Subnational State Research Articles

Between the Global Commodity Boom and Subnational State Capacities: Payment for Environmental Services to Fight Deforestation in Argentina

Does subnational state capacity stop deforestation? The commodity boom of the 2000s significantly expanded the agriculture frontier in most provinces of Argentina, with devastating effects on native forests. Interestingly, some of the subnational governments that presided over the commodities supercycle also sought to reform the forestry sector to reduce rampant deforestation, despite promoting and benefiting from agricultural expansion. A national program to protect native forests through payment for environmental services (PES) was created to be implemented in local districts. We argue that the success of new forest protections is contingent on the capacity of subnational governments to implement the law. In our study, we find that changes in provincial deforestation rates are explained by the interaction of state capacity, on one hand, and high land prices driven by commodity pressures, on the other. Our research carries implications for students and practitioners of forest PES. Our findings underscore the fundamental role subnational state governments play in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Making Hong Kong Chinese: State Nationalism and its Blowbacks in a Recalcitrant City

Drawing from the literatures on strategic identity shift and on signaling, this article examines the strategies used by Beijing to impose its monist brand of state nationalism on Hong Kong. Given the nominally high degree of autonomy granted to Hong Kong, Beijing has been unable to impose its nationalism directly from above. Instead, it has made use of cooptation strategies so as to cultivate increasingly vocal and influential loyalist circles among local elites, who have promoted state nationalism from within. This logic, this article argues, has led many among Hong Kong’s political elite to compete in expressing an increasingly overt Chinese nationalistic posture as a way to signal loyalty to Beijing. These strategies have however backfired, raising doubts as to the actual extent of Hong Kong’s autonomy and triggering an existential crisis that led to the emergence of a reactive form of popular Hong Kong sub-state nationalism. In this context, state and popular sub-state nationalisms have fed on each other and grown increasingly irreconcilable, echoing the intensifying radicalization and polarization between the authoritarian establishment and the democratic opposition.

Incumbency and Expectations of Fiscal Rule Compliance: Evidence from Surveys of German Policy Makers

We analyze politicians’ expectations about future compliance with a fiscal rule, and in particular the dependence of the expectations on their role in parliament (opposition vs. incumbent government coalition). We study this in the context of the German debt brake, which became a constitutional provision in 2009 but is binding for the sub-national states from 2020 onwards only. Via a unique survey, we analyze compliance expectations of parliamentarians of all 16 German state parliaments. A strong incumbency effect is identi-fied from parlamentarians who move in and out of government, showing that politicians from the governing coalition are more optimistic than those from the opposition. A nega-tive fiscal shock has little effects on the former, but a strongly negative one on the latter. We offer a theoretical model that is consistent with an increasing incumbency effect over time, as the result of wishful thinking by politicians concerning their reelection chances and a dynamic reputation effect for policymakers when compliance with the fiscal rule is achieved.

"Public Innovation in Post-Transition Countries: Experiences from Brazil and Romania"

We compare two cases of innovation in public services in Brazil and Romania, aiming to illustrate the connection between innovation, modernization, and path-dependence. One case is the Brazilian Pathway School Program, and the second is the Romanian School Bus Pro­gram. Both countries experienced periods of transition, which we considered fruitful for his­torical analysis. We based our investigation on two comparative case studies, using secondary data and employing document analysis and pre­vious researches’ reports. While Brazilian Path­way School Program proved to be a successful story of designing a centralized policy, Romania walked in the opposite direction, from a central­ized state, under the communist rule, to a polity where innovation occurs at the intersection be­tween local community and central government. In Romania, it would be difficult to perceive the contingencies of local engagement in a country where civil liberty was suspended for 42 years. In Brazil, the inquiry was connected to the atypical federation, where the subnational states devel­oped an extraordinary economic and budgetary dependence on the Union.

The role of subnational actors in North America during the NAFTA renegotiation

This article analyzes the economic relations of subnational states in the United States with Mexico and Canada during the period of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) but also during the negotiation and ratification of the United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement (USMCA). The first part considers the theoretical debates on the international economic relations of subnational states, highlighting the economic paradiplomacy, as well as the endogenous and exogenous factors that encourage these processes. The second part examines such economic relations, particularly exports, imports and integrated supply chains from a subnational level, looking at the cross-border region in North America. The third part concentrates on the analysis and presents the main results and conclusions.

A multi-level climate club with national and sub-national members: theory and application to US states

The minilateral approach of a climate club of countries has been suggested as an intermediate phase in a transition towards a global agreement that enforces national climate policies through harmonization. To garner critical mass, we propose an extended club configuration including sub-national states or provinces, resulting in a multi-level club. This would allow considerable contributions from important emitters like the US to be brought on board, relevant given its intended withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. We elaborate this idea and clarify potential roles of participants at distinct levels. The concept is operationalized by developing a method for identifying suitable entities at each level that uses a set of likelihood-of-involvement indicators capturing existing carbon dependence, public opinion, government policy and climate coalition membership. Application at the national level identifies a subset of seven of the highest emitting countries representing 21% of global emissions. This rises to 51% assuming that China, the dominant global emitter, could be enticed into the group. Given that US involvement remains unlikely for now, we illustrate selection at the sub-national level for US states. Here, an initial group of 21 states appear as potential members, jointly accounting for 36% of national emissions. An additional group, representing a further 34% of emissions, are potentially receptive to enticement via trade dependencies on four key countries identified within the group of national members. Accordingly, some 70% of US emissions, representing 11% of global totals, may be subject to climate club involvement via a combination of these pathways. While the implementation of such a club requires various political and legal hurdles to be overcome, the ongoing threat of climate change and inadequacies of the Paris Agreement suggest that novel solutions of this kind deserve serious attention from scientists and politicians.

A STUDY ON GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT IN BODOLAND TERRITORIAL AREA DISTRICTS OF ASSAM IN INDIA

Purpose of the study: The study examines the relationship between the quality of governance and level of development in the Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD) of Assam in India. It also assesses which dimensions of governance influence the level of development.
 Methodology: The study is based on the data collected from a field survey of 400 households in both rural and urban areas of BTAD. Important dimensions pertaining to measuring the quality of governance is a broad manifestation in several institutions such as Political, Legal and Judicial, Administration and Public service delivery, and Economic and Social. Similarly, we measure development in terms of economic, social and empowerment dimensions. The study uses statistical techniques of Correlation and CHAID analysis.
 Main findings: The study finds that the quality of governance is critical to development. Amongst other factors, efficient system and management of political institutions and effective administration and public service delivery is the key to enhancement of economic development.
 Social Implications: The study depicts disparity with respect to social and economic space; and suggests inclusive participation in political and fine-tuning in the front of administration and delivery of public services.
 Originality/Novelty of the study: The study brings out the dynamics of deficit of governance and its impact on economic development at the level of the sub-national state. It further confirms and substantially contributes to the literature on development – governance nexus.

A Democratic Digital Dollar: A Peer-to-Peer Savings & Payments Platform for Fully Inclusive State, Local, and National Money & Banking Systems

Many units of government see a need for more inclusive money, payment, and retail banking systems for the capture, storage, and transfer of spendable value among their constituents. Currently proliferating payments platforms, most provided by for-profit private sector entities, exclude too many people, and extract too much value in the form of needless transaction charges and other rents, to be up to the task of efficiently affording this essential commercial and financial utility to the full public on sensible terms. This document sketches a smart-device-accessible peer-to-peer (‘P2P’) platform – the ‘Digital Dollar Platform’ – which, thanks to new payment technologies, can easily be put into place and administered by any unit of government with a view to supplying this critical commercial and financial infrastructure to all of its constituents. Through the familiar legal mechanism of ‘compacting,’ moreover, subnational state and local units of government can progressively ‘build the platform out’ until the Fed or Treasury take it fully federal for all citizens, businesses, and approved residents of the US. The plan also is readily adapted to use in other jurisdictions, notably the Eurozone.

Does regionalism matter? Local politics and foreign direct investment in South Korea

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how political/authoritarian regionalism affects foreign direct investment (FDI) in sub-national states in South Korea. Design/methodology/approach This paper employs statistical analysis to examine the relationship between regionalism and FDI, along with historical description of regionalism in South Korea. Findings The analyses suggest that not only authoritarian regionalism influence foreign investment to the region but also political regionalism matters. Sub-national states with higher authoritarian regionalism receive less foreign investment while sub-national states with high political regionalism, which imply political stability, receive more FDI than others. Originality/value The paper examined how local politics influence foreign investments in South Korea, and suggests stronger decentralization will positively influence FDI in the future.

Doing activism like a state: Progressive municipal government, Israel/Palestine and BDS

Activism is typically placed in opposition to state practice. Yet, state bodies often participate in campaigns and movements for change, drawing on different powers and capacities, including the ability to withhold goods, land and contracts. This article explores subnational state activism – what it means and the activist framework it offers – through a study of UK local government’s episodic participation in the pro-Palestinian movement for divestment and boycott of Israel. Municipal participation in this movement demonstrates certain tensions and challenges for subnational state activism, in conditions of conflict, where critics denounce local government for over-reaching and acting improperly. This article focuses on two key aspects: the relationship of municipal activism to de-subordination and the troubling of state hierarchy; and the place of responsibility, care and democratic embeddedness within municipal state practice. Together, these strands contribute to wider debates about progressive statehood and paradigms of institutional activism.

Determinants of subnational party positions on electricity grid expansion in Germany: Economic over political interests

The German energy transition necessitates the expansion of the electricity transmission grid. Grid expansion is governed jointly by the federal government and the governments of the subnational states. Conflicts often erupt about the routing of grid projects. This article asks how German subnational parties form their positions on grid expansion. Based on a quantitative analysis of party manifestos, we conclude that the position of the federal party has little influence. Instead, German subnational party preferences are shaped by the energy production structure of their state. The more wind energy a state produces, the more in favour of grid expansion are its parties. Thus, the conflict over grid expansion will most likely persist. The article highlights a paradox of energy policy in a federal system: German federalism has encouraged the expansion of renewable energies, but is detrimental to coherent grid expansion for their utilization.

Québec’s State-Owned Enterprises: Between Economic Nationalism and the International Economy

Extract ----- Abstract This paper explores the activities and roles of two state-owned enterprises of the Quebec government, Hydro-Quebec and the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ), that evolved from instruments of economic nationalism to commercial enterprises with a growing focus on international trade. The first part of the paper explores how these two agencies were created in the 1960s and the ideas that governed their growth over the remaining of the 20th century. The second part looks at their commercial dimension and the intensification of their international trade activities since the end of the last century. The conclusion highlights the paradoxical situation which Hydro-Quebec and the CDPQ are facing in the present days: initially carried by a wave of economic nationalism and state modernisation, they now must face elsewhere the same nationalist and protectionist environments in which they were born. Keywords: economic nationalism, state-owned enterprises, sub-national states, international trade

Explaining the immigrant integration laws of German, Italian and Spanish regions: sub-state nationalism and multilevel party politics

ABSTRACT How do sub-state regions respond to immigration and what drives their policy choices? Combining the cross-national literature on citizenship and integration policy with the literature on immigration federalism, it is hypothesized that sub-state nationalism and multilevel party politics explain why some regions formulate more restrictive immigrant integration policies than others. Analyzing integration laws of German, Italian and Spanish regions demonstrates that socioeconomically inclusive measures dominate, regardless of national context. Where restrictive provisions occur at all, they are associated with minority nationalism and the strength of anti-immigrant parties, while leftist regions facing right-wing national governments tend to adopt a more inclusive policies.

Hybrid Regimes within Democracies Fiscal federalism and Subnational rentier states

Hybrid Regimes within Democracies Fiscal federalism and Subnational rentier states

Integración transfronteriza: resignificar sentidos, con “nuevos” actores

A premissa do presente texto e de que a integracao fronteirica e um tema privilegiado para a realizacao do Direito da Integracao. O artigo visa problematizar a integracao transfronteirica em tempos de mundializacao e integracao regional. Tomando por base a ressignificacao das fronteiras que os processos de regionalizacao projetam, o problema da pesquisa exposta visa identificar de que maneira estes novos sentidos podem ser compreendidos e operacionalizados com vistas ao aprofundamento da integracao. Para isso, na estrutura do texto, inicialmente revisita-se as razoes para integracao e como isso ressignifica as fronteiras nacionais para, em seguida, apontar alguns desafios da integracao a partir das fronteiras. Um dos desafios e justamente o reconhecimento de que a paradiplomacia tem um papel de destaque a exercer neste processo, a partir dos entes publicos estatais sub-nacionais, como e o caso dos municipios em faixa de fronteira.

¿Identidad dual? Una crítica metodológica a la pregunta Linz-Moreno como indicador estadístico de la identidad nacional

T This article develops a methodological critique of a widespread measurement of national identity through surveys, the so-called “Linz-Moreno question” (LMQ) and of its epistemological foundation, the theory of “dual identity”. We chose Spain as a case study for our research because of its internal variability in terms of identity feelings between its regions and the availability of quality data. We have divided the seventeen Spanish Autonomous Communities (ACs) into four groups, in accordance to their identity structure. We present two big groups of ACs, one including the ACs with primacy of nationwide nationalistic feelings, and the other one containing those ACs with significant presence of sub-state nationalisms. Then, we divide each of these categories into two, attending to the strength of their identity feelings. Using qualitative methodologies, we found differences in the reproduction process of nationalism for each group of ACs, what strengthens the validity of our classification. Finally, we tested our main hypothesis with a multinomial logistic regression that provides empirical evidence showing that the LMQ is not a good indicator of national identity for weakly nationalized ACs. We conclude that the dual identity theory hides relevant differences related to the hierarchy and nature of collective identities in modern societies. Consequently, we should problematize merely descriptive analyses of collective identities and begin to treat national identity as an ideological expression of nationalism. The critique of the LMQ presented in this article wants to contribute to a better measurement of identities in modern societies.

WhichBorders?

AbstractThe best arguments for a nation-state’s right to exclude unwanted outsiders actually condemn nation-level regimes of restriction. Two argumentative steps lead to this conclusion. The first points out that the best arguments for exclusion generalize: if they show that nation-states have the right to exclude, they perform the same service for a great many towns, cities, subnational states, and provinces. The second step constructs a dilemma. The right to exclude is important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, or it is not. If it is, the right to exclude is very important indeed–would-be immigrants often suffer grievously. But nation-level regimes would then be a serious moral problem: they would deprive a great many municipalities of a right that matters a great deal. Turning to the dilemma’s second horn, if the right to exclude is not important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, nation-level regimes are straightforwardly immoral. Either way, we arrive at this paper’s central thesis: the best arguments for a nation-states right to exclude actually condemn nation-level regimes of exclusion.

Ethnic alignment in divided regions: individual and contextual factors

ABSTRACT The literature on sub-state nationalisms in Western democracies usually understands ethnicity as a defining feature of regional parties advocating for group and/or territorial recognition. However, the role of ethnicity for state-wide parties competing in regional elections has not received the same attention. Using observational data at the census section level for the Basque election of 2016, this paper shows how state-wide parties can be even more affected by ethnic alignment than regional parties. A key element presented here is the role of contextual effects that generate intra-group variations, resulting in different patterns of electoral boundaries. State-wide parties have an uneven distribution of vote indicating the difficulty of reaching wide segments of the electorate, a pattern that is only broken to some extent by the emergence of new political parties. On the other hand, some regional parties can be more successful both in non-core areas and reaching non-core voters in nationalist strongholds.

States and Cities As 'Norm Sustainers': A Role for Subnational Actors in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change

President Donald Trump’s declared intent to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change has prompted many states and cities in the United States to redouble their efforts on climate change and to pledge support for the international treaty. U.S. subnational states and cities cannot be parties to the Paris Agreement, so what do their declarations of support mean from the perspective of international law? Using Harold Koh’s theory of transnational legal process as a framework, I address this question by integrating the literature on international climate law and state and the scholarship on local climate innovation. I argue that subnational actors are “norm sustainers” who can help to ensure the success of the Paris Agreement even if the U.S. withdraws from the treaty. When subnational actors pledge to uphold a global treaty, like the Paris Agreement on climate change, they act as norm sustainers and contribute to the transnational legal process in three distinct ways. First, by publicly benchmarking their own progress on the U.S. targets under the Paris Agreement, subnational norm sustainers can signal to other nation-states that a significant portion of the United States is still committed to the goals of the Paris Agreement. Consistent with the treaty’s emphasis on transparency for compliance, such subnational disclosure could encourage other countries to achieve their own national targets, or, at the very least, help to prevent a decrease in ambition in the wake of a U.S. withdrawal from the treaty. Second, states and cities can sustain and strengthen key norms of international environmental law that are embedded within the Paris Agreement. For example, President Trump has essentially repudiated the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. I argue that states and cities give this principle meaning when they tie their own climate policies to the Paris Agreement. Finally, as norm sustainers, states and cities can demonstrate the feasibility of climate actions in a way that lays the groundwork for national policy, as the literature on cooperative federalism in the United States has long recognized. Thus, even if President Trump fulfills his campaign promise of withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the sustaining efforts of states and cities could enable a future president to rejoin the treaty. President Trump’s actions threaten to derail global progress on climate change by encouraging other countries to defect from the Paris Agreement. Although U.S. states and cities cannot be parties to the treaty, their actions as norm sustainers can help to ensure the treaty’s success and heighten international ambition on climate change.

La Relación Fiscal-Educativa en Argentina: entre el centralismo de los recursos y el federalismo de los gastos

In the last decade, Argentina's educational history registered an unprecedented event, the sustained growth of educational financing for over a decade. However, as in education policies, an exceptional situation was wasted to promote structural reforms in education. This article addresses the historical characteristics of fiscal-educational federalism within the framework of an educational administration framed by the provision between centralization of resources (of the National State) and federalism of expenditures (in subnational states) and the attempt to overcome this bidding by means of the recentralization policies of the national State in the matter of educational financing between 2003 and 2015. In conclusion, the major milestones of the fiscal-educational relationship that led to the (exceptional) situation and that the educational policy did not know (or did not want to) capitalize as a scenario to promote educational reforms of state action are detailed.