WHOSE WOODS ARE THESE? COUNTER-MAPPING FOREST TERRITORIES IN KALIMANTAN,INDONESIA

This paper examines the politics of land and forest rights in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). Forest mapping by government forestry planners allocates rights of resource use and land access according to forest types and economic objectives, only rarely recognizing indigenous occupancy rights or forest territories customarily claimed or managed by local people. As maps and official plans based on them ignore, and in some cases criminalize, traditional rights to forest, forest products, and forest land for temporary conversion to swidden agriculture, indigenous activists are using sketch maps to re-claim territories - a process that requires re-defining many traditional forest rights. The paper considers the political implications of mapping and the implications of a focus on land use rather than forest use.     

Scaling down or scaling up? Local actor decisions and the feasibility of decentralized environmental governance: a case of Páramo wetlands in Southern Ecuador

In Latin America and the Global South, policy-makers are adopting community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) principles for local governments. The idealized emphasis on ‘local’ collaborative approaches is known to neglect human geographic contexts and issues of capacity, power, and human drivers of change at larger scales. However, critiques lack empirical evidence of policy implementation decisions. How do local government and community actors choose to use decentralized environmental governance policies in relation to a threatened cultural and natural landscape across their jurisdictions? This question is explored in an ethnographic case of a high Andean wetland region in southern Ecuador by focusing on the context and micro-politics of two seemingly contradictory local government decisions: proposals to nationalize a local community protected area and to work with other local governments to construct a road across the wetlands that could threaten protected area status. When different sectors are devolved to different local actors without strong sub-state institutions for conflict management, decentralization may create incentives for conflict rather than conservation. Governance design depends on understanding how and why diverse local actors engage in boundary-spanning regional strategies, calling for additional contributions from political geographers.     

Industrialization and Local/Regional Development Revisited

In focusing on regional development and industrialization, this article highlights three main themes: the relevance to developing countries of the new industrial district concept; the apparent continued need to theorize agglomerated industrial growth; and the relevance of agricultural development to local and regional industrial development. It concludes that the new industrial district concept is not relevant to understanding industrialization in the peripheral regions of developing countries and that despite the introduction of decentralization policies, local industrial development will, as before, very largely depend on central government resource allocation, the stability of government and the role played by large and medium scale enterprises, including Multi-National Corporations (MNCs). It is also argued that without special efforts to develop agriculture, local and regional industrial development are less likely to occur.     

INTERNAL BOUNDARIES AND DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION: A CHALLENGE TO DECENTRALIZATION AND DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT IN GHANA

Traditional institutions in Africa and their role in a decentralized administrative framework has been the subject of analysis in recent times. However, these discussions have centred largely on political power and local control of resources, to the neglect of the challenges of local government boundary setting and its consequences for local development. Therefore, in countries implementing decentralization with existing strong chiefdoms and traditional areas of jurisdictions, such as Ghana, little consideration has been given to the effects of local government boundaries on community cohesiveness and local development. This article examines the challenges of decentralization in Ghana with particular focus on district administrative boundaries. It argues that the non-coincidence of the 'traditional' ethnic boundaries, namely Traditional Areas, and the 'formal' district administrative boundaries of some districts as well as the absence of an integrative system of traditional and modern governance present a challenge to local and district development under the present decentralization process. The article concludes that district boundary setting should be a process of 'negotiated contract' between the state and communities of which the boundary is meant to create a local government territorial area of jurisdiction. This process entails that the criteria for boundary setting take into account both cultural and economic factors.     

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.     

THE IMPACT OF LOCAL DECENTRALIZATION ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM U.S. COUNTIES*

ABSTRACT We analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization on U.S. county population, employment, and real income growth. Our findings suggest that government organization matters for local economic growth, but that the impacts vary by government unit and by economic indicator. We find that single‐purpose governments per square mile have a positive impact on metropolitan population and employment growth, but no significant impact on nonmetropolitan counties. In contrast, the fragmentation of general‐purpose governments per capita has a negative impact on employment and population growth in nonmetropolitan counties. Our results suggest that local government decentralization matters differently for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties.     

Implementing the Regulation on Places of Worship in Indonesia: New Problems,Local Politics and Court Action

This article examines the local implementation of the national Joint Regulation 2006 on places of worship in Indonesia. It focuses on the case study of the Protestant Christian Batak Congregation, which became one of the first churches to successfully challenge the authority of a local leader to cancel its permit to build a church. I begin by exploring the history of the regulation of permits for places of worship in Indonesia and the various proposals for law reform that have been put forward since 1998. I then outline the provisions of the new Joint Regulation and highlight the ongoing problems for religious minorities at the local level because of the failure of local authorities to implement the national regulation. I will demonstrate how religious minorities are challenging the decisions of local authorities by complaining to independent watchdogs, taking court action and using the political process. In conclusion, I argue that the Protestant Christian Batak Congregation court case is part of a broader trend for local authorities to use conflict over places of worship as an opportunity for political gain in the highly competitive political atmosphere since the downfall of Suharto in 1998.     

Claiming indigenous rights through participatory mapping and the making of citizenship

This paper considers how participatory mapping, through the notion of indigeneity, is involved in the making of participants' political agency and the possible implications for local struggles over customary land and resources. Empirically, the paper draws on a field study of participatory mapping as a cartographic-legal strategy for the recognition of the customary rights to land and resources of the Dayak, an indigenous ethnic group in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. In this paper, we use citizenship as a basis for our analysis. On this basis, we discuss how the notion of indigeneity has assembled actors across different scales and how this has enabled indigeneity to develop as a site for claiming customary rights to land and resources through participatory mapping. One of our main arguments is the need to understand indigenous citizenship as a process that develops over time and through networks of actors that transcend the borders of the state and expand the formerly exclusive relationship between the state and its citizens in the making of citizenship. We challenge Isin's clear distinction between active and activist approaches to making claims of citizenship, suggesting instead that these approaches are mutually constitutive.     

Australian Aboriginal Policy: Aboriginal Pressure Groups or Government Advisory Bodies?

Western democracies in the 1970s including Australia experimented with more permanent mechanisms for obtaining policy advice at the national level from their politically unorganized indigenous minorities. This paper examines some of the difficulties encountered when federal governments attempt to foster national Aboriginal organizations with possible pressure group functions. As a case study in federal policy-making this two-part paper analyzes the steps by which the Australian government terminated the initial experiment with the government-created National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (1973–76) and, using selectively a commissioned report by Dr L. R. Hiatt (Part I), structured in detail two new bodies: the National Aboriginal Conference and the Council for Aboriginal Development (Part II). The paper argues that unless governments develop a serious policy of Aboriginal political development at the national level, governments will subvert their own goals by fostering Aboriginal organizations in which neither they nor Aboriginals have confidence.     

Canadian Northern Settlements: Top-down and Bottom-up Influences

The objective of this paper is to examine the evolution of settlement in northern Canada from the viewpoint of the paradigms of bottom-up or top-down development, the former being community driven and the latter government initiated. Following a review of the stages of settlement evolution and the major influences on them including the airplane and the Second World War, the Scone Report's characterization of settlements as developed or underdeveloped is presented. Much of the initial settlement of the North was top-down involving government or private capital from outside the region because it was a frontier devoid of settlement. Subsequently the building blocks of bottom-up development emerged. The federal government's devolution of power to the NWT Council in Yellowknife and the decentralization of a civil service from Ottawa was an important prerequisite for local government. This process has been strengthened recently by comprehensive settlements with aboriginal groups providing another building block in the form of land, hunting and mineral rights, and cash compensation for the extinguishment of aboriginal rights. A third building block for bottom-up development lies in the mixed economy which has emerged encompassing employment and business income from, for example, regional development corporations and co-operatives, transfers from Ottawa, country food, and the use of traditional skills of hunting, fishing and trapping. The adaptation of these skills to tourism, prospecting, guiding as well as aboriginal participation in oil and gas development and diamond mining indicate that such community involvement with a modern economy will outlast specific non-renewable resource use.     

Financing Decentralized Development in a Low‐Income Country: Raising Revenue for Local Government in Uganda

Uganda has been engaged for a number of years in an ambitious programme of political and financial decentralization involving significantly expanded expenditure and service delivery responsibilities for local governments in what are now forty‐five districts. Fiscal decentralization has involved allocation of block grants from the centre to complement increased local tax revenue‐raising efforts by districts and municipalities. This article is concerned with the financial side of decentralization and in particular with an examination of district government efforts to raise revenue with the tax instruments which have been assigned to them. These are found to be deficient in a number of ways and their tax raising potential not to be commensurate with the responsibilities being devolved. Achievement of the decentralization aims laid down, therefore, must depend either on the identification of new or modified methods of raising revenue locally, or increased commitment to transfer of financial resources from the centre, or both.     

政府空间治理与地方产业发展响应——以重庆市电子信息产业为例

政府空间治理对地方发展具有深刻影响。西方学界在解释国家治理时有三个重要学说:非马克思主义理论、马克思主义理论和福柯学说,但并不能完全解释我国的政府治理结构。中国治理结构包含中央政府和地方政府等多个层次,各层次的行为能力和权力空间有所不同。改革开放以来,中央政府允许地方政府通过调节财税杠杆、土地、劳动力等要素进行地方治理模式创新。同时,地方政府积极争取成为由中央政府批准的特殊经济区,对本地制度环境进行改革和创新,以促进地方产业发展。本文以重庆市为例,结合6次深入调研,探讨政府如何通过财税、土地等多项改革,提升空间治理能力,创造差异化治理环境,以带动地方产业发展的积极响应。     

民族地区政区调整与民族区域自治的实现路径--以20世纪50年代广西都安瑶族自治县设置为中心的探讨

20世纪50年代初期,以民族为名称的各层级自治区非均衡地建立,致使政府在已建立民族区域自治的地区与尚未建立区域自治的民族地区执行经济政策时出现偏差,经济政策偏差产生的优惠差异引发了都安瑶族群众谋求民族区域自治的问题。为了解决瑶族谋求民族区域自治问题,在采取经济政策调整和相应政治措施调整无果之后,为配合民族区域自治政策的落实,政府继而采取政区调整的方式,通过一系列行政区划调整的探索,最大限度地将瑶族纳入瑶族自治县内。最终,通过政区调整满足了少数民族对民族区域自治的需求,实现了民族地区各民族的和解与社会稳定。     

Scales of justice: law,American Indian treaty rights and the political construction of scale

The organization of political scale has served to facilitate the power of the dominant society to control, exclude and marginalize indigenous populations. This paper examines how geographical scale has shaped the historical and contemporary geography of indigenous peoples in the United States. More specifically, discussion will center upon the importance of scale in shaping natural resource conflicts between American Indians and state governments. Using the case of the Wisconsin Ojibwe treaty rights conflict, this study shows how scale informed the historical development of an exclusionary state natural resource policy and the state's legal effort to protect its monopoly over policy making during a 17 year court case over off-reservation hunting and fishing treaty rights. At the same time, Ojibwe Indians sought to use the dominant society's legal system to gain recognition of their hunting and fishing treaty rights and to alter the existing scale organization of power by decentralizing natural resource decision-making and creating a resource co-management regime. This paper shows how both the state and the tribes were active producers of space and scale and how attempts to restructure geographical scale represent attempts to restructure existing power relations. Although geographical scale and power relations are never fixed and are subject to contestation, this paper shows that the ability of marginalized populations to reshape scales of power is limited by the persistence of assimilationist attitudes and normative assumptions about the scalar organization of political life.     

Redemocratization and Decentralization in Brazil: The Strength of the Member States

With redemocratization and the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, Brazil became highly decentralized in terms of the distribution of financial revenue and political strength. As a result, sub-national governments, and especially the states, are now at the centre of the political and financial scene. In the absence of party-oriented politics, regional politicians, and particularly the state governors of the most important states, provide the federal government with ruling coalitions. The central question addressed in this article is what the state governments and their politicians are doing with this political and financial strength. A further point made is the importance of incorporating the states into the framework of analysis of decentralization: at the state level it is possible to identify a number of details about processes which remain too general at the national level and too specific at the local level. Brazil's experience in a decade of political and financial decentralization shows that although decentralization fosters democracy, a variety of other political and economic factors are also of influence, thus exposing the limits of decentralization's impact on policy results.     

The politics of decentralizing national parks management in the Philippines

International donors and state bureaucrats in the developing world have promoted decentralization reform as the primary means to achieve equitable, efficient and sustainable natural resource management. Relatively few studies, however, consider the power interests at stake. Why do state agencies decentralize power, what political patterns unfold, and how do outcomes affect the responses of resource users? This paper explores decentralization reform by investigating the political processes behind the Philippine state's decisions to transfer authority over national parks management to local government units. Drawing on a case of devolved management at Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Palawan Island, we examine how political motives situated at different institutional scales affect the broader process of decentralization, the structure of management institutions, and overall livelihood security. We demonstrate how power struggles between the Philippine state and City Government of Palawan over the right to manage the national park have impacted the livelihood support offered by community-based conservation. We conclude that decentralization may offer empowering results when upper-level policies and political networks tie into sufficiently organized institutions at the local level.     

地方政府管治下城市空间拓展——以广州市为例

改革开放以来的一系列制度变化对地方政府的政府职能和管治手段提出了新的要求,并由此对城市空间拓展产生了深远影响。以广州市为研究对象,探讨了其近十年城市空间拓展与地方政府管治的关系,发现市级政府以行政区划调整为手段、以战略规划为纲领的管治方式主导了城市生产及流通空间的建设;同时,由于各级政府之间利益协调的原因,地方政府管治过程出现了尺度分异,表现为区级政府与房地产市场共同作用下外围地区空间拓展向北低效蔓延的管治失灵现象。通过对政府管治在城市空间构建过程中的作用和成效的探讨,以期对引起人们对中国城市化进程中地方政府管治和城市空间关系的思考。     

Nationalism versus constitutionalism in Fiji*

Abstract. Since Fiji became an independent state in 1970 it has experienced three coups against elected governments. On each occasion, intervention has been justified on the grounds that the rights and interests of indigenous Fijians have been under threat from a government controlled by Indo‐Fijians, the country's second largest ethnic group. This is despite the fact that the constitutions under which these governments were elected contained extensive provisions for the protection of indigenous rights and interests precisely to meet such concerns. Since the coup of May 2000, the 1997 constitution has been resurrected through the legal process and fresh elections held. Although this represented a formal victory for the forces of constitutionalism, the election itself resulted in the return to office of the post‐coup interim administration that had been appointed by the military and which had pledged to uphold the primacy of Fijian interests against other claims. The story of nationalism versus constitutionalism in Fiji is one in which all the efforts of institutional designers seem to have been consistently trumped by the successful manipulation of ethnic identity, especially (although not exclusively) by Fijian nationalists. But it also suggests that there is more to the problems of stability in Fiji than the fact of ethnic difference. In addition, the article critically assesses arguments which favour the development of a new form of constitutionalism which dispenses with the liberal ‘rule of uniformity’ in favour of principles and practices that give explicit recognition to cultural difference.     

Regional Competition for Mobile Oligopolistic Firms: Does Public Provision of Local Inputs Lead to Agglomeration?

We develop a model in which two regional governments compete for two mobile oligopolistic firms. Regional governments provide local infrastructure to attract mobile firms in order to increase regional employment and income. Firms face the trade-off between better regional infrastructure and fiercer competition for local workers. Strategic interaction prevails at the regional level as well as at the firm level. We show that an equilibrium with spatial concentration of firms as well as an equilibrium with spatial diversification of firms exists. In almost all cases regional competition leads to a suboptimal provision of local infrastructure.     

利益主体多元化背景下的区域经济一体化

区域经济一体化是经济发展的客观要求,中国区域经济一体化进程滞后已成为影响整个经济持续发展的重要因素。改革开放的过程是多元利益主体形成的过程,在现有的制度体系内,追求地方利益的最大化成为影响区域经济一体化进程的重要阻力。区域经济一体化需要均衡的利益格局,制度变迁是实现利益均衡的重要途径。