Improving Efficiency in Australian Local Government: Structural Reform as a Catalyst for Effective Reform

Municipal amalgamation has been the main policy instrument of local government structural reform programmes in Australia for well over a century. However, council consolidation programs have not achieved the intended cost savings or improved service provision promised by advocates of this means of structural reorganisation. This paper considers whether the failure of municipal amalgamation processes to produce significant economic benefits necessarily implies that structural reform programs that invoke consolidation have no place in Australian local government policy. It is argued that ‘top-down’ state government structural reform policy initiatives carrying the threat of amalgamation constitute an efficient mechanism for evoking optimal ‘bottom-up’ structural change models.     

当代中国地方政府制度的沿革和确立

当代中国地方政府制度,在沿革上与中央政府制度不同,是在继承历代地方官制的基础上发展演变而来的。其确立分为两个阶段:1949～1954年是建立和过渡时期;1954年颁布了《中华人民共和国宪法》,正式确立了这一制度。此后,其基本原则一直延续至今。     

Public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This article reviews publications on public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS). A distinction needs to be drawn between public administration as a discipline and as a field of inquiry that engages specialists from several areas. The latter has been more significant in Australia in contrast to Europe and the United States. The questions discussed in the AJPS cover changes in the field and practice of public administration; the state and government; the structures of local government, public organisation and federalism; interfaces between public administration and other sectors and institutions; and issues with public sector reform and accountability. Despite the emphasis on governance in discourse and practice, the role of government continues to be central, and what emerges from experiments in new governance is that the authority of government and the significance of hierarchy (compared to markets and networks) very often remains pivotal.     

Local autonomies and economic development in Italy's incomplete transition

Since the 1990s Italy's autonomous local governing bodies have experienced important changes in their powers and functions in ways that have been shaped by national and international developments. The two decades of Italy's ‘transition’ have seen structural changes in the system that enabled the country in the second half of the twentieth century to take a place at the centre of the world economic system. But the evidence of the last two decades indicates that the changes that have taken place do not constitute a transition, but reveal instead a country that in terms of its politics and the economy is living an extremely diversified and complex phase of its history. This essay explores these processes at the level of the provinces and local government, showing how their capacity to contribute, locally and nationally, to growth through increasing territorial competiveness has been hampered by uncertainties resulting from the reforms that have been introduced and by growing financial restrictions.     

魏晋南朝的军府管理与地方变乱

魏晋南朝地方军政官的频繁变乱是个值得研究的问题。其原因主要在于:军府长官在获得财富方面具有先天之利,名义上属于国家的地方财富常常会被越轨的军政长官挪作私用。当时以“节”为发兵符信,但是诏书与尚书符都很容易被伪造,朝廷无法防止地方军政官擅自募兵、兴兵。中央也曾对军府内部士兵、府僚、属州刺史与军府长官之间过于亲密的关系进行干预,并且加以种种规定。但这些规定具有矛盾性,而且这种矛盾性又总是向有利于军府长官的方向转化。中央一直向军府派驻有各种监察性质的官员,但这种官员在身份和地位上又从属于府主,有听命于府主的义务。     

Government performance and dissatisfaction with democracy in Australia

ABSTRACT

Satisfaction with democracy has declined rapidly in Australia, reaching the lowest level recorded since the 1970s in 2019. Whereas Australian citizens used to be among the most satisfied democrats in the world, there is now evidence of widespread dissatisfaction. What explains this rapid decline in political support? Comparative studies emphasise the role of government performance, both political and economic, in shaping citizens’ attitudes towards the political system. This paper examines the role of government performance in shaping satisfaction with democracy in Australia, using Australian Election Study data from 1996 to 2019. The results demonstrate that frequent changes of prime minister, which a majority of voters disapproved of, and rising economic pessimism contributed to the decline of democratic satisfaction in Australia.     

Rescaling Migration Studies: Migration Policy-Making and Implementation at the Local Government Level

How ‘the state’ perceives and responds to migration is gaining increasing attention. This analysis seeks to encourage debate on scales of governance in migration studies through a focus on policy-making and implementation on the part of local government officials in Scotland. Contributions include the elucidation of how immigrants are differentiated by individual local state actors and how this relates to the wider practices of local government towards them, and a typology conceptualising the heterogeneity of local state responses to immigration. This analytic emphasis on local state perceptions of, and responses to, migration and migrants hopes to inspire more nuanced and policy relevant understandings of ‘the state’ in migration research.     

论明代贵州地方流官政权的建立过程及特点

明代是贵州逐渐建立王朝直接控制下地方流官政权体系的重要时期,但发展的过程却较为缓慢。复杂的历史地缘政治背景,使明代贵州地方流官政权的建立过程、空间分布和运作模式呈现出与内地不同的特点。大多数流官政权是在卫所制下逐渐建立起来,或者采取“军政合一”的流官政权形式,改土归流的进程也是渐进而漫长,这些决定了流官政权存在设置上的依赖性、政权体系上的不完善性、空间分布上的不平衡性等特点。     

唐代崖州治所考

关于唐代崖州治所,《通典》等全国性史志皆明确记载在舍城县,正德《琼台志》等海南旧志则认为在颜城县。孰是孰非?因从来无人进行考证和评断,以至两说长期并存。现经深入考证,所得结论是“舍城说”所言为是,“颜城说”完全错误。至于唐崖州治故址,在今海口市琼山区府城东南三十里龙塘镇的珠崖岭上。     

传统法治文化对当前地方法治政府建设之启发

中国传统法治文化是中华几千年国家治理的智慧结晶,在不同历史时期具有不同的文化特点,也存在自诞生之初就无法克服的不足之处,如强调人治、维护宗法、重刑轻民等。但是,传统法治文化有很多值得我们吸收改进的有益之处,尤其在教民、治吏与息诉这三点上,对当前地方法治政府建设有着重要的借鉴意义。本文结合包括福建本地的一些法治实例,阐述传统法治文化的特点和不足,以"从严治吏"为重点,对如何更好的建设地方法治政府提出几点个人思考和建议。     

东北内蒙地区金代之政区及其城市发展

金代东北及内蒙地区之府、州、县约为7府、35州(路、司)、90县,其承辽代之疆域,但政区经省并后,则设置较少,城市数亦应相对减少。但以考古资料而言,则金代城市有显发展,其数量约为辽代之二倍,以人口数而言,金代亦有明显增长,恰又为辽代之二倍,说明城市发展与人口之关系。     

Enacting a Local Reform in the Age of Reform: A Salary for the Chairman of Middlesex Sessions

This article examines the unsuccessful attempts made from 1833 to 1842 by Middlesex's justices of the peace to obtain a local statute allowing them to pay a salary to their chairman. Instead of securing such an act, they had to settle for a statute enacted by the government, a statute authorising the government to appoint their chairman for judicial proceedings. The article uses the story of Middlesex's attempt to obtain a salary for the chairman to examine: justices' attempts to reform the office of chairman of county Sessions; the limited powers of justices in their county Sessions; and the centralising aspirations of central government. The statute that the government produced in 1844 originated as a public bill. In contrast, the statute that Middlesex had attempted to obtain originated as private bills. The statute enacted by the government contained defects that probably would not have marred a statute enacted under the rules governing private bills. So, this article uses the legislative misadventures of the government's bill to compare the procedures for enactment of public and private bills. The article therefore provides a case study of mid‐19th‐century legislative procedures governing enactment of local legislation, while arguing that, as of the mid 19th century, parliament had not developed procedures appropriate to both representative government and a centralising central government using public bills for local matters.     

Scaling‐Up,Scaling‐Down,and Scaling‐Out: Local Planning Strategies for Sea‐Level Rise in New South Wales,Australia

Globally, sea‐level rise is expected to impact on many coastal regions and settlements. While mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions remains an important task, adaptation is now seen as a critical component of the policy equation. Local government is a key player in adaptation planning and managing risk through their mandated role in land use planning and development control. Yet, managing the predicted impacts of climate change is proving to be a complex and difficult task for planners and policy makers. This paper reports on a case of local government deliberation on possible planning responses to address future sea‐level rise impacts in New South Wales, Australia. Using structured, expert opinion of planners and other technical experts engaged in a collaborative network in the Sydney region, we explore the feasibility of implementing planning and policy measures at the local and regional scales to respond to inundation risk as a result of sea‐level rise and storm surge events. Our research shows how local governments employ specific scale‐oriented strategies to engage private and public actors at different scales to manage legal, financial, and technical risks in coastal adaptation.     

Australian politics in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This article examines how contributors to the Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS) have conceptualised Australian politics over 50 years. It undertakes this task by examining key events in Australian politics that prompted vigorous debate. These include the election of the Whitlam government in 1972, its dismissal in 1975, and how this in turn generated discussion about the nature of responsible government in Australia. The republican debate of the 1990s shifted the focus. Since 2000, however, a few contributors to the journal have attempted to find a central focus for Australian politics in the controversy over the idea of the Australian settlement. Much recent discussion about Australian politics has been influenced by the ‘cultural turn’, and become particularistic. It is argued that despite their diversity, articles in the AJPS generally do not usually contribute to a narrative that sheds light on the larger, longstanding, structural issues of Australian politics.     

清末民初地方社会整合格局的变化

晚清以降,在内忧外患交侵之下,乡族自治传统下的地方社会秩序陷入困境。随着国家扩张权力需要的增强和地方资产阶级化新兴士绅的倔起,一种以国家与新型地方精英的合作为基础的新的地方权力格局呼之欲出。当然,由于传统势力的牵制以及国家权力与地方精英权力之间的张力,清末民初的地方权力重建过程充满了复杂的纠葛与冲突。     

Truncated Decision Making and Deliberative Implementation: A Time-Based Policy Process Model for Transitional China

The time dimension has not attracted enough attention in policy process research in China, yet speed is the most distinctive feature of China’s recent development. This article, based on observations of China’s policy practices, proposes a new research perspective for understanding how the Chinese government has been able to address policy challenges in an era of rapid transition. The approach adopted by the government allows decision makers to respond quickly to serious problems with a truncated decision-making process, and then implement the decisions through a more gradual deliberative process. The article examines China’s coal-mining industry reform as an empirical case to illustrate how this governance approach has been used to achieve major policy reform, namely property rights reform for coal mines, while simultaneously maintaining stability, regulating production safety, and stimulating industrial development. The article concludes with a discussion of the broad implications of this pattern for improving the effectiveness of public policy both in and outside China.     

Early international relations teaching and teachers in Australia: institutional and disciplinary origins

Drawing on the insights of the current literature concerned with the institutions which fostered and supported the emergence of the international relations (IR) discipline, this article reassesses the Australian contribution in the interwar years. From this period, teaching materials and surviving lecture notes, as well as documentation of Australian participation in the International Studies Conference, show that, contrary to the received view, academies and institutions supported a recognisable IR, albeit in its formative stages. Even by the early 1920s there was a developing awareness that ‘international relations’ was a discrete subject worthy of presentation in a specific curriculum. The Melbourne school initiated by William Harrison Moore exerted the greatest influence; an energetic pioneering effort in Sydney under H. Duncan Hall was not maintained after his departure. Law and history departments offered such courses, though their place in wider programs depended upon the contingencies of personalities and appointments. By the 1930s, IR teachers were familiar with the major methodological debates of the era in the UK and the USA. While consistent attention was devoted to international organisation, and ‘collective security’ had its champions, the predominant view, in the terminology of the ‘first debate’, was neither idealist nor realist.     

南阳知府衙门建筑考略

南阳知府衙门自元代兴建,历经元、明、清三代,其建筑规模宏大,布局严谨,是一座既传统又融合南北方建筑特征,具有鲜明的封建等级和地方特征的府衙建筑,在历史、艺术和科学等方面有着重要的研究价值。     

Why US-Sino strategic competition is good for Australia

ABSTRACT

Faced with an increasingly authoritarian and assertive China, the United States (US) under President Trump administration’s has embarked on a course toward a more openly competitive US–China relationship. However, the debate in Australia has viewed the new era of US-Sino strategic competition mostly negatively. Indeed, arguments have been made for a need to ‘radically’ rethink Australia’s defence policy in order to prepare for a ‘post-US-led’ regional order. For some analysts, Canberra has even no other choice than to adopt a strategy of ‘armed neutrality’ to deal with an emerging China-dominated regional order and a declining US, confused and unwilling to defend its allies. In contrast, this article argues that on balance Trump’s course correction on China is positive for Australia as the US is likely to maintain its robust engagement in the Indo-Pacific. While the president’s inconsistencies partly undermine US declaratory statements in regards to greater competition with China, a bipartisan consensus is likely to continue to shift US policy in this direction. While greater US-Sino competition requires Australia to assume greater responsibilities for regional security, radical changes to its defence policy and security alignment are not needed.     

Constraints on Local Welfare Discretion in an Era of Second‐Order Devolution

Under devolution, state and local governments are expected to use the greater authority granted to them to design new and innovative programs that are tailored to local needs. Existing research on the devolution of welfare programs has reported substantial variation in the policies adopted by states in the wake of welfare reform. However, under second‐order devolution, local governments also gained discretion over welfare services. Some have argued that, while devolution should increase flexibility, local governments face constraints that limit their functional discretion. Using California as an example, I assess whether there is variation in the service priorities adopted by local governments and whether these priorities translate to frontline practices. I show differences in the service priorities of local governments; however, these priorities are not associated with differences in sanctioning or time‐limit exemptions. Thus, while local governments may formally adopt different priorities, state and federal policy choices, as well as client characteristics, may restrict priorities from translating into differences in caseworker behavior.