Regional Public Administration Research Articles

Practicing Multilevel Governance: The Revision of the Piedmont Regional Territorial Plan

The regional level plays a relevant role in spatial governance and planning in Europe, as it constitutes the most suitable scale to both program European Union funding and territorialize international development strategies. In this light, regional spatial planning instruments play a crucial role in translating general objectives and recommendations (e.g., those included in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) in place-based implementation practices. This contribution reflects upon the implementation of a methodology aimed at engaging a multidisciplinary team of students in the revision of the Piedmont regional territorial plan (PTR), developed in close cooperation with the regional public administration. This problem-based learning activity supported the integration of supranational strategic objectives and funding streams with the regional territorial development priorities. In so doing, it represents a possible way to practice multilevel governance in concrete terms, employing the PTR as a meaningful catalyst.

Mortality risk factors in the dependent population of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) before and during the first COVID-19 wave

The coronavirus disease pandemic has had an important impact worldwide. The population aged over 65 years and aged dependent persons are the population groups which have suffered in a highest level the consequences of the pandemic in terms of cases and death. In Spain, the situation is similar to other countries, but regional studies are needed because competencies on long-term care depend on regional public administration. Thus, the aim of this work is to analyse social and individual factors associated with the risk of mortality of legally recognised dependent people during the pandemic compared to a non-pandemic period. The data were extracted from the administrative database on individuals included in Castilla-La Mancha's long-term care system and it was merged with the information from the Spanish National Death Index administered by the Ministry of Health, Consumption and Social Welfare. The results show that the risk of mortality between March and June 2020 was positively associated with being male; being older than 65, with an especially high impact in the group aged over 90; having a higher level of dependency; living in a nursing home; and living in a place with more population density. Intraregional differences related to health areas also exists in both pandemic and non-pandemic periods. These findings are critical with a view to enhancing protocols for the care of the most vulnerable population groups.

Innovative mechanisms for designing the regional public administration system

Subject. This article discusses the issues of managing complex systems and the feedback quality. Objectives. The article aims to develop a process model for the functioning of the regional public administration system. Methods. For the study, we used a systems analysis. Results. The article presents the design of a single control loop based on the model of a goal-oriented system and the model of an automatic control system and offers complete lists of elements for projects of a regional public administration system. Conclusions. Further development and implementation of the proposed project of the regional management system can help improve the effectiveness of targeted activities.

Analysis, description and assessment of the regional public administration system using a task-specific feedback control model

Subject. This article discusses the problem of people's trust in authorities in the regions of Russia. Objectives. The article aims to analyze regional legal acts regulating the cooperation of authorities and the population. Methods. For the study, we used the methods of mathematical analysis. Results. The article proposes a methodology for evaluating a strategic planning document, which involves the selection of signals of setting, comparing, computing, actuating or measuring devices. It represents the reconstruction of a single control loop of the selected object, as well as additional control objects and feedback loops. Conclusions. The implementation of formalized management models in the process of developing programmes for the strategic development of regions will improve the effectiveness of purposeful activities.

Campania Crea—A Collaborative Platform to Co-Create Open Data and Scaffold Information Visualization within the Campania Region

Open government data, as open data, are published to let interested stakeholders exploit data and create value out of them, but limited technical skills are a crucial barrier. Moreover, data silos within any public agency behave as a further obstacle in enabling collaboration between different working groups. This paper investigates the acceptance level of a collaborative platform to co-create, analyze, and visualize open government data within an Italian Regional Public Administration—the Campania region. This investigation first requires retracing and documenting the organizational changes applied to the Campania Region in moving from a siloed structure to a more horizontal and collaborative one. Second, it introduces the technical and technological contribution provided by the proposal of a Social Platform on Open Data (SPOD) as a regional public administration back-office, i.e., an internal platform, co-designed with public agency delegates and referred to as Campania Crea. Finally, it reports on the training session moderated by the University of Salerno to evaluate the acceptance rate of the proposed platform in real settings by involving 54 public agency members in actively using Campania Crea to co-create, analyze, and visualize open government data. The After Scenario Questionnaire was used to assess the acceptance level and attitude in using Campania Crea to report task-based results and the Technology Acceptance Model as an overall assessment of the platform acceptance level. As a result, Campania Crea supports regional public administration members in accomplishing their daily tasks concerning co-creation, analysis, and visualization of open data who positively accepted Campania Crea as a back-office tool. However, further effort should be invested in raising awareness and developing skills concerning open government data management.

INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS OF LOCAL AND REGIONAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION BODIES OF KOŠICE REGION AND PREŠOV REGION WITH PARTNERS IN UKRAINE

Despite the absence of a law on cross-border cooperation in the Slovak Republic, it can be concluded that the existing legal frameworks in Slovakia and Ukraine provide sufficient and diverse formal opportunities for cooperation between regional and local authorities on both sides of the border. At the beginning of the 90s of the 20th century, real self-governing structures, the business environment, and the non-governmental sector were just starting to take shape, and the relations between the then-new states of Slovakia (founded in 1993) and Ukraine (founded in 1991) were just being formed anew. The legislative environment was gradually formed. From this period, if we do not count legislative frameworks at national levels, almost the only formal evidence of cooperation between regional and local actors on both sides of the border is official documents on international partnerships of cities and municipalities. Of course, cooperation existed, especially in areas where it still works. In the field of culture, sports, tourism, education, and possibly also other, but practical matters, for example, related to transport connections or trade. We believe that, given the circumstances, the intensity of cooperation was at a lower level than at present. The paper deals with mapping international partnerships of local and regional public administration bodies in the Prešov and Košice regions with partners in Ukraine, from 1993 until now. The text deals with the legislative and institutional framework for the cooperation of local and regional actors across the border. Part of the article is also an overview of the contractual relations between the examined local and regional public administration bodies. The paper also offers political considerations and recommendations for the further development of the investigated relations. The paper also includes an interpretation of the results of the author‘s survey and the sociological survey carried out for the SIBSU project. Key words: public administration, international partnerships, local and regional authorities, Slovakia, Ukraine

How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected the Different Branches of the Agri-Food Industry in Extremadura (Spain)?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the world economy since 2020. This study analyzed the impact of the pandemic on innovative agri-food companies from different branches of agro-industrial activity located in Extremadura (Spain). The main aim of this study was to determine which activities have been most affected. Differences between actions and changes made depending on the nature of the product, process, or services were also evaluated. The information was obtained from an online questionnaire in which the research questions were posed (what consequences, actions, or changes has the pandemic had on the development of firms’ activities?). Data were analyzed descriptively, and a statistical study was conducted on the existence or absence of independence between effects and actions based on the branches of activity of agri-food industries. The main results showed that companies’ financial (decrease in turnover and reduction/displacement of product demand) and operational functioning (difficulty in marketing activities and standstill/decline in the fiscal year) has mainly been affected. In response, innovative agro-industries have acted regarding their processes (increased ICT use and new marketing strategies) and procedures (implementation of stricter hygienic-sanitary protocols and reorganization of activities and personnel) to deal with the negative effects on their activities. In general, all agro-industrial branches have incorporated changes in their products and services, mainly by providing new and better customer benefits, and improving product formats and forms of payment to suppliers. These findings provide information for the regional public administration in the development of initiatives that mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic and favor the implementation of actions that help the adaptation of agro-industrial activities. Agricultural policies should incorporate specialized measures to ensure the global sustainability of the food and agriculture system and the supply and production.

Dynamics of drug overdose in the 20th and 21st centuries: The exponential curve was not inevitable, and continued increases are preventable.

While much has been written about the positive individual and collective effects of Supervised injection services (SIS), notably on health and drug-related harm, little research focuses on their operational context and constraints. Building on Lascoumes and Le Gales's “public policy instrument and instrumentation” framework (2007), this article analyzes the implementation of Montreal SIS and discusses how the organizational aspects of SIS produce the contexts for drug injection.Using an ethnographic approach, this article draws on three types of data: 10 months of participant observation in a SIS (700 h); 19 semi-structured interviews with staff members (social workers, peers, heads of staff, management); and analysis of organizational documents (protocols, staff notebooks).First, this article examines how political context and advocacy coalitions produced Montreal SIS as a public policy instrument, affecting both the philosophy and the implementation of the service. It shows that Montreal SIS were developed under a health care network blueprint rather than a community organization harm reduction framework. Then, it analyzes how SIS as a policy instrument defines what constitutes appropriate injection practices, trying to supervise injection as an individual and technical act, rather than a broader social practice composed of pleasure, rituals, routines, and group dynamics.Montreal SIS were conceptualized under a “health banner” and through alliances between regional public health administration and local well-known community organizations. They were then developed mostly under a health care administration blueprint, although operated at a ground-level by local community organizations. It created tensions between the logics of “zero risk” and “harm reduction”, and ambiguity about how injection should be supervised and what parts of drug use could be managed.

Reply commentary by Jalal and Burke.

While much has been written about the positive individual and collective effects of Supervised injection services (SIS), notably on health and drug-related harm, little research focuses on their operational context and constraints. Building on Lascoumes and Le Gales's “public policy instrument and instrumentation” framework (2007), this article analyzes the implementation of Montreal SIS and discusses how the organizational aspects of SIS produce the contexts for drug injection.Using an ethnographic approach, this article draws on three types of data: 10 months of participant observation in a SIS (700 h); 19 semi-structured interviews with staff members (social workers, peers, heads of staff, management); and analysis of organizational documents (protocols, staff notebooks).First, this article examines how political context and advocacy coalitions produced Montreal SIS as a public policy instrument, affecting both the philosophy and the implementation of the service. It shows that Montreal SIS were developed under a health care network blueprint rather than a community organization harm reduction framework. Then, it analyzes how SIS as a policy instrument defines what constitutes appropriate injection practices, trying to supervise injection as an individual and technical act, rather than a broader social practice composed of pleasure, rituals, routines, and group dynamics.Montreal SIS were conceptualized under a “health banner” and through alliances between regional public health administration and local well-known community organizations. They were then developed mostly under a health care administration blueprint, although operated at a ground-level by local community organizations. It created tensions between the logics of “zero risk” and “harm reduction”, and ambiguity about how injection should be supervised and what parts of drug use could be managed.

Between zero risk and harm reduction: An ethnography of Montreal supervised injection services as a public policy instrument.

While much has been written about the positive individual and collective effects of Supervised injection services (SIS), notably on health and drug-related harm, little research focuses on their operational context and constraints. Building on Lascoumes and Le Gales's "public policy instrument and instrumentation" framework (2007), this article analyzes the implementation of Montreal SIS and discusses how the organizational aspects of SIS produce the contexts for drug injection. Using an ethnographic approach, this article draws on three types of data: 10 months of participant observation in a SIS (700h); 19 semi-structured interviews with staff members (social workers, peers, heads of staff, management); and analysis of organizational documents (protocols, staff notebooks). First, this article examines how political context and advocacy coalitions produced Montreal SIS as a public policy instrument, affecting both the philosophy and the implementation of the service. It shows that Montreal SIS were developed under a health care network blueprint rather than a community organization harm reduction framework. Then, it analyzes how SIS as a policy instrument defines what constitutes appropriate injection practices, trying to supervise injection as an individual and technical act, rather than a broader social practice composed of pleasure, rituals, routines, and group dynamics. Montreal SIS were conceptualized under a "health banner" and through alliances between regional public health administration and local well-known community organizations. They were then developed mostly under a health care administration blueprint, although operated at a ground-level by local community organizations. It created tensions between the logics of "zero risk" and "harm reduction", and ambiguity about how injection should be supervised and what parts of drug use could be managed.

Ефективність публічного управління та адміністрування: проблеми та напрями вдосконалення процесів оцінювання

The semantic and systemic criteria used to establish efficiency in the field of public administration are revealed. The main approaches are summarized and a critical analysis of methods for determining the level of effective and efficient functioning of public administration is conducted. The approach to definition of efficiency and effectiveness in the researched sphere which is based on the synthesized indicator which components are quantitative and qualitative characteristics of achievement of the set purposes and economy (efficiency, effectiveness) of use of budgetary resources is offered. The system of measurable components is formulated and expedient approaches to measurement of the basic criteria and indicators of efficiency are argued. The existing problems of objective evaluation of efficiency in the field of public administration are summarized and the importance of developing a generally accepted approach to establishing this type of efficiency and developing adequate to real conditions methods of evaluation and analytical processes. A comparative analysis of methods for evaluating the effectiveness of public administration on the criterion of the ratio of management results with declared goals and approaches to evaluation using the criterion of economy, expressed in the models of cost approach. A critical analysis of the use of different types of performance indicators in the evaluation processes - end effects, direct results and resource use indicators. The need to intensify further scientific substantiation for the development of universal mechanisms for assessing the effectiveness of management at the state level and adaptive methods for them to sectoral and regional public administration bodies. In the improved system of measuring the effectiveness of public administration, performance criteria are proposed to be the basis of a generalizing indicator that fairly accurately reflects the cost-effectiveness of available resources and results (efficiency) as a return on resources spent, profitability of the national economy.

Střední článek ve vzdělávání: vymezení pojmu, přístupy a implikace pro vzdělávací politiku

The concept of “middle layer” (ML) is one of the most frequent terms in current education policy. Yet, the literature on the topic is fragmented and the concept itself is defined in several different ways which hinders effective discussion. The main goals of the article are as follows: 1) to imbed current discussion in the scholar literature and provide basic overview of scholar literature; 2) clarify the terminology and delimit various meanings of the “middle layer” concept. The article is structured as follows. First, the methodology of literature review is described. Then the basic meaning of ML in various educational systems is explained. In the next part of the paper, the literature review on ML is provided. In so doing, two strands of literature are distinguished. While the research-oriented strand focuses on analysis of what ML does (and does not), the practical stream relates to what ML should (or should not) do. Based on previous analysis, the paper argues that four meanings of middle layer can be delimited. These meanings are shortly labelled as follows: (a) a loose network of local actors; (b) a coordinated and interacting system of actors; (c) an organized set of several core local organizations; (d) a regional public administration institution. These four definitions are defined and explained. The article concludes with several implications for educational policy in the Czech Republic.

Public Administration as an Object of Scientific Research and a Direction of Civil Servants’ Education

The article is devoted to systematizing and updating the research and educational characteristics of public administration. The research method is a problem analysis of the public administration research discipline and the design of the problem of training personnel for the contemporary public service. The result of the study is the justification of the need to match the key competen- cies of civil servants to the priority areas of public administration as a scientific discipline. The article concludes that contemporary public administration should be understood as a practical activity to achieve national and regional goals and objectives through state organizations and public participation. This definition allows to accumulate both domestic and foreign experience, as well as combine practice-oriented and research characteristics of the concept under study. The theoretical basis of public administration is determined by two key methodological approaches: socio-engineering that is focused on the search for optimal management models for solving prob- lems that arise in society in a way; and humanitarian, that is based on the need to overcome bureaucracy and inertia of the management system. The subject of contemporary public admin- istration consists of some problem areas, including: international, national, regional and local public administration systems; organization and implementation of sectoral and sectoral policies, strategies, projects and programs; administrative processes and procedures; research of the state and municipal service; civil society; information support and digital transformation of administration. The article substantiates that the Russian education system has now created conditions for more flexible consideration of the requests of the state and municipal service system in terms of the composition and quality of officials’ competencies. The author comes to the conclusion that the dynamics of the competence approach to the civil servants education is quite optimistic: on the one hand, educational standards and training plans flexibly take into account the needs of the state and municipal service, and on the other hand, they correspond to modern trends in the transformation of the public administration system towards a more efficient organization of interac- tion between the state and citizens.

ANALYTICAL METHODOLOGIES CONCERNING HISTORIC NEIGHBOURHOODS FOR URBAN RENEWAL IN SOUTHERN CHILE. HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE PLACE TO INTERVENE?

Historic urban spaces are emplacements that present a particular special interest due to their cultural value and their both urban and architectural pattern. The built environment of cities is composed of a number of variables – anthropic, spatial, morphological, environmental, social, constructive and atmospheric – and all of them must be part of a system that is capable of generating more comfortable and efficient environments. Currently, the work of expert professionals linked to the built environment implies an environmental challenge related to the buildings and their direct harmony with the natural environment; the development of comprehensive plans capable of administering, preserving and protecting historical-heritage constructions in areas susceptible to certain natural disasters; as well as the incorporation of sustainability criteria in urban planning instruments, which is one of the main objectives for regional and state public administrations. This research work intends to propose a comprehensive set of analytical methodologies focused on the morphology of urban blocks, the vitality of the neighbourhood and the functional service life state presented by heritage buildings in order to provide strategies for a proposal for urban regeneration in the case of Barrios Bajos of the city of Valdivia, in southern Chile. This study shows the implications of the proposed methodologies in order to verify their validity and empirically test the application of this type of proposal in one of the historic neighbourhoods of the city of Valdivia, used as a prototype of southern Chile.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION OF A MODERN CITY

Public administration of a modern city is the main point in determining the formation vector of the national country and law. The implementation of state and urban governance has common patterns based on the history of the formation and development of state and legal institutions. This, in turn, allows for a fresh look at the understanding of the concept of regional policy and public administration. The public administration issues of a modern city are controversial in the legal literature. In this article, the author examines the public administration of a modern city, analyzes its legal nature and place in the system of state and municipal government, and offers the author’s vision of understanding the public administration of a modern city. In the pre­sent research, the author examines public administration using the example of Russian cities and also studies features of a city as a concept itself, these features are not exclusive for the Russian legal system. Analyzing regulatory documents, as well as domestic literature, we can conclude that public administration is considered in two aspects, as an activity and as a legal relationship. According to the author, the public administration of a modern city should be considered as a set of actions by state and local authorities, self-government bodies and their officials to ensure the life of the city’s residents with the aim of its sustainable development. Legal regulation of public urban management in Russian legislation occurs indirectly through the regulation of implementation of local self-government. It is concluded that the definition of specific goals and objectives of Russian cities public administration affects their socio-economic development, however, at present, the Russian legislator has not defined the goals and objectives of urban management, and insufficient attention is paid to the strategic development of modern cities in Russia. The research methodology is based on the dialectical method, which made it possible to determine the public administration features of a modern city and its place in the system of state and municipal administration. The use of the comparative (comparative legal) method helped to identify the distinctive features that characterize the public administration of a modern city. With the help of historical and prognostic methods, the generality of the implementation laws of state and city government was substantiated and proved. The use of the formal legal method made it possible to study public urban governance separately from other legal activities.

ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ ОРГАНИЗАЦИОННОГО УСТРОЙСТВА РЕГИОНАЛЬНОГО АПК

The presented article reveals the need to apply an institutional approach to ensure the rationality of the functioning of the agricultural sector with the dominant role of the state, which should apply a certain institutional mecha- nism that increases the effectiveness of institutional transformations. In order to overcome the existing crisis phenomena of the agrarian sphere, it is advisable to use an integrated approach to the construction and application of a mechanism with a complex structure, one of the components of which is the mechanism of formation of a unified structure of the regional system of public administration of the agro- industrial complex. The proposed mechanism should proceed from a specified management object, including a part of the agro-industrial complex directly involved in the production of agricultural products and raw materials (agriculture, food and processing industry). As for the subject of management, an orderly, flexible, harmonized vertical of state management of the agricultural sector is needed. At the same time, the formation or transformation of the regional management system of the agricultural sector should be based on the functions performed, based on which, in the future, the structure itself is formed. The analysis of the main functions of state management of the agricultural sector revealed the need to divide them into groups: functions, the implementation of which should be concentrated in the federal center with directive bringing criteria, indicators to the region; general functions, mandatory for implementation at the regional level of agribusiness management; private functions, determined from the specific properties of the region and necessary for implementation. This approach allowed us to construct an algorithm for the mechanism of forming a unified structure of the regional public administration system of the agro-industrial complex. The proposed mechanism for the formation of a unified structure of the regional public administration system of the agro-industrial complex has a universal, unified character and can be applied in the construction of the management system of any region.

An Approach to Estimating the Economic Expediency of Developing a New Cargo Transport Hub by a Regional Public Administration

ABSTRACT Regional authorities consider the expediency of developing a new cargo transportation hub in the region in which it would provide transshipment services. It is considered that each transportation operator working in the region will use these services only if they are competitive with the currently existing ones. This competitiveness for a particular cargo means that the total transportation tariff for moving this cargo does not exceed (substantially or in principle) the (minimal) currently existing one as a result of including a transshipment via the hub in the transportation scheme for the cargo. A verifiable sufficient condition for the transshipment service competitiveness is proposed. Its verification consists of establishing the solvability of a system of linear inequalities being part of the system of constraints in the problem of finding optimal competitive transshipment tariffs for a set of cargoes expected to be moved via the hub. The latter problem is formulated as a quadratic programming one.

Generating a spatial coverage plan for the emergency medical service on a regional scale: Empirical versus random forest modelling approach

Adequate spatial coverage by the emergency medical service and the ability to reach any location in the area of interest in the shortest possible time are crucial for the survival of patients with serious conditions. Knowledge of blind spots (i.e. sites that cannot be reached within the required time) represents key information for improving the service quality and may lead, e.g. to a relocation of bases or to other active interventions. Spatial coverage can be derived from experience based on historical data. Such an approach may be problematic if a larger area is being analysed, especially if data is not available for some parts of such areas or if no data is available. To eliminate such problems, we created a prediction model utilising the random forest ensemble learning method. The model is capable of predicting the travel time based on available historical data on ambulance movements (GPS) and the geometric and construction characteristics of individual road segments. We therefore collaborated with the regional public administration and emergency medical service authorities to deliver a time- and resource-efficient solution for emergency spatial planning practice. The outputs from the newly built model were subsequently validated against data from an empirical model currently used by the regional authorities. The results from both models were compared from the perspective of performance in various seasonal and time-of-day conditions. The prediction of travel times using the new model improved according to all the evaluated validation metrics. The importance and applicability of the foregoing model lies in the fact that it can be incorporated into the current emergency medical service management system in a simple manner in terms of data availability and the required computational resources. We conclude that the dynamic model presented in this paper represents an improvement relative to the reference data, and discuss the possibilities of further improving the proposed model.

One and the Same? A Systematic Literature Review of Residential Property Investor Types

This article presents a systematic literature review on residential property investor types in selected social science disciplines and critically evaluates the status quo of academic engagement within this diverse group of property market actors. A recurring critique in recent years has been the minimal acknowledgment of investor heterogeneity particularly in relation to urban development and the financialization of housing. Yet, to date, there is no systematic evidence supporting these contentions. Therefore, we conducted an exhaustive literature review of residential investment landscapes through the Web of Science citation database in the following fields: Urban and regional planning, geography, sociology, urban studies, public administration, and economics. Subsequently, we methodically searched for the types of investors addressed, and investor categories employed, in journal articles published between 2000 and 2019. Following a meta-categorization of the results, we demonstrate how existing literature differentiates investors in terms of their spatial scale of operation, size and social composition, investment object and finance, or investment and social behavior. Additionally, we highlight the key topics and issues addressed in the reviewed literature within each meta-category. We propose to turn the four meta-categories into a multidimensional analytical framework as a point of departure for a more nuanced and in-depth understanding of investor differentiations, a tool that is urgently needed in Planning Studies and related disciplines. Furthermore, we argue that mixed method approaches combining hard and quantifiable with soft behavioral investor characteristics, as well as institutional analyses combining structural considerations with actors’ agency, are indispensable to disentangle contemporary residential property market dynamics.

Strategic management by the regional economic development in public administration in Ukraine

In a modern regional economy in Ukraine, there is a need to improve the mechanisms of strategic management by the regional economic development in public administration. Problems of the economic regional development in Ukraine explains the need to pay attention to strategic management by the regional economic development in the sphere of public administration.
 The issue of strategic management by the regional economic development in the sphere of public administration has been covered in the scientific works. But despite active scientific researches the strategic management by the regional economic development public administration in Ukraine isn’t still studied properly.
 The strategic management by the regional economic development in public administration in Ukraine have been investigated. The normative legal base of strategic management by the regional economic development in public administration in Ukraine are generalized. The main components of normative legal base of strategic management by the regional economic development in public administration in Ukraine are The Constitution of Ukraine, laws of Ukraine, Codes of Ukraine, Acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and others. The features of strategic planning of regional economic development in the sphere of public administration in Ukraine are considered.
 In today’s conditions, the state of regional socio-economic and ecological development in Ukraine require the improvement of provision of strategic management by the regional economic development in public administration in Ukraine. The ways for improving the provision of strategic management by the regional economic development in public administration in Ukraine are determined.