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Mini-Symposium: Institutional Collective Action in Comparative Perspective
In: Urban affairs review, Band 55, Heft 3, S. 856-857
ISSN: 1552-8332
Municipal amalgamations and their effects: a literature review
Municipal amalgamation reforms have been advocated as ways to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance capacity in local government service provision. Research on the consequences of amalgamations has reached maturity in terms of theories, research designs and methods, justifying a systematic survey of results. This article provides a synthesis of the empirical literature published over the last 20 years, organizing the effects of amalgamations into three categories: economic efficiency and cost savings, managerial implications, and democratic outcomes. Despite the significant variation across countries and reforms, some regularities emerge: cost savings being primarily limited to general administration expenditures (wages, office supplies, and so on), few changes in the quality of local services, and the diminished quality of local democracy. Several studies point to amalgamation reforms experiencing a trade-off between efficiency and ...
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Ten years after: revisiting the determinants of the adoption of municipal corporations for local service delivery
In: Local government studies, Band 43, Heft 5, S. 697-706
ISSN: 1743-9388
Ten years after: revisiting the determinants of the adoption of municipal corporations for local service delivery
Research on the use of municipal corporations to deliver local and regional public services has evolved significantly in the past decade. Most of this work addresses the performance of this service-delivery mode in relation to local bureaucracies. However, much less is known about the drivers for the adoption of municipal corporations in the first place. This article reviews the main determinants of adoption – service characteristics, institutional and regulatory settings, political constraints and financial conditions – and highlights the need for comparative research across countries. ; This work was supported by the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia [UID/CPO/00758/2013]; Programa Operacional da Regiao Norte, NORTE2020 [NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037 ...
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Can the market be used to preserve land? the case for transfer of development rights
This paper discusses the use of a market-driven technique – transfer of development rights (TDR) – to preserve land from development while guaranteeing the rights of property owners. While the technique is often used in the United States, Europe has a lot more urgency in land preservation but it is still lagging in the use of market based instruments such as the transfer of development rights. This paper explores the economic arguments favoring the use of TDR programs, discusses the difficulties in implementing these programs in Europe, where command-and-control regulation has been preferred in land preservation to market-based solutions, and presents tentative hypotheses to explain the adoption of TDR programs in local communities. Preliminary data collected for TDR programs in Florida supports some of the arguments presented and encourages researchers to extend this empirical analysis to European ...
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Institutions, incentives, and the politics of growth management
Paper prepared for the Florida Political Science Association meeting March 23-24, 2001 Jacksonville, FL ; Land use management is relevant to the discussion of environmental policy because regulation of land use and growth has been used as an instrument of environmentally concerned actors. More generally, growth management policy is best characterized as regulatory, because state and local governments use public policy to direct private behavior (Feiock, 1994). It is appropriate to note however that, the consequences of growth management are inherently distributive. Molotch (1976) depicted a city as an aggregate of competing land-based interests. Decisions regarding growth, at the local or any other level, are then decisions of who gets what, where, and how (Lasswell, 1936). These interests refer not only to competition for economic development but also for quality of life under the heading of growth management. In this discussion of land use management policy, I proceed in the following manner. First, I begin by describing the history and evolution of American land use planning activities and policies throughout the XX century. Next, I succinctly describe the land use policy tools employed over the years and the context in which they have been used. In the core of the paper, I apply a transaction cost theory to explain the relationship between states and localities in terms of economic and political transaction costs. I conclude with some suggestions regarding hypothesis and future theory ...
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These rules are made for spending: testing and extending the law of 1/n
In: Public Choice
What is the influence of the rules of political representation on local spending? This research tests the law of 1/n in the Portuguese local context and finds that the law fails to apply. We suggest an alternative measure—the density of representation—to assess the impact of the rules of city council representation on local public expenditures. Density of representation is defined as the number of elected officials in the city council divided by city population. We find an S-shaped relationship between the density of representation and the level of local government expenditures. The level of municipal spending initially declines with increases in the density of representation, reflecting an increase in the ability of constituents to monitor their elected representatives. At higher levels of representation density, the relationship becomes positive, suggesting that the dynamics of the budgetary commons become salient. The relationship becomes negative again for extremely high density of representation owing to increases in the transaction costs of legislative decision-making. This paper discusses the implications of our findings for the reform of local government institutions and the rules of political representation.
Size, density and small scale elections: A multi-level analysis of voter turnout in sub-municipal governments
In: Electoral Studies, Band 56, S. 1-13
Size, density and small scale elections: a multi-level analysis of voter turnout in sub-municipal governments
What are the consequences of fragmenting political and administrative authority within municipalities? Portugal provides an excellent setting to study the effects of sub-city institutional fragmentation because each of its 308 municipal governments is divided into sub-municipal governments (SMUs). The 4259 SMUs deliver services to the residents and its executive leader serves on the city council. In this paper we investigate the determinants of voter turnout in these SMUs. We argue that the size and density of SMUs affects electoral participation, but this effect is mediated by the municipal context. High levels of population concentration and low levels of territorial fragmentation at the municipal level are expected to improve voter mobilization efforts and mitigate the negative effect of size and density on voter turnout. Hierarchical linear analysis of municipal and SMU data finds strong support for size and density effects and moderate support for multilevel relationships. ; This research is partially supported by the "Programa Operacional da Região Norte", NORTE2020, in the context of project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037 (SmartEGOV) and by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) [Grant n. º PEst-OE/CJP/UI0758/2014], and the Estonian Research Council Grant PUT-1142. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Portuguese Science and Technology ...
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Water safety plans by utilities: a review of research on implementation
Water supply is essential to public health, quality of life, environmental protection, economic activity, and sustainable development. In this context, it is imperative to assure the continuous improvement of all processes and practices conducive to guarantee water quality and safety. Water Safety Plans (WSPs) by water utilities are an important public policy tool to accomplish these goals. This manuscript reviews the international evidence of the adoption and implementation of water safety planning and reports the current situation in Portugal, as part of the necessary adjustment of the national legal framework to the publication of the Directive (EU) 2015/1787, October 6th, on water quality for human consumption. The aim is to draw lessons from several successful WSP experiments around the world and extract lessons from these cases when drafting new legislation in Portugal and elsewhere. Findings suggest there are four critical dimensions and key elements of success in developing and implementing WSPs: leadership commitment, technical knowledge, governance, and interagency collaboration. ; This research is partially supported by the "Programa Operacional da Região Norte", NORTE2020, in the context of project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037 (SmartEGOV) and by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) [Grant No. ...
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The Economic and Political Impacts of Top-Down Territorial Reforms: The Case of Sub-City Governments
In: Local government studies, Band 41, Heft 6, S. 956-976
ISSN: 1743-9388
The Economic and Political Impacts of Top-Down Territorial Reforms: The Case of Sub-City Governments
In: Local government studies, Band 41, Heft 6, S. 956
ISSN: 0300-3930
Entre agents de l'État et professionnels libéraux : Analyse empirique de la réforme des notaires portugais
In: Revue internationale des sciences administratives: revue d'administration publique comparée, Band 79, Heft 2, S. 365-387
ISSN: 0303-965X
Depuis les années 80, on fait de plus en plus appel aux mécanismes de marché en tant que solution alternative à la prestation de service public. La présente étude s'intéresse à une fonction singulière de la fonction publique – les notaires – et tente d'analyser les facteurs qui ont conduit à la formation de structures de marché différentes suite au choix opéré par certains notaires, qui ont préféré suivre la voie de la privatisation au lieu de conserver leur statut de fonctionnaire. Le gouvernement portugais a autorisé les notaires à opter pour le privé et prévu un numerus clausus de notaires par circonscription. Depuis la fin de la réforme, différentes structures de marché sont présentes dans les 278 arrondissements notariaux. Notre principale hypothèse est que des marchés comportant plusieurs agents se sont formés dans les arrondissements où les actes notariés et juridiques sont plus nombreux et plus rentables et assurent la survie financière et le profit. En revanche, des monopoles se sont formés sous l'effet de l'absence perçue d'opportunités commerciales et de demande. Pendant la période 2010-2011, nous avons recueilli des données émanant de statistiques officielles du système notarial, que nous avons complétées par des données sur les caractéristiques économiques et démographiques de chaque arrondissement. Nous avons effectué une régression logistique multinomiale pour vérifier l'hypothèse principale concernant la structure du marché dans les 278 arrondissements notariaux du Portugal continental. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens La tendance à la dérégulation de la profession notariale risque de continuer à progresser dans les pays de l'Union européenne. Des enseignements peuvent être tirés de l'expérience portugaise, où l'abandon du statut de fonctionnaire n'est pas encore obligatoire pour tous les notaires, mais où la privatisation semble être l'option inévitable compte tenu des contraintes financières et des pressions budgétaires.