Local autonomy,municipal size and local political participation in Europe

Local autonomy in Europe has, on average, increased since 1990 and has decreased (a little) since 2009. The average population size of a European municipality has increased continuously during the last two decades. European countries with larger municipalities do not have more local autonomy. Citizens of large municipalities are less interested in local political matters. Inhabitants of small municipalities tend to be more interested in local political matters when their municipalities have more local autonomy while a similar strong correlation between local autonomy and local political interest cannot be established for larger municipalities. Finally, a discrepancy exists between the stated policy objectives of many European countries that support both decentralization and (more) local political participation on the one hand and actual policy results on the other hand that are not necessarily in line with increasing local autonomy and stimulating local political participation.     

The chain is never stronger than its weakest link: implementing a model of collaboration among agencies serving vulnerable children and adolescents

This article analyses agency collaboration to help vulnerable children and adolescents with complex social and psychological problems, examining the implementation of a formal collaboration model for these groups. This model, implemented in Västra Götaland, Sweden, involves five municipal agencies and five county council agencies in 49 different municipalities. Data were collected using two questionnaires sent to 355 lower managers and 424 professional representatives in the concerned organizations. The analysis demonstrates that there are differences in implementation results between the agencies, and that the differences are largely explainable by organizational self-interest and top management prioritization of collaboration model implementation. The main barriers to collaboration are factors modifiable by the agencies themselves, and perceived barriers decreased when the policy was working. The study suggests that managers of human service organizations must assume responsibility when implementing collaboratively, and that accountable professional and political leaders must rise above organizational interests to protect vulnerable citizens.     

The Pomp of Power: Black Mayoralties in Urban America*

Objectives. Although urban scholarship has come to better understand the dynamics of black political incorporation in the United States, to date scant empirical attention has been paid to an important element of minority representation in local politics—the rise of black mayors. The present study addresses this gap in the extant literature. Methods. We analyze incidences of black mayoralties by fitting standard pooled and random effects probit models to a panel of 309 cities observed between 1971 and 2000. Results. Although cities' racial profiles are strongly associated with the incidence of black mayoralties, black representation on city council, black educational attainment, and reformed governments increase the odds of black mayoral emergence. On the other hand, southern location continues to depress the rise of black mayoralties, as do partisan elections, particularly in cities where no racial group constitutes a majority. Conclusions. Although our results partially confirm extant research on the diffusion of black mayoralties in American urban politics, they also call into question conventional wisdom. Our study emphasizes the need for more large‐N studies of minority representation in urban politics and provides suggestions for how the independent effects of black mayors on municipal policy outcomes might subsequently be analyzed empirically.     

Australia’s national urban policy: The smart cities agenda in perspective

The Australian Government's attempts at national urban policy have been sporadic and inconsistent, under the constraints of constitutional, financial, ideological and political factors. This paper concerns the recent resurgence of national urban policy under the rubric of “smart cities” adopted by the Turnbull Government and carried on by the incumbent Morrison Government. It investigates how this round of smart cities agenda articulates with Australia's political tradition of national urban policy to seek continuity and change, through comparing historical policies, unpacking major smart cities programmes, identifying explanatory factors and critically commenting on its innovation and legacy. Drawing upon these analyses, this paper argues that understanding the smart cities agenda needs to move beyond the political, ideological “to-and-fro” pendulum to national urban policy observed in history. Rather, it resonates with a globalised policy norm established upon the city-based global integration and competition, driven by an imperative of transitioning to a knowledge economy and pursuing innovation capacity. It is too early to judge whether the smart cities agenda will bring changes to Australian cities in the way it wishes, since it involves long-term infrastructure investment and urban development projects. However, a comprehensive and consistent national urban policy to govern the Australian system of cities and towns has not been established yet.     

发展小城镇落实大战略

发展小城镇是发展社会主义市场经济的需要,针对当前小城镇在发展中存在的问题,要采取积极措施,解放思想,更新观念;科学规划,合理布局;抓住关键,发展经济;改革小城镇的管理体制,为小城镇的发展创造良好的环境;尊重规律,循序渐进,运用市场机制,搞好小城镇建设。     

对小城镇建设的理论思考

在我国城市化过程中心,小城镇的发展具有特殊重要的意义,它是中国城市化道路的现实选择,小城镇的建设要遵循与小城镇的规划建设和规划管理相结合的原则;遵循与农村剩余劳动力转移相结合的原则。小城镇规模与区域自然资源环境容量相适应才能对经济发展产生最佳效益。建设现代化的小城镇,不在于高楼大厦林立,而在于突出自己的风格和特色。     

Inequality in the welfare state? Local variation in care of the elderly – the case of Sweden

This article uses Sweden as an example to describe and analyse municipal variation in services and care for elderly people. Responsibility for these services lies with the municipalities. National statistical data on municipalities are analysed to map out the variations in old-age care; to study compensating factors in the care system; and to explore the connection with municipal structural and political conditions. The overall finding of the bivariate analyses was that most relations with structure and policy were weak or non-existent. The final multivariate model explained only 15% of the variance. The large differences between municipalities makes it more appropriate to talk about a multitude of 'welfare municipalities' rather than one single welfare state. The article concludes that this municipal disparity constitutes a greater threat to the principle of equality in care of the elderly than gender and socio-economic differences.     

Local elected officials and environmental policy: Does rural matter anymore?

A survey was mailed to elected officials (mayors and city council) from a sample of 52 rural communities in Idaho and all 7 communities with populations above 20,000 to examine whether there is a relationship between environmental policy issues and various independent variables such as economic type, age, gender, rural/ urban, political ideology, and percentage of life lived in the current community. One-hundred and fifty-five (155) out of three hundred twenty seven (327) respondents returned the survey for a response rate of 47%. The findings reveal that while the rural/urban dichotomy consistently predicted for questions on “trust of information sources,” overall economic base was a better predictor of attitudes toward environmental issues and policy.     

Mutual benefit societies in Indonesia

We do not know when or how mutual benefit societies first appeared in colonial Indonesia, but there is evidence that they were part of the lives of at least some of the ordinary people in the towns and cities by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. By the 1910s they were common in workplaces and kampung, the often less than salubrious parts of the towns and cities where wage labourers and their families lived. Large numbers of people joined and some of them handled significant sums of money. For many people, they were an essential help in coping with daily life on small incomes with no capacity to save and with the ever-present threat of loss of work, sickness or death. The relationships between mutual benefit societies, labour unions political parties and other voluntary organizations which would contribute to Indonesian nationalism is of particular interest. Clearly, to be involved in, and to be seen to be involved in, mutual aid was important for all these urban organizations.¹     

Can cities be held responsible for early school leaving? Evidence from the Netherlands

This paper examines if ‘naming and shaming’ is an effective tool to increase accountability in school dropout for cities with disadvantaged student populations. It argues that a comparison with other cities might be unfair if regional and population characteristics differ. It discusses the example of two Dutch new towns. The new town policy deliberately attracted low- and medium-income households in the past, such that today the population of those cities differs from other cities. We use a matching analysis to account for observed differences in population and regional characteristics. The results point out that ‘naming and shaming’ may be a dangerous policy to increase accountability: early school leaving differences are driven, to a large extent, by observed differences in population and regional characteristics.     

Happiness and marginalization rates for internal Mexican migrants and the native-born population in Baja California,Mexico

More than 3.3 million people were internal migrants in Mexico in 2010 (INEGI, 2011a). This internal migration has played an important role in the growth and expansion of cities in Mexico, particularly in the country's northern border region. Growth in the municipalities has been driven by neoliberal economic policies and factors of globalization. This paper considers the level of happiness and marginalization for those who were born in and those who migrated to the two largest municipalities in Baja California, Mexicali and Tijuana. This study finds that there are not many differences between the native-born and migrants’ expressed level of happiness and marginalization level but there are differences in the municipalities. From these findings, the importance of place, its nature as well as manmade characteristics, and people are more important factors than marginalization or place of birth to finding happiness.     

明清以来的市镇:中国城镇化发展的历史因缘

本文致力于厘清关于市镇研究的理论传统,对明清以来市镇的演变在经济、社会和政治等多个层面进行考察。从经济层面看,市镇是连接地方性市场和世界体系的节点,并越来越具有超层级、跨区域和金融化的特点;从社会层面看,市镇是有层级、有组织的,并具有很强的包容性;从政治层面看,它是地方自治化和国家政权建设的着力点。在社会结构中的中间性质是市镇的本质特征。社会学对于市镇的研究必须将其看作一种总体性的社会事实,在对生命体验、生活智慧、伦理道德、乡风民俗等民情因素进行调查研究的前提下,考察其与具体制度和社会结构之间的关联。     

In the Eye of the Storm: Civil Servants and Managers in the UK Department of Health

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the UK government faces some tough choices over public expenditure, and these choices will have important implications for both the future of health policy and the way in which health services are managed. In this article, we examine the organization and leadership of the UK Department of Health and weigh its suitability to meet such challenges. We find an organization that is culturally split between public servants and managers, highly reliant on the ability of its key personnel to bridge these divides, and extremely responsive to the political goals of government ministers. We explore the modern DH using three types of evidence. First, the history of the department shows clear political efforts to reduce civil service discretion and focus the DH on the management of the English NHS. Second, the recent organizational structures of the DH show a bifurcation between policy direction and NHS management tasks. Third, an analysis of the top ranks of the department since 2005 shows the implementation of political preferences that are consistent with managerialism but inconsistent with the perceived characteristics of traditional civil servants. The result is a department which has changed just as frequently as the health service it oversees – a department which has been moulded by successive ministers into one for the management of the NHS. Our findings raise important questions about the value and purpose of long‐term organizational knowledge in policy formulation.     

Local Action in a Transitional State: Community Responses to Proposed Development in the Czech Republic, 1992–1996

Objective. After the fall of the communist regime, the Czech government placed an emphasis on economic growth and development. Although research has been conducted on national–level change and civil society reactions to new institutions and initiatives, little is known about the transition process at the local level and the ways community sentiments and actions varied in response to development policies. This study examines responses to proposed development in communities in the Czech Republic and investigates the extent that actions were influenced by values, the availability of resources, and the local political context. Methods. To understand factors shaping action, structured interviews were conducted with the mayors of 237 towns in the Czech Republic where landfills, incinerators, highways, and protected–area development were proposed or first publicly discussed between 1992–1996. Results. Values pertaining to health, employment, property value, nature protection, and connection to place were associated with the adoption of newer modes of behavior, as were resources including national media coverage of an issue, the presence of a local environmental organization, and previous experience. Many aspects of the local political context had no relationship to behavior. Those that did appeared to foster and reinforce more ingrained patterns of action reminiscent of the former regime. Conclusions. In general, while styles of action common during the former regime began to reemerge, they were balanced by new patterns of action signifying confidence and trust in the newly formed democratic institutions.     

The impact of political and non-political officials on the financial management of local governments

This paper investigates the impact of non-political administrators on the financial management of local governments. The activity of prefectorial officials is compared with the activity of elected mayors exploiting data extracted from a panel of 7826 Italian municipalities from 2007 to 2018. To address the potential confounding effects and selection biases, we combine a Difference in Difference strategy with machine learning methods for counterfactual analysis. Results show that non-political administrators bring higher financial autonomy and higher collection capacity, raising more revenues at local level. This is consistent with the hypothesis that, since they do not respond to electoral incentives, non-political administrators have lower motivations to behave strategically, not taking their own interests about electoral successes into account when they must choose the proportion of local versus external revenues for financing local expenditure.     

A marketization process in dispute: An analysis of serviced housing for the elderly in Finland, 2000–14

Marketization can be viewed as a potential response to the economic challenges of the public sector. The present study is focused on the development of marketization in serviced housing for the elderly in municipalities within Finland. Marketization is approached by asking the question: What kind of municipality‐level factors are associated with marketization and its development? The data consist of 290 municipalities and cover the years 2000–14. According to the study, the size of the municipality, the political distribution of the municipality council, and the economic situation of the municipality are found to be associated with marketization. More preciesly, the municipality size was found to be a kind of prism, which creates two different realities when it is linked with political distribution and transfers. In the case of big municipalities, the big share of Green‐Left council members on municipality councils has been associated with a low level of marketization. However, in the case of small‐ and medium‐sized municipalities, the low level of marketization has been associated with the government statutory transfers between the state and municipalities, which has helped smaller municipalities to avoid fiscal stress. In a policy context, the present study suggests that the marketization process can be slowed down by supporting the economically weakest municipalities to avoid fiscal stress. On the other hand, the marketization process can be supported by creating bigger municipalities which are then attractive enough to create an effective market mechanism.     

Urbanization in China and the Coordinated Development Model—The case of Chengdu

China's urbanization faces two greatest difficulties of creating non-farm jobs to “landless farmers” and providing required amenities and social services to urbanites-to-be. In the earlier phase of development, TVE employment had provided important relief to the job pressure. Later, the “Small-city Strategy” that emphasized forming towns and small cities around where rural population resided successfully deterred rural population's entry into large cities. Today, China is implementing a Coordinated Development between the urban and rural sectors, aiming to reach a balanced development between the two sectors by making not only large cities more welcoming to rural migrants but also the small cities, towns, and areas where rural population now reside harder to leave. At the core of the coordination are three concentrations of rural residents, farmland, and firms, intended to help rural residents to settle in large cities, small cities and towns, as well as new residential areas in the countryside, to de-segment land to realize economies of scale, and to gather firms of a same industry in organized industrial areas to gain agglomeration economies and create non-farm jobs. This article examines the trajectory of China's urbanization, analyzes the working mechanism of the Coordinated Development model, and investigates Chengdu's practice of the Coordinated Development, which will help to provide insights into the new developments in China's urbanization.     

Affirmative action in municipal government: Political, structural and demographic determinants of alternative strategies

The 167 members of the California City Managers Association were surveyed regarding the affirmative action policies of their cities. The research sought to determine factors that influence affirmative action efforts. Affirmative action outcomes and policies were measured against the following: minority political power as reflected in the diversity of the city council, frequency of interaction regarding affirmative action between council members and administrators, the ethnic composition of the city, level of advocacy regarding affirmative action in the city and the personal values of the city manager. The finding support the thesis that affirmative action success in government varies directly with the diversity of the population served and the political representation of minorities. Also important was the relationship between managerial values and affirmative efforts. Council manager interaction was directly related to the percentage of minority supervisors and managers.     

二元社会结构对构建和谐社会的影响

我国城乡二元社会结构的存在,严重影响并制约着和谐社会的构建。二元社会结构形成的原因在于:计划经济时期,我国实施“以农补工”的策略,通过工农业产品价格“剪刀差”将资本从农业转向工业。与之相伴随的是,限制农业人口向城市转移,在财政金融政策上大幅度向城市倾斜。鉴于此,统筹城乡发展,构建和谐社会,必须实行工业反哺农业,以工补农、以工促农,实现工业与农业、城市与农村协调发展,良性互动。同时,大力推进社会主义新农村建设。     

The nature and culture of social work with children and families in long‐term casework: Findings from a qualitative longitudinal study

Social work in the United Kingdom is preoccupied with what social workers cannot do due to having limited time to spend with service users. Yet remarkably little research has examined what social workers actually do, especially in long‐term relationships. This paper draws from an ethnographic study of two social work departments in England that spent 15 months observing practice and organizational life. Our findings show that social work some of the time has a significant amount of involvement with some service users and the dominant view that relationship‐based practice is rarely achieved is in need of some revision. However, families at one research site received a much more substantial, reliable overall service due to the additional input of family support workers and having a stable workforce who had their own desks and were co‐located with managers in small team offices. This generated a much more supportive, reflective culture for social workers and service users than at the second site, a large open plan “hot‐desking” office. Drawing on relational, systemic, and complexity theories, the paper shows how the nature of what social workers do and culture of practice are shaped by the interaction between available services, office designs, and practitioners', managers', and service users' experiences of relating together.