Suchergebnisse

In 1994, Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in Latin America with an important percentage of indigenous people, started a decentralisation process that transferred responsibilities and resources to local governments: the municipalities. Nowadays, municipalities constitute important actors within the development process of Bolivia since they are in charge of the provision of public services and of strengthening the local economy. Social expenditure in Bolivia has been prioritized due to its effects over human and social development. In a typical multidisciplinary approach, the author borrows concepts from economics, sociology, political science and gender and uses that to investigate the ups and downs of social expenditure. In a research setting contextualised by myriad of changes involving increased democratisation, greater inclusion of indigenous people in political processes, a windfall money from oil resources of which a large part was added to the budgets of local governments, greater involvement of women in political process, the rather innovative possibility to vote a mayor out of office, a general revolt against neo-liberal economic policies, the author of this research paper analyses the effects these changes have on municipal social expenditure in a manner that thrills anyone that takes interest in good governance at the local level. The empirical investigation is quantitative, involving econometrics, but the message that comes from the analyses resonates with all social sciences disciplines.

Reports on Hamas' electoral successes in the Gaza Strip.

AbstractEmpirical research has tried to explain the effect of female politicians on various outcomes of political institutions. Few studies have focused on how the gender of politicians may affect institutional fiscal performance. Our research shows that both a female mayor, although with limited effect, and a greater share of female councillors worsen the fiscal performance of Spanish municipalities, which contrasts with the hypotheses raised, which were based on the mainstream of theoretical literature. Furthermore, right‐wing female councillors significantly increase the current budgetary imbalances, and female mayors with the same ideology seem to reduce the level of debt per capita.

This study examines a particular modality of audience participation in Japanese municipal council sessions. As with parliamentary debates elsewhere (Carbó 1992, Antaki & Leudar, 2001), the prescribed participation framework in a Japanese council session is highly structured so as to facilitate deliberation for the public good. Accordingly, the formal institutional rules do not assign the audience ratified speaking rights during question-answer periods. Nevertheless, audience members do insert interjectory remarks with precise timings to accomplish specific social consequences. While official records typically exclude audience voices and therefore fail to capture the relevant social consquences, the analysis of raw data brings them to light. This study investigates audience interjections in terms of their sociolinguistic characteristics, their placement in the on-going discussions, and their "covert" social consequences. The analysis shows that interjections in Japanese council sessions are tools for spontaneous politicking whereas the ostensibly deliberative proceedings are largely scripted performance.

States — Sovereignty and independence — Conduct of foreign relations — Conclusiveness of statements of Executive — Statement as to extent of State territory — The law of India.British Commonwealth of Nations — Dominion status — Dominions as independent sovereign States — Position of India prior to independence — Effect of acquisition of independence — Power to acquire territory by cession.States — Sovereignty and independence — Conduct of foreign relations — Conclusiveness of statements of Executive — Statement as to extent of State territory — The law of India.

This article presents a macro-level study of voting in Lithuania's local elections, with an emphasis on changing electoral support for the incumbent parties. Presented statistical analysis of alterations of voting in two periods between municipal elections (in years 1997-2000 and 2002-2007) aims to explain the success (and failure) of dominant parties in national government and municipal councils (two separate cases). Article is mainly orientated to the search of economic voting, but hypotheses related to other, political-institutional factors are also tested. It discovers that dynamics of changes in unemployment help to explain changes in voting for the party that is dominant in the municipal council, but it is not important when state of economy is worsening. The dominant party in the national government is unanimously punished when unemployment is rising, but when the state of economy is improving, an average change in votes of such a party is not outstanding. The variation of changes in votes in both periods (when dependent variable is the vote change for the dominant party in the national government) is better explained by the political-institutional variables (first of all—change of voter turnout).

The experiment with administrative decentralization in Indonesia started with a new law that was enacted in 1903. The European civil servants believed that this law would protect their position, and they did not foresee two processes that were to gradually undercut this very position. First, the citizens in the municipal councils seized the opportunity to acquire a real degree of autonomy. Secondly, the council became a platform where the Indonesian members voiced their grievances from the 1920s onwards. After the Dutch colonial era, and in particular during the Japanese period and the years of Guided Democracy, the municipalities lost most of their leeway for formulating an autonomous policy and devising budgets to the central government. Now, starting with Law 5 issued in 1973, the New Order government of Indonesia has again embarked on the path of administrative decentralization.

This research study critically analysed the existing literatures on municipal awareness relevancy of LAs service delivery for the purpose of enhancing citizen satisfaction. The purpose of the study is the investigation of citizen satisfaction level of municipal services; analysis of the existing literatures on relationship between municipal awareness and citizen satisfaction. The Material and methods were carried out using secondary data and were meticulously and critically analysed to come up with reliable results. The study shows the relevancy of the public awareness, citizen satisfaction and municipal council performance in Malaysia. It is evidence in the research that citizen consent is importance before municipal services should be provided in the local community. The research study highlighted many discrepancies in many literatures related to the existing research study, evidence based analysis were carried out to buttress importance and significance of the related study to the research work. The literatures were reviewed to ascertain the current happening in the area of local government service delivery. The study shows that many municipal councils in Malaysia provide adequate and satisfactory services to their citizens'. The study also revealed that municipal council plays important role on citizen awareness of municipal service delivery. The study concludes that municipal service delivery can be enhanced through citizen awareness campaign, to sensitize the local community on various aspects of service delivery including maintenance of the facilities provided. The study also concludes that LAs lack of awareness section affects their performance in service delivery process. The study recommends that LAs need to consults the citizen for their needs and wants; awareness campaign need to be regularly carried out to maintain cordial relationship between LAs and their citizen; it is also recommended that municipal services should be delivered the needed services by the local inhabitants' after duly ...

The article presents selected aspects being a consequence of the evolution of local government in Poland. The main attention is focused on the presentation of the structure and competences of the municipal council, in the context of systemic changes of local government. The article is of a review nature character and its aim is to diagnose organisational solutions concerning the municipal council in Poland. The main premise of the article implies that the process of evaluation of the structure and functioning of the municipal council is conditioned by involvement of the local residents who experience its influence on their daily lives, including meeting their needs. Decentralisation and participation of local community members in local government structures such as the municipal council or other bodies are key issues in civil society development. The process of local government evolution has not been completed and localgovernment organisation and functionality does not deviate from European standards.

: The paper proposal is focused on the evolution of a specific legal instrument, which consists of the Central government's power to "dissolve" municipal councils in the case of infiltrations by organized crime. In Italian administrative legislation, local councils may be dissolved for several reasons such as the ongoing violation of the law and the neglect of duty, but one of the most debated causes is the interference and the pressure that organized crime may exercise on the members of municipal councils. This specific administrative law instrument is defined in art. 143 T.U.E.L. and is part of a series of public anti-mafia policies. It was introduced in 1991 as an emergency law to cope with the risk of maladministration due to local authorities' subjugation to criminal power (Mete, 2009). The aim of the dissolution of local councils is to preserve constitutional and fundamental values such as democracy and the rule of law, but it is a very severe legal tool as it affects a democratically elected community. This instrument is also closely related to the prevention of corruption in the public sector, as often the infiltrations by organized crime in municipalities are due to the corruption of public officials. The institution in charge of applying this legal tool is the Prefect, which has the power to enforce the orders of the central government and oversees local authorities. The procedure for the adoption of this instrument involves the major constitutional bodies such as the Parliament, the Ministry of Interior and the President of the Republic.