Conflicts in urban fringe in the transformation era: An examination of performance of the metropolitan growth management in Beijing

The performances of urban growth management are often criticized because their original objectives are frequently inconsistent with local development facts. Underlying the many reasons for this are the political and institutional contexts that influence policy-making and development activities. The urban fringe, a zone is managed to against urban sprawl in many countries, represents the conflicts between urban management system and local development resulting from political transformation. This study examines the case of decentralised-concentration strategy, one of the most important metropolitan growth management in Beijing since the 1990s, and sheds some lights on the performance of the growth management in the transformation context. The results suggest that the aims of municipal growth management to concentrate developments in urban fringe have partly been achieved through actual local developments; however, some unexpected and illegal local developments outside the planned areas are counterproductive from the perspective of municipal growth management. The performance of the present growth management is being challenged by new trends towards political decentralisation and locally fiscal responsibilities. In the interest of future policymaking, the dominant central planning system in Beijing should take these decentralisation trends into growth management account, compared with the great progress in decentralisation in economy system. The urban policy needs to shift from the dictatorial manner and put more efforts into creating a harmonious relationship between municipal growth management and actual local demands on development.     

Municipal subsidies to French associations

A significant aspect of public policies in France is the decentralisation of the public sector and the increased importance of local voluntary associations to implement programmes and influence local political arenas. Subsidies to local associations are an important vehicle for the central government in managing its decentralisation policy. Based on a locality sample, data on subsidies to associations were collected in nearly 400 municipalities. Results show that the allocation of subsidies is highly uneven, and part of a complex network in which private non-profit services are linked to the services that were previously part of the public sector. Implications for the French non-profit sector and for the government's decentralisation policy are discussed.     

次生庇护的交易模式、商业观与市场发展——惠镇石灰市场个案研究

次生庇护是从初级庇护中衍生出的一种交换关系。交易附于其上的市场,便会由于过度嵌入而不自由。本文以惠镇石灰市场作为具有理论相关性的关键个案,旨在基于结构与文化的互联模式视角,考察这种交易模式何以能促进这类市场的发展。个案表明,初期的行商阶段,社会纽带缺席的直接交易模式面临很大风险与不确定性,交易经常失败、市场萎靡;而至坐商阶段,基于次生庇护关系的提篮者—厂商模式则促成了稳定交易和市场秩序的形成。分析揭示,交易虽然嵌入于次生庇护关系,但后者又嵌入并依附于蕴涵社会美德的新型商业观。结构嵌入与文化嵌入的耦合效应是不自由的市场获得发展和新秩序的深层机制。新型商业观及交易的关系依赖虽有结构性起因,但厂商的主动建构和选择行为仍凸显出重要性。     

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT APPROACHES TO SERVICE DELIVERY: AN ANALYSIS FROM A TRANSACTIONS COST PERSPECTIVE

Municipal governments are less likely to contract out for service delivery if citizen preferences for the service are heterogeneous. This conclusion is based on an analysis that extends to the public sector the empirical industrial organization literature on transaction costs and the "make or buy" decision faced by private firms. Service delivery practices for sixty-three municipal services are examined. The findings are consistent with the proposition that the cost for writing and monitoring contracts may be an important consideration in municipal service delivery approach and that bureaucratic supply may not be as inefficient as some previous studies indicate.     

Pork Belly Politics: The Moral and Instrumental Reasons Clients Donate to Patrons in a Rural Colombian Mayoral Election

Qualitative Sociology - Why, in the context of a rural Colombian mayoral election, do poor clients donate goods and services to political campaigns? The literature on clientelism describes it as a...     

Municipal Underbounding: Annexation and Racial Exclusion in Small Southern Towns*

Abstract This paper examines patterns of annexation, including municipal “underbounding,” in nonmetropolitan towns in the South; that is, whether blacks living adjacent to municipalities are systematically excluded from incorporation. Annexation‐or the lack of annexation‐can be a political tool used by municipal leaders to exclude disadvantaged or low‐income populations, including minorities, from voting in local elections and from receiving access to public utilities and other community services. To address this question, we use Tiger files, GIS, and other geographically disaggregated data from the Summary Files of the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses. Overall, 22.6 percent of the fringe areas “at risk” of annexation in our study communities was African American, while 20.7 percent of the areas that were actually annexed during the 1990s was African American. However, communities with large black populations at the fringe were significantly less likely than other communities to annex at all‐either black or white population. Largely white communities that faced a “black threat”‐which we defined in instances where the county “percent black” was higher than the place “percent black”‐were also less likely to annex black populations during the 1990s. Finally, predominately white communities were much less likely to annex black populations, even when we controlled for the size of the black fringe population at risk of annexation. Such results provide evidence of racial exclusion in small southern towns.     

Mainstreaming urban ecosystem services: A national survey of municipal foresters

Researchers and advocates are calling for ecosystem services management to advance from theory to implementation. To do so, they argue, requires two things: information on the science and practice ecosystem services management to be more widely developed and distributed, and support for ecosystem services management be incorporated into decision-making. These changes require adding to urban ecology an understanding of the political and information relationships supporting work in this field. To gain insight into these relationships I surveyed the national membership of the Society for Municipal Arborists about their efforts in managing municipal green space to produce ecosystem services. A significant percentage of respondents reported their organizations currently engaged in managing green space assets to produce ecosystem services and predicted such activities would increase over time. Foresters noted they relied on public and informal peer relationships as primary information sources in these efforts and reported little interface with private sector entities, viewing the latter, rather as most likely to constrain their efforts to enhance the production of ecosystem services. While foresters noted that they sought information from public and academic sources, the foresters themselves were less frequently sought out for their expertise. Respondents, however, foresaw becoming engaged in more reciprocal relationships around information exchange. The private sector’s absence in these relationships suggests insufficient legal and regulatory structures necessary to support private engagement in the growing demand for urban ecosystem services. The broad base of local grassroots and public support, however, suggest the emergence of constituencies that could lay the basis for new coalitions to advance green infrastructure and its related ecosystem services into the mainstream of municipal resource management.     

Financing of Urban Services in India: A Case for Appropriate Pricing and Cost Recovery

The paper makes an attempt to examine financing of urban services within the broader macro-economic liberalisation and decentralisation context in India. It estimates the resource gap between the present flow of funds and financial requirements for urban civic services on the basis of the existing un-met demand and projected population growth trends. While making a case for appropriate pricing and cost recovery for generating more resources for financing urban services, the paper focuses on the changing attitude towards full-cost recovery, existing practices of pricing and cost recovery of urban services, provides empirical evidence of poor cost recovery from four Indian cities and identifies key institutional, conceptual and managerial issues that need to be addressed. Finally, the paper presents the emerging directions for policy reforms and action for meeting the growing needs for urban infrastructure and services, which includes some measures for fiscal reforms to increase the flow of finances for urban infrastructure and services, strengthening the resource base of local agencies and capacity building of local agencies.     

Verbetrieblichung und betrieblicher Konflikt

Since the 1990s there is an ongoing process of decentralisation and ??Verbetrieblichung?? in German labour regulation. The opening of regional sector-level collective agreements for additional specific bargaining at the plant level is evaluated and discussed by practitioners and scholars very controversially. Critics of the decentralisation trends expect an increase of distributive conflicts inside plants and companies. The article analyses whether there are actually signs for an increase of conflicts in firm-level industrial relations in this context, and if so, under which conditions conflicts are likely to occur. Based in theoretical considerations, the article analyses the influence of different patterns of collective agreements on the incidence of conflicts and the relationship between employers and employees at firm level. Empirical data stems from a representative survey that includes interviews with management and employee representatives from German private sector companies. The data suggest some evidence on the conflict reducing function of industry-level collective agreements. Changes in a firm??s regulation structure appear to increase conflicts.     

Access to Mental Health Services: The Struggle of Poverty Affected Urban Children of Color

It is estimated that, in the United States, one in ten children and adolescents suffer from illness severe enough to cause some level of psychosocial dysfunction. Urban children, and in particular low-income children of color, are at greater risk of developing mental health problems, and are less likely to receive effective child mental health services. Prompt and effective access to mental health services by urban children of color is a critical direct practice and social policy concern. This article provides an overview of significant barriers to mental health care experienced by poverty affected urban children of color and their families. It also addresses a broad range of practice and policy issues that need to be raised in order to ensure competent delivery of mental health services for children living in urban environments. The role of social work in assisting poor urban children of color to access and benefit from mental health services is stressed. Manny John González, D.S.W., is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service.     

The professional role of social work in a market environment

One argument often heard in garnering support for the reorganisation of the welfare state in the Netherlands is that the safety net which it was intended to form has become something of a hammock, whereas a genuine safety net ought to act more like a trampoline. Nowadays sometimes also known as the activating welfare state, it aims to reduce apathetic response and increase the participation of its citizens in society. More and more, social workers are enlisted to help achieve these goals. Activation, however, is also associated with the introduction of a market environment in the social sector.

In 1992, the management of the social work organisation in The Hague concluded a controversial agreement with the municipal social services. Under this contract, clients referred to the social work organisation by the municipal social services would be made eligible for regular jobs on the labour market. The clients who were referred had obligations of their own: their benefits would be reduced if they did not cooperate. The social work organisation guaranteed contractually a success rate of 60% within a pre-determined period. For this ‘product’, the municipal social services paid a fixed amount of money each year.

The article describes the professional manner in which the social workers in The Hague dealt with the contract.     

The limits of participatory democracy and the inclusion of social movements in local government

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the decentralisation of decision-making processes in local government. Empirically, I analyse how Brazilian housing movements are included in participatory processes by examining the ways in which participatory models integrate social movements in spaces of decision-making. I argue that the rules and focus on incremental policy-making limits the participation of social movements. Findings suggests that unequal power structures at local councils, barriers to the participation of citizens, and the lack of transparency of government decisions all prevent social movements from having a more influential voice in decision-making. Although previous studies in Brazil examined the integration of citizens in government institutions, this paper contributes to the literature in two ways: firstly, it provides new evidence on the impact of decentralisation in local government. Secondly, by examining the attitudes of housing council members towards popular political participation, it provides new insights into the limits of decentralisation and participatory governance in contemporary Brazil.     

Mechanisms for participation in the public system of social services in Spain: opportunities for the development of social work with a citizenist approach

ABSTRACT

This article presents an analysis of the opportunities for participation of citizens in the public system of social services in Spain and their impact on the design, implementation, execution and evaluation of public policies of social services at a municipal level. The study also involved performing a comparative analysis of cases, assessing the impact, in terms of contributions and possibilities of the councils, upon the increased democratization of local public policies in terms of social welfare and the improvement of the efficiency with which social services and benefits are managed. The results of these investigations permit us, first of all, to present the diverse opportunities on offer for participation at a regional level in social services in Spain and then to identify, from its participants, dimensions that intensify processes of democratization and therefore help to improve efficiency of public well-being policies at a municipal level. In the case of the autonomous communities, we must highlight the changes that new social services laws have brought about in terms of widening citizens’ participation and opening up feedback for users of the system at a local level. In addition, this article discusses the role of different typologies and explores mechanisms, bodies and processes of participation that are applied in the design, management and assessment of social services policies at a local level. Finally, we determine which factors help to increase the efficiency of social public policies, as revealed by increases in citizens’ participation in local governance.     

Against the norm: the transitional symbiosis of ‘grassroots clientelism’ and ‘rural citizenship’

Clientelism has predominantly been represented in the literature as an expression of backwardness and corruption with little attention being paid to the question of how clientelism has changed over the years. In contrast, this paper examines the particulars of state intervention in the agrarian economy with respect to clientelism and exposes the illogicality of contrasting patron‐client relationships with citizenship. The historical focus is on the ways in which, in the course of post‐dictatorship consolidation in rural Greece throughout the 1980s, the transformation of traditional brokerage‐based clientelism into the bureaucratic clientelism of the political parties actually enhanced the institutions and practices of ‘rural citizenship’. Comparative qualitative research on the driving force of agrarian change shows how Thessalian villagers made the transition from being socially excluded subjects to socially included clients in two lowland village communities and the role played by a dynamic state bureaucracy.     

Cognitive and Affective Factors Which Influence Downtown Behaviors

Abstract

Data collected on perceptions of downtown Atlanta are used to explore the impact of cognitive and affective assessments of place on the frequency with which individuals go downtown for shopping, business or professional services, and for entertainment activities. Findings include: (1) social background variables generally exert only weak effects on cognitive and affective responses to downtown Atlanta; (2) affective identification with downtown exerts a positive, significant, and powerful effect on the frequency of using downtown for shopping and business activities; (3) non-Whites, city residents, and singles are more likely to go downtown for entertainment activities than Whites, suburbanites, and married respondents; and (4) images of downtown, affective identification, and positive assessments of downtown municipal services encourage participation in downtown entertainment activities. The analysis strongly suggests that behaviors are influenced by the meanings and evaluations people create for an area.     

Co-production and Service Quality: The Case of Cooperative Childcare in Sweden

This article compares results from a study of service quality in cooperative and municipal preschools. The parent cooperative and municipal childcare represents two different schools of thought with regard to service quality. The municipal services have a strong tradition of professionalism in which user participation is not allowed to interfere with the qualified work performed by trained professionals. The parent cooperatives have another tradition in which service quality is developed in a dialogue between users and staff while they co-produce the services together. The former tradition is the dominant one in the Swedish welfare state while the latter is an exception. The conclusion of the article is that service quality is better in the parent cooperative childcare in spite of the widespread assumption in Sweden that service quality is close to synonymous with professionalism.     

Evaluating a community based mental health programme in West Bengal,India: Description of the methodology and lessons learned

Mental disorders impose an enormous burden on society. In developing countries like India, there is a lack of adequate number of trained mental health professionals to provide specialized care and 75–85 % of affected individuals do not have access to appropriate mental health services. The National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) is being implemented by the Government of India to support state governments in providing mental health services in the country. The Urban Mental Health Programme (UMHP) is a pilot initiative that has attempted the integration of mental health services in primary health care settings in two municipal wards in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The overarching aim of this paper is to describe the methodology used for the evaluation of the community based mental health programme and to understand the processes of the programme in terms of barriers and facilitators. The current evaluation is based on a concurrent nested design, where qualitative and quantitative data are both collected at the same time but analysed separately and priority was given to qualitative data. This experience will contribute in helping other researchers to make some evaluations more effective, useful and manageable. Ethics approval was obtained from an institutional ethics committee of an organization (Ekjut) based in Ranchi, Jharkhand, India. The evaluation was undertaken by the George Institute for Global Health, New Delhi from February- June 2016.     

Engaging urban nature: improving our understanding of public perceptions of the role of biodiversity in cities

In recognition of the value of biodiversity for cities and citizens, a number of international programs have been designed to help municipal governments sustain, protect, and augment the biodiversity and ecosystem services within their jurisdictions. A key component of these programs is public engagement, where citizens assume a more active role in maintaining urban biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. Yet, there are few studies which have as their focus public knowledge of the importance of nature, biodiversity, and ecosystem services in cities. To these ends, this study was conducted to develop a better understanding of how the public understands and interacts with urban biodiversity, particularly in comparison to subject matter experts. Using topics generated from expert interviews and the literature, an interview guide was developed for the general public, structured around the general themes of a definition of urban biodiversity, as well as the perceived benefits, costs, and threats related to urban biodiversity. While there were similarities in the responses of citizens and experts, some differences did emerge in terms of accounting for specific urban ecosystems, acceptable interventions to support and enhance biodiversity, and the character and extent of the cultural services derived from urban nature. Insights from this work can be used to inform education and information efforts for the public, as well as raise awareness among city planners and nature professionals of the array of urban ecosystem services recognized and made use of by the public.

     

Grassroots women's accountability mechanisms: strengthening urban governance through organising and partnerships

Women living in marginalised urban neighbourhoods are often excluded from the economic, political, and social resources available to other city dwellers. The focus on the decentralisation of services and resource provision in urban areas presents an opportunity to citizens, including women, to organise to hold local government to account. This article builds on case studies and lessons learned from 18 months of the Huairou Commission's Transparency & Accountability Initiative, with specific reference to initiatives in Metro Manila, Philippines, Thankot, Nepal, and Jinja, Uganda. Here, organised groups of grassroots women have established innovative, community-driven mechanisms to participate in and monitor decision-making and service delivery in cities.