Local Government Jurisdictions Research Articles

Playing the policy game: a review of the barriers to and enablers of nutrition policy change.

To progress nutrition policy change and develop more effective advocates, it is useful to consider real-world factors and practical experiences of past advocacy efforts to determine the key barriers to and enablers of nutrition policy change. The present review aimed to identify and synthesize the enablers of and barriers to public policy change within the field of nutrition. Electronic databases were searched systematically for studies examining policy making in public health nutrition. An interpretive synthesis was undertaken. International, national, state and local government jurisdictions within high-income, democratic countries. Sixty-three studies were selected for inclusion. Numerous themes were identified explaining the barriers to and enablers of policy change, all of which fell under the overarching category of 'political will', underpinned by a second major category, 'public will'. Sub-themes, including pressure from industry, neoliberal ideology, use of emotions and values, and being visible, were prevalent in describing links between public will, political will and policy change. The frustration around lack of public policy change in nutrition frequently stems from a belief that policy making is a rational process in which evidence is used to assess the relative costs and benefits of options. The findings from the present review confirm that evidence is only one component of influencing policy change. For policy change to occur there needs to be the political will, and often the public will, for the proposed policy problem and solution. The review presents a suite of enablers which can assist health professionals to influence political and public will in future advocacy efforts.

The English System: Quarantine, Immigration and the Making of a Port Sanitary Zone by Krista Maglen (review)

Reviewed by: The English System: Quarantine, Immigration and the Making of a Port Sanitary Zone by Krista Maglen Graham Mooney Krista Maglen. The English System: Quarantine, Immigration and the Making of a Port Sanitary Zone. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014. x + 240 pp. £65.00 (978-0-7190-8965-7). In The English System, Krista Maglen seeks to provide the first full account of how quarantine and port sanitation developed in England in the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Refined during a period punctuated by significant international sanitary conferences and the accelerated global movement of people and goods, Maglen challenges the notion that port quarantine was an inflexible policy of exclusion; rather, in the English case, it was a relatively fine-tuned tool of public health that accommodated the demands of commerce, mass migration, liberalism, and medical theories about disease causation. According to Maglen, 1892 was a pivotal test of British quarantine. That year, the cholera pandemic posed a drastic test to a system that had become virtually obsolete in Britain, which had sought to integrate port activities with agrarian markets, urban-industrial production, colonial territories, and foreign trade. Maglen shows how, for most of the later nineteenth century, vessels entering ports were excluded on the basis of disease categorization (commonly yellow fever, plague, and cholera, but not smallpox), an approach derived mainly as a response to geopolitical maneuvering at the International Sanitary Conferences and designed to minimize the disruption of trade. The creation of Port Sanitary Authorities in 1872 enshrined the “English System” in law, whereby port regulations were allied closely to public health interventions that were available to other local government jurisdictions. The conformity between British port authorities and their inland counterparts enables Maglen to deploy the concept of “sanitary zones,” or “in-between spaces” into which “the control exerted over the homes and bodies of the poor in Britain’s towns and cities” (p. 36) was extended to ports and ships. Rather than the arcane practices of blanket exclusion witnessed elsewhere along the coastlines of Europe, this “control” was exercised through activities involving the isolation of patients and disinfection of vessels. It also incorporated the collection [End Page 167] and sharing of information about the progress of epidemics, the whereabouts of ailing bodies, and the observation of potentially diseased passengers. Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the book is the way in which Maglen turns westward to interpret the transatlantic dialectic between American and British quarantine-cum-immigration policies. The former’s strict approach to the putative immigrant-as-disease-carrier, as exemplified by the 1891 Immigration Act, did not have noticeably significant public health repercussions; the number of migrants returned to British soil on health grounds were miniscule. Rather, for some British politicians, the American approach to quarantine underlined the inadequacies of British immigration policy and the regulation of incoming aliens more generally; as a result, the “sanitary zone” became a space over which arguments about of immigration control in the early twentieth century were articulated. Health considerations were part of—though by no means all of—the revised immigration regulations introduced by the Aliens Act of 1905. However, it was the structure and personnel of Port Sanitary Authorities that assumed the duties under the Act’s processes of medical inspection, but the new responsibilities were almost identical to those under the old system. Although The English System provides an important corrective to the historical perception of quarantine as a draconian and unbending approach to disease control, there remained some nagging questions for this reviewer. First, the main components of the British style of quarantine—disease reporting, hospital isolation, disinfection—are not themselves subjected to any detailed scrutiny. These each have their own complicated history of partial uptake and contested development in towns and cities that was taking place at exactly the same time they were being adopted in port sanitary zones. Because The English System’s main focus is on London, the reader is left wondering if the patchwork of variable disease control practices across Britain was not reflected in port cities too; what factors might have driven such variability; and what efforts were made at standardization. Second...

Using political science to progress public health nutrition: a systematic review.

Poor dietary intake is the most important behavioural risk factor affecting health globally. Despite this, there has been little investment in public health nutrition policy actions. Policy process theories from the field of political science can aid understanding why policy decisions have occurred and identify how to influence ongoing or future initiatives. The present review aims to examine public health nutrition policy literature and identify whether a policy process theory has been used to analyse the process. Electronic databases were searched systematically for studies examining policy making in public health nutrition in high-income, democratic countries. International, national, state and local government jurisdictions within high-income, democratic countries. Individuals and organisations involved in the nutrition policy-making process. Sixty-three studies met the eligibility criteria, most were conducted in the USA and a majority focused on obesity. The analysis demonstrates an accelerating trend in the number of nutrition policy papers published annually and an increase in the diversity of nutrition topics examined. The use of policy process theory was observed from 2003; however, it was utilised by only 14 % of the reviewed papers. There is limited research into the nutrition policy process in high-income countries. While there has been a small increase in the use of policy process theory from 2003, an opportunity to expand its use is evident. We suggest that nutrition policy making would benefit from a pragmatic approach that ensures those trying to influence or understand the policy-making process are equipped with basic knowledge around these theories.

Consumer Purchasing Behavior for Tomatoes

ABSTRACTTomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is an important vegetable worldwide. Consumer preferences and tastes are key factors affecting purchasing decisions. The study examined urban consumer purchasing behavior for tomatoes. Data from 150 respondents in four randomly selected local government jurisdictions in an urban area were examined using descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Most (73.3%) respondents were female and married (66%); 53.3% of respondents were 41–60 years of age, with a mean age of 45. Almost all respondents (91.3%) preferred fresh tomato; others preferred tomato paste (7.4%), and 1.3% preferred dried tomatoes. Most respondents (70.7%) emphasized fruit freshness. Large-sized tomatoes (56%) and cv. UC82B (62%) were preferred. About 55% of respondents purchased fresh tomatoes twice a week in the peak season and 48% in the off-season. Regression indicated that the amount spent on fresh tomatoes was influenced by tomato size and amount spent on sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L). Improved storage and handling techniques during production and postharvest activities would likely improve fresh tomato availability. Availability of fresh tomatoes affects purchasing behavior; that is, they are purchased when available, even in lean periods of the year.

In the name of bringing services closer to the people? Explaining the creation of new local government districts in Uganda

Many governments in Africa and elsewhere in Asia and Latin America have created new local government (LG) jurisdictions as part of their decentralization policies. However, most decentralization studies have focused on fiscal, political and administrative assignments between levels of government. Much less attention has been given to the number and size of LG jurisdictions. Often, these are considered to be an accident of history, but the reality is not so. This article pursues five propositions concerning the rationale for creating LG jurisdictions and examines their relevance in the Uganda context. The article concludes that creation of LG jurisdictions in Uganda neither conforms to the policy objective of bringing services closer to the people nor to promoting participatory democratic governance. Instead, the practice conforms to central government gerrymandering tactics of forging an electoral alliance with small jurisdictions and to extend neo-patrimonial networks to win votes in order to stay in power.Points for practitionersDonors and development practitioners have often expressed their frustrations on decentralization policies and outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) because they have analysed the policy based on what governments say their intentions are. Until they understand the political economy of decentralization in Africa they will always be bewildered not only by the mismatch between policy objectives and outcomes but also by many unspoken rationales for implementing decentralization reforms. Decentralization can be a facade behind which quite different practices take place. In many countries in SSA, it is a narrowly political process that ruling governments pursue for their own benefit (or accept to pursue when pushed by donors where it hurts them least) and not for the nicely written policy statements of improving services.

Measuring capacity to perform across local government services – managers' perceptions

Purpose– This study aims at developing a measure that can be used to evaluate organizational capacity to perform across local government jurisdictions, using operational managers' own assessments.Design/methodology/approach– The “management matters” literature that links organizational capacity to service performance is far from reaching any consensus on how to operationalize organizational capacity. In this study, over 400 operational managers were asked, at two different time points and in thirty different local government departments, about what opportunities they have to fulfill their responsibilities and about their perceptions of service performance. The data are factor analyzed, and the proportion of higher level variance of the resulting capacity measure is explored.Findings– Organizational capacity to perform represents a consistent measure that covers essential aspects of the managerial assignment and is empirically distinct, yet positively related to the managers' perceptions of service performance. Results further show that up to 12 percent of the variance in organizational capacity to perform can be attributed to the organization in which managers work.Practical implications– A service-neutral measure of organizational capacity to perform should be useful to strategic managers in organizations as guidance for resource allocation, and for the design of solid organizational structures and support systems for operational managers.Originality/value– Recent public management research indicates that rationalistic management models are often inadequately grounded in the day-to-day practices of operative managerial work. The construct of organizational capacity to perform presented in this study could be a valuable instrument that can bridge this strategic-operational disconnect and provide an insider perspective of the organizational prerequisites that underpin any public service achievement.

Highway urbanization and Land conflicts: the challenges to decentralization in India

Much of the urban growth in developing countries is taking place along infrastructure corridors that connect cities. the villages along these corridors are frenzied and contested sites for the consolidation and conversion of agricultural lands for urban uses. the scale of changes along these corridors is larger than the political jurisdiction of local governments, and new regional institutions are emerging to manage land consolidations at this corridor scale. this article compares two inter-urban highways in India and the hybrid regional institutions that manage them: the BangaloreMysore corridor, regulated by parastatals, and the Pune-nashik corridor, by cooperatives. It traces the emergence of parastatals and cooperatives to the turn of the twentieth century, the ways in which these old institutions are being reworked to respond to the contemporary challenges of highway urbanization, and the winners and losers under these new institutional arrangements. I use the term “negotiated decentralization” to more accurately capture the back-and-forth negotiations between local, regional and state-level actors that leads to context-specific regional institutions like the parastatals and cooperatives.

Duncan Selbie: the new face of public health in England

Duncan Selbie: the new face of public health in England

Autonomy versus Oversight in Local Government Reform: The Implications of ‘Home Rule’ for Australian Local Government

This paper examines Australian local government in terms of local council autonomy as set against the oversight exercised by state governments. In particular, we investigate ‘home rule' in the United States and its potential relevance to the Australian milieu. We argue that prima facie the operation of home rule is problematic due to its litigious nature, and that while the implementation of home rule might be possible in an Australian local government jurisdiction, it is improbable. However, consideration of home rule as a principle by which state–local government relationships might be organised sheds light on the limits to the autonomy and independence of Australian local governments.

Crowding Out Public Service Motivation? Comparing Theoretical Expectations with Empirical Findings on the Influence of Performance-Related Pay

This article draws on a sample of city managers, assistant city managers, and department heads in U.S. local government jurisdictions to examine whether theoretical assertions about the relationships between performance-related pay, public service motivation, and employee job satisfaction hold empirical merit. Contrary to theoretical expectations, findings from an ordered logistic regression and a series of Monte Carlo simulations suggest performance-related pay is associated with greater job satisfaction, especially among employees who possess stronger public service motives. Results also suggest variable pay may be particularly important to employees who have lower levels of public service motivation.

Harnessing Private Funds to Alleviate the Australian Local Government Infrastructure Backlog

A series of national and state public inquiries into the financial sustainability of local government have demonstrated that all Australian local government jurisdictions face a daunting local infrastructure maintenance and renewal backlog. Various solutions to the problem have been advanced in the literature, including the establishment of an Australian municipal bond market to facilitate the use of private sector finance to fund the remediation of the infrastructure shortfall (Byrnes et al., 2008). However, despite the conceptual attraction of this particular policy proposal, as a majority of Australian local authorities are small, with limited administrative and technical capacity, they would have great difficulty in securing access to a municipal bond market. In this paper, we consider municipal banks and bond banks as alternative institutional solutions to the Australian local government infrastructure backlog.

A Typology of Shared Service Provision in Australian Local Government

Disappointment with the results of forced amalgamation programs across almost all Australian local government jurisdictions has created great interest in shared service models as an alternative method of improving the operational efficiency of local councils, while at the same time preserving local democracy and local autonomy. While an embryonic literature on shared service provision in the Australian municipal milieu does exist, much remains to be done. This paper seeks to contribute to this nascent literature in two main ways: (a) to locate shared services in local government within broader global trends and theoretical disputations on devolution and local economic development, highlighting the importance of political geography in these debates; and (b) in the light of this complexity and ambiguity, develop a new typology of local government shared service provision to inform public policy making on real-world problems in Australian local government.

The Implications of the Lyons Report into Local Government in England for Structural Reform in Australian Local Government

The Lyons Inquiry into English local government presented its Final Report in 2007. It has significant implications for local government jurisdictions beyond England. This article considers the import of the Lyons Inquiry for reform to Australian local government. It is argued that the Lyons Inquiry adds weight to other work that questions the traditional reliance on amalgamation as the chief instrument of Australian local government reform. In particular, the “place-shaping” thesis developed in the Lyons Inquiry shows that the Australian emphasis on structural reform has been misdirected. Further, the Lyons Report offers a range of policy options besides municipal amalgamation.

Toward Evaluating the Effectiveness of Regional Partnerships for Economic Development in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

During the past few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of regional partnerships in the United States to enhance economic development across local government jurisdictions. This trend has been mirrored by an increase in regional organizations in Europe, Asia and South America to enhance economic development, usually across national boundaries. While the literature has examined the formation, structure and activities of regional partnerships for economic development in the United States, this is the first study that attempts to measure their effectiveness across a large number of geographical areas using quantitative methods. The findings provide some evidence of their effectiveness in that there is a positive and significant relationship between regional partnerships and employment; the relationship between regional partnerships and income is positive but insignificant. This study may be informative in the further study of regional economic development organizations in other countries as well as regional partnerships and organizations in other policy arenas.

Forecasting Housing Prices under Different Market Segmentation Assumptions

Three types of market segmentation strategies are available to estimate hedonic housing price models—i.e. no segmentation, segmentation by using statistical clustering methods and segmentation by using a priori information. This research tests the hypothesis of Tiebout theory that individual residential decision-making is determined by equilibrium provision of local public goods in accord with the tastes and preferences of residents, thereby sorting their housing locations into optimal sub-markets. Forecasting accuracies of eight sub-market segmentation strategies and two forecast-combining methods are examined by using housing sales data from Knox County, Tennessee, USA. The results provide empirical support for Tiebout theory of optimal housing sub-market location in that boundaries drawn using a priori information from local government jurisdictions, school districts and expert opinions are more closely aligned with the equilibrium provision of local public goods than boundaries drawn by statistical clustering methods. The advantage of forecast-combining is also demonstrated.

Connecting The Course

In January 2002 President George W. Bush signed into law "An Act to close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind."1 This "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law expanded federal jurisdiction of elementary and secondary schooling in the United States, which, from the founding of this country until the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, had been under the sole jurisdiction of state and local governments. NCLB also mandated the states to set standards for students from kindergarten through twelfth grade and to develop standardized assessments of student learning in mathematics, English, and science. The law required improvements in schools where the majority of students were failing, and it also required states to provide for student transfers from schools with failing records to schools where students were meeting statewide assessment standards.

Dealing with nitrogen in subtropical Australia: Seven case studies in the diffusion of ecotechnological innovation

This paper describes seven case studies in which ecotechnological approaches are being used to reduce the discharge of nitrogen to the environment in three local government jurisdictions in the moist subtropical zone of eastern Australia. Both technical performance and factors relating to acceptance of the technologies are examined. Three of the technologies have survived early setbacks to achieve increasing acceptance. Composting toilets and reed beds (sub-surface flow wetlands) have achieved takeoff in the on-site wastewater context in the Lismore City Council area where the level of adoption (based on 2004–2005 figures) for both technologies was approximately 30% of newly approved systems. In both cases, the level of adoption has been favoured by local scientific studies which have confirmed claims regarding technical performance and by regulations which encourage the reduction of nitrogen discharge to the environment. Free water surface (FWS) wetlands are installed as polishing devices at three of the 10 sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Lismore and the adjoining Byron and Richmond River Shires. Early problems arising from inexperience at design, construction and management of these wetlands have been overcome as local familiarity has increased. This confidence has been a factor in the decision to support a major upgrade to the West Byron constructed wetland system and to install a further three wetlands locally. A further two technologies each have one full-scale system in operation. A 24 ha multipurpose wetland regeneration project for effluent polishing and transpiration, acid sulfate soil management, wetland regeneration, and carbon sequestration, recently installed at the end of the West Byron STP treatment train, is reducing total nitrogen concentrations from approximately 4–1 mg/L. A landfill leachate treatment system incorporating pond, macrophyte zones, horizontal flow gravel filter and single pass sand filter is reducing NH 4-N and TKN concentrations by 95% and 84%, respectively. The final two technologies described are associated with the reuse and/or treatment of municipal wastewaters. The annual crops hemp and kenaf have both exhibited high N uptake rates in irrigated crop trials. However, their short growing season has resulted in rejection as production crops at one STP in the Byron Shire. The recent realization that the perennial pasture grass Setaria sphacelata can perform the role of wetland macrophyte has given rise to the concept of the “wet-and-dry-land” cell. Still at the pilot stage, this ecotechnology may have application in areas with distinct wet and dry seasons.

Faces and Phases of Transparency Reform in Local Government

The authors draw on public and official perceptions to discuss the discontinuities between various interpretations of transparency in local government jurisdictions. The article seeks to establish a theoretical understanding of transparency in public administration literature. Transparency in the formative years of a nation is not necessarily the same idea as transparency in a globalizing information age. Likewise, the meaning of transparency in least developed countries is changing with their acquisition of sophisticated information technologies and pressures to reduce corruption. Scholarship on transparency needs to recognize the different changes in meaning ascribed to this very important administrative principle. Evidently, universal lessons might be brought to bear to help develop a coherent theoretical basis on stages and interpretations of transparency reforms in local governments.

Local institutional and political structures and processes: recent experience in Africa

AbstractDemocratic decentralisation is a stated goal of many African countries, but there are considerable institutional and political challenges involved in making it a reality. Even where official government decentralisation programmes are underway, many central agencies may be reluctant or unwilling to share significant powers with local governments. Overcoming local elite capture and generating genuine local participation can also be extremely difficult. This article reviews basic institutional and political mechanisms intended to facilitate effective decentralisation and intergovernmental fiscal relations, including legal, constitutional, fiscal and managerial reforms. It also explores the challenges of developing institutional mechanisms for hierarchical control and internal accountability which are potentially subject to considerable abuse. Particular attention is given to the development of external accountability through local elections, appropriately defined local government structures and operations, appropriately sized local government jurisdictions and various direct voice mechanisms that have been used to various degrees in Africa. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Community Policing and Job Satisfaction: Suggestive Evidence of Positive Workforce Effects from a Multijurisdictional Comparison in Washington State

The effects of the implementation of community oriented policing (COP) on police personnel job satisfaction remain a subject of considerable controversy. Although the dramatic changes associated with COP programs and the implementation of practices reflecting a COP philosophy commonly introduce uncertainty and insecurity in police agencies, a number of single-jurisdiction case studies of COP adoption have reported positive effects on police employee job satisfaction among officers engaged in COP activities. Using survey and archival data on job satisfaction among a cross-section of local government employees from 12 local government jurisdictions, this study finds evidence of positive effects on the mean job satisfaction levels for police officers attributable to the implementation of COP. It was found that: (a) police personnel in high COP implementation agencies report higher job satisfaction than police personnel in other agencies, and (b) the ubiquitous job satisfaction gap between police and nonpolice personnel in local governments is closed by the systematic adoption of COP.