Regional Governance Institutions Research Articles

Explaining ASEAN's Engagement of Civil Society in Policy-making: Smoke and Mirrors

Since the late 1990s, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has widened policy-making to include civil society organisations (CSOs), paralleling developments in other regional and global governance institutions where the inclusion of CSOs in policy-making is considered necessary to address these institutions’ ‘democracy deficit’. A rich empirical literature documents this trend, highlighting the range of participatory mechanisms and their challenges. However, theoretical explanations for why governance institutions engage CSOs and the limitations of these processes are lacking. This paper harnesses political economy analysis to explain this trend. Examining the form and function of civil society engagement in ASEAN, this article demonstrates that ASEAN's inclusion of civil society functions in legitimating its market-building reform programme, while its participatory mechanisms are structured to include amenable interests and marginalise non-compatible groups. Thus, ASEAN's engagement of CSOs and the broader trend of participatory policy-making should be considered as creating sites for contestation, rather than being implicitly democratising.

Mapping the Scope of Dispute Settlement in Regional Trade Agreements: Implications for 21st Century Multilateralism

This paper hypothesizes that the inclusion of provisions for the settlement of disputes in regional agreements may ultimately enhance, rather than disrupt, the centrality of the WTO's dispute settlement system. Using a dataset that organizes exclusion clauses and special provisions for dispute settlement in regional trade agreements, the paper develops a thematic typology with which to examine the ways that disputes may be channeled between regional and global trade governance institutions. This study offers a more accurate picture of the global contours of the regionalization dynamic as it relates to trade governance, suggesting that the potential for the decentralization of dispute settlement inferred by the rapid development of regional bodies is somewhat overstated.

Empirical Analysis and Administrative Law

Regulatory policy has long been a source of controversy, eliciting criticism and calls for reform from virtually all quarters. In recent years, reform proposals have typically sought to restructure the institutional environment of regulatory policymaking by changing administrative law and thereby restructuring the procedures and institutions of regulatory governance. To understand how regulatory policy might be improved through changes to administrative law, empirical research is needed to evaluate the impacts of different institutional procedures and designs. In this paper, I argue for increased empirical inquiry of administrative law, highlighting the value of empirical analysis by reference to three salient aspects of regulatory procedure: (i) economic analysis of new agency rules; (ii) judicial review of agency rules; and (iii) negotiated rulemaking. The discussion of these areas shows how empirical analysis can help inform choices about regulatory design and suggests that such analysis should go hand in hand with any implementation of regulatory reform.

Should Large Spanish Municipalities be Financially Compensated? Costs and Benefits of Being a Capital/Central Municipality

Summary We determine the costs and benefits of being a capital or central municipality, where central costs are understood to be incurred specifically as a result of the problems large municipalities located at the centre of an urban agglomeration face (including costs associated with social issues, immigration, com­ muting and diseconomies of scale) and capital costs result from the presence of regional and/or central government institutions in the municipality (loss of revenue or increase in expenditure because of ac­ tivity substitution). However, these two qualities might also be beneficial to municipalities (resulting in a direct increase in their revenue or fiscal capacity). By estimating an equation of the expenditure needs and the fiscal capacity of Spanish municipalities with more than 75,000 inhabitants, we find that the central costs incurred by large municipalities are offset by their greater fiscal capacity, but that the same is not true for municipalities that serve as political/administrative capitals.

Fostering Multiscalar Collaboration and Co-operation for Effective Governance of Climate Change Adaptation

In order to address climate/environmental change successfully and sustainably, it is vital to foster collaborative relationships between national, regional and local government institutions. Insufficient attention has been paid to relational dynamics between multiple levels of governance, and related learning networks outside formal government structures, particularly in the context of development imperatives in poor countries. This paper illustrates these issues via an exploration of relations between two contiguous, yet contrasting local authorities in South Africa and between these local authorities and higher government levels and other networks. To date, most progressive local climate change initiatives have been undertaken autonomously and often there are mismatched priorities between different government spheres regarding climate change efforts. The likely implications for the execution of environmental change adaptation actions and the benefits of effective networking are considered in this light and through deploying conceptual insights from multilevel governance, systems approaches to urban governance and other literatures.

The Image of the Institution

Problem, research strategy, and findings: How do we make coherent urban plans in an incoherent institutional setting? How are institutions born, how do they evolve? Can they be meaningfully reformed? Or are they destined to bloat and muddle through? Using in situ interviews, document analysis, and participant observation, I investigate the role of urban plans in institutional design to address sociologist Talcott Parson's call for a theory of the dynamics of institutional change. Planners used images that they invented to build new and better planning institutions. Politicians used city and metropolitan planning as a political strategy to build the institutions of metropolitan and regional governance. Plan images were tools that coordinated spatial planning and urban policy. The institutional structure of urban planning and its governance is rooted in images of urban form that extend back several generations. These empirical findings formed the basis for a cognitive, lifecycle theory of institutional change. The cognitive component of the theory adds content to institutional theory, which had been based on structure and agency. The lifecycle component spans the gaps among existing theories of institutional evolution—incremental structuration, radical revolt, and institutional design—while incorporating lifecycle end points of creation and demise. Takeaway for practice: The plan matters because the images of place that are contained in plans not only guide the planning process and the development of territory; they also shape the entire institution of governance in which planning is situated. The role of the planners—to create the image of place—points to an important leadership quality, and to a key role for planning: institutional design. Research support: The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities, the Catalonian Studies Program and the Center for German and European Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California Regents, and Texas A&M University.

Acciones públicas de sensibilización de género. El esfuerzo de la administración regional y local en comunicación publicitaria (1999-2007)

The article analyses the communication initiatives related to equal opportunities between women and men. The aim is to To use a gender approach to analyze the actions taken by the regional and local government institutions to promote the work-family reconciliation in six areas (Andalusia, Catalonia, the Region of Valencia, Galicia, Madrid and the Basque Country) from 1999 (when the law of work-family reconciliation is passed) to 2007 (the law of effective equality is passed). The information concerning conventional adver

Regional Planning as Mediation: Inside Minnesota's Metropolitan Twin Cities Regional Plan Implementation

Regional planning has long struggled with how to address problems that extend across jurisdictional boundaries. With reduced political support in the USA for regional governance since the 1980s, studies of collaborative and voluntary approaches emerged with little reference to the literature on remaining regional government institutions such as the well-known case of the Twin Cities, Minnesota Metropolitan Council. This paper uses interviews and a first-person narrative to tell a more complex story of an institution known for strong regional governance powers. The Council institutionalized communicative planning and new regionalism undergirded by civic coalitions, government incentives, institutional power, and the strategic opportunities provided by legal ambiguity. This paper argues for further understanding of how imperfect power combined with direct provision of infrastructure services may provide conditions for more effective regional and collaborative planning practice than might be possible through either regulatory or voluntary approaches alone.

Regionalization and the rescaling of agro-food governance: Case study evidence from two English regions

Some researchers detected a new-found subsidiarity in rural policy after England’s 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic, with regional and sub-regional institutions working together to implement an economic recovery strategy. While such research began to link debates on the new regionalism and the rescaling of agro-food governance, its conception of the latter focused too narrowly on the ‘turn to quality’, thereby overlooking other important aspects of food relocalisation. Based on interviews conducted in England’s South West and West Midlands regions, this paper examines whether the attitudes of key actors from regional and sub-regional governance institutions provided a sound basis for partnership working on the food relocalisation policies recommended in the Government’s Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food. It finds different attitudes on the part of regional and sub-regional actors, with the former favouring regional foods and the latter local foods. Despite scepticism from both groups about the ability of the England Rural Development Programme (2000–2006) to promote food relocalisation, grants were awarded to both regional and local food entrepreneurs, suggesting that the programme contributed more to food relocalisation than previously thought.

Perceptions of Asia in Europe

The question of how Asia is perceived by the European Union is becoming increasingly relevant for European as well as for Asian policy makers. The more successful Asia and emerging countries like China and India become, the more vulnerable the European public and all involved stakeholders are to fall victim to old and new stereotypes. A lack of knowledge may result in the EU becoming more vulnerable to developing prejudice towards Asia. The new research project “Asia in the Eyes of Europe” aims to identify, measure and compare public awareness and perceptions of Asia within the European Union. The research is to deliver an analysis of Europe’s cognitive outlook towards Asia. It tracks the existing landscape of perceptions of Asia within the EU and seeks to contribute to, deepen and enhance European–Asian understanding. A study of Asia’s image in Europe can thus help Europeans and Asians to understand in how far their interaction impacts on the shaping of institutions of regional governance that can complement structures of global governance.

The Politics and Economics of Official Ethnic Discrimination: A Global Statistical Analysis, 1950-2003

It is argued that ethnic competition, triggers for ethnic mobilization, and political institutions together affect changes in government-imposed political and economic restrictions on ethnic groups worldwide. Due to the fact that the only existing comparative data set on ethnic discrimination, produced by the Minorities at Risk project, uses discrimination as a criterion for including ethnic groups, a new data set of 620 additional groups has been created to predict the selection process through a full-information, maximum-likelihood Heckman probit model, but selection bias is found not to affect the results. Discrimination is modeled as a dynamic Markov process, and central and regional government institutions, economic conditions, and minority group characteristics are found to influence the initiation and continuation of discriminatory policies.

Balancing Regionalism and Localism: How Institutions and Incentives Shape American Transportation Policy

Public policy decisions are increasingly made byregional governance effortsthat involve diverse decision makers from multiple government units within a geographic region. These decision‐making bodies face competing pressures to represent regional and local interests. We study how decision makers balance preferences for regionalism and localism withinmetropolitan planning organizations(MPOs), the policymaking entities that are responsible for implementing U.S. federal surface transportation policy at the regional level. Our model of regional governance relates variation in regional policy outcomes to the incentives of MPO decision makers and the institutional environments in which they interact. Analyzing data from a sample of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, we find that MPOs dominated by elected officials produce more locally focused policies, holding other factors constant, while MPOs dominated by nonelected public managers produce more regionally oriented policies. Contextual factors, as well as the regional governance institutions themselves, further shape the balance between regionalism and localism.

The Spanish model of devolution and regional governance: evolution, motivations and effects on policy making

The Spanish model of decentralisation was originally devised to achieve cultural-political recognition for some regions and democracy and economic development for all. This article examines how this approach has evolved since the 1970s and the effectiveness of Spain's regional governance institutions. It concludes that regionalisation has been managed relatively well. Nonetheless, ambiguities surround the relations between tiers of government and questions remain about the institutional capacity of regional bodies and the extent of their discretion over decision making and the allocation of resources.

Metropolitan Governance and Institutional Collective Action

This article describes the institutional collective action (ICA) framework and its application to the study of governance arrangements in metropolitan areas by focusing on the tools of regional governance for solving ICA problems. Regional governance mechanisms are classified by their focus on either collective or network relationships. The role of these within these mechanisms is analyzed and the transaction costs barriers to the emergence of regional governance institutions are identified. The concluding discussion identifies the limitations of self-organizing mechanisms and develops a research agenda to investigate the emergence, evolution, and performance of regional governance institutions.

Regional Futures and Strategic Planning

Recent Government decisions and Opposition statements have called into question the future of the governing institutions of the English regions. This raises two questions, the first of which is the strategic role of European regions and the need for it in EU member states. This question is addressed first through a discussion of the English regional government agencies' strategic planning roles and the development of similar regional strategic planning in other European Union member states. The second main issue is possible scenarios for the development of the English regions. These include further attempts to create elected regional assemblies, developing administrative regionalism, revising regional boundaries, developing city regions and abolishing most or all of the regional government institutions. The provisional conclusion is that such abolition would be a retrograde step that would reduce England's capacity to cope with domestic and European pressures.

REGIONAL GOVERNANCE IN ENGLAND: A CHANGING ROLE FOR THE GOVERNMENT’S REGIONAL OFFICES?

Debates about the appropriate territorial scales of government to meet the challenges of economic, political and social change have gained momentum in Western Europe in recent years. In the UK, political mobilization has transformed constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. By contrast, in the English regions, a less radical approach has been adopted, but the outcome has been a strengthening of the institutions of regional governance. A key feature has been the enhanced responsibilities of the Government Offices for the Regions, which have been encouraged to build on their traditional administrative functions and adopt a more strategic role. This article explores the Offices’ contribution to regional and local governance. Our central argument is that although increasingly expected to act as a bridgehead between national and sub‐national government and a focus for regional policy coordination, their potential role in filling the missing gap in English regional governance has not yet been fully grasped.

A Decade of Decentralisation? Assessing the Role of the Government Offices for the English Regions

The Government Offices for the English regions were established in 1994 to coordinate the regional activities of three central government departments. A decade on, regional government in England is greatly expanded, and two other institutions of regional governance, the Regional Development Agencies and the Regional Assemblies, have also been created. In 2002 the Labour government proposed that this ‘triad’ of regional governance should be further reformed and strengthened, in some places being brought to democratic account. In this paper, we argue that academic research on the English regions has generally focused on the Regional Development Agencies and to a lesser extent the Regional Assemblies, to the exclusion of the Government Offices. This focus has led some to overstate the extent to which regional government represents the real decentralisation of power. Focusing on the role of the Government Offices, we argue that central government retains a great deal of power over the ‘triad’ institutions, which in their current form may be unable to challenge the structure of power in the English state.

Building Local States: China during the Republican and Post-Mao Eras. By Elizabeth J. Remick. [Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004. 318 pp. $49.50. ISBN 0-674-01398-0.

It is commonplace in China studies to declare that China is too large and too diverse to be fully understood as one entity. Whether in historical or contemporary terms, a complete understanding of China can only be attempted if one looks at the diversity within. Too often, the analysis stops there, without pursuing the details of regional variation needed to develop a more sophisticated analysis.Elizabeth Remick's Building Local States is a much-needed antidote to this tendency. In her carefully researched comparative monograph, Remick details how two very different regions – Hebei and Guangdong – developed local and regional government institutions in the context of central government upheaval and redefinition. Using local gazetteers, interviews with officials, published statistical records and archives, the book demonstrates how and why these two regions diverged in their approach to taxation and public finance. Faced with her own findings that show very little commonality between the two regions, Remick still manages to make an important, general conclusion: for the Chinese state to survive in the 21st century, it must allow regional adaptation to circumstance, or else the central regime will face increasing resistance to its interference, even to the point of tax revolts.The book's subtitle, in particular, marks the book as exceptional: “China during the Republican and Post-Mao Eras.” While both of these periods are popular topics, it is rare to compare them. On the face of it, the reasons for the comparison are unclear. Remick, though, effectively demonstrates that the Nanjing Decade (1927–1937) and the post-Mao reform era (1980–1992) were both times of local state-building, spurred by a need to reassert government control in the wake of periods of great chaos (the warlord era of the 1920s and the Cultural Revolution, respectively).

Addressing Connectivity in Spatial Planning: The Case of the English Regions

The need for an effective form of territorial governance and spatial planning to overcome sectoral and spatial insularity has been recognized by initiatives at a variety of spatial scales. However, in an increasingly interconnected world it is difficult to determine ideal ‘functional’ or natural ‘regions’ which enable spatial development trends and dynamics to be fully ‘captured’ by territorially bounded regional governance institutions. Indeed, for Schmitt-Egner (2002) the key spatial characteristic of ‘region’ is that it is a partial spatial entity characterized by vertical and horizontal linkages with other regions and other spatial scales. Reflecting this, the article considers the treatment of cross-boundary issues in the context of emerging sub-national planning in England. Key issues addressed are: what kinds of cross-boundary issues are identified at different scales? How are cross-boundary issues recognized and responded to in the regional planning process? What are the factors which contribute to building the capacity of the regional planning process to act in relation to cross-boundary issues? The review of regional planning processes across the English regions indicates that cross-boundary issues are recognized and responded to at three spatial scales, the transnational (including inter-regional), national (including inter-regional), and sub-regional (inter- and intra-regional). A more detailed consideration of the North West region of England demonstrates that a capacity to act in relation to cross-boundary issues is being built within the process of strategic regional spatial planning through the mobilization of networks of actors at the intra- and inter-regional levels.

The Global Environment Facility and Transboundary Water Resource Management: New Institutional Arrangements in the Danube River and Black Sea Region

Increased international attention to water resource management has resulted in the creation of new institutional arrangements and environmental funding mechanisms. The Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) International Waters Program is at the heart of these new collaborative regional approaches to the management of transboundary resources. This article assesses the GEF-led efforts in the Danube River and Black Sea region, the GEF’s most mature and ambitious projects to date. It finds that the GEF has been successful in building scientific knowledge and strengthening regional governance institutions in the region. However, challenges remain, including the incorporation of stake-holder participation and the demonstration of clear ecological improvements.