Local Reform Research Articles

Challenges of the Harmonization and Ratification of Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities by Japan

AbstractThere are 130 ratifications by national governments around the world of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), adopted by the United Nations in December 2006. However, Japan has yet to ratify the CRPD. The author examined the social, political, and legal context in Japan, affecting the ratification of the CRPD and contrasted the approach taken by Japan with those of other countries that have ratified the CRPD and then embarked on local reforms. The author notes that in Japan, the disability rights movement has insisted that significant policy changes be undertaken before the government ratifies the CRPD. Consequently, in 2010, the Japanese government prepared a roadmap for ratification of the CRPD, which consisted of (1) a fundamental revision undertaken in 2011 of the Basic Law for Persons with Disabilities, including the fundamental principles of community living, prohibition of disability discrimination, and international partnerships; (2) a revision of services legislation in 2012; and (3) proposed for 2013, an establishment of an independent law to prohibit disability discrimination. Other areas of legislation and policy that underwent review include the education of children with disabilities, the prevention of abuse of persons with disabilities, and support to carers and the political rights of persons under adult guardianship. The author notes that there are a number of challenges ahead for the implementation of the CRPD and consequently the promotion of community living. However, it is posited that the comprehensive legislative and policy reform undertaken by the government of Japan, prior to ratification of the CRPD, will lay important foundations to enable Japan to fully comply with and take a leadership role in the implantation of the CRPD.

KSZTAŁTOWANIE WARUNKÓW WSPÓŁPRACY W OPARCIU O MODEL TRIPLE HELIX NA PRZYKŁADZIE METROPOLII BIAŁOSTOCKIEJ

Urban innovation is a key problem on the way to the development of local communities and their prosperity. The principle of triple helix is used to implement local reforms. The proper functioning of cities requires the cooperation of all beneficiaries. Hence, proper coordination and the awareness of the roles performed in the process, is of vital importance. Local governments have the greatest opportunity to coordinate activities and policies which take into account the needs and resources of all three groups: business, administration and science. The use of power allows for long-term policies that contribute to the increase in innovation and the improvement of the region's economic situation. This paper presents the practical use of the triple helix principle. It is the case study of Bialystok - the metropolis, whose development is based on the achievements of science and which supports entrepreneurship, for the benefit of all stakeholders.

New Local Self-Government Reform in Russia: A Step to Decentralization or Consolidation of Vertical Authority?

Since 2006 in most of Federation subjects local government has been acting on the basis of new principles of territory organisation and financial and economic governance. The key objective of the paper is to analyze the accordance of declared and real objectives of the municipal reform: whether it has provided real economic independence of local government and its protection from voluntarism decisions taken at the level of Federation subjects. Basing on the comparative analyze of fiscal decentralization indicators the author make conclusions on how these officially declared aims have been realised and formulated main results of the reform. Formally the significant financial stabilization of local self-government has been observed. But real economic and financial autonomy of municipalities has been constrained sharply. For examples, the list of local taxes has been shortened, now having only personal assets tax and land tax. Thus, on the one hand forming of territorial organisation of local government on settlement principle leads to having a big number of small, low-integrated municipalities. On the other hand, as a rule, the policy of Federation subjects is aimed at preserving economic and political dependence of local government. In this situation, in short-term period, the activities of local authorities should be aimed at the overcoming of negative consequences connected with the forming of huge numbers of small and financially dependant settlements. One of the solutions of this problem could be activation of integration and intermunicipal cooperation. But in the long-term period, the sustainable political and economic development of Russian municipalities will be provided only on the base of the true economic autonomy and real political independence.

Party Strategies and Administrative-Territorial Reforms in Poland

How well do electoral competition, ideological divides and territory-based cleavages explain the strategies of administrative-territorial reform chosen by political parties in Poland? The role of these logics is explored in the creation of regions and regional self-governments (1999), local electoral reform (2002), rules of adopting regional development projects (2006) and the creation of metropolitan regions (2008). The paper provides evidence supporting the significance of vote- and office-seeking strategies, the rise of a national conservative opposition to decentralisation associated with the weakening of the post-communist divide, and parties representing distinct eastern and western constituencies. Since its creation, subnational government has become more dominated by state-wide parties and has stabilised the emerging bloc party system on the central level.

Steepest ascent tariff reform

The policy reform literature is primarily concerned with the construction of reforms that yield welfare gains. By contrast, this paper’s contribution is to develop a theoretical concept for which the focus is upon the sizes of welfare gains accruing from policy reforms rather than upon their signs. In undertaking this task, and by focusing on tariff reforms, we introduce the concept of a steepest ascent policy reform, which is a locally optimal reform in the sense that it achieves the highest marginal gain in utility of any feasible local reform. We argue that this reform presents itself as a natural benchmark for the evaluation of the welfare effectiveness of other popular tariff reforms such as the proportional tariff reduction and the concertina rules, since it provides the maximal welfare gain of all possible local reforms. We derive properties of the steepest ascent tariff reform, construct an index to measure the relative welfare effectiveness of any given tariff reform, determine conditions under which proportional and concertina reforms are locally optimal and provide illustrative examples.

Only the Party Manages Cadres: limits of Local People's Congress supervision and reform in China

This article joins the debate on the increasingly consultative nature of Chinese politics by adding the role of the Local People's Congress (LPC). In contrast to previous research on LPCs that emphasizes their increasing importance and improved capacity, this article shows that the central Party leadership, in order to uphold its monopoly of the cadre management system, has reduced LPC standing committees' (LPCSC) influence over cadres. The article analyses the consequences of the People's Congress Standing Committee Supervision Law passed in 2006 and the policy of appointing the first Party secretary as LPCSC chairperson. A case study of the changes over a ten-year period (1998–2009) in a county People's Congress (PC) in Zhejiang illustrates how the change in leadership and the implementation of the Supervision Law effectively stopped previously initiated reforms to strengthen the LPC and crippled the LPCSCs' capacity to supervise government cadres. The article concludes that the policies adopted in order to strengthen Party control over LPCSCs have resulted in a decrease of horizontal accountability and confirm the image of an emerging consultative authoritarian political system.

What Happened in the Early Years of Democracy: Indonesia’s Experience

We discuss Indonesia’s experience in the aftermath of deep economic and political crisis in 1998 that marked an abrupt transition from authoritarian to democratic regime and provided a critical junction for political reform. Among various and oftentimes interlinked issues of reform, we focus on the impact of introduction and adoption of modern democratic elections to political Islam, especially at national level. To illustrate political development at sub-national level following decentralization, we look at the proliferation of district splits and briefly discuss how local political reform made political institutions less insular to popular voters. In doing so, we illustrate political configuration that preceded the 1998 crisis as a backdrop on the importance of political Islam and decentralization in the post-crisis era. We argue that one of the important features of the consolidation of democracy in Indonesia is that both old and political power holders have been going through continuation and moderation processes to adjust with new institutional settings brought by the crisis.

A Direction of Local Administration Reform for the Activation of Metropolitan Development Strategy: A Preliminary Approach

A Direction of Local Administration Reform for the Activation of Metropolitan Development Strategy: A Preliminary Approach

Beyond Paternalism Towards Social Capital: Local Governance Reform in Portugal

An urge to reform local government in Portugal requires a sensitive approach to the role of social capital and, particularly, to the consequences of local governance arrangements in its formation. This research agenda, greatly influenced by the identification of positive externalities of social capital, has generated several claims regarding the need for proactive and objective top-down initiatives. Though assuming that institutions and public policies can have positive effects on social capital building, this article tries to contribute to the debate, focusing on the challenges met by local administration reform, arguing that it requires a four-fold approach: the identification of local government functions and the role of the State; a close look at institutional design and citizen engagement mechanisms; correct tools for allowing civil society reinforcement and social capital building; and recognizing political leadership as a fundamental aspect of a governance arrangement.

Democracy, Legitimacy and Local Government Electoral Reform

Local government electoral system reforms have been implemented in many countries across Europe during the past two decades. These reforms have, by and large, shifted power from the local councils to the mayors, primarily through adoption of a system of direct election of mayors. The reforms are promoted with the aim of making decision-makers more accountable, and improving the effectiveness of policymaking. Governance by directly elected mayors differs from that of their predecessors, with greater power and increased interaction with a variety of other actors. Although there has been a good deal of research on the effect of a shift to direct elections on mayors, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the impact of this kind of reform on local councils. While these reforms are relatively new in Europe, Israel enacted similar reforms more than three decades ago. This research examines the effect of the adoption of direct election of mayors in Israel and the way in which it affected voting behaviour and the roles of local councils. The research shows that the move to directly elected mayors led to greater political fragmentation by reducing the incentive to vote for the larger national parties, which virtually disappeared from local councils. The consequences of this type of reform in Israel raise important considerations in terms of local decision-making, governance and pluralism for similar local government reforms in other countries.

High School Teachers' Use of Data to Inform Instruction

The expectation that teachers will use student achievement data to improve their instruction is a major feature of national and local reform agendas. The theory of action behind data-driven decision making is a mostly causal model of professional action, whereby teachers diagnose weaknesses and implement solutions. The purpose of this article is to examine how high school teachers, situated within their policy and work contexts, use data to inform instructional decisions. Using a framework that draws upon sense-making and co-construction theories on reform implementation, we analyze qualitative data gathered in 4 urban public high schools in the United States. Findings reveal that the process of data use by teachers is complex, multilayered, and influenced by teacher interpretations and social interactions. Teachers used a variety of forms of data to inform their decision making and struggled to reconcile policies promoting data-driven decision making with local beliefs and practices. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

The Process Analysis and Implications of Local Administration Reform: Focusing on the Jeonju City-Wanju Gun -

The Process Analysis and Implications of Local Administration Reform: Focusing on the Jeonju City-Wanju Gun -

Health Reform in China: Three Years After

In 2009, China initiated a new round of health reform to establish a well functioning health system by 2020. Local pilot reforms were encouraged for all five components of the health reform. Between 2009 and 2011, the growth in government health expenditure was a hefty RMB1.24 trillion. Three years on, total health expenditure was over RMB2.2 trillion, or about 4.8% of GDP in 2011. Issues that remain to be tackled include addressing the incentives of providers and insurers as well as improving quality of services and medicines.

Forgotten Alliance: Jews, Chicanos, and the Dynamics of Class and Race in Denver, Colorado, 1967-1971

This is a narrative history of a short-lived, local Latino reform and cultural initiative, Denver's Centro Cultural, which developed with the support of the American Jewish Committee affiliate in that city. It unfolds within the late 1960s heyday of Black and Brown Power nationally, and in the Denver of Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales's militant Crusade for Justice. The article tells the story of the personalities, and tensions, instrumental in the rise and fall of Centro Cultural. It further opens out onto much broader issues concerning Jewish-Latino relations, and the differing but overlapping trajectories of revolutionary late '60s nationalist movements and ones premised on cultural nationalism and relative moderation.

Vygotsky from ZPD to ZCD in moral education: reshaping Western theory and practices in local context

This article explores Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in the Malaysian context to support local reform of the Moral Education (ME) classroom. Small groups of students in three different types of school were involved in a participant action research (PAR) project. Such classrooms in Malaysia bring together students from various ethnicities aligned with Hindu, Confucian and Christian beliefs and understandings. Using the Malaysian multicultural ME classroom as a case study, we offer some examples of group conversations around moral dilemmas that illustrate ways that collaborative processes beyond the individual might expand an individual student’s ZPD and the consensual as well as divergent views of each group as a whole. This suggests possibilities for an extension of the ZPD into a zone of collaborative development (ZCD).

The principal role in data-driven decision making: using case-study data to develop multi-mediator models of educational reform

The expectation that educators will use data in the service of school improvement and planning is a major feature of national and local reform agendas. Prior research has found that the principal plays a critical role in making policymakers’ visions for data use a reality at the school and classroom levels. Most prior studies, however, have not fleshed out how the principal functions as a key agent in influencing other key players in data use. This article will illustrate the actions of the principal, teachers, students, and district personnel through simulation models of principal leadership that we developed based on a case study of a high school implementing this reform. We use these models both as a framework for understanding our findings and as a way to enhance understanding of the processes by which educational reform is co-constructed through the simultaneous mediation of the multiple agents involved in the system.

“The Economics of Reform in the Middle Ages”

AbstractScholarship has long recognized the primary economic mission of eleventh‐century Church reform as the restitution and protection of ecclesiastical property. Most monographs on the subject of reform regard the economic changes of the period as fundamental to wider negotiations of power. While the study of land tenure offers one context in which to examine how customary authority and canon law intersect, more recent work reveals a much more complex landscape of economic concerns. In particular, some excellent studies published in the last two decades consider the relationship between reform polemic and its manifestation on the ground. The interpretive shift towards a focus on local reform movements and the move towards studying the economic aspects of reform should often go hand in hand. In this way, we may arrive at a more holistic understanding of the economic issues raised during the most intense period of reform, from 1046 (Synod of Sutri) to 1122 (Concordat of Worms).

BOTTOM-UP VERSUS TOP-DOWN LOCAL GOVERNANCE: LOCAL GOVERNMENT ANTI-CORRUPTION APPROACHES IN THE SLOVAK TOWNS OF SALA AND MARTIN COMPARED (CASE STUDY)

The paper provides a comparative case study of successful local governance approaches to fighting and preventing corruption at a local government level in Slovakia. The towns’ administrations of Martin and Sala implemented large-scale anti-corruption reforms during the past 6 years which have led to domestic and international accolades. The author shows how different approaches to administrative reform based on the same basic governance principles can deliver similar outputs and outcomes in the field of local governance. The article also takes into consideration the local administrative reform efforts prior to the successful town administrations’ reforms, which had started in the early 1990s and which have also made it possible for the respective town administrations to reform themselves.

A Multilevel Assessment of Local Contract Management Capacity and Management Reform Nested in State Contexts Over Time

This research assesses how state and local factors combine to influence the adoption of performance measurement for local service contracting nested in state contexts over time. Using a multilevel linear growth model to analyze local survey and official data, the findings demonstrate that local adoption of performance measurements nested in state contexts changed significantly; local contract management capability are significantly linked to the adoption of performance measurement. State contexts have a large impact on that adoption as well. The findings, which may have been unobserved by previous studies, suggest that local practices are indeed embedded in state governance across time.

Early Town Planning Legislation in Nova Scotia: The Roles of Local Reformers and International Experts

In 1912 Nova Scotia was the second province in Canada to adopt a town planning act. Just three years later, the province substantially revised its act under the guidance of Thomas Adams, town planning advisor for the Commission of Conservation. The article examines the context within which Nova Scotia adopted and then overhauled its early planning legislation. While Canadian planning history generally credits Adams with rewriting the legislation, the article documents the mechanisms through which key local actors drove provincial policy. Changes to provincial legislation in Nova Scotia in 1915 reflected the confluence of national interests, international town planning expertise, and local reform agendas.