thwarted the implementation of California housing law for over fifty years. This paper sheds light on the evolution of municipal-state relations at a period of reform by analyzing the contentious implementation of state housing law in Orange County, California, a region of concentrated affluence. Systemic privilege has historically allowed some jurisdictions to influence decision-making at higher levels, skewing housing policy and planning outcomes. Nonetheless, and despite contention between different government levels and localities, the leverage of reactionary local politics is weakening.

The Effect of Digital Economy on Rural Environmental Governance: Evidence from China

Exploring the inherent mechanisms by which the digital economy fosters rural environmental governance holds paramount importance for driving the sustainable development of rural regions and elevating the living standards of rural residents. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks and extensive literature reviews, we have devised comprehensive indicator systems for quantifying the development trajectory of the digital economy and the efficacy of rural environmental governance, employing the entropy method for measurement. Leveraging panel data that spans from 2011 to 2022, encompassing 31 provinces across China, we empirically delve into the influence of the digital economy on rural environmental governance, along with its underlying mechanisms, by employing a fixed effects model. The baseline regression results reveal that the development of the digital economy can significantly promote the improvement of rural environmental governance, even after considering potential endogeneity issues. Moreover, the test results of the mediation effect show that the digital economy can enhance the level of rural environmental governance by accelerating industrial structure optimization and improving green technology innovation. Furthermore, the test result of the regulatory effect implies that the urban–rural dual structure may inhibit the positive effect of the digital economy on rural environmental governance. Additionally, there exists regional disparities in which the digital economy influences rural environmental governance, with the eastern region exhibiting a more pronounced effect compared to other regions.

Standardization versus Situatedness: A Gray Literature Metasynthesis of How Guidance for Alaska’s Water Infrastructure Management Varies by Government Level

Standardization versus Situatedness: A Gray Literature Metasynthesis of How Guidance for Alaska’s Water Infrastructure Management Varies by Government Level

Assessing National Governance Modernization: Leveraging the Ordered Weighted Geometric Composition Operator

The national governance modernization is an important part of Chinese-style modernization. It is of great importance to advance the modernization process by assessing the modernization level of national governance. In this paper, we propose a new method for assessing the national governance modernization using the ordered weighted geometric composition operator (OWGC). First, defining the OWGC by introducing the average operator. The application of the OWGC in measuring the national governance modernization is then demonstrated and the general measurement procedure is presented. Finally, empirical data are used to analyze the degree and regional differences in national governance modernization. The empirical results obtained by using the OWGC not only show uneven development between different provinces, but also reflect the development strengths and weaknesses of each region, which will help provide guidelines for improving the level of modernization and promoting coordinated regional development delivery.

Can Reverse Mixed-Ownership Reform Promote Green Transformation of Private Enterprises?

The private sector greatly influences China's economy, which is crucial for fostering consistent economic growth. This paper takes A-share listed private enterprises (PEs) from 2009 to 2022 as the research object, uses the time-series regime-switching detection method to detect the changepoints of reverse mixed-ownership reform (RMOR) of PEs, and utilizes the staggered difference-in-difference (DID) model to investigate the impact effect and mechanism of the RMOR policy on the green transformation (GT) of PEs. The results show that the RMOR significantly promotes the GT of PEs. Additional mechanism tests reveal that the RMOR will lower the level of internal governance and impede the GT of PEs. However, it will help alleviate the financing constraints of PEs and promote their GT. The results of the moderation analysis reveal that RMOR has a greater impact on the GT of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) compared to large-scale enterprises. At the industry level, RMOR exerts a more significant influence on capital-and technology-intensive industries than on labor-intensive ones. Additionally, RMOR impacts the GT of PEs in regions with lower government regulatory intensity more than in regions with higher regulatory intensity. The study's findings provide new empirical insights, decision-making tools, and innovative perspectives for the GT of PEs.

Impact of Government Health Expenditure on Maternal and Child Mortality Rates in a CLMV Country

The health of the citizens is a concern for all levels of government, as well as for CLMV countries, which first prioritized a portion of health expenditure in the health sector to reduce maternal and child mortality rates, particularly in rural areas. In order to analyze the data using fixed effect regression and random effect regression, we used balanced panel data to examine the impact of government health expenditure on maternal and child under-five mortality rates in a CLMV country. As a result of this study, increased government health expenditure had a significant impact on reducing the maternal mortality rate while having no effect on the child mortality rate. Furthermore, there are additional independent variables that affect the maternal and child under-5 mortality rates in a CLMV country, such as GDP per capita, which has a significant impact on reducing the child mortality rate but no impact on reducing the maternal mortality rate. Nevertheless, women's primary school enrollment and use of basic water service rates were statistically significant in CLMV countries.

The State Of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) In Nigeria And Implications To National Security: Northwest And North Central In Focus

The ongoing insurgency and banditry in northern Nigeria and the government's harsh attempts to put it down have resulted in a wave of refugees and internally displaced people. Increase in population density and the migration of displaced people into places that are thought to be relatively quiet are prominently causing significant security concerns. With particular reference to the city of Ilorin, this study investigates the role of internally displaced people and community concerns in connection to national security and their repercussions. The study showed that the state's failure to provide security and deal with residents' socioeconomic problems contributed to the instability that drove large population displacement. Losses of life, insecurity, population relocation, intolerance toward other ethnic and religious groups, the operation of the militant groups and most importantly economic disasters are the consequences of these unfavorable tendencies, as this article has discovered. The findings of this study shows that the government's response to the situation of internally displaced people in the nation has been patchy, with no long-term fix in sight. Additionally, the dilemma of internally displaced people severely impedes the region's growth. This paper consequently promotes the establishment of offices for these displaced people's representatives by including the affairs of internally displaced people at the local government level. As an option to dealing with the problem of internally displaced people in the nation, increasing funding for national security among residents would improve security in Ilorin metropolis.

THE EFFECT OF (REVERSE) FACTORING TRANSACTIONS ON EUROPEAN COUNTRIES’ LATE PAYMENT

Late payment by companies is a quiz for managers and governments. Its occurrence, in all industries, has a negative impact on companies' liquidity and can even lead some of them to bankruptcy – especially the less structured ones. In macroeconomic terms, this situation also has adverse implications for countries' economic growth. Being confronted with these issues, banks provide financial instruments - such as factoring and reverse factoring - which potentially can mitigate these undesirable effects. Thus, the objective of this study is to analyze if companies' use of both financial instruments affects their late payment at the country level. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to do so. Therefore, a final sample of 2,245 observations from 28 European countries is considered, being 16 from developed and 12 from emerging ones. The study hypotheses are tested by a logistic regression model. As a result, there is an unexpected positive relationship between both financial instruments and companies' late payments at a country level. It is possible that undercapitalized companies with inadequate credit practices consider late payment as an ordinary source of credit. This study contributes to academic knowledge by analyzing the effect of factoring and reverse factoring on companies' late payments in European countries. The results can also provide insights into firms' financing and supplier management policies. Moreover, countries and regulators can adjust their legislation in order to encourage a better level of governance in their markets.

The Institutionalization of Environmental Discourse: an Analysis of the History of International Conferences

Objective: Investigate the institutionalization of environmental protection discourse through international conferences sponsored by the United Nations. Theoretical Framework: The main concepts and theories that underlie the research are in the works Archeology of Knowledge and Order of Discourse, by Michel Foucault. Method: The Foucault archaeological method and documentary research are adopted. The corpus of the survey of official, unofficial and civil society documents is situated within the framework of the Stockholm-72 and Rio-92 conferences. Results and Discussion: The critical analysis of the documents points in particular to the clash of political, economic and social forces around concepts such as eco-development and sustainable development. It concludes by pointing out that, although the environmental discourse has become institutionalized at government level, these concepts were aimed first and foremost at producing a global consensus. Research Implications: The research contributes to the understanding of contemporary environmental challenges. Originality/Value: The study proposes a Foucauldian approach to evaluating environmental discourse.