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This paper analyzes the politics and social service outcomes of the second round of decentralization in Poland. Poland's 1999 public administration reform reduced the number of provinces from 49 to 16, restored 373 counties, and decentralized public programs and services to these two levels. In the process it dramatically altered many programs in social services previously administered on higher levels including residential nursing homes, orphanages, adoption services, rehabilitation centers, and services for the disabled. It also provided the potential for increased citizen participation in social service programming. While the reform intended to improve services and participation, outcomes in these areas for social service delivery often failed to meet these goals. Many of these unsatisfactory outcomes can be traced back to the politics of reform development. Conflicting ideologies and pressures on policy actors stemming from a variety of historical, institutional, political and international sources resulted in compromises that caused unfavorable public service outcomes. Most significant for immediate outcomes was the tension between neoliberal and neotraditional ideologies espoused by reformers. This paper addresses a gap in decentralization studies by connecting the politics of decentralization with specific outcomes for public services on subnational levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the dynamics of administrative presidency is presented. It discusses the four major components of administrative presidency which are the centralization of agency regulatory review in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, structural reorganization, appointee-careerist relations, and unilateral tools.

French politics has often required conceptualising a coherent centre, a global référentiel, a sense of direction, of scalar hierarchy, of equal treatment, of inalienable rights guaranteed by state acting in the general interest. Whether in terms of citizenship, state-group relations, elitism or territorial administration, France has usually been seen to represent a centralising statist pole amongst European states. The general context of our study is one of the reconfiguration of European states, a core tenet in the abundant academic literature on governance. All definitions of governance start from the weakening of older forms of vertical statist regulation. Governance narratives recognise complexity, contingency and diversity far more than traditional politico-administrative models, which insisted upon the uniform application of rules. As France is typically portrayed as the ideal-type of a European country with a centralising state tradition, it provides an excellent empirical terrain for testing some of the claims of governance and their limits. Understanding contemporary governance, in France and in Europe, requires us also to reflect about the nature of territory, inter-governmental relations and public administration.The questions addressed by this communication are simple ones that are difficult to answer. Is France still centralised? Was France ever as centralised as orthodox representations imply? How best might the process of decentralisation in France be interpreted? How does France stand in comparison with its neighbours? What does the case of decentralisation tell us about the broader picture of France's bounded governance? The paper starts with an overview of the history of centralisation and decentralisation in France. It then proceeds to observe centralisation and decentralisation through the three distinctive lenses of central state steering, local and regional capacity building, and compound identities. It concludes by offering preferred explanations for understanding centralisation and decentralisation, by situating this case study within the more general theme of Governing and Administrating in France and by offering perspectives on France's bounded governance. The paper focuses first and foremost upon Governing, using centralisation and decentralisation as the angles through which capacity building is constructed at the levels of the central state, in terms of intergovernmental relations and by local and regional authorities. The theme of Administrating is dealt with as part of the development of local and regional capacity, the core argument of the paper. The theme of governing capacity building is derived logically from a governance approach. Capacity can not merely be read from narrow legal rules or institutional understandings of appropriate behaviour, but is intricately interwoven with territorial configurations, coalitions, opportunity structures and the ability to undertake strategic choices. Though capacity can have a constructed dimension (for example, the local policy repertoires that shape understandings amongst territorial coalitions, or perceptions of social capital), it also rests on 'objective' criteria, such as the local political economy, legal competencies and overarching models of regulation. Capacity building in France's regions and localities has been driven by the emergence of more cohesive local government structures, the development of local technical expertise and bureaucratic resources, more networked practices, the strengthening of local political leadership and the invention of more entrepreneurial forms of policy-making. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore the possibilities for and obstacles to improving rural livelihoods through interventions in the livestock sector in the context of a neoliberal development model focused on export-led growth and a central state with very little capacity to formulate or implement coherent or efficacious policy initiatives. Bolivia’s economically marginalized indigenous majority has yet to be incorporated into markets and global trade networks in such a way as to improve their standard of living, a problem that is particularly evident in rural areas. A number of factors have contributed to these disappointing development outcomes. First, the strong patronage logic that permeates the state seriously hinders the ability of state agencies to function efficiently. Second, particular shortcomings of the decentralization reforms implemented in 1994 have hindered coordination between the national government, the departmental level, and the newly created municipalities. Third, small producers are not effectively represented in the political arena. Small producers? associations are very new, lack lobbying experience, and are organizationally and politically weak. Meanwhile, the two indigenous parties at present lack the capacity to propose and promote specific development policies that would benefit small producers other than the peasant coca growers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of economic decentralization and marketization on the capacity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to link the carreers of local elites to the performance of the localities in which they serve. The analysis is based on a cross-section time-series political economic dataset of more than 300 Chinese cities observed from 1990 to 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralizing water management responsibilities to water users, private initiatives and regional governments has been on the agenda of States and donors since at least the mid- 1980's. These often, but not always, include more systematic efforts to organize water user organizations and higher scale network platforms and federations as new actors in local irrigation management. These reform packages have had a neo-liberal flavour and generally advocate for a reduced role of the state, water pricing, financial autonomy of irrigation agencies, and devolution of management responsibilities to lower levels. In Ecuador, NGOs and state institutions have embraced this idea for at least the last two decennia, leading to different institutional reforms, programs and policies. In the irrigation sector water users were compelled by law to organize in water user associations and slowly started to take over responsibilities of operation, administration and maintenance of the formerly State managed systems. Once these organizations were consolidated water users participation was expanded to broader spatial scales of governance. This article analyzes these changes and presents evidence of how in the last two decades new state and non-state institutions and organizations have emerged through processes of decentralization. These new centers of authority have created new fields of contestation for authority, legitimacy, resources and control that struggle to defend and further strengthen the playing fields in which they have gained autonomy, power and control. As this paper argues, the struggles that emerge in such a polycentric setting make water management a highly negotiated and politically laden issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contextual theory of political participation in non-electoral politics developed in this paper suggest that more open political opportunity structure of a respective state increases both, the individual non-electoral participation and mobilization into this participation, since the decentralized political institutions send a message that more access points to influence politics are available and expectations of success can be higher. Specifically, three dimensions of the state decentralization are expected to have this effect: territorial decentralization, horizontal decentralization implying separation of power among main state institutions, and the number of political parties. These expectations are tested against the data from the International Social Survey Programme 2004 in 22 Western democracies using multilevel modeling. Findings show support for this theory: a certain configuration of state institutions - territorial and horizontal decentralization - indeed increase non-electoral participation and the effect of mobilization on this participation. On the contrary, the higher number of political parties does not work as open opportunity structure increasing non-electoral participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past forty years, Western European countries have faced both pressures to decentralize and, conversely, pressures to transfer competencies to the supranational level of the EU. Despite the joint occurrence of these processes, the existing literature has typically explored only their separate effects. This paper begins to fill this lacuna by examining the effect of decentralization on the European electoral fortunes of some of decentralization's most prominent supporters, ethnoterritorial parties. Consistent with the claim that ethnoterritorial parties in decentralized regions still see the European Union as a useful arena for expressing enhanced regionalist identities and pursuing additional political and financial legitimacy, cross-sectional time-series analyses reveal that decentralization increases the vote shares of ethnoterritorial parties in European Parliamentary elections. Thus, counter to the fears that increasing the number of levels of government will create competing centers of power and serve to demobilize voters, these results suggest that - for at least some parties - these political environments prove complementary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralizing authority to democratically elected local government can be counterproductive if elites capture power at the local level. What safeguards can help facilitate more equitable and participatory decentralization? This question is examined with the help of an original database, compiled for 53 panchayats (village councils) in two states of northern India, including individual interviews with over 2,000 local residents. Wealth and social status matter relatively little, it is found, for who participates and who has influence within panchayats; education and information count for much more. Education and information empower traditionally excluded groups to participate more often and more effectively in the processes and benefits of local government. Policies that enable people to educate themselves, particularly about their rights and about the processes of local governments, should precede or at least accompany decentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much recent work in the study of public administration has emphasized new challenges, and relatively unusual aspects of management, such as managerial networking and interorganizational collaboration, cross-sectoral partnerships, the centrality of information technology in contemporary management, and the potential importance of such ideas as the "New Public Management." However, it is likely that the core features of traditional public administration play a crucial role, particularly regarding the delivery of performance: the ability of public organizations to produce outputs and outcomes effectively. The most venerable of these aspects of public management have to do with "internal" management: mobilizing people and other resources within the organization to accomplish public goals. Many aspects of internal management can be considered; we focus here on a cluster of key management items usually associated with public human resources management: managers' establishing credible commitment (including building trust), setting ambitious goals, encouraging employee participation, and providing feedback. We examine the relationship between such internal management at the mid-level, as perceived by subordinates rather than the managers themselves, and educational performance for more than 1100 schools in the New York City school system, the largest such system in the United States, over a three-year period. The results indicate that internal management matters, often sizably, for delivering educational outcomes. The findings are robust to autoregressive specifications and the purging of halo effects, and they hold across multiple performance measures. Managers' setting ambitious goals appears to be especially important in generating educational results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares local government reforms in three European countries, France, the United Kingdom (England), and Germany addressing two types of reform. On the one hand, decentralisation reforms are referred to, that is the vertical re-organisation of tasks between state/ central government and local authorities. On the other hand, the horizontal readjustment of competencies between local authorities and market or non-profit actors are investigated, thus focussing on privatisation, corporatisation and contracting out. Drawing on findings of an ongoing research project, the focus is particularly on reform impacts and effects, making a distinction between institutional changes and performance impacts. Which effects did decentralisation and privatisation processes cause and was local governments' performance improved? The author reveals that there is a general trend of devolving public functions to lower levels of government. All three countries have moreover witnessed a shift from unitary local government to a fragmented system of local governance. These convergent developments notwithstanding, the institutional strategies pursued and performance effects obtained differ considerably across countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In responding to changing international economic conditions, why do political leaders of countries choose one set of adjustment strategy over others? The choice of adjustment strategy represents the trade-off between efficiency and stability that politicalleaders make to remain in power. The trade-offs are influenced by the relative extentof countries' engagement in the international trading system. Countries that are moreengaged in the system through their inclusion in trade integration of other countriesexperience higher instability as well as greater efficiency from the engagement. On thecontrary, countries that are less engaged through their exclusion from trade integrationof other countries experience lower efficiency as well as greater stability. Leaders inincluded countries are likely to pursue stability-promoting adjustment strategies, consisting of centralization of decision-making and intervention into the economy. Leadersin excluded countries are likely to pursue efficiency-promoting adjustment strategies,consisting decentralization of decision-making and liberalization of the economy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses findings of a study which analyzed armed clientelism in Colombia. The armed conflict in Colombia began during the mid-1960s. By the 1980s, the country adopted a series of decentralizing reforms in the context of an attempt to achieve a negotiated settlement with armed insurgents. The reforms implemented during the 1980s and 1990s were aimed at ending attacks by multiple guerrilla groups and reincorporating these groups into the country's political systems.

The article assumes that centralization and politicization are substitutes rather than complements of bureaucratic processes and outcomes. It explores data on presidential policy formulation and political appointments across the U.S. It discovered that presidents less likely centralize policy formulation when the relevant departments and bureaus are politicized. It concluded that the president's choice of strategy is influence by a broader political environment.