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Employing the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), this paper examines the current Chinese fiscal system and highlights its three characteristics. First, fiscal revenues are centralized at the central government while expenditures are decentralized at the local governments; second, fiscal spending focuses on public investment but is insufficient in providing social safety net and public services; and third, indirect tax accounts for a great majority of tax revenues, leading to limited progressivity of the tax system. These limitations have constrained the effectiveness of China's fiscal policies and generated many perverse impacts. With the understanding that the central government has the monetary sovereignty and does not face financing constrained and that taxes are not to raise revenues for fiscal spending but to serve other purposes, the paper calls for fiscal reforms that realign fiscal resources and spending responsibilities between the central and local governments, increase fiscal spending on social security and public services, as well as broaden personal income tax to improve the distributive effect of taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contributes to strategic thinking about infrastructure resilience and adaptation. A technique is presented in a case study for analysing options on the timing of protection against climate change. Predetermined trigger points for responses to resilience weaknesses are discussed, showing how flowcharts can act as prompts to the need for action. The roles of national governments in improving resilience in key areas are discussed. The paper introduces the concept of a 'chain of resilience' for interdependent infrastructure systems and identifies some key questions for national governments to ask about the linkages between systems before requiring appropriate remedial actions. Practical steps for private owners and investors to increase resilience in their own infrastructure are identified. Some suggestions for tackling the increasingly important area of cyber resilience are presented. The use of actuarial techniques is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes data from 1999–2019, evidencing strategies utilized by Nigerian Subnational Governments (SNGs) for attracting inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). These strategies are unique for several reasons, including the fact that they highlight the evidence of paradiplomacy in Nigeria, a case study that is understudied in the paradiplomacy literature. These strategies are also a deviation from the conventional protocols for FDI mobilization in Nigeria. Drawing on Duchacek's conceptualization of these strategies as a percolation of sovereign boundaries, i.e. the idea that SNGs are permeating inter-sovereign 'sieves' designed to restrict their forays into the international plane, this paper conceptually maps and empirically assesses the varied expressions and prevalence of these strategies. Although these strategies are yet to be constitutionally challenged by the central government, they reveal a growing porosity of Nigeria's sovereign boundaries and necessitate a critical reassessment of the extant intergovernmental frameworks that govern FDI mobilization in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Somalia adopted federalism in 2004 and embarked on its implementation in 2012. This paper provides critical insights on the reception and performance of Somalia's federal project since 2012. The analysis has shown major practical challenges facing Somalia's federal structure: constitutional ambiguity and lack of consensus on federalism, difficulties regarding the formation of the federal member states and their border demarcations, the status of Mogadishu and questions concerning fiscal federalism. The paper argues these challenges as well as the general public's inadequate knowledge of federalism are pushing the nation towards decentralisation. It contends the regional politics and shifting alliances in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East are affecting Somalia's federal future, thus enforcing the 'federalism is a foreign initiative' notion. The paper suggests that a close study of Somali perceptions reveals that federalism is an externally imposed idea, which renders the weakening of the Somali state a strategic state policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between citizen satisfaction with the functioning of democracy and ideological congruence. We focus on how this relationship may vary by government type, paying attention to the conditioning effects of coalition governments' ideological make-up and individual-level education. Our analyses rely on harmonized survey data covering one million respondents in 28 countries over a 40-year period. We find limited evidence that the relationship between citizen satisfaction and ideological congruence is conditional on national government type. All coalitions are not, however, created equal. Comparing single-party governments to multi-party governments with different ideological compositions, we find striking differences, but only for the higher educated. While the negative relationship between citizen satisfaction and ideological incongruence is similar for lower-educated citizens in single-party and multi-party coalition settings (irrespective of cabinet composition), for the higher educated, the relationship weakens as a function of the ideological diversity of the coalition cabinet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of economic crisis, academics, policy-makers, and pundits often debate the correct level and best use of government debt. This paper argues structural political and economic factors grant core economies more fiscal space than peripheral economies. While the federal governments of the US, Germany, and other core economies may easily issue and sell debt in private markets, smaller economies, both municipalities within countries, and countries in the global periphery, are more vulnerable to demand fluctuations. All economies may benefit from explicit commitments by monetary authorities to resume their historic roles as governments' banks, especially during crises. By highlighting present political constraints, monetary structures, and market factors that may inhibit governments' successful placement of bonds, this paper deepens present debate about the potential feasibility of functional finance to facilitate fiscal activity, even in unprecedented times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explain the relationship between decentralization and corruption in Indonesia. In doing so, this paper employs Indonesian provincial-level data from 2003 to 2018 using a Poisson model with an endogenous covariates model. The estimation result concludes that decentralization is associated with higher corruption incidence. The result remains robust using an alternative measure of decentralization. Indonesian decentralization is designed to authorize a substantial decision to the local government in prioritizing expenditures, but the primary taxing right remains with the central government. The significant power of the local government is associated with a higher incidence of corruption in the local region. Bribery and over-invoicing of public goods/services are the main cases of local government corruption in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public sector's possibilities of using geospatial technologies are vast and can improve public management. In the Brazilian Federal Government, the use of geospatial technologies is unknown, nor is it known the main applications and public and private actors involved. This research proposes to analyze the geospatial technologies market in the Federal Government between the years 2011 and 2019 through public data of contracts. Through the individual analysis of 600 contracts, we concluded that R$ 804,747,626.99 were negotiated during the period. The contracts mainly involved Remote Sensing and Aerophotogrammetry (50%) and Geographic Information Systems (33%) solutions, applied primarily in the thematic areas of Oil & Gas (39%), Infrastructure (19%), and Environment & Natural Resources (10%). Fototerra was the leading company, providing R$ 155,553,107.03 in products and services. The foremost acquiring institution was the Ministry of Mines and Energy, contracting R$ 410 million, of which Petrobras acquired R$ 311 million. This paper showed how different federal institutions use Geography's technological bases to fulfill their missions, improve social well-being, and contribute to a more developed, less unequal, and fairer country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a federal political system like India, the role of the federal units bordering the neighboring countries becomes crucial in foreign policy-making toward neighboring countries. It is expected that when similar political parties or coalition partners remain in power in both the center and the states, federal politics does not hinder policy-making toward neighboring countries. Moreover, foreign policy being a central subject, federal units any way reflect passive tendencies, especially in the case of governments with the same party affiliations. Both these simplifications are contested in this paper by citing instances of the role of West Bengal and Tripura, India's two federal units bordering the neighboring country of Bangladesh, at different historical junctures, in which similar political parties in the center and the state resulted in more friction than when different political parties were in office in matters of India's foreign policy-making toward Bangladesh. The paper argues that instead of federalization of foreign policy, where federal units have an influential role, this particular experience suggests an externalization of federalism, where an external variable (Bangladesh) influences internal federal dynamics to the extent that domestic electoral politics force the political parties of the two federal units to give importance to the neighboring country in taking positions on foreign policy-making. The immediate context of fifty years of the India-Bangladesh relationship and question about over-centralization during the latest phase of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime in India push the authors to take up Bangladesh as a case to contest the given of Indian federalism in foreign policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the minimal role of statutory city-regional planning in Finland, the Finnish state promotes inter-municipal, integrated planning of land-use, housing and transportation in the biggest city regions by a strategic planning instrument and a contractual policy tool called MAL procedure. MAL procedure includes MAL agreements, where the central government agrees to fund transportation infrastructure, while the municipalities in the city-regions commit to certain planning principles. MAL policy has advanced sustainability goals in planning, but it has also been argued to be prone to legitimacy problems as MAL negotiations take place behind the backs of citizens. The article discusses the structure of the MAL policy, assessing the ways in which this structure supports the legitimacy of the policy. It focuses on the interplay of strategic and communicative rationalities in the MAL procedure, starting from the observation that the theorists of strategic planning have focused predominately on communicative rationality as the legitimacy basis of planning. This paper aims to show that from a broader, structural perspective, both rationalities – and the way in which they interact – have a role in maintaining the legitimacy of planning. The article builds on theoretical studies and interviews with actors engaged in the MAL procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

\nPlain Language SummaryThe Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has evolved from its ambitious beginning into a framework focused on high-quality development (HQD), emphasizing environmental sustainability and people-centered development. This study examines to what extent these new directives are implemented in the context of China’s overseas economic zones (OEZs), employing a multi-actor-influence model to analyze the complex interactions and challenges inherent in these projects. Focusing on the Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone (VSDZ) in Laos, our analysis identifies three primary institutional challenges: fragmentation between the central and local governments in China, structural constraints imposed on Chinese businesses, and inadequate cooperation between Chinese and host country actors. These challenges underscore the complexities of translating Beijing’s top-down policy into effective action on the ground. The paper concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of these findings for the BRI’s future development.This study examines Beijing’s recent strategic shift in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) towards high-quality development (HQD), focusing on sustainable environmental practices and enhancing local livelihoods. Our policy analysis confirms Beijing’s commitment to these goals. However, challenges arise due to the BRI’s decentralized implementation and the varied influences of multiple actors from both China and the host countries. We explore these challenges through a detailed case study of the Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone (VSDZ) in Laos, identifying three key issues: fragmentation between Chinese central and local governments, constraints on Chinese businesses, and inadequate cooperation between Chinese and host country actors.Our study contributes in three significant ways. First, it adds to the discussion of Beijing’s transition towards HQD and the BRI’s global influence through a review of Chinese policies and an analytical model elucidating the realities of BRI implementation. Second, it theorizes that outcomes of BRI projects are shaped more by local circumstances and stakeholder actions than by policies alone. Finally, it suggests potential measures to help realize HQD within the BRI framework in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the constrained judicialization of environmental governance in China. It starts by quantitatively describing the judicialization of environmental protection in China over the past decade, including both its progresses and the suppressions that it faced, and shows that environmental courts have had virtually no tangible impact on reducing pollution levels. It then attempts to rationalize the observed patterns by answering two questions. First, why does the government choose to empower the courts when it possesses a rich set of other regulatory tools in environmental protection? This choice can be attributed to both the central government’s needs to curb local protectionism, as well as the local governments’ incentives to promote legitimacy. Second, to the extent that courts can contribute to environmental governance, why does the government impose tight controls over environmental litigation? This can be explained by the government’s deep-rooted wariness of class lawsuits and other collective actions, as well as the judiciary’s inherent conflicts with the flexibility required by a regulatory regime. In addition, the judiciary’s limited capacity also impedes the judicialization of environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change, health pandemics, structural decline, and more – the challenges of solving political problems are daunting, particularly when the political institutions addressing them are not trusted. This article tests the economic theory that residents of high-income regions are more likely to trust political institutions, given their positive experiences with services and opportunities, against the rival argument that predicts a negative effect of regional disadvantage within a country on political trust. Using European Values Study and World Values Survey (2017–2020) data, combined with socioeconomic data for 606 regions in 42 countries, this paper analyses samples of regions both in and outside the EU. The results suggest that people living in wealthy EU regions – both in absolute and relative terms – trust national government more and the EU less. In the global sample, the evidence is more variegated and corroborates economic theory only in democracies. The article sketches implications for regional inequality, political trust, and legitimacy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appointed provincial governors do not have any power to make new policies apart from the ones made by the central government, but they are legally responsible for their implementations. In addition, they are not appointed for a specific time period and can be rotated even within a year or can stay longer where they are assigned. However, governors are overtly or covertly influential on provincial development since they have the central government's authority in the local administration. In this respect, using a new panel dataset, the current study seeks to find out if there is a relation between a governor's length of tenure and provincial economic development. The empirical results of the study show a negative relationship between the length of tenure and the economic development of provinces. In addition, longer tenure years are related to lower economic development, while the too-short length of tenure has no significant impact on the economic development of the provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the need for local cultural policies targeting cinema exhibition. Portugal evidences extreme dependency upon the central government, including for local movie screening, thus expressing the Portuguese high territorial asymmetry. Our research discusses the importance of noncommercial exhibition for countering this situation, as it is implemented by local agents (not only film societies) with a wider cultural intervention. When reflecting on the European countries policies for cinema and acknowledging the big socioeconomic and historical differences between Portugal and the Nordic countries, the regional-local initiatives of the latter emerged as an important issue for decentralization, especially the Norwegian scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like most low-and-middle-income countries, Nigeria has been finding it difficult to meet the basic needs of her populace including their health needs. Nigerians are dying of preventable diseases because of poverty and the lack of a functional healthcare system. As a result, the Nigerian government introduced the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to cater to the health needs of its population. This study assessed the knowledge, accessibility and utilization of the NHIS among registered employees of federal government institutions in Ebonyi state. The study used Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews (IDIs) to collect data from 43 participants. The collected data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that most of the participants have accessed and utilized the scheme and saw it as a good healthcare system. They also reported a lack of most of the prescribed drugs and inadequate personnel at the NHIS clinics which is impacting the effectiveness of the scheme. The paper recommends that NHIS should create more awareness about the scheme, and cover more dependents, drugs, tests, and treatment bills to make it more effective in healthcare delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding crime trends provides policymakers with needed information to effectively use scarce resources to keep communities safe. Native nations in the US, who retain criminal and civil jurisdiction on their lands, rely on national data collected by the federal government with little tribal input. These data may not accurately reflect the community's situation or the values they hold. Developing a tribal crime seriousness index may provide an elegant way to bridge this gap. This paper catalogs and identifies the methods for developing crime seriousness indices and provides a critical discussion of the role culture plays in the conceptualization of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the role that Mexico's independence played in Spanish political thought. The text focuses on the quarter of a century that followed the signing of the Treaty of Cordoba in 1821. We argue that the images of the former viceroyalty were of primary importance in the public debates of the period. Anti-liberal absolutists, progressive liberals, moderate liberals and republicans made subjective readings of the processes that shaped Mexican republican construction. All these tendencies instrumentalised Mexican history to reinforce their ideological agendas. The rhetorical disputes to which the interpretation of Mexican modernity gave rise were vital in shaping the Spanish political lexicon, specifically for some essential concepts: republic, democracy, federalism and race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to explore the interrelationships between a national government and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in terms of the power and legitimization of education reforms, here based on the reciprocal dependence of the two actors. Although the current case study only analyses the shifting relationships between Sweden and the OECD, the assumption is that the case is quite representative of the ambiguities of power in the relationships between the OECD and its smaller member countries and the Nordic countries in particular. To explore the relationship between the Swedish national government and OECD, we make use of discursive institutionalism as a general framework. For a closer understanding of the standpoints of the OECD and Sweden on different matters and at different times, two explanation logics are used. The discourses we found characterizing the different kinds of relationships over time are a discourse of opposition, a discourse of mentorship and a discourse of subordination. We argue that there are both ideational and institutional reasons affecting the conditions for cooperation on educational policy. Although institutional reasons strengthen the maintenance of the cooperation, ideational reasons both challenge and develop the nature of the collaboration between the OECD and Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis has triggered political tensions involving different levels of government. Italy constitutes a paradigmatic example of such problems. The powers assigned to regional presidents as a result of the dynamics of presidentialization make them key players in Italy's fragmented multilevel system. The article aims to demonstrate that the conflict between national and regional governments during the pandemic has been based mainly on polity reasons, that is regional governments' ambition to strengthen their autonomy, rather than on policy arguments. The Covid-19 crisis in Italy has taken the form of an intergovernmental conflict over the balance of authority between central and regional governments. This state of affairs has complicated the attempts at establishing a satisfactory level of coordination between the levels of government, has resulted in a fragmented response to the crisis, and has triggered a systemic conflict between levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Center–regional relations in Putin's Russia are marked by strict hierarchies, with regional governors serving as agents to the principal–the federal center. This (authoritarian) mode of federalism allows the federal center to maintain the president's popularity, by shifting blame for policy failures from the presidency onto other federal political institutions and the regions. The article investigates how the regime reacted to the full-scale warfare against Ukraine. It theoretically elaborates on strategies of blame avoidance in personalist and federal autocracies and applies this framework to the Russian case. Using data from official documents and media reports, it demonstrates that the federal center again resorted to vertical blame-shifting, by formally and informally assigning the regional governors with several unpopular tasks, above all – casualty reporting and mobilization. The war confirmed center–regional relations as a practical venue for blame avoidance, which helps Putin's regime overcome crises, contributing to its coping resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR or the Refuge) has been at the core of the conservation-development debate in the U.S. for over fifty years. The Refuge case epitomizes how policies shape territories governed by overlapping federal, congress, local, and Indigenous regimes. For instance, between 2017 and 2023, the Refuge was opened and closed to hydrocarbon development by two U.S. Presidents. ANWR is among the largest environmental refuges in the U.S. with oil reserve between 4.3 and 11.8 million barrels. Our analysis of U.S. policies about the ANWR shows the contestation between pro-environment and pro-oil development at the federal and state levels. Federal policies of Republican and Democrat administrations align with pro-drilling and pro-environment positions, respectively. Alaskan policymakers are pro-drilling, which puts them at odds with pro-environment legislators from Democratic states. Tensions between Alaska and the Federal government are about control and distribution of the oil revenue. Further, Indigenous peoples are on different sides as well. Traditional Gwich'in oppose development because it threatens their way of life. Iñupiat favor oil development because oil revenue has supported their modernized lifestyle. The fate of the ANWR will shape what happens with protected areas in the U.S. and with species across national boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the federalism reform in 2006, the German Länder gained the competence to deviate from the nationwide standard legislation in various areas. In this study, we focus on nature conservation policies and see that some Länder are raising their regulative standards while others are lowering them. Based on an original dataset that measures this direction of policy change, our empirical analysis shows that the party-political composition of the state governments, and particularly the presence/absence of Green parties, plays a crucial role in explaining the variation. Moreover, we find that the strength of nature conservation associations and geographical conditions are relevant, too. In sum, our findings contribute to the growing literature on both the policy effects of the German federalism reform and the partisan effects on public policies, as well as the question of responsive decision-making in multilevel settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How water governance mechanisms differ is evident in three diverse basins in the United States: the Colorado River, the Missouri River, and the linked Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint and Alabama–Coosa–Tallapoosa basins. Climate change is a major stressor in all three and requires flexibility to adapt. The roles of compacts, coordination mechanisms, allocation formulas, courts, and intergovernmental relationships are different, except the federal government's operation of large reservoirs. Ambiguities in relative powers of the federal and state governments inhibit coordination and negotiation. A major feature of the federal system is importance of legal mechanisms for dispute resolution to supplement collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes one of the first explorations into how provincial governments shaped the WCU building discourse in tandem with universities. Using a resource dependence approach and insights from institutional isomorphism, it develops a conceptual framework with three perspectives (national government, provincial governments and 'ministerial universities') to understand the relationship between national policies and local authorities' and institutions' strategic adaptations. This study shows that there are variations in how quickly provincial governments and universities within them respond to national policies. However, provincial reports and institutional strategies exhibit isomorphism with the national goals in the model of goal setting and interpretation of WCU definition. China's national policies for building WCUs reinforce provincial governments' and ministerial universities' resource dependence on national government, leading to the adoption of similar goal-setting approaches. However, an ambiguous understanding of WCU definition also prompts the imitation of building WCUs strategies. The ministerial universities develop tailored development plans, reflecting their reliance on provincial governments for critical resources, in light of the variable development advantages and requirements of provincial governments. Hence, the tension of homogeneous goals-setting oriented towards the national standard and diversified provincial development needs in the building WCUs pose a great challenge to local innovative practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tigray war illustrates how the European Union (EU) often fails to act effectively and consistently in a highly fragmented context. During the 2020-22 conflict, the EU failed to address a number of challenges emanating from the internal fragmentation of Ethiopia. These pertained to the EU's lack of contextual knowledge about local conflict dynamics and actors and, relatedly, the legacy of its relations with Tigray's leadership; the inconsistent approach of EU institutions and member states that initially led to an normative outlook, which later evolved into a more balanced and pragmatic one when it was arguably too late; and the inability to mitigate competition with other external powers who backed the Ethiopian federal government. As a result, the EU adopted an inconsistent and ineffective approach toward the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

United States territories—home to more than 3.5 million Americans—are excluded from the safeguards of American federalism. Unlike states, they are subject to the plenary power of the U.S. Congress, lack core legal protections, and are denied meaningful political representation. As such, territories must find alternative approaches to exercising political voice in the American federal system. Yet territorial-federal relations have received virtually no empirical attention from federalism scholars. To address this gap, we examine territories' efforts to advance their interests within both bottom-up and top-down intergovernmental councils, as well as through territory-specific advocacy. Our analysis of organizational participation, agendas, and policy outcomes suggests that territories—while denied access to traditional mechanisms of shared rule—do participate in intergovernmental relations, through a combination of bottom-up and top-down multilateral intergovernmental councils (IGCs), as well as bilateral intergovernmental lobbying. Challenges to exercising political voice vary across these institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant literature has extensively examined the diffusion of performance-based budgeting (PBB) from the standpoint of central governments, with a special focus on European and American countries. However, how PBB reforms diffuse within a unitary state, especially among mid-level governments, still remains elusive. To better understand the mechanism of PBB diffusion, this research use Event History Analysis to investigate how leadership characteristics, intergovernmental relations, financial standing, and organizational culture affect provincial PBB diffusion in China. The findings suggest that (1) the reasons for PBB adoption vary across different types of public leaders; (2) PBB reforms are primarily diffused through the bottom-up inducement, with central advocacy and horizontal competition playing an insignificant role; (3) provinces with a greater financial standing are more likely to adopt PBB reforms; (4) a culture that values reforms and transparency of information can drive the diffusion of PBB reforms. As a result, our research has clear implications for performance budgeting literature and practice: it provides valuable insights to policy-makers and public leaders on how to facilitate PBB reforms and policy diffusion across mid-level governments, particularly in a unitary state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laws structure people's "lived citizenships." This article considers the ways in which Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization gave states the power to regulate reproduction in ways that have disproportionate consequences for pregnant people with disabilities. Specifically, Dobbs did not eliminate the right to bodily integrity, but rather put conditions on who can claim a right to bodily integrity in federal courts. Moreover, uneven changes to Medicaid financing of abortions have created a "postcode lottery." People's ability to receive care is determined by a politics of place – or even individual providers. These policies create structural inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bajo Tribe is a traditional society living in coastal areas of Indonesia in East Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara. For centuries, they existed as marine nomads, but more recently have established permanent settlements in coastal areas which often protrude into the sea. The Indonesian constitution guarantees the rights of each citizen to have a place of residence. As the form of legal certainty, the national government issues deeds, which guarantees rights over land to the people of the Bajo Tribe in the form of the Building Use Rights. This research is a legal research under normative juridical methods regarding the approach of laws and regulations (statute approach). Research results demonstrate that any rights over land granted in coastal areas do not conform to Law Number 5 of 1960 regarding the Basic Agrarian Law (hereinafter called UUPA) as the legal grounds of national land. Regulations on land ownership and usage after Law Number 11 of 2020 regarding the Omnibus Law cause legal uncertainty, as they do not conform to previous concepts and principles contained in UUPA. Overlapping land regulations in Indonesia require the state to harmonize and synchronize conflicts. Consequently, land rights cannot be granted for coastal areas for people such as the Bajo Tribe who may have occupied them for generations. A more appropriate settlement is to use utilization permits with certain criteria. Settlements constructed by the Bajo people in the coastal areas must take into account zoning and marine spatial plans. These plans should prioritize ecosystem balance and address the management of waste generated by these settlements Coastal areas are shared resources and can be used by anyone through the principles of common property and open access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]