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.     

Cultivation History Beyond the Periphery: Early Agriculture in the North European Boreal Forest

We have investigated the environmental history of human occupation and the development of agriculture in the eastern interior Lake District of Finland. The material consists of archaeological data, which is reviewed in topographical and agrogeological context, and pollen analytical evidence of agricultural indices from eight precisely dated (varved) lake sediment sequences. Before the Viking Age, archaeological evidence, consisting of stray finds, dwelling sites, and graves, is very scarce. Iron Age finds are clearly confined to the lowland environs with silty and clayey soils. During the Viking Age, the number of stray finds multiplies and the first cemeteries are established. Comparison between Viking and Crusade Period finds reveals a topographic shift toward higher locations and morainic soils. Most of the cup-stones are located on upland sites—that is, not in connection with known Iron Age sites. These are interpreted as medieval indicators of slash-and-burn farming of the fertile but stony supraaquatic morainic soils. There is pollen analytical evidence of sporadic cultivation in the area from the Bronze Age onward. Afterca. AD 700, the occurrence of cereal pollen grains becomes regular but remains discontinuous at each site until after the turn of the millennium. There is then an exponential rise in the cereal pollen rain, indicating a fully agricultural population.     

Ancestral pueblo population aggregation and abandonment in the North American Southwest

After over a century of archaeological research in the American Southwest, questions focusing on population aggregation and abandonment continue to preoccupy much of Pueblo archaeology. This article presents a historical overview of the present range of explanatory approaches to these two processes, with a primary focus on population aggregation in those regions occupied by historic and prehistoric Pueblo peoples. We stress the necessarily complementary nature of most of these explanations of residential abandonment and aggregation. Case studies from the northern Southwest illustrate the continuous nature of these processes across time and space. We suggest that additional explanatory potential will be gained by the use of well-defined theoretical units to frame our current approaches. We extend the use of the local community concept as a theoretical unit of organization that, along with explicit archaeological correlates, should help advance our research into population aggregation and abandonment in this and other regions of the world.     

Peace negotiations in the political marketplace: the implications of women's exclusion in the Sudan-South Sudan peace process

This article investigates the implications of women’s exclusion for the nature and durability of peace processes, and whether factors that undermine peace consolidation post-settlement might be prevented through more inclusive peacemaking. It examines the Sudan-South Sudan peace process that produced the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the roles women played in peacemaking and their exclusion from official negotiations, and the sources of insecurity post-CPA. South Sudan’s peace process shows that the exclusion of women can be understood as a canary in a coal mine: a highly visible marker of the broader exclusivity of such processes, and the complex dynamics of elite capture in war and peace processes. Women’s exclusion was the product of the region’s political marketplace, in which power and authority is secured by elites through violence and bargaining, to the exclusion of other groups. By understanding exclusion as a deliberate strategic tactic that extends from war into peacetime, I argue that the exclusion of women is not the reason why peace processes fail in and of itself, but rather the product of elite ownership of peace processes and the structure of many peace processes that facilitates and rewards such ownership, with serious consequences for the sustainability of peace post-settlement.     

The Importance of Status: The US–ROK Alliance Cohesion and the First Korean Nuclear Crisis, 1993–94

The US–ROK alliance during the First Korean Nuclear Crisis provides the most likely case of high alliance cohesion. Curiously, however, instead of dancing to the American tune in their joint management of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) threat, the Republic of Korea (ROK) caused frequent policy collisions – supporting the US–DPRK negotiations at one point and opposing it at another – at the risk of jeopardizing its physical security. The main finding here is that the variations in the South Korean behavior were a function of their experience of status inconsistency. In particular, the ROK became compliant with the US–DPRK talks when it believed that its desired status marker of taking the leadership role in crisis management was within reach, and unyielding otherwise. These fluctuations ended up not only eroding the US–ROK alliance cohesion but also inhibiting a successful resolution of the crisis. All this bears directly on the fundamental question of whether international politics is to be understood in essentially realist terms.     

Spatial optimisation of fire service coverage: a case study of Brisbane,Australia

In the context of changing demand for fire services, spatial optimisation of fire coverage has attracted little scholarly attention despite its potential to improve emergency response and to inform future service planning for fire stations. Drawing on small area population forecasts, this paper extends the application of the Maximum Coverage Location Model to compute and delineate the spatial coverage of current and proposed new fire stations to align with population growth estimates for Brisbane, Australia. Our results reveal important gaps in fire cover that are likely to emerge as a result of predicted population growth, the spatial patterns of which varies across the Brisbane metropolitan area. We draw on these results to delineate a series of new potential sites for fire stations to ameliorate the reduction in spatial coverage as a consequence of predicted population growth demonstrating the utility of our analytic approach for decision‐making and operational planning in the fire services.     

China’s Evolving Policy towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under Xi Jinping

Despite international pressure to condemn North Korea (DPRK), China’s successive leaderships have dealt carefully with Pyongyang, especially vis-à-vis its nuclear weapons program. This moderate stance reflects the two countries’ decades-long relationship, summarised in the Chinese idiom that Pyongyang and Beijing are “as close as lips and teeth”. Nevertheless, the DPRK’s third nuclear test in February 2013 raised enormous challenges for the new Xi Jinping leadership to maintain the previous DPRK policy focused on the status quo and stability on the Korean Peninsula. China’s attitudes and policies towards the DPRK after the provocative third test signified a possible reorientation of Beijing’s DPRK policy. This generated repercussions in the countries concerned and prompted debates among experts. This article asks how these events should be understood and what their implications are for the Xi leadership’s policy on the DPRK, the stability of the Korean Peninsula, and Northeast Asia. Given China’s competitive relations with other major powers, we conclude that the Xi leadership will not abandon the DPRK; indeed it will reinforce the policy of strengthening China’s influence over it. Nonetheless one aspect of doing so will involve China opening up to other – cooperative, multilateral – approaches to reinforcing stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.     

Governing from the Border? Quebec’s Role in North American Security

ABSTRACT

This article aims to shed light on Quebec’s role in cross-border security governance. It exposes the challenges Quebec is facing in this area and what cross-border activities fall within its jurisdiction. The supported hypothesis in this article is that security is subjected to an increasing politicization from the Quebec government in a post-9/11 context, which contributes to the edification of an embryonic “multilevel governance.” If this politicization was noticeable in political statements and international agreements, it seems that it was more driven by conjectural imperatives than a real desire to make Quebec a leader in transnational security. Therefore, there were no diplomatic and financial commitments to make security part of the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine and develop a similar paradiplomacy as in other fields. However, on different technical and bureaucratic levels, transgovernmental relations between certain Quebec governmental organizations, including police corps, and their American counterparts were created. Consequently, they contributed to make continental action more effective, at least in a certain measure.     

Plant Based Subsistence Strategy of the Medieval Ishmaelite (12th–13th c.) Population in the Carpathian Basin (NE-Hungary)

During the excavation carried out at the outskirts of Hajdúböszörmény (NE-Hungary) in 2011, the remains of a 12–13th century settlement were brought to light. Linguistic and historical research has previously presumed that one of the main centres of medieval Hungary’s Muslim (Ishmaelites) population is located in the northern-eastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. At Hajdúböszörmény–Téglagyár ‘2’ archaeological site several household units were systematically sampled for archaeobotanical analysis. The recovered ceramics differ from the known ceramic production of the Árpád Age, whereas significant differences were detected in the zooarchaeological assemblage, too. The archaeobotanical record, representing 23 features, consists of 2679 items of charred macro-botanical remains that belong to 54 taxa. The record is predominated by the presence of cereals among which rye (Secale cereale L. subsp. cereale) and common barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) are the most frequent. Besides the dominance of cereals, pulses and vegetables, as well as gathered fruit remains were identified. By the comparison of results to other Árpád Age sites, we assume that the revealed ethno-archaeobotanical information identifies a population that used similar plant resources, but in a different way and strategy than the known Christian population of the Carpathian Basin.     

Too few nutrients and too many calories: climate change and the double burden of malnutrition in Asia

About half of children age under five worldwide who are classified as undernourished (84 million out of 151 million) or overweight or obese (17.5 million out of 38 million) live in Asia. Tackling malnutrition in Asia is however fairly complex since the nutritional transition, a consequence of rapid economic development and globalisation, made many Asian nations undergo the simultaneous burdens of under- and over-nutrition. The dual burden of malnutrition is characterised by a concurrence of undernutrition along with overweight and obesity within the same individual, household, community, region and/or country. Providing that household food security is closely linked to malnutrition, this raises questions about the implications of climate change on the dual burden of malnutrition. That climate change affects food availability, access, utilisation and stability is evident. Accordingly, households facing food insecurity due to climatic shocks may allocate food differentially. Adult members may receive low-cost high-calorie food inducing obesity, whilst children receive nutrient-poor foods leading to undernutrition. Little is known about the climate impacts on the double burden of malnutrition and how this affects population subgroups differentially. This Editorial discusses the potential impacts of climate change on the double burden of malnutrition and concludes with the recommendation of strategies to tackle the issue.