Local Public Affairs Research Articles

A Emergência da Família Chaple à Elite Liberal: Advogados e Mobilidade Socialna Cuba de Meados do Século XIX

As migrant families relocated to Cuba during the second half of the eighteenth century, new generations of creoles were born during the economic and demographic expansion of the island. Some of these Cubans, inspired on early liberal ideas, found the ways to amass a fortune, and started climbing the social ladder by procuring positions in the local bureaucracy. A legal degree, however, was essential to obtain a high ranked public office, and many new students of law enrolled at the University of Havana. As a result, the number of lawyers on the island multiplied and started occupying posts in the local judiciary and the administration, as well as the academia, to legitimize themselves in the Cuban society. This study thus uses the Chaple family to examine a case of social mobility in early nineteenth century Cuba tied to the increase of the number of legal professionals, and their multiple mechanisms to gain participation and control of the public sphere. As the family Chaple illustrates, legal professionals, with their growing connections, created a complex social, political, and familiar network that included many individuals who held key judicial and administrative positions on the island. These lawyers, who came from humble origins, transformed the colonial society by breaking traditional barriers to the legal education and practice. Consequently, creoles with law degrees, who increasingly participated in local public affairs, emerged as a first generation of Cuban liberal elites during the nineteenth century.

Local land taxes and social media adoption in local governments: evidence from the German state of Hesse

We link the literature on social media adoption among local governments to the literature on local public finance. We argue that the demand for social media adoption is higher the more citizens knowingly contribute to the local budget through local salient taxes. We test this hypothesis using panel data on municipalities in the German state of Hesse and their adoption of Facebook between 2009 and 2019. We show that social media adoption among local governments in Germany is driven by citizens’ demand for transparency, accountability and political participation. This demand increases the more citizens knowingly contribute to the local budget through salient local taxes. This article shows that exploring the link between issues of local public finance and political communication via social media can deepen our understanding of local public affairs.

Public Participation in Local Public Action in Croatia and Serbia

Participation of citizens in local public affairs is of critical importance for the quality of democracy at local level. The article makes a comparison between Croatia and Serbia regarding the use of instruments of participation in local public action. Two countries under comparison have some differences in spite of the fact that both of them were part of the former Yugoslavia. The authors show that developments in Croatia and Serbia are quite similar and rather low despite the formal differences between the two countries. The article addresses and explains the factors that support the main hypothesis of the paper and propose direction of change.

The Emergence of the Chaple Family as Liberal Elites: Lawyers and Social Mobility in Mid-Nineteenth Century Cuba

As migrant families relocated to Cuba during the second half of the eighteenth century, new generations of creoles were born during the economic and demographic expansion of the island. Some of these Cubans, inspired on early liberal ideas, found the ways to amass a fortune, and started climbing the social ladder by procuring positions in the local bureaucracy. A legal degree, however, was essential to obtain a high ranked public office, and many new students of law enrolled at the University of Havana. As a result, the number of lawyers on the island multiplied and started occupying posts in the local judiciary and the administration, as well as the academia, to legitimize themselves in the Cuban society. This study thus uses the Chaple family to examine a case of social mobility in early nineteenth century Cuba tied to the increase of the number of legal professionals, and their multiple mechanisms to gain participation and control of the public sphere. As the family Chaple illustrates, legal professionals, with their growing connections, created a complex social, political, and familiar network that included many individuals who held key judicial and administrative positions on the island. These lawyers, who came from humble origins, transformed the colonial society by breaking traditional barriers to the legal education and practice. Consequently, creoles with law degrees, who increasingly participated in local public affairs, emerged as a first generation of Cuban liberal elites during the nineteenth century.

COOPERATION BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE - A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MUNICIPALITIES OF PRISTINA REGION

Lately, the development of local government and community has taken new direction, especially in the countries of the Western Balkans, creating a partnership between these two parties. Local government is an important segment that has the legitimacy to organize local public affairs. Whereas community is regarded mainly as a social philosophy pertaining to the domain of communitarianism. More broadly, a community is a unit that includes the social networking, beliefs, values, norms and the social cohesion between its members, who are considered as social capital and are identified as part of the community. In Kosovo, the system of local government is one-tier type, central and local levels of government and municipalities are the basic unit of local government. Whereas the cooperation between the community and local government, although it is regulated by local self-government law, is still a needed practical implementation. It is important for the community to participate in public meetings, which are means used as local decision-making and policy-making mechanisms. The purpose of this study is a comparative analysis between the participation of the communities in the decision-making process in the municipalities of Pristina region (Pristina, Fushe Kosove, Obilic, Drenas and Gracanica) and the use of local decision-making mechanisms. The methodology uses analytical and comparative analysis, focusing on the communities in the Pristina region regarding their participation in public meetings. Additionally, the study analyses the empirical research conducted with the communities in the above-mentioned municipalities with a sample of 550 respondents. The results of this research show that the participation of the community in public meetings is low. About 50% of the study participants indicated that they do not attend public meetings for a number of reasons, such as the sense that their opinions and ideas were disregarded, the distance to the meetings, lack of timely information, and other influential factors. Keywords: Collaboration, community, local government, case, Pristina region.

Content and framing in radio news bulletins in urban and rural Hungary

This analysis provides a detailed snapshot of the radio news landscape in Hungary, a European-Union-member ‘illiberal state’ in mid-April 2018, a few weeks after the general election. In this study, we wished to quantitatively characterize radio news broadcasts. This is the first study that provides a detailed analysis of contemporary radio news output across all formats, target audiences, owners and regions in Hungary. The study uses several quantitative and geographic indicators that include objective elements such as news ecosystem diversity, local news production, news about local issues, sound bites, credited political press, news sections and more subjective news framing and a framing-based bias indicator. Our results show that the ideological diversity of radio news was far the highest in the Budapest region. MTVA, the state media provider had significantly more politically biased news than other stations. Local radios never criticized local public affairs. A few stations in Budapest did broadcast balanced, pro-opposition and critical news, but they were in minority over pro-government news items that dominated the rural media landscape with significantly less choice.

The formation of ‘gong-yi’ in modern China: A philological perspective

The Chinese term ‘ gong-yi’ (公益), which is usually translated as ‘philanthropy’ or ‘public interest’ in English, has long been regarded as a new modern concept which originated from Japan in the early 20th century. This study, however, finds that it appeared in China no later than the middle of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, its usage had three major meanings: economic benefits; national interests; and local public affairs. The ‘national interest’ meaning of the term was most likely introduced into Japan and was brought back into China in the late 19th century along with the new thinking of the Meiji Restoration. ‘ Gong-yi’, with its newly coined meaning, was used as an ideological term to express ideas about reformation in early 20th century China. It was in this capacity that the Chinese ‘ gong-yi’ was swiftly popularized and often referred to the reformation as national interest. At the same time, the denotation of ‘ gong-yi’ was sometimes ambiguous, wavering between ‘the nation’ and ‘the local’. It reflected the volatile conflict between the state and the local over legitimate control of ‘public’ resources in a transitional period. In my view, the question of to what extent this interlock between the emergence of modern ‘ gong-yi’ and the nation’s modern transition might have shaped the historical formation of Chinese citizenship yields insights for the investigation of the nature of Chinese philanthropy and its essence in the public spirit.

Leading small groups in China's inter-city governmental cooperation

PurposeOver the past several decades, there has been an increasing trend towards inter-city cooperation, which is an efficient policy option to deal with the challenges from globalization, regionalization and the externalities resulting from urban entrepreneurialism. Specific to China, the city governments, which mainly refer to prefecture-level and county-level governments, have also made many attempts to cooperate with respect to their local economic development and public affairs. Nevertheless, the results of these initiations to cooperate vary to a great extent. Based on a review of regional pollution governance in the Xiaoqing River area, tourism cooperation initiatives at Weishan Lake and transport integration between Jinan and Laiwu. The findings demonstrate that China's idiosyncratic institutional background has a significant impact on the shaping of inter-city cooperation. For the most part, leading small groups (LSGs) and their leadership property tend to determine the effectiveness of inter-city cooperation.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the effect of the LSGs, we categorize them into three types, groups with strong leadership, weak leadership and self-forming leadership. Through reviewing regional pollution governance in the Xiaoqing River area, tourism cooperation initiatives at Weishan Lake and transport integration between Jinan and Laiwu, we try to probe the role of leading groups in the settlement of cross-administrative border issues.FindingsBased on these three cases, the conclusion can be drawn that the leadership type of the LSG can exert an important influence on the efficiency of inter-city cooperation. If there is a leader with a higher administrative rank or authority, the cooperation can be quite efficient. Otherwise, the cooperative ending might be very negative. In terms of the operation principle, we can infer that even though the cities are always self-development oriented, the leader with higher authority or a strong coordinating capacity can convince and persuade the city leaders to overcome their self-centered behavior template and boost the cooperation to March on smoothly. Also, it means that the LSG is constrained by its personalistic characteristic. Key command derives from the person who chairs the LSG other than specific rules and norms. If the lead of the LSG leaves his position, the cooperation might just become paralyzed. From this point of view, the lack of legal basis remains to be the LSGs' significant deficiency and the future reform should attach more importance to the legalization of the LSGs so the operation of LSGs can be more standard and stable.Originality/valueMany scholars have proposed their own theoretical models to explain the reason some cities successfully and effectively form cooperative relations, while the other cities do not. However, their models do not consider the idiosyncratic context of China or, how and to which extent LSGs can promote cooperation. Therefore, this paper seeks to probe which path in the context of China cities usually follows in the formation of joint efforts, and what role LSGs play in enabling cities to cooperate.

Coproduction of community public service: evidence from china’s community foundations

With the resurgence of interest in community foundation (CF), questions arise around how do CFs produce and deliver community public services. Although the CF has a long history, the rapid development of CFs around world became the significant institutional change in local public affairs, the functions of CFs have received little attention in the literature. The existing literature about CFs usually be dichotomy: model or movement. This article presents a new theoretical framework, according to whether there are individual or collective coproduction and they participate top-down or bottom-up, to explain the function of China’s CFs. Coproduction advocates intensive engagement and collaboration of citizens in community public service delivery. And coproduction seems to play an important role in both instrumental and symbolic terms in the production and delivery of public goods or services by joining-up government, for-profit and non-profit organizations. The findings show how the CFs provide public services in China through the lens of coproduction that involves sharing information, resources, activities, risks and decision-making in a bid to achieve an agreed public outcome. In the new governance, many governments are moving away from agency-centric bureaucracy and towards citizen-centric mission to delivering public services.

Municipal and legal views of L. von Stein

Considering the essence of self-government, L. Stein believed that the easiest way to understand it is to trace the historical course of the development of the idea of self-government, the creation and strengthening of its organs. Self-government could not arise with absolutism, both monarchical and republican. It is possible only in the context of a constitutional order that ensures the freedom of development of self-governing local institutions. L. Stein's views closely adhered to the public theory of self-government. He was closer to her than R. Gneist. In particular, for him the state and the self-governing unions are social organisms. The state has the task of carrying out tasks of national importance, and on the bodies of self-government the implementation of local, special tasks, which, by virtue of their local importance, must be entrusted to the bodies of local self-government, as institutions close to the locality and directly interested in the implementation of local affairs. Recognizing the community as a social organism and the presence of special local public affairs, which are the competence of local governments, L. Stein pointed out that at the same time these special public affairs are also public affairs. He did not oppose the self-government bodies of governmental bodies, but acknowledged that both of them and others make one common state business, only the first local and the second general. L. Stein considered that local self-government is a participation in government, since it expresses the representation of only those local interests that are conditioned by land ownership, through which only at least mainly the interests associated with this can be combined. possession. But in self-government there are many interests that have nothing to do with land ownership and a large number of citizens who do not have such ownership, so they, on the basis of L. Stein's definition, should be excluded from local self-government. Thus, in defining local self-government as his main feature, L. Stein took not land or territorial district but land property. As for the structure of local self-government bodies, L. Stein believed that any public association that performs the tasks of government should be a permanent, organized and recognized government. His organization should be similar to the state, which achieves the unity of free government. Thus, L. Stein, distinguishing between the competences of state bodies and self-government bodies, did not oppose them to each other, but believed that local self-government bodies could even cope better with “assigned cases” than the state authorities themselves. He considered the main feature of local selfgovernment not land or territorial district, but land ownership. At the same time, the basis of the election, from his point of view, is not ownership, but belonging to well-known corporations and paying taxes.

An Exploratory Study on the Knowledge Gap in Public Affairs among Kenyans

The current exploratory survey examines the knowledge gap hypothesis in the context of Kenya (n=1,000). Using education as an indicator of socioeconomic status (SES), the study explores the overall knowledge on public affairs among people in Nairobi, Kenya's capital. Also, in line with the knowledge gap hypothesis, the study investigates whether Kenyans of high SES are more knowledgeable about public affair than those of low SES. Relatedly, the research examines the variance on public affairs knowledge when compared by gender and local public affairs vs. international topics. The findings confirm the knowledge gap theory hypothesis. When analysed by demographics, male Kenyans are more knowledgeable about public affairs (72%) than their female colleagues (64%). In terms of marital status, married Kenyans appear more knowledgeable, while Protestants and Roman Catholic members recorded higher scores in public affairs than other religious groupings. By topics, Kenyans are more highly conversant with local public affairs (75%) compared to international topics (56%).

Productividad menguada en tiempos de crisis: Producir?...más tarde si acaso puedo…!

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Source, Please?

It is axiomatic that a functional public sphere depends on quality information, and the traditional source of that information has been legacy news media, most particularly major metro newspapers. The ongoing contraction of legacy media has led to concerns for the public sphere. Some theorists have placed hope in citizen journalism, including a kind of citizen journalism that takes place on social news sharing sites, as potentially filling some gaps left by shrinking public affairs journalism. However, little research has been conducted to investigate what citizens use as sources of information in discussion on social news sites. In this case study, I conduct a content analysis of links posted in discussions of local public affairs on Seattle’s subreddit r/Seattle to see what information from Seattle’s information ecology discussants are citing and re-posting. Findings show that Seattle Reddit users rely far more on alternative media sources and non-mediated sources, especially government sources, than they do on legacy media, but legacy media is still important in setting the conversation agenda. But Reddit users do not reproduce professional standards of journalism, and establish a limited conversation agenda.

Service delivery and development at the grassroots: the evolution and contribution of community-based organisations in Nepal

Community-based organisations have been well positioned to deliver community services, undertake community development activities, and enhance community governance in Nepal. These aspects of their work are addressed in this article from an institutional perspective focusing on their evolution and contribution to local public affairs. The evidence is that many are committed to being agents of change within their communities, with institutional norms, rules and values developed accordingly. But many are constrained in what they can do by socio-economic power structures and severe resource limitations, which have significant consequences for their work and achievements.

Prevailing tendencies in local self-governance: Scope of local public affairs and territorial trends in Europe

Focusing on the content of local autonomy, congruent trends could be identified in European countries. Fundamental values of local self-governance prevailing in Europe are included in the European Charter of Local Self-Government. Having regard to the constitutional principle of separation of powers, Charter takes into consideration local self-governments as part of the executive power. Even though the basic principles specify the political and institutional framework of territorial and local administration, the intergovernmental relations also show changing nature. The public administration systems of the Member States of the European Union do not fall within the scope of the EU law, nevertheless, should be analyzed to what extent these processes are in#uenced by Europeanization progress and what other factors may occur. Remarkable territorial and competence-theory changes were implemented in some States recently, like the Big Society concept in the United Kingdom and the territorial reforms in France.

MARKS REGARDING LOCAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE ROLE OF ITS MANAGEMENT

Intrinsic ring of administrative system, the local public administration uses managerial actions and practices in local public affairs governance to respond to the needs of local community members. To accomplish its mission, the local public administration needs a managerial component. To reflect the management role for the organization and the functioning of local government and especially for the achievement of its purpose, this article intends to examine the contents of local public administration and its management. The conducted study reveals the need for management in the local administration process which legitimizes it and gives it substance. This need is justified by the fact that the management in local public administration brings together all the managerial actions, practices and procedures carried out at the level of local government, through which the laws are executed and the local public services are provided, in order to meet the local community needs at the highest possible grade.

Gated community and residential segregation in urban China

Research on gated community in Chinese cities has been growing very fast, but empirical studies are limited, especially those on the relationship between gated community and residential segregation. A retrospective questionnaire survey was conducted in three gated communities in Chongqing, China. The findings from the survey include that, after moving into the gated communities, many homeowners’ contact with other people decreases. It is also found that homeowners’ participation in local public affairs decreases. These results hold even when we compare with the reference group and control for duration of stay. They support the view that gated community aggravates residential segregation. However, the survey shows that many homeowners feel the income differences among the neighbors increase and the changes of several types of external activities don’t show a consistent pattern. All these empirical findings suggest that a complex relationship between gated community and residential segregation exists in urban China and the removal of work unit from the housing system affects people’s experience in gated community.

ADMINISTRATION AND CONTROL-EVALUATION IN THE FUNCTIONING OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

In all its work, the local government aims to satisfy the interests of the local community. That purpose cannot be achieved without exercising the administrative functions and control-assessment in the local government. To reflect the importance of these two functions for the proper functioning of local government, this article proposes to review their contents. The investigations show that by exercising the administration function is made a rational management of resources - human, material, financial and information - that enables efficient pre-defined targets to meet local interests. In addition, the targets are expected to be executed by the intervention of the control-evaluation function. Achieving the ultimate goal of local government – satisfying the local public interest is linked to the exercise of control and evaluation function and its role in sensing shortcomings and their elimination for the good management of local public affairs. Scutariu, P. (2015). ADMINISTRATION AND CONTROL-EVALUATION IN THE FUNCTIONING OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT. European Journal of Law and Public Administration, Year2015, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 57-64. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18662/eljpa.2015.0201.07

Local Government Management

This special issue of ARPA seeks to fill a void in the public administration literature by bringing to the forefront analyses of local government and metropolitan challenges from the perspective of public administrationists: Those who manage cities and counties, and those who both teach and study local government management. The public administration perspective on local government and metropolitan governance has traditionally been grounded in jurisdictions—cities, counties, school and special districts. Today, however, there is often a disjuncture between problems to be solved and jurisdictional boundaries. Accordingly, local governments have changed, and continue to change in response to boundary-crossing challenges as Wheeland, Paulus and Wood evaluate, and new patterns of metropolitan governance are emerging, as Leland and Thurmeier analyze. According to Agranoff, these patterns of change are both horizontal, between and among connected units of local government and vertical, among local governments, states, and the national government. Civic engagement in local public affairs is growing in creative new ways as citizens seek to participate, a topic probed by Nabatchi and Amsler. In the same way that all politics is local, all policy is also local and none is more important than the need to balance the risk of disaster with the need for preparedness, as Donahue, Eckel, and Wilson explore. Together these articles are a timely treatment of compelling challenges facing governments and governance nearest at hand: Our cities, counties, districts and metropolitan areas.

Gated Community and Housing Segregation: Empirical Evidence from Chongqing, China

Researches on the gated community in Chinese cities have been growing very fast, but empirical studies are limited, especially those on the relationship between gated community and housing segregation. Three micro-districts in Chongqing are selected for the questionnaire survey. Retrospective questions are included to obtain information about the homeowners’ condition before moving into the gated communities, and then by comparing it with their current situation we can estimate the impact of the gated community on housing segregation. The survey found that, after moving into the gated communities, many homeowners’ familiarity with the neighbors and their contact with other people decreases. It is also found that homeowners’ participation in local public affairs decreases. This supports the view that gated community aggravates housing segregation. However, the survey also found that many homeowners feel the income differences among the neighbors increase and the changes of several types of their external activities don’t show a consistent pattern. All these evidence suggests a complex relationship between gated community and housing segregation in Chinese cities and the removal of danwei from the housing system affects people’s experience in the gated community.