Subnational Governments Research Articles

Ill-gotten gains: Partisan alignment, politicised grant transfers and English local election outcomes

Are grant flows from the Westminster government to local authorities influenced by political dynamics, and if so do these politicised transfers influence local election outcomes? John and Ward suggested that, through the 1980s and 1990s, Conservative central governments favoured politically aligned local authorities. We demonstrate the continuation of this trend across the cohort of Labour, coalition, and Conservative governments from 2007 to 2019, and also establish evidence of inter-party variation in the type of grant manipulation in existence. We also more substantively extend John and Ward’s work by demonstrating that electoral ‘ill-gotten gains’ follow from these politicised flows, with higher resource transfers being associated with marginally stronger incumbent electoral performance. Given the importance of central grants to subnational government in the UK, these findings are of significant contemporary policy relevance.

Territorial Autonomy and the Trade-Off between Civil and Communal Violence

To safeguard peace in multi-ethnic countries, scholars and practitioners recommend territorial autonomy. However, there is limited cross-national research on how autonomy affects subnational ethnic conflict, and increasing concern that it redirects ethnic violence from the national to the subnational level. Addressing this gap, I argue that autonomy generates tensions over subnational government control and the distribution of local economic goods. However, whether these turn violent depends on ethnic representation in the central government. If groups are unequally represented, violent escalation is more likely due to information and commitment problems and subnational majoritarianism. To test these arguments, I provide new time-variant data on subnational boundaries, territorial autonomy, and ethnically attributed violence. I conduct a systematic analysis of all multi-ethnic countries between 1989 and 2019, instrumental variable analyses, and tests of my argument’s intermediate implications. My findings underline the importance of complementing autonomy with inclusive central governments to attenuate the risks of subnational violence.

Economic Resistance of Sub-National Governments in Mitigating Inflation Risk: The Case of Bela Beli Kulon Progo Movement

Political decentralization has brought great changes in the form of challenges and opportunities. In the context of the challenges of decentralization, it requires regions to clean up, organize, and fix regional problems. However, it must be used as an instrument to solve economic problems, one of which is inflation in the regions. Kulon Progo Regency is one of the role models that has an economic instrument in mitigating the risk of inflation. This arrangement is stated in the Bela Beli Kulon Progo policy. This policy uses an approach to strengthen the local economy so that it can stimulate the growth of people's per capita income. This study examines these issues using a qualitative approach with library research methods. It uses the theory proposed by the decentralization and inflation approach proposed by Treisman. The results show that strengthening the local economy had the power to mitigate the risk of inflation in regions. The strengthening of the local economy was seen in the increasing level of people's income and regional income which resulted in stronger economic growth. However, inflation is a serious threat to the regional economy if people's incomes are fixed and there is economic instability. Bela Beli Kulon Progo movement improved the local economy of Kulon Progo. Various programs of Bela Beli became the basis for the strong economic support of the district so that inflation could be controlled. On this basis, the movement becomes an instrument as well as a role model in mitigating the risk of regional inflation. This study, therefore, contributes to the study of local movement and inflation in the regional contexts.

Natural disasters and intergovernmental relations: more or less decentralisation?

ABSTRACT Subnational governments, at the regional and local levels, play an important role in the prevention, management and recovery from natural disasters. These jurisdictions are responsible for issuing and monitoring compliance with several aspects of regulation that are essential for risk prevention, providing frontline services that are crucial for effective crisis management, and rebuilding lost or damaged physical infrastructure in the recovery phase. This paper provides empirical evidence based on impulse response functions that the occurrence of natural disasters is associated with an increase in the subnational shares of government spending and revenue in the years following these shocks. These decentralisation effects vary according to specific shocks and are conditional on the business cycle: they tend to be stronger when the shocks materialise during economic expansions.

‘Stand by me’: competitive subnational regimes and the politics of retaining immigrants

ABSTRACT This article examines the pivotal role of immigration for subnational units, focusing on their efforts to retain immigrants. In the global competition for ‘wanted’ immigrants, subnational governments have developed innovative immigration-related programmes tailored to their demographic, economic, and linguistic needs. While previous research has mainly focused on the selection of international immigrants, this study delves into subnational efforts to keeping immigrants ‘in’. Using Canadian provinces as a case study, and through a qualitative content analysis of policy documents and immigration schemes, this article asks: To what extent do Canadian provinces compete to retain immigrants? The analysis reveals ‘subnational competitive immigration regimes’, wherein subnational units take policy actions to not only attract immigrants but influence or hinder their internal mobility. Downstream, provinces employ settlement and integration services to encourage retention. Upstream, provinces fine-tune their selection streams to choose migrants who are deemed more likely to stay. Policy outputs reveal how ‘wanted immigrants’ are conceptualized at the subnational level: those who can demonstrate a commitment to staying, rather than solely those who fulfil economic and demographic needs. The results shed light on the interplay between international immigration policies and immigrants’ internal mobility, and emphasize the significance of subnational policy in retaining immigrants.

Expenditure Practices of Provincial and Local Governments: The Case of Nepal

Nepal promulgated a new constitution in 2015, which adopted a federal system of governance to achieve economic equality, prosperity and social justice. The constitution has allocated expenditure responsibilities to each level of government. In such a scenario, this study employs a descriptive approach to analyze the spending practices of Nepal’s provincial and local governments. Secondary sources of data were used to cover the period from 2018/19 to 2021/22. The study found that the average share of recurrent expenditure at the provincial level of Nepal was 42.5% while such share of capital expenditure was 57.5%. At the local level, the average share of recurrent and capital expenditure was 60.5% and 39.5% respectively. Within the capital expenditure of Nepal’s provincial governments, the average share of expenditure items having relatively more contribution to capital formation was 70.6% while that of local governments, such share was 52.9% only. The study also found that Nepal's provincial and local governments spend less on the major subnational service delivery areas. Nepal’s subnational government spending practices highlight the need to spend more on capital formation. Within the capital formation, more spending on the areas having a direct impact on their future growth and prosperity is necessary. The subnational governments must also spend more on major subnational service delivery areas.

Nature for resilience reconfigured: global-to-local translation of frames in Africa

Globally, various frames of urban nature circulate, each emphasising particular challenges and natural solutions in the climate context. Yet which actors and dynamics shape their translation to the African context remains unclear. This paper explores the global-to-local translation process of frames through interventions funded by transnational actors, conceptualised as agents of policy transfer. Critical scholarship has observed that urban adaptation and resilience interventions in Africa are often characterised as technocratic and top-down approaches, hence it is vital to understand whether these are replicated through proliferating nature-based solutions (NBSs). The study of a resilience-building intervention in Lilongwe, Malawi, reveals that transnational actors play important roles by deploying frames of urban nature through funding projects. However, rather than involving a top-down imposition of particular solutions, this sets in motion dynamics: in the competition for resources that frames generate, various actor constellations of transnational actors, subnational governments and local NGOs reconfigure or relabel strategies and associated (nature-based) practices to suit global frames and the resources they generate. This shapes who is included or not, and what kinds of NBS are being developed, for and by whom. There is a risk that priorities of communities get lost in translation. Policy relevance Frames of urban nature shape global agendas but also matter locally in the design of programmes and projects. This study provides key insights of relevance for policymakers. First, external funding for climate and resilience is unpredictable and insufficient to address manifold urgent local priorities. It is important that actors at all levels strive to align resources to holistic strategies of local governments and do not impose certain visions for urban nature. For this to happen, and second, it is key that local governments and communities are empowered to create forms of nature that are built around diverse forms of local knowledge and expertise, to cater to values and priorities of the communities. Third, proponents of NBSs highlight their potential to address interlinked climate-, biodiversity- and society-related challenges. However, unless funding allocation puts emphasis on the interlinkage of goals, the potential for NBSs to reach multiple goals can get lost. Fourth, there is a need to disrupt the persisting scepticism concerning the feasibility of NBSs in informal settlements and forge collaborations that realise interventions closely linked to the priorities of disadvantaged groups in African cities, to leverage the power of nature for more just societies.

Governments and parliaments in a state of emergency: what can we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic?

ABSTRACT What happens in a state of emergency that is prolonged and unrelated to security with respect to the powers afforded to or used by the executive, checks and balances, and cooperation between the government, parliament, and sub-national authorities? This article investigates the variation in ‘executive aggrandisement’ (a temporary reduction in influence and oversight capacity of formal institutions vis-à-vis the executive) during the COVID-19 pandemic in six parliamentary democracies. We theorise that this variation can be in part explained based on path dependence. We explore how pre-pandemic levels of executive dominance and policy centralisation affect executive aggrandisement during the 2020–2022 emergency across our sample of countries. We show that Canada and Germany experienced little to no aggrandisement. In France, Israel, Italy, and the United Kingdom, government rule increased throughout the crisis at the expense of parliament and sub-national authorities. In line with our expectations, we find that most facets of the process of executive aggrandisement in a state of emergency can be interpreted in view of prior institutional arrangements. The outlier elements can be explained by considering circumstantial factors. Our evidence contributes to the literature on the political consequences of COVID-19 by filling some gaps regarding the roots of executive aggrandisement.

Citizen-Led Environmental Governance: Regulating Urban Wetlands in South America

Wetlands provide ecosystem services such as flood protection, improved water quality, and wildlife habitat, but are under attack in urban land-use conflicts in the Global South. This article presents two cases of local wetlands governance conflicts in Colombia (Humedal la Conejera, Bogotá, Cundinamarca) and Argentina (Laguna de Rocha, Esteban Echeverría, Gran Buenos Aires) to illustrate divergent pathways toward improved environmental governance via citizen pressures: the collaborative method (Bogotá) and the adversarial method (Buenos Aires). While existing scholarship on citizen-led regulation stresses the importance of collaboration between community organizations and the state, this article argues that adversarial tactics are also a key component of environmental governance. In both cases, citizen-led pressures led to increased enforcement of regulatory measures to restore wetlands and gain protected-area status. Citizen-led governance involved adversarial strategies such as marches, litigation, and shaming and blaming in the media, as well as collaborative strategies such as creating broad-based educational forums, working inside city government, and partnering directly with public institutions to set new policies. Against the backdrop of extensive collusion between elected officials and land developers, citizen-led subnational environmental governance has become the regulatory regime of last resort in urban Latin America.

The role of tax enforcement on green innovation: Evidence from the consolidation of state and local tax bureau (CSLTB)

Literature on environmental governance in developing countries often attributes environmental issues to the sub-national governments’ lenient enforcement of the law. Based on the data of A-share listed companies spanning from 2010 to 2020, this study conducts a difference-in-differences estimation exploiting an exogenous shock in tax enforcement caused by the Consolidation of State and Local Tax Bureau (CSLTB) in China. We identify strong evidence that the CSLTB decreases corporate green innovation, which is consistent across a range of robustness checks. Mechanistic tests show our primary discoveries are motivated by the liquidity constraint channel, which is manifested by an improvement in firms’ effective tax rate, cash holdings, and a decrease in dividend payments. Finally, our study reveals this negative effect exerted by tax enforcement with respect to corporate green innovation becomes particularly pronounced among firms with strong financing constraints, poor profitability, strong legal environment, non-state-owned firms, and poor tax transfer capability. Overall, this study enriches the study of tax enforcement and provides further insight into the environmental effects of non-environmental policies.

China’s expansion into Brazilian digital surveillance markets

A number of countries in the Global South have adopted anti-China rhetoric in recent years. Here, we seek to assess the relation of such rhetoric to procurement of Chinese digital systems. We use the example of Brazil during the Bolsonaro government, examining whether Bolsonaro’s anti-China stance impacted procurement of Chinese surveillance technologies by sub-national (state/city) governments, which are the main bodies responsible for public security. We find that there has been broad and sustained procurement of Chinese surveillance technologies across the political spectrum; both among local governments politically allied to Bolsonaro and those from the opposition. Combined with acquisition at federal level, this suggests anti-China rhetoric does not feed through into procurement realities. Nor can China be singularly associated with diffusion of surveillance technologies as Western democracies have also been suppliers.

The Law and Concept of Fiscal Devolution in the United Kingdom

Fiscal devolution is a multifaceted and evolving concept that plays a pivotal role in the governance of the United Kingdom, which is still under an ongoing development process. At the end of the 1990s the subnational governments achieved various stages of autonomy since the 1998 devolution acts, which ratified the administrative and fiscal devolution, provide the formal structure for revenue-raising and expenditure powers. The devolutionary process was facilitated after the Great Recession, assigning different income raising and welfare authorities to Scotland and Wales, while the same progress was dampened in Northern Ireland, because of the looming political instability. The system is complex, consisting of several essential elements that are closely linked to each other: devolution acts, fiscal frameworks, block grants, tax devolution, tax-varying powers, borrowing powers and the reserved matters. The results are not the same or uniform, each country has its own set of rules, negotiated with and enacted by the Westminster Parliament. It reflects the evolving nature of governance and the recognition that one-size-fits-all policies may not be suitable for a nation as diverse as the United Kingdom. It can be regarded as a testament to the adaptability of the constitutional and legal framework in response to changing political and social landscapes. The fiscal devolution experience in the UK underscores the need for a delicate balance between local autonomy and national cohesion. The legal and conceptual framework underpinning fiscal devolution has profound implications for economic policy, public finance, and intergovernmental relations and it is still subject of ongoing debates and reforms and not without complexities and challenges.

Talent Management Strategies and Service Delivery in County Governments in Kenya

A proactive human resource management (HRM) system in public sector organizations is critical for effective public service delivery. However, sub-national(county) governments (SNGs) in Kenya faced significant challenges in acquiring and retaining talented staff because of a labour supply and demand mismatch. Based on the challenge, the study evaluated the nature of the talent management strategies and their influence on service delivery in sub-national governments in Kenya. The study utilized the descriptive design and critically examined the HRM structures by sampling 140 respondents (47 county secretaries, 47 county directors of HRM and 46 municipality managers from municipalities based at the county headquarters of 46 counties) through interviews and questionnaires. The respondents were chosen based on their functional human resource management roles in the counties. The research instrument was validated through a panel review and piloted in three counties. The qualitative reports support the establishment and strengthening of county HR structure and systems, building staff capacity through training, and adopting talent management policies and practices to reduce staff turnover. This process would optimize staff competencies in sustaining service provisions at the county level. The correlation analysis indicated that service delivery positively correlated with talent management strategies (r = 0.6731, p< 0.05) at 0.05 significance levels, while the regression analysis revealed that talent management strategies explain about 45.30 % variance in service delivery with an effect size (β1 = 0.6210 (t = 10.6, p < 0.05). Based on the findings, the study concluded that talent management strategies are crucial to improving service delivery in Kenya's sub-national(county) governments. The study recommends proactive planning and adequately structuring the county's workforce based on knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics. The study suggests that county governance structures should integrate and concretize the HRM initiatives geared towards talent management

Local multilevel governance arrangements for climate change planning and management in Kumasi, Ghana

Institutions play crucial roles in addressing and building resilence to climate risks. Whereas planning for and addressing climate change issues through multilevel goverence (MLG) has become inevitable, there has been a disparity in the attention given to different levels of MLG. The focus of MLG research has predominantly centered around supranational and national levels, with limited empirical studies on subnational MLG governance; hence, this research. This study thus focuses on the city of Kumasi (specifically, Kumasi Metropolitan Area) in Ghana as a case study to examine the role of MLG at the subnational level in climate change planning and management. Seven relevant climate change and local/city planning agencies were sampled purposively for appropriate data. It was clearly revealed that these actors who operate at various levels and jurisdiction, address climate challenges in accordance with their respective primary responsibilities. While such MLG arrangement exists for addressing climate change in the city of Kumasi, there are many challenges that derail effective collaboration and any meaningful outcome within such governance framework. The collaboration among the authorities involved in planning and managing climate change action in Kumasi remains weak coupled with overlaps in their formal roles and responsibilities. Additionally, there is no evidence of any meaningful action being undertaken within such governance arrangement to address climate change contrary to the expectation that MLG should have enhanced interactions in terms of planning for climate change. The study recommends that the MLG framework should encourage learning across different levels and facilitate interactions among various organizations, promoting innovation in climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives.

Transparency of subnational governments: the impact of inequality on transparency

Transparency of subnational governments: the impact of inequality on transparency

The Sovereign Wealth Fund and Nigerian Economic Development

The study specifically investigated the impact of sub-national government sovereign wealth funds on the economic development of Nigeria. An ex-post research design was used for the study. Economic development was proxied by per capita income, while sovereign wealth funds were proxied by their three components: stabilization funds, future generation funds, and infrastructure funds. Data for the variables were obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria for the period 2012–2022. An econometric approach was used to analyze the data. Findings showed that of the three components of SWFs, only future generation funds impact positively and significantly on economic development. In view of the findings, it is recommended that the government ensure effective and efficient management of the various funds by putting in place proper regulatory measures so as to attain the goals for which the funds were established.

Evidence of subnational government sovereign boundary percolation in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This study analyzes data from 1999–2019, evidencing strategies utilized by Nigerian Subnational Governments (SNGs) for attracting inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). These strategies are unique for several reasons, including the fact that they highlight the evidence of paradiplomacy in Nigeria, a case study that is understudied in the paradiplomacy literature. These strategies are also a deviation from the conventional protocols for FDI mobilization in Nigeria. Drawing on Duchacek's conceptualization of these strategies as a percolation of sovereign boundaries, i.e. the idea that SNGs are permeating inter-sovereign ‘sieves’ designed to restrict their forays into the international plane, this paper conceptually maps and empirically assesses the varied expressions and prevalence of these strategies. Although these strategies are yet to be constitutionally challenged by the central government, they reveal a growing porosity of Nigeria’s sovereign boundaries and necessitate a critical reassessment of the extant intergovernmental frameworks that govern FDI mobilization in Nigeria.

Filling the climate governance gap: Do corporate decarbonization initiatives matter as much as state and local government policy?

Companies and subnational governments are actively attempting to fill the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation gap left by weak national policy, but how effective are their efforts in reducing GHG emissions? This is the first study to disaggregate corporate GHG reporting from CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project), down to the facility level to analyze the respective roles of corporate initiatives and subnational public policies in driving corporate decarbonization in the United States from 2010 to 2019. We find that although corporate decarbonization initiatives are associated with GHG reductions, the primary drivers of corporate facility decarbonization are state-level climate policies, in particular financial incentives for energy efficiency. Given that the same types of incentives are significantly expanded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), our finding suggests that state and local government mobilization of new incentives will play a crucial role in achieving private sector decarbonization goals. Last, total emissions by CDP-disclosing corporations increased substantially over our sample period, meaning that expansion of subnational climate action and corporate initiatives may be vital to reduce overall U.S. corporate emissions.

Subnational Oil Resource Governance after the Commodity Boom: The Making and Limitations of Peru’s Closing Development Gaps Plan

Subnational Oil Resource Governance after the Commodity Boom: The Making and Limitations of Peru’s Closing Development Gaps Plan

Governance drivers hinder and support a paradigm shift in wildfire risk management in Italy

Fire is a fundamental social-ecological process, but a combination of changing climate, land use and values at risk is increasing the incidence of large wildfires with high societal and biodiversity impacts. Academic and practitioner understanding is now converging around the need to manage fire risk as an outcome of intersecting governance regimes, comprising geohistorically defined institutions and decision-making pathways shaped by earlier wildfires. We investigate this proposition through a case study of Italy, a country greatly affected by wildfire and characterised by strong organisational, socio-cultural and geographical variation nationally. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study collecting and analysing qualitative data on how different national and sub-national governance procedures interrelate to promote particular risk management strategies, and support or impede adaptive change. Participants in key agencies were consulted across seven nationally representative regions. Findings show a highly fragmented institutional structure, where wildfire policy responsibilities are increasingly allocated to disparate organisations at a variety of scales. Local stakeholder participation has been displaced by this shift to extra-local actors and networks. While institutions are formally committed to adopting a precautionary approach to wildfire risk, in practice, emergency response remains the default choice, as a result of patchy and uncoordinated legislation. Notably, the wider national and international (EU) regulatory context plays a muted role in governing wildfires. We present our results as a novel action research agenda for Italy and southern Europe more generally, emphasising the urgent need to develop new anticipatory systems of wildfire incidence through closer integration of cross-scale governance arrangements.