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Blockchain, as a decentralized platform and distributed ledger database, will promote the centralized system to form a comprehensive ecosystem. A systematic review of blockchain research on information systems during the five-year period from 2016 to 2020 selected 46 papers from 16 leading journals. This paper introduces the technological characteristics and implementation models, highlighting its research status and development. Moreover, this paper illustrates the future research directions for blockchain. The objective of this paper is to discuss the emerging technology of blockchain in its early development stage and to depict the relevant IS issues that are worthy of further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the trilogy framework of decarbonisation, decentralisation and democratisation and its relevance in the implementation of just energy transition agendas in rural communities of Global South countries (GSCs). It argues that just energy transition should be implemented via developing nationally independent but locally driven renewable energy projects in GSCs. To corroborate the trilogy framework, the paper discusses case studies of India's Panchayat institutions, Nepal's community renewable projects, and Bhutan's hydro projects. The paper recommends that the trilogy framework be implemented in GSCs through the concept of 'energy prosumer communities'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmer-herder conflicts have been long standing in Mali's rural areas. It has been shown that it is mostly herders who support and join jihadist groups. By analysing land regimes in farmer-herder contexts and merging studies on different scales of violence, the paper investigates how local dynamics interact with national political violence. It argues that historical precedents and pastoralist grievances related to land governance have created a fertile breeding ground for jihadism to take root and spread. It also contends that local land-related issues can have a considerable impact on state fragility and the eruption and dynamics of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws from two experiences with decentralisation in Kenya to illustrate the different ways through which the central government has sought to bolster its power at the expense of the local government in the country’s capital, Nairobi during periods of vertically-unified authority. In the first instance, it examines the years between 1983 and 1992 during which the central government appointed a Commission to replace the elected Nairobi City Council. The second period that is examined is between 2017 and 2022 when certain devolved functions were transferred from the elected Nairobi City County Government to a newly established institution appointed by the President, the Nairobi Metropolitan Service. During both periods authority was vertically unified with the ruling parties also being in control of the city. Drawing on a series of interviews with various stakeholders and inhabitants of informal settlements, the paper argues that contrary to what much literature suggests, recentralisation of urban governance not only occurs in situations of vertically-divided authority but can also occur where authority is unified. Some of the conditions that enabled these power consolidation moves together with the outcomes that these generated are also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end of the Suharto era in 1998 brought two prominent reforms to Indonesia: (i) a raft of anti-corruption policies and (ii) decentralisation of administrative and fiscal functions. District-level reported corruption swelled in following years and the role of decentralisation came under scrutiny, but data limitations prevented direct examination of a contributing role. This paper combines perceived and reported (observed) regional measures of corruption to examine spatiotemporal corruption patterns across Indonesian districts post-decentralisation. That period saw both improvements in perceptions measures and increases in the reported number of convicted perpetrators and in the reported value of financial loss. Cross-sectional comparisons show corruption perceptions (i) were milder in districts with less reported incidents of corruption, and (ii) responded positively to efforts by the judiciary and law enforcement agencies to curb corruption. These findings suggest that increased capability and resources allocated to combatting corruption play a large role in determining corruption perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses how mid-level bureaucrats in sub-national offices navigated political considerations when trying to fulfil their roles and responsibilities in the post-conflict context of Nepal. Utilising interview data from a wide range of stakeholders, I focus my analysis on perspectives from district level officials who were called on to fulfil multiple roles in an increasingly decentralised context. Their views reveal an acute awareness of the intensification of challenges and patronage politics that resulted from the conflict and prolonged uncertainty. At the same time, several officials found ways to navigate these political waters, and provided insights into what they think can help in ensuring educational success in such conditions. These assessments are likely to remain relevant today, as other local officials begin to take the responsibility of education governance in Nepal's new three-tier governance structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread neoliberal approaches to education consider schools increasingly accountable for self-management and 'client' recruitment, encapsulating economic ideologies that assume privatisation is essential for social progress. With an ever-shifting landscape of market-driven policies and the increasing growth of private education settings, more research is needed to cast light on emerging or under-researched aspects of autonomous schools. Located within a U.S. state that has strict constraints on tax subsidies for religious K-12 education, this paper investigates how an extensive form of decentralisation corresponds with schools' discipline and ethical environment. It analyses teacher interviews and web documents from faith-based, autonomous schools in a state that has devolved power and authority for decision-making to parents and other independent 'agents', having a distanced relationship with its nonstate 'actors'. The paper follows Foucault's use of the metaphor of the panopticon and adopts his power analysis to examine the nature of parental control and its influence on disciplinary and ethical practices. Evidence suggests that these autonomous schools are driven by a 'mini-public' ideology that constrains educators' autonomy and generates particular disciplinary norms; entangling ethical, educational, and social ramifications, including teacher resistance and teacher demoralisation. Implications for policy are discussed in this context of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprises in China are extensively involved in collaborative virtual enterprise (VE) supported by the internet of things (IoT). This paper investigates the effects of member enterprises' resource occupation on performance of the IoT-based VE, and examines how such effects are moderated by decision authority decentralisation. We obtained the research data from a survey administered to 141 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that participate in IoT-based VEs. Hierarchical regression analysis was adopted to test the proposed hypotheses. Our findings suggest that information and operational resources are positively associated with both business and market performance. Strategic decision authority decentralised to SMEs with superior information or operational resources enhances the overall performance, whereas decentralisation of operational decision authority facilitates the positive effects of operational resource on performance. Our study provides directive guidance for IoT-based VEs to cultivate and acquire specific superior resources, and allocate decision authorities reasonably for effective resource utilisation and collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malawi has decentralised development planning structures to create a representative system of local government and a base for participatory democracy in development. This paper, which is based on data collected through literature review supplemented by key informant interviews interrogates the extent to which decentralisation has generated opportunities for increased women's participation and representation in local government development structures. The paper contends that although decentralisation has generated opportunities for increased women's participation, men's domination supported by systemic, institutional and patriarchal norms and weaknesses in the enforcement of policies complicate the situation. Therefore, pragmatic policies and actions must be pursued to improve women's participation at local and national levels. These should include the introduction of specific quotas in local government structures, building public awareness on gender perspective, enforcement of existing gender policies and concrete action which translates into women having a voice, power, and the capacity to organise and mobilise themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research by political economists typically highlights policymakers, regulators, economists and consultants as the makers of economies. This paper foregrounds a different actor entirely, what I call the 'hacker-engineer' as an important protagonist in the making of decentralised digital network economies that are forged through the emerging field of 'cryptoeconomics' and blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies. Responding to critical literature stating that blockchain and 'cryptoeconomics' merely extend neoliberal processes of economisation, the paper recovers the neglected hacker culture of cypherpunk and histories of peer-to-peer decentralised networks in order to foreground concerns that depart from the continuation of economics and economies as usual. Hacker-engineers are dedicated to decentralisation as a 'disruptive' response to network control and surveillance, and share a pragmatist sensibility that seeks to make decentralised networks 'work' in order to provide informational security and privacy. While further broadening the range of agents that provide the focus for political economy research into the production of economies, the paper also draws attention to the technical decisions of hacker-engineers that attempt to reconfigure the material infrastructures of digital economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain systems allow for securely keeping shared records of transactions in a decentralised way. This is enabled by algorithms called consensus mechanisms. Proof-of-work is the most prominent consensus mechanism, but environmentally unsustainable. Here, we focus on proof-of-stake, its best-known alternative. Importantly, decentralised decision-making power is not an inherent feature of blockchain systems, but a technological possibility. Numerous security incidents illustrate that decentralised control cannot be taken for granted. We therefore study how key parameters affect the degree of decentralisation in proof-of-stake blockchain systems. Based on a real-world implementation of a proof-of-stake blockchain system, we conduct agent-based simulations to study how a range of parameters impact decentralisation. The results suggest that high numbers of initial potential validator nodes, large transactions, a high number of transactions, and a very high or very low positive validator network growth rate increase decentralisation. We find weak support for an impact of changes in transaction fees and initial stake distributions. Our study highlights how blockchain challenges our understanding of decentralisation in information systems research, and contributes to understanding the governance mechanisms that lead to decentralisation in proof-of-stake blockchain systems as well as to designing proof-of-stake blockchain systems that are prone to decentralisation and therefore more secure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community participation is a vital component of the educational decentralisation policies that are now widespread in Nigeria. In this paper, we explore school–community relations in different localities in northern Nigeria, where there is both very little inter-generational experience of schooling and minimal engagement by local communities in social and political management processes. Drawing on ethnographic data in and around six primary schools in Adamawa State, northern Nigeria, we problematise school–community relations and highlight the complexities and tensions in their social interactions. This we do by focusing on the school boundary that both connects and distinguishes it from the surrounding community. In particular, we explore the agonistic spatial and temporal regulation that operates at the school boundary, with specific attention to the different ways that students, teachers and the community comply or resist such strategies of governmentality. In concluding, we argue that it is imperative to think through the implications for/of international education and development policies as they are launched in diverse localities. This would help to avoid accounts of local deficit that are so readily invoked when top-down policies reach communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain, as a distributed ledger and decentralized database, has the potential to form a secured system of value exchange. Due to its attractive features, blockchain has drawn a lot of attention. As the pioneer of blockchain, Bitcoin has been implemented for more than a decade, and it reflects high levels of stability and reliability. It is foreseeable that blockchain will be implemented and applied to daily activities among institutions, businesses, and personnel. We conduct a study consisting of operating mechanisms, core technologies, research directions, applications, and drawbacks. This paper links that research to blockchain-based information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the link between decentralisation in school management and student achievement levels in secondary schools in India. It employs observational data from two school surveys conducted as part of the Young Lives project in the southern Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to create a measure of decentralisation as a latent construct. The relationship between decentralisation and students' abilities in mathematics and English is measured using linear mixed effects models. Contrary to the expectations in much literature, we find a negative association between decentralisation and students' scores on Maths and English assessments, even when controlling for a variety of individual and school characteristics. The results from the analysis therefore problematises decentralisation initiatives such as school-based management to improve student achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tourism Geographies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article aims to undertake a comparative investigation of school administration to understand further the frames of curriculum making. School administration is an under-illuminated aspect of curriculum research. The paper commences from the notion that, in mass education, a school system is operationalized by many schools, which are coupled to each other and to political decisions. Here is the curriculum vital. Building on the classic work of Stefan Hopmann, a curriculum is part of the administrational structure of the school system. The Article suggests several categories that can describe the nature and function of school administration in various contexts. There are external matters of schooling, such as school buildings, school food, etc. and internal matters of schooling, such as curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation. Individual schools and school administration are coupled via licences, and programmatic, professional, and procedural supervision. The article employs these categories with a comparison of a decentralized Sweden and a centralized Germany. The comparison investigated 290 Swedish municipality school administrations and 45 state education authorities in 4 German federal states. In this comparison many interesting similarities between both contexts can be hightligthed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a case study of an Israeli teacher leadership initiative to explore a mode of educational governance that employs 'bottom-up' logic and discourse. The authors analyse the origins of this initiative, and – through a policy-making ethnography of the initiative's enactment at the district level – show how it is sustained and governed through 'top-down' structures and strategies. The authors use the term 'bottom-up governance' to describe a hybrid mixture of discourse that valorises grass-roots leadership, of governance through actors' autonomy and reflexivity, of enactment by a complex array of external and internal educational actors, and of initiation and control by central government, which provides insufficient, temporary and unstable resources. Their analysis highlights the conflicted and complex role of mid-level policy-makers in this mode of governance, as well as the simultaneous pursuit by the Israeli education system of centralisation and decentralisation, and 'weak state' and 'strong state' strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Policy & Research is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Financial enterprises generate profits based on economic development. More importantly, a healthy market is difficult to achieve due to their susceptibility to the parasitic credit card fraud transactions that accompany economic growth, unless an effective anti-counterfeiting technology is developed to alleviate the issue. To solve the problem, we propose a gradient-boosting decision tree based anti-fraud protection with blockchain Technology, referred to as GBDT-APBT, which treats anti-fraud transaction model as the accumulation of the classfiers' weakness and builds up a classifiers' to judge whether the transaction is fraudulent. Each user's private data is trained offline at the local blockchain node, then the trained model is directly uploaded to the cloud, and the final consensus model is obtained by voting. Due to incorporating blockchain technology, GBDT-APBT demonstrates decentralisation, openness, autonomy, anonymity, and immutability, showing its ability to satisfying the demand for an effective and beneficial anti-counterfeiting system, with high performance and effectiveness in detecting fraud information. Experiments show that compared with other methods, GBDT-APBT offers a promising approach to the security of credit card transactions with reference to the detection accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to explore how Swedish principals experienced the decentralisation and re-centralisation reforms and how they affected principals' autonomy and decision-making capacity. Data were obtained from three surveys of Swedish principals, carried out in 2005, 2012 and 2019. The results show that principals experienced a high degree of autonomy in their decision-making in 2005 and 2012 and also a balanced control from state and municipalities. At the time of the third study in 2019, principals continue to express a rather high degree of autonomy, but this autonomy is now combined with an increased degree of control. However, given the high degree of autonomy, in combination with low degree of conflicts between different stakeholders, the article concludes that the expression 'in the eye of the storm there is calm' appears to suit Swedish principals' decision-making, at least, in the development of decentralisation and re-centralisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Campaign rallies are commonly understood as events where politicians appeal to a crowd of prospective voters to politically mobilise them. This article argues that an underexplored dimension of rallies is where they are used as performances to shape alliance-building between subnational and national politicians. Through focusing on two rallies organised by gubernatorial campaigns in Marsabit county, Kenya, for the president during the 2017 elections, the article shows how these rallies were used as tools to secure electoral alliances with the president's campaign. It shows how organisers choreographed the crowd – through colour, props and positioning – to perform to the president their grassroots popularity, to secure electoral and post-election futures. This article builds on scholarship that takes a more complex look at what messages are performed at rallies, by and to whom, and how. It also offers insights on how elite alliance-building and devolution operate in a particular sub-national setting in Kenya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-apartheid South Africa, a foregrounding of democratic citizenship education through broadened and inclusive participation is especially evident in a decentralised school-based leadership, management, and governance system. Policy-wise, the involvement of parents in School Governing Body (SGB) structures is seen as an enactment of representative and collective consultation, key to the democratisation of schooling and education. In practice, however, the wide-sweeping authority of SGBs, has allowed several schools to continue a historical narrative of exclusion and inequality, effectively widening the gaps between historically advantaged and disadvantaged schools, and putting into effect renewed tensions of inequality and inequity. Key questions arise: has the state erred in its trust of SGBs to enact democratisation? Or are there limits to what democratisation can achieve? In considering these questions, the article explores re-considerations of governance so that interpretations of democratisation of schools are not used in the subversion of education as a public good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on observation of the 2019 legislative, presidential and provincial elections in Mozambique, this article uncovers and examines models applied by the Frelimo regime in manipulating elections. Through interviews with local actors involved in the management of the election process, as well as in producing electoral observation reports and conducting on-site observation for electoral procedures, the article shows that manipulation of the 2019 elections in Mozambique moved from institutional spaces, where it has traditionally occurred, to local spaces. The actors and the spaces used to materialise fraud were modified, thereby making the fraud 'invisible' to both election observers and even to many within opposition political parties. Through analysis of raw data collected from the 2019 elections, we suggest that understanding the technology and tools used for electoral manipulation in authoritarian regimes, particularly in Mozambique, necessitates a longer view of the voter registration process in its political and institutional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain or Web3 technology has the potential to disrupt the everyday use of the internet. The polarized discussion around blockchain technology makes it notoriously difficult to navigate between the opposing narratives of blockchain evangelists and skeptics. This article provides a data–led approach to blockchain domain names, a rapidly growing trend that is currently non–interoperable with the Domain Name System. Alternative DNS roots have previously not become popular due to the lack of supporting browsers. Blockchain domain names could offer an exciting prospect of a decentralized and novel way to manage online naming and addressing according to one view, others regard them as insignificant and undeserving of attention. This study explores their burgeoning growth, assesses the challenges of blockchain domain names and provides five recommendations to address them. A pragmatic response should be adopted to blockchain domain name as, even if it is not clear that blockchain domain names solve any problems not currently solved by the DNS, the registrations continue to rise. Furthermore, the technologies will continue to advance, and due to the decentralized nature of the blockchain, developments or changes can be more rapidly implemented than within the DNS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International studies show that relative levels of regional (de)centralisation are associated with more or less balanced patterns of economic growth, well-being and resilience. Alongside supporting specific levels and types of devolution, prior studies emphasise the quality of local institutions as a key factor underlying balanced growth. This study empirically confirms the relative lack of devolution alongside large and growing disparities across England's regions. Drawing on an interview-based case study of the West Midlands, we then identify a Catch-22, with devolution predicated on high-quality local institutions caught in a highly centralised system that undermines the development of the required capacity and competency. We identify specific decision-making and resource allocation mechanisms, appraisal and control systems which underpin the dominance of central government agencies in an ad hoc and asymmetric approach to devolution. In combination these limit progress towards locally-driven 'levelling-up'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments, facility staff, and civil society actors are often best placed to identify and address local service delivery problems. We explore how an integrated governance approach – that empowers local actors and promotes cross-sectoral collaboration – affected health service problem-solving in Senegal. Using a quasi-experimental design, we draw on survey data to trace how local health governance bodies address problems. Findings suggest an integrated governance approach improves health service readiness through increased citizen involvement and greater access to resources. These exploratory findings illuminate a growing literature linking initiatives that empower local governments, citizen groups, and multi-stakeholder governance bodies to meaningful service improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia's new law on fiscal decentralisation, Law 1/2022, begins implementation this year. The legislation makes numerous noteworthy technical adjustments to the intergovernmental fiscal framework. The broader, more implicit intent of the law is clearly to facilitate more central government control over regions. The increased control is operationalised through a variety of standard public finance tools, with a particular emphasis on performance incentives, revenue earmarks and spending mandates. Unfortunately, the design of many of the law's reforms is rather flawed. Moreover, the legislation does not—indeed, it cannot—address the main underlying problems of decentralisation such as corruption and clientelism. As a result, the law's interventions are unlikely to satisfactorily realise their intended objectives of improving the distributional equity of transfers across regions and enhancing subnational government tax mobilisation, spending efficiency and service delivery outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2018, the office of village chairperson (Local Council 1/LC1) was contested throughout Uganda in open elections for the first time in almost two decades. These offices, central to the National Resistance Movement's (NRM) famed decentralisation project in its early years in power, continue to have immense significance in the daily lives of most Ugandans. While their long-awaited re-election provides a worthy focus of study in its own right, this article uses the occasion to test a broader set of claims about the evolution of village chairpersons under the NRM, and how variations in their exposure to competitive politics fits into a broader strategy of regime consolidation since 1986. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2015 and 2017, the article will argue that LC1s should not necessarily be considered 'illegitimate' in the eyes of most citizens due to their long period without election before 2018, and that in many important respects they differ significantly from higher levels of local political office. Instead, it configures their place in the broader dominant party system, their main role in the maintenance of which is as symbolic as it is structural. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health issue in Papua New Guinea, with incidence rates particularly high in the South Fly District of Western Province. We present three case studies, along with additional vignettes, that were derived from interviews and focus groups carried out between July 2019 and July 2020 of people living in rural areas of the remote South Fly District depicting their challenges accessing timely TB diagnosis and care; most services within the district are only offered offshore on Daru Island. The findings detail that rather than 'patient delay' attributed to poor health seeking behaviours and inadequate knowledge of TB symptoms, many people were actively trying to navigate structural barriers hindering access to and utilisation of limited local TB services. The findings highlight a fragile and fragmented health system, a lack of attention given to primary health services, and undue financial burdens placed on people living in rural and remote areas associated with costly transportation to access functioning health services. We conclude that a person-centred and effective decentralised model of TB care as outlined in health policies is imperative for equitable access to essential health care services in Papua New Guinea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Global Public Health is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Focusing on the central government's response to the Covid-19 crisis during the first wave in Spain, the article analyses the executive's strategy of power concentration, and the factors that shape its implementation. We sketch how the crisis erupted, the main measures and strategies adopted by the national executive, the role of the experts, and the interaction with other political actors and institutions. We also explore the second phase and how the political reaction evolved towards a more consensual approach. Paradoxically, the consequences for the political actors were apparently less harmful than expected, since the governments did not lose political support, and the electorate continued to support the policy measures adopted to mitigate the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both Finland and Sweden, decentralisation has traditionally been an essential cultural policy aim. This article explores how, by pursuing decentralisation, the regional jurisdictions have been presented with more possibilities to fulfil their purposes and in this way, gain legitimacy in cultural policy. Based on the analysis of political, legal, and administrative documents, three main periods of regional decentralisation in cultural policies are identified: regions as vehicles of welfare policy, regionalisation, and competitive regions. In both countries, national governments have promoted the regional level's agency, and in doing so, potential institutional change in cultural policy. However, the increase of the regional level's role has been limited by the countries' strongly institutionalised cultural policy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid decentralisation in Indonesia has shifted responsibility for managing substantial public funding from national to district governments and increased the importance of local government at the district level in delivering public services. Local government budget delays have become a huge problem as they not only delay the local government's delivery of services but also reduce its functional capacity. Our research assesses problems of budget delay in Indonesian districts. Three districts were chosen as case studies for interviews and group discussions. The research finds that human capacity and administrative problems have slowed the development and enactment of budgets. Moreover, efforts to keep election promises, especially to develop infrastructure, have not only brought a lengthy process of bargaining for economic and financial resources but also undermined the participatory budget process. This has been intensified by poor political interaction, as shown in the three case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralised, autonomous planning and control is a potential avenue of improvement in several fields, including construction. However, research on this topic, particularly involving the production crew viewpoint, remains scarce within the construction production management domain. This study explores the effects of decentralisation (and in contrast, effects of centralisation) for construction production planning and control (PP&C) from the combined perspectives of production crews and managers, and utilises these viewpoints to suggest improvements for PP&C practices. The study answers the following research questions: How do decentralisation/centralisation affect construction PP&C practices when considering both the production crew and manager perspectives? and Based on the aforementioned perspectives, how may construction PP&C practices overall be improved? To achieve holistic assessment, the research is conducted as a multi-method comparative case study using survey-based social network analysis (SNA) and semi-structured interviews. The results show that decentralised PP&C offers several benefits—such as improved transparency, conflict resolution, commitment, and lower stress—while allowing a proactive building of resilience, trust, ownership and autonomy for crews. In its current applied form, however, the approach does not fully reach the worker level. Regardless of the approach that is used, production crews perceive PP&C as decentralised, while managers perceive PP&C as having centralised structures. This gap between perceptions forms barriers for effective PP&C that must be properly addressed. Eight improvement suggestions are constructed to improve PP&C, that generally emphasise more deliberate decentralisation but that also indicate the necessity of partial central planning and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vivid regional and international debate on the significance of local politics and the respective actors came back to life after the Arab uprisings in 2011, which initiated decentralisation reforms in several MENA countries. Decentralisation advocates expect the reforms to foster democratisation, local autonomy and the overall socioeconomic situation, but Middle Eastern regimes also engage in decentralisation reforms for the sake of their own durability. This article assesses the potential of decentralisation reforms to develop mechanisms that contribute to authoritarian upgrading. We systematically include subnational politics and dynamics, as they are essential for deepening our understanding of the potential for reforms to uphold non-democratic regimes. Decentralisation is a promising test case, as the delegation of power away from the centre towards subnational actors and institutions affects the regime's ability to control the polity. In our analysis, we focus on three salient aspects that influence the outcome of a decentralisation reform: (1) the legal outline of decentralisation, (2) its financial organisation as well as (3) the management of central, regional, and local elite networks. Subnational authoritarian upgrading via decentralisation reforms in Jordan and Morocco seem to focus on the satisfaction and containment of civil society as well as on the management and control of elites and oppositional actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the role of social learning among local government officials in fostering the diffusion of an education programme presented with a reasonable degree of technological and political uncertainty about its outcomes, the schooling decentralisation reform in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. We consider different natures of the exchange of information on the newly adopted tasks, and assess which aspects of the returns to programme participation were most valued by officials in their learning process. Specifically, we attempt to determine the extent to which adherence to the reform resulted from electoral motivations rather than from concerns regarding the quality of education. We present evidence that social learning constitutes a key factor to policy implementation, and we find that mayors that could run for re-election became more likely to support the programme upon receiving good news about its electoral returns. By contrast, information on experiences that were successful in improving the quality of education appears to have been valued and effectively put to use only by term-limited officials or when conveyed by copartisan neighbours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite academic interest in the negative effects of primaries on gender descriptive representation, we have little evidence on how this impact varies across territorial levels, especially among women with family responsibilities. We focus on Spain as a multilevel polity (national, regional, local chambers) with mandatory quotas to show that very few females with family responsibilities are selected in primaries at upper territorial levels. While primaries frequently facilitate women becoming local councillors, this method seems to exclude those with family responsibilities at regional and national levels where, to fulfil gender quotas, female candidates are more commonly appointed by the party elite. This process has repercussions since representatives selected by the leadership tend to be more disciplined and homogeneous than those selected in primaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]