Voluntary Environmental Programs in the Public Sector: Evaluating an Urban Water Conservation Program in California

Solving conflictual environmental policy problems is increasingly falling under the purview of local governments and public agencies. Nonregulatory approaches, such as the development of voluntary environmental programs (VEPs), could offer a useful policy alternative as they often have greater political traction and flexibility. However, there has been little work examining the use of VEPs in the public sector. This article uses a new dataset from California to examine how political institutions affect decisions by local governments and public agencies to participate in a voluntary urban water conservation program and whether this program has improved the water conservation performance of its members. The results show that special district governments, private utilities, and water suppliers dependent on purchased water are more likely to participate in the program and to join early. However, urban water agencies that have joined the program have not reduced their per capita water use more than those that have not. These results underscore the influence of political institutions in public‐sector decision making and demonstrate that, as in the private sector, commitment to a VEP by local government and public agencies does not guarantee implementation or environmental improvements. While voluntary programs offer political and administrative advantages, in order for VEPs in the public sector to be effective they must be accompanied and supported by credible enforcement mechanisms, performance standards, and rigorous monitoring programs.     

Moderating Local Capacity: Exploring EO 12372's Intergovernmental Review Effects on Federal Grant Awards

This article asks whether the Reagan Executive Order (EO) 12372 matters for intergovernmental fiscal relations today. To address this question, federal grant receipts from programs that are, and programs that are not, covered by EO 12372 are compared by examining the differential effects of political and local administrative capacity on each. Grant receipts are examined by coding federal grant award data from 1993 to 2003 using Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance reference numbers. In the case state, Kentucky, Area Development Districts are the regional functionaries for the state single point of contact clearinghouse, by virtue of which status they review proposals for federal funding originating in, or affecting, their districts. Since federal award decisions take clearinghouse information into account on grant programs covered by EO 12372, differences in the effects of local capacity on receipt of grants covered and not covered by the EO are expected. Methodology used in this post‐only analysis is pooled cross‐sectional time series analysis with panel corrected standard errors. Results focus attention on the differential effects of government administrative and political capacity as they apply to federal grants covered, and not covered, by the EO.     

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO PROGRAM EVALUATION IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

This article is based on five applied local government program evaluation studies carried out in the spirit of the work done by Harry Hatry and others at the Urban Institute. Problem areas identified include the attitudes and skills of local government personnel, the lack of appropriate local government resources, the absence of incentives for local governments to conduct evaluations, and the methodological difficulties encountered in conducting research in an action setting. The article ends with a discussion of the unique role academically based evaluations can play in overcoming obstacles.     

Exploring the links between political structure and metropolitan growth

Considerable scholarship documents a causal link between metropolitan growth and the resultant number and arrangement of local governments in metropolitan areas. Only scant research explores the reverse phenomena, that patterns of local government structure influence metropolitan population growth. Yet ample social science theory and case study evidence suggest support for such a causal link. This study examines empirically the influence of levels and changes in political structure on metropolitan population growth for 129 large US metropolitan areas between 1962 and 1982. The analysis extends previous research in two ways: first, by replacing aggregate measures of political fragmentation with a more sophisticated set of variables that capture different aspects of the multifaceted concept of political structure; and second, by examining the dynamic association between change in political structure and metropolitan growth. The results reveal mixed support for theories linking political structure to metropolitan growth. Of methodological importance is the finding that different dimensions of political structure interact differentially with metropolitan growth, suggesting that traditional aggregate measures of political structure obscure more than they reveal.     

HISTORY,INSTITUTIONS, AND CITIES: A VIEW FROM THE AMERICAS*

ABSTRACT Every nation, formally or informally, defines and establishes the lines of political and fiscal authority among its national, regional, and local governments. Historically, centralized governments tend to restrict the power and autonomy of provincial and local governments. In this paper, we exploit the quasi‐experimental distribution of political institutions in the Americas caused by variation in European colonial experience to examine the impact of institutions on urban and local development, specifically on the degree of urban primacy, the size distribution of cities, the number and density of local government units, and the fragmentation of metropolitan areas. We argue that centralization of political power at the national level, as experienced in many countries in Latin America, contributes to urban primacy and a size distribution of cities favoring large cities. Additionally, even in more politically decentralized countries such as Canada and the U.S., variance in political centralization at the provincial (state) level over local governments led to significant divergences in urban primacy, the distribution of city sizes, as well as the form, number, and density of local governments. While we cannot rule out the importance of other factors, our findings suggest that political centralization affects spatial economic development.     

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。     

Developing geographic information infrastructures for local government: the role of trust

The United States's National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) model presumes that the local government agencies of counties and municipalities will share their geographic information freely with government agencies of regions, states and federal agencies. This article takes up the issue of local government involvement in the NSDI by asking the question: why should local governments involve themselves in the NSDI? This question is informed by considering the social and technological imbrication of the NSDI. One of the oldest spatial data infrastructure projects, the NSDI offers insights into the complexity of implementing infrastructure in federal models of shared governance. This article focuses on the political and financial dimensions of developing infrastructure among local governments. Trust is quintessential at this level of government. Local government agency activities experience an inherently closer coupling with political representatives and with different agencies in both intramunicipal and intermunicipal activities. Building the NSDI is fundamentally an interagency act and thus a matter of trust. Trust is a key issue in the development of the NSDI, as the results of a study of Kentucky local government agencies indicate.     

Local Community Characteristics and Cooperation for Shared Green Reputation

This article examines how basic socioeconomic and political factors are associated with higher levels of cooperation to garner a local community's shared green reputation. We analyze panel data on participation efforts in a collective voluntary environmental program, the Ecological Blue Flag Program, by the entire population of beach communities in Costa Rica between 2001 and 2009. Collective voluntary environmental programs are relatively new and aim to improve environmental performance and shared “green” reputation through joint participation and certification of multisector groups comprising businesses, governmental institutions, and nongovernmental organizations. Our results indicate that higher levels of within‐community cooperation for shared green reputation are more likely in seashore localities with lower income inequality and/or a higher number of businesses. These findings run counter to research suggesting these same characteristics are associated with lower levels of cooperation in the management of common pool natural resources such as fisheries and forests. We also find that within‐community cooperation is positively correlated with a greater proportion of expatriates from industrialized countries and/or with higher levels of democratic political participation.     

Reforming Local Government Policymaking and Management Through Organizational Learning and Experimentation

This article presents two ongoing programs of local government reform in Norway, the Free Commune Program and the Pilot Commune Program. These programs are fairly typical of thinking on local government development in the Nordic countries at the moment. On the one hand, the welfare states are seen as being in danger of becoming overloaded. On the other hand, local government is seen as being in need of developing a capacity to respond better to local communities; consequently, national regulations have to become less standardized in order to allow for greater local adaptability and more variation. The emergent municipal organizational models reflect a more community-oriented approach to local government and a deemphasis on local governments as distributive channels for central ministries. A New Nordic Welfare Model is emerging with more emphasis on local initiatives.     

Learning from Schools: School Choice,Political Learning,and Policy Feedback

This article investigates the policy feedback and political learning effects of school vouchers. Of particular interest is how market‐based policies affect the likelihood that program participants will connect their experiences with the policy to the government. I examine parent survey data from an evaluation of the Milwaukee school voucher program. I find that voucher parents are more likely than public school parents to perceive that the government has influenced their child's schooling and to believe that their experiences with their child's school have taught them about how government works. Further, voucher parents report that their experiences with the policy have made them more politically active. While majorities of voucher and public school parents support increased public school expenditures, there is some evidence that school vouchers may decrease support for public schools.     

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.     

Fighting for Trieste: nationalism and political violence at the edge of the Iron Curtain

Between 1945 and 1954, the Italian and Yugoslav governments staunchly disputed national sovereignty of Trieste and northern Istria. Although scholars have extensively studied the diplomatic dimension of what became known as the ‘Trieste question’, only a few have devoted attention to the Italian government’s aggressive strategy toward the city from 1945 to 1954. This article examines the Italian politics of nationalism in Cold War Trieste by investigating the interactions between the central government, the Allied authorities and the local political forces that either supported or opposed Italian territorial claims toward the city. Based upon the study of Italian as well as Allied governmental records, state-led propaganda and public press, this article suggests that the central government not only tolerated but also encouraged phenomena of local political violence to oppose the Communist threat and defy Allied occupation. This study ultimately proves the residual strength of nationalism as a political ideology and further elucidates the undisclosed relationship between right-wing movements and the central government during the early years of the Cold War.     

Government institutions and the dynamics of urban growth in China

Economic growth in China in recent decades has largely rested on the dynamism of its cities. High economic growth has coincided with measures aimed at improving the efficiency of local governments and with a mounting political drive to curb corruption. Yet the connection between government institutions and urban growth in China remains poorly understood. This paper is the first to look into the link between government efficiency and corruption, on the one hand, and urban growth in China, on the other hand and to assess what is the role of institutions relative to more traditional factors for economic growth in Chinese cities. Using panel data for 283 cities over the period between 2003 and 2014, the results show that the urban growth in China is a consequence of a combination of favorable human capital, innovation, density, local conditions, foreign direct investment, and city‐level government institutions. Both government quality—especially for those cities with the best governments—and the fight against corruption at the city level have a direct effect on urban growth. Measures to tackle corruption at the provincial level matter in a more indirect way, by raising or lowering the returns of other growth‐inducing factors.     

Human Rights Violations,Corruption, and the Policy of Repression

Quantitative cross‐national research on human rights violations and repression has made considerable progress in identifying and eliminating economic and political factors that influence the use of torture and killing by governments. Warfare tends to increase violations, democracy—notably full democracy—and trade tends to inhibit violations. Where motives have been considered, this research has generally assumed a strategic motivation for government use of repression. Repression is employed to counter threats from the opposition as represented by the presence of warfare. Less attention has been given to the effect of implementation on levels of repression. Theory suggests that agents are likely to make a substantial independent contribution to the level of repression, if given the opportunity. In this article we develop this argument and present cross‐country comparative evidence that suggests that agents’ opportunities for hidden action measured by perceived levels of financial corruption substantially influences the incidence of torture in a political system, after controlling for the strategic motive of governments and the other factors found influential in earlier research. We show that the results are robust and not sensitive to alternative modeling, measurement, and research‐design decisions.     

“借口”:中国城市资本高度集聚的政治经济学分析框架

面对改革开放以来中国快速城市化现象,本文从中国投资拉动的经济增长模式出发,发现中国城市存在着高度积累,特别是行政级别高的城市持续投资增长的现象,在分析投资、投资效率与大型事件关系的基础上,提出了官员晋升竞标赛和财政分权预算约束条件下的制度机会主义行为假设,认为大型事件不过是政府构建的一个有利于在城市体系下,通过打破传统的政府预算约束,实现资本高度集中促进经济持续增长的制度机会主义行为。"借口"模式旨在揭示大型事件现象背后的政治与经济激励,并以2010年广州举办亚运会为例,按政府构建—突破约束—官员晋升的结构,分析了广州市政府构建全社会共识,举办亚运会带来巨额投资促进城市发展实现政治与经济激励的事实,为"借口"模式提供了实证的案例。最后,对"借口"模式的未来趋势进行了探讨。     

Prime Ministers,Opposition Leaders and Government Popularity in Australia

There is little doubt that political leaders are more important, and more visible, than at any time since democratisation. This article uses monthly public opinion poll data collected since 1973 to test four hypotheses concerning the relationships between leader approval, economic and political performance, and government support. The findings show that Prime Ministerial approval is based on public perceptions of both political and economic performance, with minis terial resignations, by-election defeats and the party complexion of State governments forming the major components of political performance, and unemployment and GDP being the major contributors to economic performance. There is support for the hypothesis that Prime Ministers mediate the effects of political performance on government popularity, but no support for the hypothesis that economic performance has a direct impact on government popularity. Overall, the results emphasise the extent to which the leader has absorbed the functions once exercised by the party, a pattern now common across the other advanced democracies.     

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.     

Wrapped in Two Flags: The Complex Political History of Nunavik

ABSTRACT

During the first half of the twentieth century, northern Quebec was under federal jurisdiction. Tired of English Canadian supremacy and increasingly aware of northern Quebec’s considerable natural resources, which could provide a solid basis for future moves toward independence, the Quebec government began to take over responsibility for its northern territories in the 1960s. It established a regional administration to take charge of its northern affairs and sent officers to northern Quebec’s remote communities. For two decades, both governments administered the region and imposed two political systems on the local Inuit. This article is based on lengthy fieldwork and archival research. The historical background is described to show how Nunavik has developed as a political and social entity through its relationships with the Quebec and Canadian governments. This conflictual situation has created tensions in the Inuit community, resulting in political dissensions over the goal of self-government. Finally, this article details how the Inuit have exploited federal–provincial tensions to further their own interests.     

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。     

毛泽东“放权”改革的路径与特征分析

本文主要分析了社会主义改造前后毛泽东提出"放权"改革的历史动因和理论依据,阐述了毛泽东"放权"改革的路径选择,理性地总结和分析了毛泽东"放权"改革的特征.认为毛泽东"放权"改革的目的是为了解放生产力,但是他的"放权"改革没有触及国家与企业的实质关系,也未能真正理顺中央、地方、企业的关系,中央和地方分权主要是行政分权,忽视了市场机制的作用;没有将以"放权"为核心内容的经济管理体制改革与政治体制改革结合起来,同步推进"放权"改革;对中央和地方的权力分配上没有掌握好一个合适的界限,"放权"和"收权"都带有很大的主观随意性.