Municipal Public Administration Research Articles

Концепция развития местного самоуправления в условиях цифровой трансформации управления

State processes are currently regulated by conceptual strategizing, which means they rely on concepts of systematic, integrated, and consistent development in social and state spheres, e.g., municipal public administration. This research used theoretical generalizations, as well as constitutional and legal practice, to rationalize the need for a developmental concept of local government in the context of digital transformation. Acts of state strategic planning were classified according to subject and concept. Digitalization of management and local governance was described from the perspective of hierarchical subordination and strategic planning acts. The list of prospective goals and directions in the digital development of local government included: digitalizing the domestic agro-industrial complex; leveling the existing digital inequality; improving the financing of small and medium municipalities using digital systems and innovative technologies. The authors reviewed best foreign practices and modern approaches to standardization in the sphere of sustainable development concepts, which direct the regulation of local government development in the digital environment. They revealed some problematic issues of modern digital transformation of municipal government and prospective trajectories for local digital platforms.

The experience of the Municipal Finance Department of Fortaleza in implementing spatial data infrastructure as an integrated management tool for the real estate registry

The growing production and demand for spatial information in public administration, as well as its need for dissemination among the entities responsible for planning, management and decision-making processes, require efficient and controlled ways to maintain and publish significant amounts of data. Under the terms of the Tax Code of Fortaleza, the Secretaria Municipal de Finanças” (SEFIN) is responsible for the management and maintenance of the Real Estate Cadaster (CIM), especially as regards the registration data of all real estate units and subunits in the city, regardless of their category of use or taxation incident, as well as the multi-finality character of the register. In view of this, a considerable part of the creation, alteration, exclusion and management of the elements of alphanumeric and spatial nature, which correspond to the basic cartography of the city, are inserted in the CIM and are managed through the “Sistema de Informação Territorial de Fortaleza” (SITFor). With the purpose of promoting the adequate sharing and dissemination of this spatial and tax informations with other entities of the municipal public administration, SEFIN, promoted between the years 2019 and 2020 the implementation of its Spatial Data Infrastructure with a tax theme. This article aims to present and share the experiences and products generated by the agency with the IDE-SEFIN implementation project, as well as its integration perspectives and future challenges. The use of this type of solution for sharing information can be one of the success factors for the use of geotechnologies and decision-making processes that require the analysis of spatial data for their consolidation.

Sustainable cities from the perspective of environmental compliance: the performance and control of public administration in the fight against urban corruption

The objective of the article is to analyze sustainable cities from the perspective of environmental compliance. The problem consists of analyzing whether environmental compliance in a municipal public administration contributes to the development of sustainable cities. For this, the methodological procedures chosen were bibliographic and hypothetical-inductive methods. With this, the constitutional principles of Public Administration and their application in municipalities were analyzed. Furthermore, the five dimensions of sustainability and their importance in sustainable cities were understood, going through the definition of a Democratic Socio-Environmental State of Law. Finally, the application of environmental compliance for effective public management, which combats corruption in its various definitions and meets the demands for the development of a sustainable city.

Examining the Smart City Generational Model: Conceptualizations, Implementations, and Infrastructure Canada's Smart City Challenge

Cohen's Smart City Generational model has been the basis of understanding for the evolution of the Smart Cities movement. However, how does this model align with practitioners’ conceptualization of the term? Our research focuses on Infrastructure Canada's Smart City Challenge (SCC). Through 14 primary interviews and 20 finalist applications, this research reveals that practitioners overwhelmingly understand Smart City building as a government-driven, data-centric endeavor (Smart City 2.0), as opposed to being about vendor transactions (Smart City 1.0), resident engagement (Smart City 3.0), or community co-creation (Smart City 4.0), where the specific technology is of secondary importance to project objectives. We conclude that, rather than moving through distinct generations, the smart cities movement should be understood as a gradual process of municipal public administration modernization as local governments are becoming increasingly savvy and experienced about contracting with technology firms to address urban problems.

Public Environmental Conservation Policies Based on the Economic Instrument of Payment for Environmental Services: A Pioneer Experience in Mato Grosso Evaluated by its Actors

Objective: To understand how the public policy for payment for environmental services in Tangará da Serra, Mato Grosso, Brazil, is evaluated by its actors in the period 2014-2019. Theoretical framework: The contribution brought by economic instruments to improving social well-being made them popular among successful environmental public policies by reducing the distortion between the economic and social values attributed to natural resources. Method: Study characterized as theoretical-empirical, descriptive, which uses a qualitative approach in the application of semi-structured interviews during the first quarter of 2019 followed by case study procedures of interpretative analysis. Results and conclusion: Indicate the existence of difficulties common to other national initiatives, operational advantage and institutional limitations. There is exploratory potential for the growth and development of public policy, however, due to the lack of specific federal legislation regarding environmental services and local technical limitations, its institutional arrangement needs improvement. Implications of the research: It presents the common difficulties of implementing public environmental policies using the economic instrument of payments for environmental services in Brazil. Originality/value: Given the global need for the State to provide water supply through the conservation of natural resources, this study collaborates with the Public Administration by understanding the difficulties experienced by the municipal public administration in the face of the unprecedented experience in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil .

INTERMUNICIPAL COOPERATION AS A KEY TOOL IN THE FORMATION OF A MODEL OF MULTIPLE MANAGEMENT OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

In Ukraine, there have been significant changes in regional development due to the conditions of the war and the need to form new tasks, implement urgent measures, projects to restore the territories of communities and regions, continuing the European integration course of Ukraine, decentralization reform and the implementation of standards, principles and current tools of good governance of the Council of Europe. The purpose of writing the article is to reveal the need for further development of inter-municipal cooperation to create territories of community cooperation, as points of economic growth and regional development, to overcome socio-economic challenges caused by the war, as models of multi-level management, public administration and targeted actions for the restoration of territories of communities and regions of Ukraine during the war and in the post-war period in accordance with European standards and best practices of democratic governance and territorial development. The following methods were used to determine the principles of inter-municipal cooperation in the management of regional development: the method of cognition (for the formation of theoretical principles for determining the essence of inter-municipal cooperation, development strategies); comparative analysis (in order to compare the effectiveness of the development strategy); abstract-logical (for the formation of theoretical generalizations and the formulation of research conclusions); graphic visualization (for the purpose of visualization of results and analysis). The Center for Good Governance Expertise of the Council of Europe, in its Recommendations regarding the formulation of policies on the Local Self-Government Restoration Plan dated June 30, 2022, emphasized the need to implement stronger forms of inter-municipal cooperation based on the principles of "smart" and "green" municipal (spatial) planning to overcome challenges caused by the conditions of the war, the key of which are changes in the population and the economic structure of communities. In the process of forming spaces of inter-municipal cooperation between communities of Ukrainian and European regions, as an important functional space and level of management of regional development, it is important to use the existing national and international experience in the development of community cooperation at the local, inter-territorial and international levels, the experience of developing these spaces in the territorial and cross-border cooperation, creating models and tools of municipal management and public administration for the post-war period of development of the territories of communities and regions on the basis of the application of standards, principles and current tools of "Good democratic governance" and the development of civil diplomacy.

Management to Promote Participatory Budgeting in the Closing of Gaps in Basic Public Services in the Provincial Condorcanqui - Amazonas Department

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to analyse the management to promote participatory budgeting as an effective tool in closing gaps in basic public services. The main objective was to review existing literature and highlight the contributions and rationale of local government participation and management in the context of municipal public administration. Theoretical framework: Participatory budgeting is mentioned as a key concept in the study. Participatory budgeting involves the active participation of the community in the process of allocating public resources, allowing for greater transparency and decision-making based on the needs and priorities of the population. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study is based on a systematic literature review of descriptive typology, following the guidelines set out in the PRISMA statement. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were established to select relevant papers, which were then synthesised into a matrix that facilitated content analysis by year, country of resource, areas of knowledge and substantive contributions of the review. Findings: Analytical categories, such as participation and local government management, provide examples of exceptional content undervalued by the systems to which they belong. In addition, it is noted that the research revaluates these contributions and the logic of their emergence in the context of public administration. Social, practical and research implications: At the social level, the study highlights the importance of participatory budgeting as a tool that promotes citizen participation in decision-making and the closing of gaps in basic public services. In practical terms, it suggests that a local public administration committed to paradigm shifts in public policy and the provision of high quality public services can benefit from the implementation of participatory budgeting. In terms of research implications, it is mentioned that the research revalues the contributions of the analytical categories and the logic of their emergence. Originality/value: It is highlighted that a systematic literature review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines, which implies a rigorous approach and a solid basis for the findings and conclusions presented. In addition, the value of citizen participation and local government management in the context of municipal public administration is emphasised.

The Position of the Municipal Public Administration in the Context of the Pandemic: An analysis from the experience of Juiz de Fora/MG

The COVID-19 pandemic demanded the adoption of swift measures by public managers to control the spread of the disease, as the virus had a high rate of transmissibility. Effective, non-pharmacological actions involving social distancing and isolation were widely applied. It was noticed that they provided opportunities for the collision between the rights to free enterprise and health, by restricting the full exercise of commercial activities. These, intrinsically, promote agglomeration of people. It is therefore necessary to assess whether the restrictive measures for the promotion of the rights to health and life were proportional to the preservation of the essential core of free enterprise. The context of the city of Juiz de Fora was chosen for analysis, between the months of February 2020 and December 2021. Data regarding the number of cases and deaths in the municipality on each day of publication of the municipal decrees that conveyed trade-restrictive measures. The research was supported by the theories of fundamental rights and legal arguments, for the rational (argumentative) and proportional investigation of the implementation of fundamental rights, in the face of conflicts in the concrete case. Still, the consequentialist theory was used to assess whether the examination of economic, social and political impacts prevailed. It started from the assumption that the rights inherent to the exercise of economic activity would prevail over the adoption of sanitary control measures. Through the empirical research methodology, combined with qualitative and inference strategies, it was found that the municipal administration of Juiz de Fora, proportionally, privileged the right to health, over free enterprise.

The Impact of Public Administration Digitalization on the Decarbonization of the Economy

According to wikinomics, the decarbonization of the economy it is not possible without the involvement of people’s creativity and ingenuity under the form of prosumption channeled into the public administration. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to transform the existing websites of municipal offices into participation platforms that would become the local growth poles concentrating the economic forces operating in a given area. As Adam Smith, the father of economics, noted, synchronization between the economic goals of people and the preferences of local authorities are the main factors of development and the lack of them can create the highest degree of chaos in the economy. Consequently, the research began with defining prosumption and determining the degree of cooperation between society and the public administration sector in the digital sphere. Correspondence analysis was used to analyze the data collected from a survey. The issue of the quality of websites of municipal public administration offices, which in the digital economy function as growth poles and development axes, was also discussed. It was observed that society is prepared to perform the role of prosumers in the public administration sector; however, the low quality of websites constrains full disclosure of society’s prosumer potential. Under these conditions, the best ways to decarbonize the local economy are: (1) acceleration of the digitization of municipal public administration; and (2) use of the already existing infrastructural growth poles and development axes. The first postulate is related to the improvement of the existing, and the construction of new, computer networks. The second point mainly concerns the achievements of molinology, which studies the existing and partially functional infrastructure of former watermills and the location of former windmills. It is a valuable clue that facilitates the location and construction of modern renewable energy sources. The subject of the research is the Warmia and Mazury Province, which includes 116 municipalities and is the fourth largest province in Poland.

The relationship between human intelectual capital and innovation capacity in the public sector

The public sector must respond to the citizens’ demands with speed and innovation. This ability can prevent many deaths, as in the case with the Covid-19 pandemic. The present study has the general objective of identifying the influence of human intellectual capital on the public sector capacity to innovate. To this end, 158 public servants, who occupy leadership positions in the municipal public administration of the city of Latin America (Santiago - Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil), were interviewed. The statistical technique used was exploratory factor analysis and, through the analysis of the main components, two human capital factors were extracted: training and skills, values and attitudes, in addition to the constructs of innovation capacity: services and processes, organizational and institutional. The study tested the hypothesis that all human capital factors are positively, significantly and directly related to the dimensions of innovation capacity. The most relevant index of correlation was identified among the variables: values and attitudes, and the capacity of services and processes. Therefore, the case of study verified the positive, direct and significant influence of human intellectual capital with the public sector capacity to innovate, specifically, in the local / municipal public administration in question.

How managers and students view public service: The theoretical vs. practical divide

This paper examines existing management concepts and practices that make up three contemporary approaches to public policy and public administration. We attempt to understand whether municipal public administrators and public administration graduate students validate these perspectives in “reality” versus “ideally.” Addressing the extent to which practicing public administrators and students identify with theoretical frameworks, which one(s) they deem most prominent, and how closely their preferred frameworks correspond to what they see in practice, we offer an exploratory analysis of results from 176 respondents through descriptive statistics, paired-sample t-tests, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). We hypothesize significant differences with respect to 1) what is preferred and what is perceived in the workplace, 2) group membership (administrator, graduate student, or undergraduate student), and 3) gender (female or male). This research will help public administration educators bridge the gap between theory and practice and narrow the distance between the “is” and the “ought.”

ФІНАНСОВА ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ ОРГАНІВ МІСЬКОГО САМОВРЯДУВАННЯ НАДДНІПРЯНСЬКОЇ УКРАЇНИ В 1785–1917 рр. ЯК ОБ’ЄКТ СУЧАСНИХ ІСТОРИЧНИХ ДОСЛІДЖЕНЬ

The scientific achievements of modern national historiography on the study of the history of financial activities of municipal self-government institutions of Dnipro Ukraine during the imperial era are analyzed. It was found that despite the lack of comprehensive generalizing work on this issue, it is represented by a large number of works that reflect financial activities of municipal governments. It is established that the scientific study of this problem has become the subject for not only historians but also for representatives of legal and economic sciences. It indicates its applied nature, as the study of the experience of financial activities of municipal public administration, including negative, can be taken into account in solving current problems of municipal self-government. It is noted that the works of scientists show the state’s attempt to interfere in the financial activities of the municipal government in order to maintain control over city finances, which negatively affected not only the increase in revenues but also the ability to use them to meet the needs of urban communities. Scholars draw attention to the discrepancy between city revenues and expenditures, which were determined by the imperial legislation for municipal governments. They find out the items of mandatory expenditures for the maintenance of the judiciary, police, city governments, troops, which accounted for a significant percentage of expenditures and were not spent for the development of urban economy and social sphere. Promising areas of further study include comparative comprehensive historical and historiographical studies of the financial activities of municipal governments in the imperial era in the regional dimension. In addition, researchers are to pay attention to such important aspects of the problem as the everyday life of city government officials, their role in social and cultural life of urban communities, the history of relations between municipal financial and government institutions.

New Measure of Economic Development Based on the Four-Colour Theorem

The location quotient is one of the basic quantitative tools for identifying the regional poles and the turnpikes of economic growth in spatial economy. The disadvantage of this traditional measure is the limited scope of economic information contained in it. The new measure of economic development proposed in the article encompasses a complex spectrum of phenomena in one number, as it takes into account the influence of the public administration sector, as well as top technology in the form of ICT and its practical business models. It also takes into account the digital prosumption and the platforms for participation. The participation platforms in the public administration sector are the websites of municipal public administration offices. A cluster analysis was used to distinguish four quality classes of these websites. These classes were assigned four different colours, which were then used to draw up a map of the selected province. Each municipality is marked with a colour that corresponds to the quality class of the website of the state administration office operating on its territory. The colour system resulting from the four-colour theorem and the corresponding dual graph play the role of a reference system in relation to each empirical colour distribution and another dual graph related to it. The measure of the economic development of a region is the degree of reduction of the dual graph corresponding to the empirical distribution of colours, which identifies the actual growth poles and determines the routes of growth. The presented indicator better and more precisely identifies poles and routes of economic growth than the traditional location quotient.

Estratégias e serviços públicos municipais da cidade digital estratégica de São José dos Pinhais-PR

Os recursos da tecnologia da informação têm revolucionado a vida de pessoas, organizações, governos e, assim, o modo como as cidades fazem a gestão dos serviços públicos. O objetivo deste artigo é analisar os subprojetos de cidade digital estratégica da Prefeitura de São José dos Pinhais-PR, por meio de suas estratégias e serviços públicos disponibilizados digitalmente aos cidadãos e gestores públicos. O método de pesquisa consiste em estudo de caso com técnicas tanto quantitativas, pois expressam números, quanto qualitativas, ao analisarem os nomes e as temáticas municipais desses mesmos números, sendo pautado por um protocolo de pesquisa com 2 constructos e 10 variáveis. Os resultados auferidos demonstram que a administração pública municipal tem se preocupado com a adoção de iniciativas para facilitar a qualidade de vida dos cidadãos, pois possui 16 estratégias e 31 serviços públicos fornecidos por meio da tecnologia da informação. A conclusão indica que os subprojetos encontrados contribuem com a gestão municipal e possibilitam que São José dos Pinhais seja entendida como uma cidade digital estratégica, apesar da inexistência de um projeto formal.

Daniel Tagle Zamora

The issue of urban solid waste management (grsu) in León, Guanajuato, has various pending issues, essentially defining a strategy aimed at gradually reducing the generation of waste in the municipality for the decade that begins in accordance with the physical limits and environment of the landfill. The communication and environmental education components, from the public agency as pillars aimed at promoting less waste generation and adequate separation at source, present serious problems of articulation and operation to generate synergies with producers, merchants and consumers. In the institutional, financial, as well as infrastructure part, the para-municipal presents points considered as weak to carry out immediate processes of reduction, separation, treatment and use of the city's waste. In this research, the various programs directed by the municipal public administration in terms of urban solid waste reduction are analyzed from the perspective of the circular economy. Within the methodological approach, semi-structured interviews were carried out with the actors responsible for the various reduction programs of the municipality, as well as the review of various statistical indicators on waste. Within the approach considered for the analysis, the circular economy was selected, especially due to the broad link it has with the field of generation and final disposal of waste. The results found in the investigation indicate that the paramunicipal is initiating a process of collecting and separating waste that they are paying to reduce the income to the landfill; however, the foregoing is not associated with generating new practices of commercial producers and society in general focused on eliminating the generation of waste from origin. The reduction programs therefore represent a mere environmental palliative that pays limitedly to the 2030 sustainable development agenda.

Identificação e inserção de tipos documentais fotográficos na elaboração de instrumentos de gestão de documentos: estudo sobre a Secretaria Municipal de Meio Ambiente de Rio Claro (SP)

The text aims to bring the studies and strategies of the Public and Historical Archive of Rio Claro (SP), highlighting the identification of photographic types of the Municipal Environment Department. For this purpose, in addition to a bibliographic survey, the constitution of the empirical object, the Municipal Environment Secretariat (SEMA), was presented. A diagnosis of documentary production was carried out by the team from the Public and Historical Archives of Rio Claro, with the elaboration of a Document Evaluation Form. With the survey of the agency's legislation and the data from the evaluation forms, it was possible to understand the functions and routines of the photographic documents. The photographs were inserted in the research instruments, but the complexity of identifying photographic documents in document production was found, as well as their management and recordkeeping methods for these documents within the scope of the Municipal Public Administration.

Knowledge Management Maturity In The Municipal Public Administration

Knowledge Management allows the public service, including municipalities, to promote innovation in the services provision for citizens. To do so, it is necessary to implement it according to the business strategy. Thus, this study aims to create a Business Case to support São José Municipality Administration Office to implement Knowledge Management. As for the methodology, it is an applied research, characterized as a case study, qualitative, bibliographical and descriptive. For data collection, it was applied the Instrument for Evaluation of Knowledge Management in the Brazilian Public Administration, designed by Helou (2015). As conclusion, the researched organization is in the second level of maturity in Knowledge Management, where there are presence of Knowledge Management actions, however these could be better performed. Understanding the organization maturity level, as well as the strengths and improvement opportunities, a Business Case was elaborated with the purpose of guiding and justifying the organization's actions importance for the Knowledge Management implementation in organizational environment.

AS AN EXAMPLE OF A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC POLICY OF A MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN CZARIST RUSSIA

Introduction. Nowadays the issue of implementation of city projects in terms of providing public amenities and changing their infrastructure under the conditions of existing insufficient public funds for these purposes is of present relevance for cities of Russia. One of the key ways of resolving this situation is borrowing monetary funds. However, in the history of Russian cities such kind of experience already exists. The submitted material reveals the experience of Simbirsk municipal government concerning the issue of the first bond-secured loan of the city of Simbirsk (the year of 1906). The purpose of this loan was obtaining necessary funds for the city intended for enlarging and improving public water supply system, building slaughter-houses within the scope of jurisdiction of the municipal public administration. The objectives of the undertaken study and subsequent analysis involved identifying the reasons, which caused Simbirsk Municipal Public Administration, lacking any experience, to take on a project implementation of issuing the bond-secured loan, assessing the municipal government actions on preparing and issuing the loan mentioned above, as well as the result of the loan implementation. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the archival records, which contain information on the bond-secured loan in Simbirsk of 1906. Under study of these records, the information archival in them was systematized and analyzed. Such approaches as a systematic approach, a comparative analysis and a logical generalization of the obtained results were used. Study results. The undertaken study specified the reasons for issuing the bond-secured loan by Simbirsk, the stages of the implementation of this project, analyzed and evaluated the commitment of the municipal public administration during each of these stages, as well as rationality of their actions and the result of the bond-secured loan issue, which was successful. Apart from this, new historical facts related to the history of the Simbirsk governorate along with the full and complete information concerning the issue of the indicated bond-secured loan were determined. Discussion and Conclusion. The obtained results of the study indicate that the experience of borrowing monetary funds performed by the cities of Czarist Russia can be in demand with a positive outcome by the cities of modern Russia. The implementation of such borrowings of monetary funds by a city (municipal) government will benefit in resolving many city problems, undertaking social projects, which require considerable financial resources, and in the final analysis in improving the quality of life in cities.

"The concept of public administration in modern administrative law (comparative legal research)"

There is an increasing interest in the category of “public administration” in Russian administrative law. The article argues for the development of this category’s comprehensive concept that would meet the needs of the Russian legal system’s modern advancement. The article considers the theoretical grounds for this concept in pre-Soviet administrative law, and diring the Soviet period. The authors reveal the category’s essential features, after analyzing contemporary Russian researchers’ ideas regarding its role and significance in dynamic Russian administrative law. Approaches to conceptualizing public administration in Russian and foreign administrative law are considered in the article and the authors contemplate the necessity and possibility of providing an integrative definition of this category as the basic concept of administrative law. Public administration is mapped within such concepts as executive and administrative power, government, state and municipal administration, public administration and governance. Public administration and governance are rationalized as paired categories within Russian administrative law theory. Within the framework of comparative law, the approaches to classifying the forms of public administration activities related to the implementation of administrative functions are analyzed. On the basis of the analysis, it is proposed to identify such forms of activities as intervening and facilitating public administration as well as public administration through services provision. The paper further considers specific features of public administration’s organizational structure and its types in the modern state. The authors conclude on the feasibility of developing and adopting a law on the federal public administration, and, on the basis of this law, to pass the regional legislative acts on the public administration entities of the Russian Federation.

MAPEAMENTO DE DIFERENCIAIS INTRAURBANOS DE VULNERABILIDADE EM SAÚDE

Considering census tracts of urban situation as area units, this study employed an ecological approach to identify and map intra-urban differentials of health vulnerability in Divinópolis, a mid-sized municipality from Minas Gerais State, Brazil. The study evaluated variables from different socioeconomic databases, municipal health indicators and research findings carried out in UFSJ, and classified census tracts in scores. Results showed high sanitary coverage ratios in contrast to health indicators, income-and-literacy levels mostly intermediate and low. It was built a choropleth map for health vulnerability patterns, which made it possible to visualize the distribution of intra-urban differentials and specific urban areas with high health vulnerability that require prioritization of municipal public administration. It was concluded that sanitary improvements gained with socioeconomic development and urbanization policies may not protect populations from unsafe levels of health risk exposure and vulnerability. Score classification methodology seemed to be a fairly simple tool, with wide-range applicability and potentially efficient to identify intra-urban differentials in health vulnerability.