Local Decentralization Research Articles

Policy, Incentives, and Partnership are Keys to Sustaining Food Security, Land Management, Waste Management, and Agrarian Reform

Informed by cases from Southeast Asia (including Indonesia), Pakistan, and Nigeria, this April 2024 Issue puts together an argument that policy, incentives, and partnership are keys to sustaining food security, waste management, land management, and agrarian reform. The political decision to build a new Indonesian Capital in East Kalimantan could mean a positive for boosting local development. However, environmental and potential population pressures can compromise local social environmental settings that challenge the local food system. The article from Cahyono and Tokuda - offers insights into the role of sociodemographic factors as predictors of food security in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. This Issue also covers research on sustainable waste management from Indonesia (Al Muqsit et al. deal with waste management from the views of visitors of a heritage tourism Area in Semarang using a survey) and Nigeria (Ogunseye et al. on how households leverage waste recycling for a green economy based on qualitative studies). The case from Nigeria advocates for policy that promotes equity, incentives, and partnership. Using the PRISMA framework, Gafuraningtyas et al. examine the literature on agrarian reform from Southeast Asia. The authors compared different approaches, including constraints and opportunities in agrarian reform in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vietnam. This Issue also offers policy insights into (1) how macroeconomic conditions shape local decentralization and its implication on fiscal capacity in Jambi, Indonesia (Zevaya et al.); (2) how soil organic carbon shapes agriculture, food security, and Health in the context of Pakistan (Amanullah and Khan); And (3) How to know if land management is responsible: Evaluating the 8R framework of responsible land management (de Vries).

The Politics of Decentralization Level: Local and Regional Devolution as Substitutes

Most contemporary decentralization has occurred at the local (district) rather than the regional (provincial) level. Why? The authors advance a theory highlighting the political incentives of central authorities to bypass the regional tier of government in favor of decentralizing to smaller, more fragmented units. Regional decentralization can capitalize on economies of scale and scope in public service provision, but it also enables political opposition to scale more effectively. Local decentralization provides some of the benefits of regional decentralization at less political risk, making it an imperfect but attractive substitute for central authorities. Drawing on cases from Africa and Latin America, this article discusses when and how strategic local decentralization can be an effective strategy to maintain political control in divided societies, why sometimes governments may instead opt for regional decentralization or (re)centralization, and how the choice of decentralization level depends on political geography and history as well as economic factors.

High-Speed Rail and Urban Growth Disparity: Evidence from China

We investigate the effects of high-speed rail (HSR) operation on urban growth disparity in China. Using urban panel data from 2005 to 2019 and difference-in-differences estimation, we find that the operation of HSR has exerted a strong and robust positive effect on urban growth and total factor productivity (TFP) in core cities, while this effect is much weaker in non-core cities, especially in non-core cities close to provincial capitals. Meanwhile, high-speed rail has triggered relatively slower urban growth in the central cities compared with the suburbs in regional primate prefectures. The results suggest that the extension of HSR promotes centralization across cities and local decentralization within regional primate cities.

지방공기업 부채감축 정책의 성과 분석 및 시사점 연구

In the era of local decentralization, the role of local public enterprises will be emphasized more than ever. Through local public enterprises, local governments can respond quickly to various preferences of local residents and supply public services suitable for their conditions. It is however necessary to increase the efficiency of local public enterprises and maintain their financial healthy because it could become a potential risk to local finances. This study therefore aims to examine the cause of the increase in local public enterprises' debt through discussions on the decentralization and analyzes the performance of policy conducted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to reduce debt of local public enterprises in 2014. To this end, this study conduct the differnece-in-difference method. As a result, the fiscal soundness and productivity of those which supervised by central government are improved compared to those which do not. Through these findings, this study emphasizes that in future discussions on decentralization, it is necessary to discuss accountability for local public services and finances as well as the transfer of authority and functions of central government to local governments.

정부업무평가와 지방공기업평가에 대한 연구

Korea is excessively and extensively evaluated, and the effectiveness of the public sector is lower than that of foreign countries compared to the level of formalization. In addition, as performance evaluation is perceived as a control means, evaluation results are not properly utilized. In particular, local public enterprises should reflect regional characteristics as they perform the function of local decentralization, autonomy and breakwater from changes in government. There is a problem with the evaluation method, which is not only an evaluation for local residents, but also an evaluation by local residents, that is, in terms of regional decentralization, the evaluation method that is becoming a means of achieving the purpose according to the government without evaluation flexibility and autonomy, and without reflecting regional characteristics. In order to solve this problem, local public enterprises need not only management for local residents but also incorporation of methods managed and evaluated by local residents First, public enterprises are not private enterprises, and the 'voluntary clearance of differences' of public enterprises that only consider efficiency like private enterprises is not management innovation for local public enterprises. The management method and performance evaluation of local public enterprises should essentially be changed to a stakeholder model by local residents. Second, in the case of local public enterprises, the process (P·D·S) model, planning, execution, and performance were decided as evaluations of a year, and the public interest index was added according to the policy necessity of the higher authorities, so that the pareto optimum of public interest and profitability suitable for the local or institutional measurement was not achieved. It should be changed to a content evaluation model, so that it can evaluate public interest and become easy to introduce a scientific method that determines effectiveness according to policy compliance. In particular, the proportion of public interest and profitability can be presented and reflected in the evaluation depending on the purpose of the institution's establishment. Third, the lack of meta-evaluation and evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of the proper systematic evaluation model after evaluation in the public sector is the result of the horizontal comparative evaluation according to the short-term goal of Korea's annual performance evaluation. The validity of the purpose of the evaluation of local public enterprises, the suitability of the evaluation model, methods or indicators, and the effectiveness of the evaluation needs to be verified.

Fiscal Decentralization and Local Employment Growth: Empirical evidence from Kosovo's municipalities

The main objective of this research consists in assessing the impact of the level of local fiscal decentralization on local employment growth in municipalities of Kosovo. To achieve the goal of this study, several panel datasets have been constructed, which include all 38 municipalities in Kosovo and cover the period from 2012 to 2020. This study also uses several models to test the relationship between fiscal decentralization and employment growth; however, the Hausman Taylor IV estimator is the main estimation strategy. The findings of the paper recommend that local fiscal decentralization has positive effects on local economic growth especially in the level of employment regardless of the size
 of Kosovo municipalities.

Study on Local finance and government debt scale

Based on the scholar’s research on the influencing factors of local government debt, this paper argues that the local government financial resources, degree of decentralization and local government investment enthusiasm in local finance are the significant factors that influence the form of local government debt. This paper also chooses the panel data of China’s 31 provinces (cities) except Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan from 2010 to 2019, to analyze the influencing factors of local government debt scale and the relationship of local government debt scale in different regions and demonstrates the correctness of the hypothesis proposed in this paper. The analyze result shows that the local government financial resources significantly inhibit the growth of local government debt. The degree of local decentralization is an essential factor to enlarge the scale of local government debt. There is a significant positive correlation between the enthusiasm of local government investment and the scale of local government debt.

Local government in Ghana: Exploring the factors that predict public attitudes towards local government elections in Ghana

ABSTRACT Local government decentralization, as a policy option, has been on the political and developmental agenda of Ghana since 1957. At the heart of Ghana’s local government and decentralization policies are Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and Chief Executives (MMDCEs), currently appointed by the President. Since MMDCEs are appointed by the president, there are arguments about whether their allegiance lies with the president or their local constituents. In recent years, citizens’ demand for local government elections is commonplace in Ghana. The present study explores the factors that influence public support for local government elections in Ghana, specifically the election of MMDCEs. Analyzing national representative data (n = 2400), obtained from the Afrobarometer Round 7 survey about Ghana, several important revelations were made. The analysis revealed that the majority of respondents (73%) support local government elections in Ghana. Additionally, political party affiliation, rural-urban residency, region, and problems facing Ghana are strong predictors. Overall, the present study provides partial support for path dependency theory and the sequential theory of decentralization.

Public expenditure composition and fiscal decentralization in Brazilian local governments: an analysis through unconditional quantile regression with longitudinal data

Abstract This paper investigates the effect of increasing fiscal decentralization on the composition of public expenditures of Brazilian local governments. The research is innovative, demonstrating that the heterogeneity of expenditure scale influences the correlation between fiscal decentralization and public expenditure of local governments. The sample consisted of unbalanced panel data of 5,565 municipalities for 17 years from 2000 to 2016. The analysis used unconditional quantile regression with panel data. The main findings were: (i) fiscal decentralization affects public expenditure in Brazilian local governments. However, this effect depends on local expenditure scale and fiscal decentralization strategy. For example, the median coefficient was negative in personnel expenditures, and the effect was positive for the third quartile of local governments, when fiscal decentralization was measured by the tax revenue over total revenue. On the other hand, the effects were also positive for median and third quartile regarding intergovernmental transfers per capita like proxy of fiscal decentralization; (ii) the measures (proxies) of fiscal decentralization are correlated with the composition of public expenditure; (iii) in median terms, fiscal decentralization has greater effects on investment expenditures than on current and personnel expenditures; and (iv) in median terms, the tax revenue participation promotes an increase in administrative and planning expenditures instead of expenditures in social functions. Fiscal decentralization measured by intergovernmental transfer per capita has more positive effects on social functions than on legislative and administrative functions.

Fiscal decentralization in Russia and the world: trends and effects

The paper identifies the state of federal and local fiscal decentralization in Russia and its effects. Original classification of decentralization indicators by a consolidated parameter indicator and a single-level parameter indicator (fiscal autonomy) is proposed. The indicator of vertical imbalance is allocated to a separate group. Despite the upward trend of fiscal decentralization in the world, Russian federal fiscal decentralization (the size of fiscal powers of regional authorities) has not increased and lags most other federations. However, the state of local decentralization (the size of fiscal powers of local authorities) is much worse, since for 2008-2018 there was a significant reduction and local revenue decentralization is minimal compared to other federations. The results obtained may indicate that fiscal decentralization could not contribute to the efficiency of the Russian budgetary system. The decrease in local decentralization may have been caused by the growth of the regional debt, but the question of why there was a decrease remains open. Favorable role of significant local fiscal powers on business and alleged existence of a threshold in decentralization-macroindicators relationship are also confirmed.

LEADERSHIP APPROACH FOR DECENTRALIZATION AND ADMINISTRATIVE-TERRITORIAL REFORM

The article summarizes Canada’s experience in carrying out measures aimed at reforming the local government system by optimizing the administrative and territorial structure. The fundamental principles of preparation and implementation of the administrative-territorial structure reform are clarified. They consist in the use of positive and proactive leadership, transparency, openness, timely informing on changes and application of the practice of broad consultations in the activities of local self-government bodies. Ways to adapt foreign experience in organizing activities aimed at reforming the administrative-territorial structure in Ukraine are offered. Keywords: local self-government, leadership, decentralization, administrative and territorial reform.

The Typology of Public Perception on Local Decentralization

본 연구는 現 문재인 정부의 핵심 국정과제 중 하나인 지방분권정책 및 쟁점과 관련하여 실제 정책수혜자인 일반국민의 체감도, 관심도, 만족도 등의 인식을 유형화하고, 분석결과를 바탕으로 정책적 시사점을 도출하기 위한 연구이다. 이를 위해 주관적 인식유형을 파악하는 데 적합한 연구방법인 Q방법론과 PQMethod 통계 프로그램을 사용하였다. 분석결과, 총 3가지의 인식유형이 도출되었으며, 각 유형은 ‘적극적 지지형’, ‘방관형’, ‘중앙정부 선호형’으로 명명하였다. 요인 1(적극적 지지형)은 자치분권형 개헌의 필요성까지 강하게 인식하는 등 다른 요인에 비해 상당히 적극적으로 지방분권정책을 지지한 반면, 요인 2(방관형)는 도출된 세 요인들 중 가장 낮은 수준의 정책 관심도와 지지도를 보였다. 요인 3(중앙정부 선호형)은 지방분권정책의 당위성 및 필요성을 비교적 인정함과 동시에 정책 수행방식에 있어 중앙정부의 역할을 더 기대하였다. 해당 정책의 인식에 가장 큰 영향을 미치는 배경변수는 개인의 직업적 소속으로 밝혀졌으며, 이러한 연구결과는 정책의 초기 설계단계부터 정책수혜자의 다양한 인식을 반영하여 수요별 정책을 제공해야 할 필요성을 시사한다.

THE ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEM IN SOUTH ASIA: A CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN

Pakistan is a democratic country in the region of South Asia, but it has been deprived of political backdrop from its independence from the British Empire in 1947, notably in the field of local self-government. Pakistan's history demonstrates that inconsistency in civilian norms hampered the establishment of a robust democratic culture at all levels of government. The military has repeatedly swallowed the civil-military political romance. Each military commander instituted local self-government; General Ayyub instituted the Basic Democratic System in his dictatorship, and General Zia instituted local government as well; their primary goal was to legitimate their own authority and that of the military. However, the decentralisation changes in Pakistan may be traced back to the last military takeover led by General Musharraf in 1999. Under General Musharraf's leadership, recent decentralisation measures in Pakistan have been examined in this article. We emphasise the most important features of this reform and examine its growth in the context of history to better recognize the probable causes for the current decentralisation of power. In Pakistan, the history of local government reforms is particularly intriguing as, on request of a non-representative centre, each of the top three reform efforts has been executed using a "top-down" strategy for the reform process. It should be noted that each of these reforms is an add-on to the broader constitutional reengineering agenda that is designed to centralise the political authority of a non-representative centre further. In these cases, we would propose that the design of local government reforms is endogenous rather than exogenous for centralization purposes of the non-representative centre. Pakistan's analysis aims to provide understanding into the good economics of why non-representative governments were keen to promote local decentralisation, which has been dismay formerly

The place of small agricultural entrepreneurship in the development of amalgamated territorial communities

The place of small agricultural entrepreneurship in the development of amalgamated territorial communities

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE OF HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT AT THE LEVEL OF THE TERRITORIAL COMMUNITY

Today, domestic scientists are carefully studying the process of development of the newly created united territorial communities, analyzing their main problems and challenges. However, it would be appropriate to combine such analysis with best international practices, which should help to increase the efficiency of the decentralization process in Ukraine and increase its effectiveness by taking into account both the advantages and disadvantages of international experience of community development in the frameworks of decentralization. Thus, the main tasks of the article are: to study the process of development of territorial communities of the European Union, to identify long-term areas for implementing the best international practice in Ukraine and to develop recommendations for human capital development at the local community level in the frameworks of decentralization.
 Although the active process of decentralization began in Ukraine in 2014, our country is still in the process of reforming local self-government and decentralization of powers, which makes it especially important and relevant to study the experience of other countries. The issue of decentralization remains a key issue for the further formation of Ukraine's strategic development, however, the adoption of international models requires taking into account the specifics of the development of the state by itself. Since the current system of territorial community’s operation in Ukraine is not perfect and still at the initial stage of its development, studying the experience of foreign countries will allow us to draw some conclusions about the prospects for further local communities development in Ukraine and to identify key areas of effective operation of territorial communities in Ukraine.

Strategic Inefficient Decentralization: Local and Regional Devolution as Substitutes

Most contemporary decentralization has occurred at the local (district) rather than regional (provincial) level. Why? We advance a theory highlighting the political incentives of central authorities to bypass the regional tier of government in favor decentralizing to smaller, more fragmented units. Regional decentralization can better take advantage of economies of scale and scope in public service provision, but it also enables regional political opposition to scale more effectively. Central authorities may therefore have an incentive to forgo the welfare benefits of regional decentralization in favor of the imperfect substitute of local decentralization, which provides some of the same benefits at less risk. Drawing on cases from Africa and Latin America, we discuss when and how strategic local decentralization can be an effective strategy to maintain political control in divided societies and when it is likely to be ineffective.

Intraregional (Local) Fiscal Decentralization and Investment in Fixed Assets in Russia

The article shows that the effect of local fiscal decentralization on investment is characterized by an inverted U-shaped relationship. According to data for 2009–2016, the greatest incentives for private investment in the regions of Russia appeared with expenditure and revenue decentralization equal to 33–36%. However, the overall level of investment is higher precisely with revenue decentralization. The loss of private investment due to a lack of local authority could reach 6.5 thousand rubles/person.

Clinical trial enrollment at a rural satellite hospital during COVID-19 pandemic.

Controlled clinical trials (CCTs) have traditionally been limited to urban academic clinical centers. Implementation of CCTs in rural setting is challenged by lack of resources, the inexperience of patient care team members in CCT conductance and workflow interruption, and global inexperience with remote data monitoring. We report our experience during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in activating through remote monitoring a multicenter clinical trial (the Study of Efficacy and Safety of Canakinumab Treatment for cytokine release syndrome (CRS) in Participants with COVID-19-induced Pneumonia [CAN-COVID] trial, ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04362813) at a rural satellite hospital, the VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital (VCU-CMH) in South Hill, VA, that is part of the larger VCU Health network, with the lead institution being VCU Health Medical College of Virginia Hospital (VCU-MCV), Richmond, VA. We used the local resources at the facility and remote guidance and oversight from the VCU-MCV resources using a closed-loop communication network. Investigational pharmacy, pathology, and nursing were essential to operate the work in coordination with the lead institution. Fifty-one patients with COVID-19 were enrolled from May to August 2020, 35 (69%) at VCU-MCV, and 16 (31%) at VCU-CMH. Among the patients enrolled at VCU-CMH, 37.5% were female, 62.5% Black, and had a median age of 60 (interquartile range 56-68) years. Local decentralization of this trial in our experience gave rural patients access to a novel treatment and also accelerated enrollment and more diverse participants' representative of the target population.

Mechanism of Institutional Transition and Local Decentralization of Power through Civil-Wars and Internal-Conflicts: A Model and Comparative History

The conflict has taken place all over the world. This research investigates the factors. In addition, this research clarifies the turning point of institutional change by considering the mechanism of civil war through theory, its simulation, and case/empirical analysis. Also, when the support base of challengers during the civil war changes according to the ideology of the residents, the system reflects the ideology of the residents in terms of political economy. Although it is difficult to defeat the government by one power, if two or more political groups collaborate, we mainly consider the case where they have power over the government and consider what mechanism they should collaborate with two or more groups. what predictions themselves power after defeat the conflict after the alliance. When some political power decides whether they challenges the government, even if the power is weaker than the government, in the long run, it is expected that the challenger will defeat the civil war by the support of the residents of local and the third power. This paper provides that challenge to the ruler is the long-term optimal strategy for the challenger. Also, political instability has occurred in many countries, even if no the conflict takes place. One of the reasons for the political instability is the decentralization of power, but we will theoretically consider how decentralization of power occurs. This is due to the reduced ability of sanctions of the ruler against challengers and the lack of administration capability as economic side for the ruler. Our model introduces variables with political ideology and the administration capacity in economic side. we regards political ideology, there are regions with different utility functions by different ideology, because we think that people’s ideology are divided into the result equality egalitarian (socialist) ideology in rural area and opportunity equality egalitarian (capitalist) ideology in urban area. The important role of the government is to protect the property values of residents and to secure property rights and to provide public goods services. When the ruler fails to play an important role in the government, it will lose the support base of ruler and affect the outcome of the civil war. Consider a model in which the utility function of the residents includes the utility obtained from private goods and public goods, and the price level affects the value of private goods and public goods of people. It is assumed that the price level will be affected by weapons imports of the ruler and domestic debt balance influence in the conflict. Also, to secure supply, the support and military power of the domestic people and local powerful people are important factors for winning the civil war. We divide the elements of military power into military technology and domestic support and introduce the model that the rise of military technology leads to decentralization and domestic support to the challenger. When the government is judged that: (1) they have military technology but do not have domestic support, (2) few people support the political ideology of the ruling party, and (3) they cannot administer the government from the perspective of economic stability by people. It indicates that the relative position of the government will be weakened, decentralization will occur, or the ruler will change through the civil war. The decentralization of this study means that the challenger will continue to have a strong influence in the country after the civil war because the government cannot execute decisive sanctions despite the defeat of the challenger.

Assessment of the level of local budget financial decentralization: Case of Ukraine

Further improvement of financial relations at the local level and the development of local budgets take place in the context of financial decentralization. This implies strengthening the role of local governments in attracting necessary financial resources to ensure socio-economic development of territories. The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of decentralization on the state of local budgets and to develop a scientific and methodological approach to assessing the level of financial decentralization of local budgets using the example of Ukraine for 2010–2019. The developed methodology consists of six successive stages. A comparative analysis of the dynamics of indicators of local budget execution in Ukraine in terms of revenues, expenditures and transfers using an integrated index obtained through taxonomic analysis is conducted. As a result of evaluating the effectiveness of the basic principles of financial decentralization, the expediency of calculating the integrated index of local budget financial decentralization is substantiated. This index is formed using intermediate indicators of autonomy to cover expenses and generate income both on the basis of own sources and taking into account the received state transfers for the implementation of their own and delegated powers of local governments. The implementation of the proposed method allow one to assess the levels of financial decentralization of local budgets to establish the degree of financial autonomy and financial self-sufficiency of the territories. The results obtained should be considered when determining the effectiveness of financial support for local budgets in the process of socio-economic development of regions.