Cultural diversity as a multilevel and multifaceted legal notion operating in the law on cultural policies

The objective of the present article is to highlight the obscured links between the multilevel and multifaceted legal concept of cultural diversity and its political uses. It intends to provide a clear appraisal of the concepts of cultural diversity within the legal framework in which cultural policies are immersed. It seeks to focus on the uses of cultural diversity as a legal concept that reflect intense disagreements on cultural policies, that helps legitimatize very different and variable political ideas and that emerges from very different backgrounds. After identifying the exact legal scope of the notion, the article analyses the narratives and discourses that lead to the consolidation and use of cultural diversity as a multilevel legal notion.     

非公有制企业党建：一种互补性的制度建构

非公有制企业党建工作制度创新是党的建设适应新时代要求革故鼎新的制度形态,是非公企业党建工作的内在要求和根本导向,其与非公企业制度间产生的共时性制度互补关系是非公企业党的制度建构的本质特征和嵌入依据,非公企业党建制度互补性的生成受到多层次制度嵌入性的影响,包括宏观体制性嵌入、微观制度嵌入和非正式规范嵌入。     

THE URBAN ENTERPRISE ZONE*

ABSTRACT This paper provides an analytical framework of urban enterprise zones in a context of regional development. The direct and indirect impacts of urban enterprise zones on regional economies such as job creation, urban unemployment, agricultural wage and changes in the regional economic structure are analyzed by incorporating the intermediate goods sector. The study suggests that the establishment of urban enterprise zones is a beneficial and effective policy instrument which can be used in promoting urban renewal and regional economic growth.     

城市人均受教育水平对居民主观幸福感的影响——基于多尺度模型的研究

提升居民幸福感是和谐宜居城市建设和实现人民美好生活愿望的重要目标。地理背景特征对居民幸福感的影响在社会学、地理学、经济学等学科领域受到极大关注,但尚缺乏城市人均受教育水平及其异质性影响研究。基于2016年中国劳动力动态调查数据,采用多尺度线性模型探讨了我国城市人均受教育水平、人均收入与居民幸福感的关系。研究发现：①居民幸福感存在显著区域差异,东部城市居民幸福感最高,西部整体偏低。②作为重要的城市背景特征之一,与人均收入相比,人均受教育水平对居民幸福感有正向提升作用,即城市人均受教育水平越高,居民幸福感越高。③城市人均受教育水平对居民幸福感的影响是复杂的,在不同学历群体间存在明显差异,对高中及以下学历群体幸福感的提高具有积极影响,但对本科及以上学历群体的幸福感产生消极影响。     

Italian Industrial Districts: An Industrial Economics Interpretation

The Italian debate on industrial districts suggests that local development can be based on small and medium-sized firms, provided they work in teams and are embedded in a local system of social relations. If the availability of local public goods complements the private supply of local specialized services and goods, Marshallian external economies are engendered. When inner social and economic relations boost the supply of local public goods, and are reproduced by the consistent economic behaviour of local (economic and political) agents, they become local factors of economic development, or, in other words, the district's social capital. These propositions are considered within a three-layered framework comprising structure, conduct and performance. The relations among these levels allow joint consideration of three different processes of economic selection: competitive, strategic, evolutionary. This complexity is necessary if the conditions that foster significant Marshallian external economies are to be represented correctly.     

Ownership matters: Natural resources property rights and social conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa

Empirical tests of the “resource curse” thesis have provided inconclusive evidence for the claim that natural resource abundance increases the risk of social conflict. The present article argues, based on a novel political economy framework and a new data set, that it is important to analyze how states regulate the access to their natural resources to understand the interrelationship between resources and public resistance against resource extraction arrangements. We claim that international rather than state resource ownership fosters the regional protest potential and overshadows the efficiency gains that foreign investment might create. Especially the siphoning of resource rents to international owners instigates resentment among the local population. Distinguishing between private, public, domestic and international ownership arrangements, we assess the effects of natural resources control rights regimes on state repression using new GIS-based data on diamond and gold mines as well as oil and gas fields in Sub-Sahara Africa. Our multilevel analysis shows that repression as an answer to societal dissent is particularly likely in grids hosting international oil companies. Furthermore, we find that international oil firms further state repression especially under insecure property rights.     

Robustness of Social‐Ecological Systems: Implications for Public Policy

We conceptualize social‐ecological systems (SESs) as complex adaptive systems where public policy affects and is affected by the biophysical system in which it is embedded. The study of robustness of SESs combines insights from various disciplines including economics, political science, ecology, and engineering. In this paper we present an approach that can be used to explore the implications for public policy when viewed as a component of a complex adaptive system. Our approach leverages the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to provide a platform for interdisciplinary research that focuses on system‐wide outcomes of the policy process beyond just policy change. The main message is that building robustness can create new vulnerabilities. Fail‐free policies cannot be developed, and instead of a focus on the “right” policy, we need to think about policy processes that stimulate experimentation, adaptation, and learning.     

Towards Culture 3.0 – performative space in the public library

The aim of this article is to analyse and discuss the development of performative spaces in public libraries from a cultural policy perspective. First, a framework of three concepts of culture, 1.0–3.0, is used as a tool to analyse the overall development of public libraries. Against this background, we introduce the notion of performative spaces in public libraries by highlighting Nordic examples. The tendency can also be seen on a broader level in European and North American libraries, where a ‘performative turn’ can be seen as the relationship between the library and its users, especially the younger ‘digital natives’. The rationales behind the emergence of performative spaces in public libraries are analysed and discussed: democratisation, empowerment and economic impact. This article concludes that the performative spaces are legitimized by multiple rationales in the same way as cultural policies and cultural institutions are legitimised today.     

邻里效应视角下社区交往对生活满意度的影响——基于北京市26个社区居民的多层次路径分析

本文基于2017年北京市居民日常活动与满意度调查数据,运用多层次路径分析方法,以社区及周边环境作为地理背景,探讨邻里环境、社区交往和生活满意度之间的复杂关系.研究发现,在控制个体和家庭社会经济因素后,社区建成环境对生活满意度的直接效应较弱,仅公园可达性显著正相关.然而,建成环境通过社区交往对生活满意度的间接效应显著,尤...     

Evidence on economies of scale in local public service provision: A meta-analysis

The standard theory of optimal jurisdictional size hinges on the existence of economies of scale in the provision of local public goods and services. However, despite its relevance for forced local amalgamation programs and related policies, the empirical evidence on the existence of such economies of scale remains elusive. The main goal of this paper is to produce an updated and comprehensive quantitative review of the existence of economies of scale in the provision of local public goods using a meta-analysis approach to systematize the wide range of empirical approaches and modeling frameworks found in the previous literature. Our analysis confirms the presence of moderately increasing to constant returns to scale in the provision of local services with no reduction in the average costs of production in the delivery of most local public services beyond a certain, modest jurisdictional size, which many studies have estimated at 10,000 residents. Also, the potential for economies of scale differs at least across three traditional services: education, water and sanitation, and garbage collection, being highest for education and lowest for garbage collection. Our analysis also offers guidelines for future empirical research in this area. Physical output and production cost data should be used, together with translog specifications for the modeling of cost functions. Last, we find evidence that the determinants of output cost elasticity include bidirectional publication bias and population density but do not include the presence or absence of modern “lean” production technologies or the (perceived) capital intensity of the sector, contrary to conventional wisdom. These findings have significant policy implications for countries considering jurisdictional consolidation programs.     

LOCAL PUBLIC GOODS AND SPATIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN AN IDEAL URBAN CENTRE

T he major raison d'ětre of democratic governments, local and otherwise, is to provide public goods and services that their citizens wish to have and for which they are willing to pay taxes. However, it is not feasible or expedient for individuals to choose types and amounts of public goods that they wish to "consume" at a given "price" as they would for products sold on the market place-because public goods are non-rival and/or non-excludable, and/or they generate externalities. Therefore, decisions regarding public goods and the taxes to pay for them have to be placed in the hands of representatives who are entrusted with the task of articulating the citizens' collective will.     

Who governs culture? Actors,federalism and expertise in Swiss regional cultural policy

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a novel approach to cultural policies and cultural policy change, drawing on public policy and institutional analysis to study how decision-making power is distributed between actors in the public and private sectors and at different state levels, as well as the precise roles of public administrations, elected officials and cultural actors. Indeed, rather than directly defining cultural policy, laws on culture mostly designate actors in charge of policy implementation. Based on an empirical application of this analytical framework to the case of Swiss cantons and focusing specifically on the positions of cultural actors, findings show that cultural policies are transformed in different ways, affording more or less power to actors from the cultural sector in implementation arrangements generally dominated by administrative actors.     

Governance Structures: Using IAD to Understand Variation in Service Delivery for Club Goods with Information Asymmetry

Club goods with information asymmetry are frequently provided through mixed economies of for‐profit, nonprofit, and public providers. Theory explaining mixed economies relies on sector to classify providers based on assumptions that sector‐level differences in how organizations either distribute or reinvest profit will affect behavior. However, this classification is overly broad and is not able to adequately capture the diversity of providers of these types of goods. The author utilizes the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to identify six “governance structures” in the for‐profit and nonprofit sectors. Governance structures are constitutional‐choice level rule variations in who has the power to make rules. I argue that there are two types of power that affect rules: (1) concentration of constitutional‐choice level decision‐making power (i.e., how many principals) and (2) proximity of monitoring and enforcement of those rules. The extent to which the constitutional rules actually guide service delivery outcomes depends on a nested rule environment. Only if there is consistency across three level of rules (constitutional, collective, and operational) can we connect sector to outcomes. The empirical reality of service delivery, particularly for club goods with information asymmetry, is far too complex for simplistic assumptions linking profit distribution or its reinvestment to outcomes. This article directs further research toward building contingent theory, with if/then conditions, based on empirical research.     

Nontraditional Public Enterprise as Local Economic Development Policy

Recently, many local governments have explored or implemented economic development policies involving “local public enterprise,” i.e., local-level public ownership of economic enterprises and other profitmaking productive assets. This policy activity tends to involve enterprises and productive assets not traditionally owned by the local public sector, such as hotels, retail establishments, manufacturing facilities, and sports teams. This emerging but still experimental policy phenomenon is explored systematically below.     

European Union External Trade Policy: Multilevel Principal–Agent Relationships

This article examines the potential political influences on European Union (EU) external trade policymaking. Given the EU's volume of international trade and its extensive involvement in bilateral and multilateral trade arrangements, a better understanding of how the EU makes external trade policy is increasingly important. It is an extremely complex process—involving the EU public, the 25 member states' parliaments and governments, and the institutions of the EU, including the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament, and the European Commission. It is a system of multilevel governance with overlapping jurisdictions with numerous potential access points for societal interests to influence European external trade policy. In this article, we evaluate the probable political channels that societal interests could use to influence EU external trade policy. We employ the principal–agent (P–A) framework to examine five of the more important P–A relationships that are likely to influence EU external trade policymaking. We conclude that EU policymaking as it pertains to external trade is quite insulated from general public pressures. The primary institutions involved in external trade policymaking are the EU Council of Ministers and the Commission—both of which are largely insulated from the public. Future empirical work should focus on this relationship between the Council of Ministers and the Commission.     

PERSPECTIVES ON THE SAGEBRUSH REBELLION

The Sagebrush Rebellion began in the late 1970s with the objective of transferring various categories of federally owned lands to the states. The movement was centered in western “public lands” states, where nearly half the total land area is in federal ownership. Within a relatively short period of time this objective was changed to one of “privatizing” federal lands, of selling these land into private ownership. While the Sagebrush Rebellion has been highly political in its activities, the movement can be viewed in the perspective of historical land disposition policies in the U.S. These policies were changed near the turn of the century from alienating public lands into private ownership to their retention and management by the federal government. Confusion over the economics of building a free enterprise system based on private property rights, and the costs associated with building such as system, appear to have been major factors in changing land policies. Two important aras in which this occurred were the Homestead Act of 1862 and timber. The provisions of the Homestead Act imposed heavy costs on settlers, and these costs caused a reaction against the economic system that was being built.     

Multilevel (mis)governance of palm oil production

The palm oil industry exemplifies the ‘regionalisation without regionalism’ pattern seen in other industries in Asia: extensive, regionally concentrated transnational economic integration accompanied by a low level of formal regional institution-building. Production is concentrated in Malaysia and Indonesia, and Asian countries account for a major share of the market for intermediate products. The ownership structure of palm oil production reflects the dominance of transnational Malaysian and Singaporean firms. There is no authoritative regional institution governing production, investment standards or labour in the industry. A patchwork of both enabling and regulatory governance institutions supports the industry. These are formal and informal, public and private, and are situated at multiple levels: within, below and across the nation state. Although the governance structure surrounding the palm oil industry has supported it well in terms of production volumes and profits, large externalities—environmental and social costs—persist. This article argues that the governance failures associated with the industry stem from different stakeholders' competing interests in contexts of highly unequal wealth and power distribution. Misgovernance is not an unintended consequence of institutions failing to keep up with markets in scale and scope, but is embedded in the multilevel governance regime that supports, and partially regulates, the industry.     

Explaining State Budget Punctuations: Policy Transparency,Political Institutions,and Electoral Incentives

What factors cause policies experiencing long periods of stability to be interrupted occationally by a short period of large changes? This study argues that electoral incentives might influence the search, supply, and processing of information on constituency issues, as well as the associated cognitive or institutional frictions, and thus determine the presence and variation of punctuated policies. This article develops and evaluates this claim within a systemic framework consisting of policy transparency, political institutions, and electoral incentives. For the purpose of identifying policy punctuations, this research uses the Generalized Pareto Distribution in the Extreme Value Theory. This study analyzes budget spending data collected from FY 1988 to FY 2008 for all 50 American states. This study finds that greater policy transparency is associated with larger spending stability. By contrast, greater gubernatorial competition is more likely to produce extreme spending changes. Electoral incentives shaped by public preference and political term limits have a profound impact on nonincremental policy changes. The impact of policy transparency is conditional on public preference, while that of electoral competition and legislative professionalism is moderated by political term limits. Particularly, a transparent policy consistent with public preference and legislative professionalism with term limits are more likely to give rise to punctuated policies, while gubernatorial (legislative) competition leads to less punctuated changes when governors (legislators) are subject to term limits.     

Nunavik and the Multiple Dimensions of Inuit Governance

ABSTRACT

Over the last five decades, the emergence of a sophisticated and multidimensional set of governance institutions in the predominantly Inuit regions of Canada and the circumpolar north has had a profound impact on the lives of Inuit peoples and the states in which they live. The region of Nunavik in northern Québec has played an important role in the political development of the Canadian and circumpolar Inuit, serving as both an institutional innovator and a key source of leadership at the regional, national, and international levels. Using a multilevel governance framework, this article explores the vertical and horizontal dimensions of Inuit governance in Canada and the circumpolar north. In particular, the article will focus on Nunavik’s contribution to and place in this multidimensional governance structure.     

The Study of Local Public Economies: Multi‐organizational,Multi‐level Institutional Analysis and Development

One important extension of the IAD framework has been to the study of local public economies. These are multi‐organizational, multi‐level arrangements defined as the set of governmental jurisdictions, public and nonprofit agencies, and private firms that interact in various patterns to provide and produce public goods and services within a specific locality or region. Commonly, the localities or regions studied from this perspective have been U.S. metropolitan areas, often defined as a central city and its surrounding or adjoining county. Localities can be delineated, however, on various terms, and in the IAD framework, it is the geo‐physical nature of a locality that, in substantial part, drives the analysis. One of the strengths of the approach is its capacity to explain local variations in public organization as a function of the geo‐physical diversity of localities, while at the same time developing empirical generalizations and normative principles that apply across diverse regions. What, for example, might the organization and governance of a complex metropolitan area have in common with the organization and governance of a complex protected area, such as the greater Yellowstone eco‐region or the Adirondack Park? Construing both sorts of regions as local public economies can enhance our overall understanding of public organization at the same time that it permits a more nuanced understanding of diverse localities. Such work contributes to the ongoing IAD project of “understanding institutional diversity.”