Suchergebnisse

Outcomes of realized researches in service benchmarking at the local self government level in Slovakia have showed the limited and merely dummy implementation of this method. The local self government bodies express the ambition to introduce the method of benchmarking in performance management. However, this ambition alone is not sufficient for producing the expected results of benchmarking in higher effectiveness and quality in service delivery. The goal of this paper is to confirm the problem of dummy benchmarking implementation in service management at local government level by outcomes of a primary research realized in 141 self government bodies. The analytical part provides selected data trying to face the relatively optimistic account of benchmarking using in service delivery management given by the attitudes of the local authorities' representatives towards usage of benchmarking with the outcomes of the service delivery analysis targeting the expected results of benchmarking usage – the proper make or buy decision regarding the effectiveness and quality services. This unique approach comparing the original collected survey data on expressed benchmarking using with supplementary data on services delivery enable to check the reality of benchmarking in service delivery management.

While local governments have traditionally been thought relatively powerless and unpolitical, this has been rapidly changing. Recent years have seen local governments jump headfirst into a range of so-called culture war conflicts like those concerning LGBTI rights, refugee protection, and climate change. Using the Australia Day and Columbus Day controversies as case studies, this Element rejuvenates research on how local governments respond to culture war conflicts, documenting new fronts in the culture wars as well as the changing face of local government. In doing this, this Element extends foundational research by advancing four new categories of responsiveness that scholars and practitioners can employ to better understand the varied roles local governments play in contentious culture war conflicts.

That poorer countries face higher risk of civil war is among the most robust findings in the literature on internal conflicts. However, we lack knowledge about whether a similar correlation exists on a more local level. Research into the local poverty–conflict nexus has largely relied on objective proxies of poverty that are only loosely related to the rationale for conflict. The results have been mixed, thus highlighting the need for more effective juxtaposition of theory and data. Using a subjective measure of poverty that determines whether individuals' basic needs are being met, this article presents new empirical evidence for existing propositions linking local poverty and conflict-based violence. The study analyzes georeferenced survey data from the pan-African Afrobarometer survey for 4008 subnational districts across 35 African states, producing results that show how areas with high levels of poverty are indeed more likely to experience conflict. However, the correlation is likely to be indirect. Interaction models demonstrate that poverty is more likely to exacerbate violence if an area's local institutions are weak or when impoverishment overlaps with group grievances against the government. Robustness tests, using coarsened exact matching and region-level fixed effects, provide considerable empirical support for a strong relationship between poverty and conflict at the local level.

The Syrian conflict has altered the ecosystem in northern Syria in many ways. However, the most significant shift has been Aleppo's disconnection from the surrounding countryside, its suburbs having practically become economically autonomous from the city. The de facto safe zones established in northern Aleppo following successive Turkish military interventions have, in theory, given this area with a greater potential for economic recovery. This paper attempts to evaluate the recovery of the local economy in the Euphrates Shield area and in the Afrin region from 2016 and 2018. It first identifies the main actors present in these areas and the available vital resources – energy, water and fuel - for implementing a reconstruction strategy. It then moves on to the main economic activities – agriculture, industry and trade - and the challenges Syrian businessmen and farmers are currently facing.