Local Strategies within a European Policy Framework

This article discusses the Lisbon Agenda from the perspective of entrepreneurship policy. After a brief overview of the events leading up to the development of the Lisbon Agenda, the authors describe the goals and content of this policy framework as well as of the structural funds. Using examples of initiatives towards implementation at the local level, the authors illustrate the necessity to promote entrepreneurship in order to foster economic growth in communities and regions. We assess how the new European growth policy became translated into an action plan realized through structural funds and community initiatives and demonstrate that a greater focus on entrepreneurship policy could strengthen the Lisbon Strategy and aid in the achievement of its goals.     

Politics and Economic Development: Why Governments Adopt Different Strategies to Induce Economic Growth

This article assesses the forces that drive governments to engage in economic development activity and attempts to explain why communities adopt different strategies to bring about the common goal of economic well-being. I address this issue at the state policy level by assessing the relationship between economic development strategy and theories of policy adoption in a pooled times series analysis using indicators of interstate competition, fiscal stress, and state ideology collected between 1983 and 1994. I find that economic development strategy choices are largely a function of interjurisdictional competition. The implications of my findings are discussed.     

南京国民政府法币政策的实施与各省地方政府的反应

1935年11月,南京国民政府宣布实施法币政策的直接导因,是为了制止白银外流,但实施统一的法币政策一直是南京国民政府整合中央与地方关系的重要步骤,从某种意义上而言,制止白银外流只是法币政策实施的一个契机。本文试图以南京国民政府的法币政策为中心,对法币政策实施前后中央与各省地方政府之间的互动关系作一考察。     

Policy Diffusion and Strategies for Promoting Policy Change: Evidence From California Local Gun Control Ordinances

Recent research efforts on policy innovation and diffusion largely have focused upon policymaking at the state government level. In this article we seek to develop an understanding of the ways momentum for policy change can be generated among receptive local governments. We use gun control policymaking within California to illustrate how local government characteristics, the presence of regional associations, and the establishment of interest groups may lead to policy development and diffusion. We also identify linkages between interest groups, focusing events, and the successful use of a new image of gun violence as a public health problem, yielding insights into strategies that may be used successfully to promote policy change.     

Applying Policy Termination Theory to the Abandonment of Climate Protection Initiatives by U.S. Local Governments

A considerable amount is known about the factors that influence policy adoption and implementation across different issue areas. Less is known, however, about the factors that influence governments to abandon programs or policies prior to reaching their stated objectives or originally specified end‐points. This article applies termination theory to local climate protection initiatives and examines cities’ withdrawal from the dominant sustainability organization facilitating these efforts. In the face of national government inaction, large numbers of U.S. municipalities voluntarily committed to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and joined the ICLEI's Climate Protection program. After steady membership increases for nearly a decade, ICLEI attained its largest size in 2010 with 565 city members. Over the next 2 years, this number plummeted by 20 percent. Positioned in the literature on policy change, we empirically test three hypotheses for why a substantial portion of cities ended their affiliation with this organization and terminated the explicit climate protection objectives associated with it: (1) political ideology and interest group pressure, (2) fiscal constraints, and (3) perceived program ineffectiveness. Analytical results support the first and third hypotheses. We identify factors that influence the termination of local GHG reduction initiatives and discuss theoretical implications of these findings.     

Smart Growth Policy Choice: A Resource Dependency and Local Governance Explanation

Smart growth is a planning and land use policy objective that generally focuses on where development should occur and how best to protect natural resources. What explains the adoption of smart growth policy by local government? This study focuses on a cooperative intergovernmental program that seeks to enhance local government abilities to work toward achieving state goals on sustainability. Extant research suggests that local interest group preferences shape policy decisions. However, much of the evidence on the influence of local interest groups on smart growth policy is presented within the coercive intergovernmental context. This article argues that resource dependency influences local decisions in pursuing a smart growth agenda when state incentives are provided. The findings suggest that fiscal capacity and the characteristics of local governing institutions are significant predictors in the decision to take part in an intergovernmental program. Business and neighborhood interest groups have a significant effect on policy adoption, as do local characteristics depending on the smart growth functional area.     

The Indigenous Land Corporation's First Land Management Policy: Reconciling National Policy with the Contingencies of Local Context

The Indigenous Land Corporation was established to acquire lands for Indigenous peoples who were unlikely to benefit from recognition of native title. The Corporation is also charged with assisting Indigenous peoples manage their lands. The First Land Management Policy of the Indigenous Land Corporation is examined, and the strengths as well as the omissions and flaws of this initial policy approach to land management are noted. Ways to improve the assistance that the Corporation provides to Indigenous landowners in the management of their lands are proposed. The paper suggests that the Corporation's approach to land management needs to resolve the demands of a national policy mandate with the contingencies of local context.     

Contested Regulatory Practice and the Implementation of Food Policy: Exploring the Local and National Interface

There is growing geographical interest in the nature of the 'real' regulation of the food system. The food 'scares' of the late 1980s in the UK encouraged new legislation relating to food hygiene and safety. Its local implementation created tensions which were exacerbated by the legislative consequences of the Single European Market. In response, national-level regulatory adjustments followed, which introduced new codes of practice and techniques of hazard analysis for implementation at the local level. The result was a consolidation of a system of food regulation that can be applied differentially across the 'tiers' of retailing. This paper explores the regulatory contentions of the early 1990s in the food policy arena and the nature of food regulation at the local level. It advances our understanding of the 'construction' of food quality and safety within the UK. Moreover, we argue that its depiction of the dialectical response between policy formulation and implementation confirms the need for local, as well as national level, exploration of the nature of the contemporary state.     

Local Governments and Indigenous Australians: Developments and Dilemmas in Contrasting Circumstances

This paper examines developments and dilemmas in relations between local governments and indigenous Australians over the last quarter century. It establishes a framework for analysis based on differences in local government systems, circumstances and populations. It then examines two sets of developments in relations which have occurred in contrasting circumstances. The first is ongoing poor relations in incorporated local government areas, focusing on a complex of issues surrounding landownership, rates and services. The second is discrete predominantly Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities in sparsely settled areas themselves becoming local governments. Both of these sets of developments are seen as being accompanied by significant dilemmas. In relation to the first, the major dilemma identified is how superordinate levels of government should best proceed in attempts to improve relations. In relation to the second, major dilemmas are identified relating to indigenous 'ownership' of the resulting local government structures and the weakness of the financial position of these newly emerging local governments. The paper suggests there have been some very significant and quite complex developments in relations between local governments and indigenous Australians over the last quarter century. However, these developments have only tentatively moved relations in a more positive direction, if indeed at all. Poor relations still predominate between local governments and indigenous Australians.     

Understanding Local Policymaking: Policy Elites' Perceptions of Local Agenda Setting and Alternative Policy Selection

Despite the increasing interest in policy agenda research in recent years, very few studies have focused their attention on the relevant processes at the local level. Drawing on agenda-setting research, particularly Kingdon's multiple-streams framework, this study examines the key forces and factors, as well as their relative importance, in local agenda setting, problem identification, and alternative policy selection. Data are collected from 271 in-depth interviews with local policy stakeholders in three U.S. Gulf Coast areas. Interview materials are coded using a protocol focused on capturing stakeholders' perceptions of the key elements and forces in local policy dynamics. Our interview data indicate that (i) governmental actors and various interest groups have relatively more influence in shaping local agendas than the general public, experts, and election-related actors, while the mass media are found to have little agenda-setting power in local policy processes; (ii) budgetary consideration and various forms of feedback to local government are more important than objective problem indicators and focusing events in setting local policy priorities; (iii) policy alternatives that are deemed compatible with existing policies and regulations are more likely to be selected than those relying on other criteria such as technical feasibility, value acceptability, and future constraints; and (iv) consensus and coalition building is perceived as the most important political factor in local policy processes. Limitations of our study and recommendations for future research are discussed in the concluding section.     

Policy Instrument Choices for Growth Management and Land Use Regulation

What factors account for local government land use practices and their choices among specific growth management policy instruments? We apply the political market framework to examine how land use policy choices in Florida are shaped by institutional features of county governments and the demands of organizations and interests in a community. Local policy decisions reflect a balance of the conflicting interests and responses to economic and political pressures. The results demonstrate that county government structure and election rules play critical roles in the adoption of urban service boundaries, incentive zoning, and transfer of development rights programs. We report evidence consistent with the argument that these “second‐generation” growth management policies are motivated by exclusionary goals.     

Policy Interaction in the Provision of Unemployment Insurance and Low-Income Assistance by State Governments

In this paper we investigate empirical relationships between Unemployment Insurance (UI) and welfare policies using a unique database covering 48 states annually from 1973 through 1989. We first document substantial variation across states in UI program outcomes. Having established that UI is so variable, we explore the simultaneous interaction between UI and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Medicaid, and total state and local welfare spending. Our econometric results indicate substitution between the two cash assistance programs, AFDC and UI, by state governments. On the other hand, states that operate relatively generous UI programs also tend to allocate more resources to Medicaid and other in-kind, low-income assistance programs.     

Nurturing Culture Through Country: Resource Management Strategies and Aspirations of Local Landowning Families at Napranum

In the context of generations of living in the ‘long and terrible shadow’ (Berger, 1991) cast by hostile political structures, mission influences and industrial resource management systems, the culture and identities of the local Aboriginal landowning families of the Weipa area have survived. These families actively nurture their culture through the development of resource management strategies. Local landowners' experiences of colonisation and the ways in which they sense their history and geography are explored and various cultural maintenance and transmission practices centred on country and resources are described. Active engagement with wider scale processes is contributing to more effective outcomes for the landowning families.     

Political Decoupling: Private Implementation of Public Policy

Where policy goals can be achieved through regulation of private firms, private provision of public services allows governments to separate public policies from their political costs by shifting those costs to the private sector. Over the past three decades, financial decoupling has emerged as a regulatory strategy for promoting conservation, especially in the energy sector. Decoupling refers to the separation of a firm’s revenues from the volume of its product consumed, which allows companies to pursue resource efficiency free from financial risk. Similarly, when private firms provide public services, they separate public policies from their political costs. This political decoupling allows governments to pursue controversial policies while avoiding their attendant political risks. Applied to environmental policy, this theory implies that potentially unpopular conservation policies are more likely to be adopted and succeed when implemented through private firms. As an initial test of the theory, we analyze California water utilities and their responses to that state’s drought from 2015–2017. Analysis shows that, compared with those served by local government utilities, private utilities adopted more aggressive conservation measures, were more likely to meet state conservation standards, and conserved more water.     

The Growth of Enterprise Zones: A Policy Transformation

The rapid growth of enterprise zones during the 1980s has occurred despite the lack of empirical support for its theory of using tax incentives to rebuild inner cities. This paper concludes, after reviewing the literature and assessments made by zone coordinators that enterprise zones, like Head start, have been transformed into a program through which both conservatives and liberals can justify spending on improved community social and infrastructure services.     

晚清中央与地方的财政关系--以外债为研究中心

晚清中央对地方财政监管的失控 ,财权的不断下移以致崩溃 ,构成中央与地方财政关系变化的基本态势。其间外债作为晚清财政的产物 ,一直伴随和影响着中央与地方权力的消长 ,并使得这一关系更为复杂和特殊。     

Reality versus Policy: The Delineation and Testing of Local Labour Market and Spatial Policy Areas

As part of the empirical planning science, this article integrates theory, empirical findings and policy. It first deals with the question how to reach a theoretically well-grounded and empirical applicable delineation of local labour market areas. An inductive classification method is selected based on the behaviour of individual commuters without selecting a priori central places. By this, new urban forms like polynodality are included. In using this method for the Netherlands, 31 local labour market areas (LLAs) were distinguished. Moreover, the article elaborates some simple measures to test the optimality of LLA classifications. The 31 LLAs adequately reflect the 'reality' of actual functional labour market relationships. The article also investigates the matching between reality and the LLA classification as used in spatial policy. There is a large gap between reality and policy. This urges bringing the policy classification more in line with existing LLAs. Alternatively, if one considers the present policy classification as an instrument for future spatial structure, much additional effort will be required. The findings of the article can be easily applied to other European countries.