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WG Programme Coordinators:
Michiel S de Vries, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Ilona Pálné Kovács, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, University of Pécs, Hungary
Daniel Klimovsky, Comenius University, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Slovakia (Session 3)
Place: 26th NISPAcee Annual Conference, Iasi, Romania
Date: May 24-26, 2018
The focus of the WP was on local government reports and consequences, especially on the trend of centralisation, but also on the attempts to improve efficiency in local and regional decision-making.
Our working group meetings were held five times with 19 papers presented by scholars from several countries (Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Kazakhstan Russia, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Hungary).
One of the main topics was the tendency of recentralization in, amongst others, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Kazakhstan and VISEGRAD countries. Another major topic discussed was that of local leadership and especially the role of mayors in municipalities. A third topic discussed was local policy making with regard to homelessness, local finances, and local marketing etc. The last and major topic discussed concerned the impact of size on local capacity.
The approaches were really broad, from local democracy and participation, finance and smart cities, to marketing and local and regional economic development. Most of the papers were based on primary data from empirical researches, providing insight into new methodological tools and new theoretical considerations. It is worthy of note that many papers were products of international co-operation and comparison.
The papers and the discussions were, of course, very diverse but some messages were agreed by the participants. We need a much deeper knowledge and evidence of the real consequences of territorial and public policy reforms because international measures alone are not sufficient to understand what is going on in the special national and local context. It was also realised that perhaps we have to revise our ideas about the role of the size and scale, and more focus is required on capacity and leadership. Several papers provided research findings about the crucial role of mayors, and of the relationships between administration and politics, of local knowledge and legitimacy.
We were pleased with and grateful to the organisers and presenters for the opportunity to learn and exchange ideas about some very timely and complex questions of local governance.
Franco Becchis, Turin School of Local Regulation and Saint John International University, Italy,
Daniel Klimovsky, Faculty of Scoial and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, SlovakiaThe working group organised two own sessions within the programme of the 24th NISPAcee Annual Conference chaired by Prof. Franco Becchis (Turin School of Local Regulation, Torino, Italy). In total, 5 papers were presented during the working group's sessions. Authors of those papers dealt with different issues linked to local policy making. The list of presented papers included the following:
1) Local Administration in National Economic Development and Competitiveness Strategies - Searching for the Appropriate Institutional Framework for Private Infrastructure Development in Western Balkan Countries (Tatjana Jovanic, Belgrade University, Serbia).
2) Role of NGOs in Public Services Delivery at the Local Level - Case of Poland (Mariusz Sienkiewicz, Marie Curie-Sklodowska University, Poland).
3) Management of Municipal Housing Stock in Bulgaria: Ten Years of Experience 2005 - 2015 (Nadezhda Bobcheva, Municipal Council of Silistra, Bulgaria).
4) The Assignment of Responsibility and Manifestations of Climate Change Policy. The Climate Change Policy Mechanisms of Polish Local Governments (Katarzyna Szmigiel-Rawska, University of Warsaw, Poland, and Jan Erling Klausen, Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Norway).
5) The Mayoral Election Reform in Lithuania: Research of the Citizens’ and Mayors’ Attitudes (Arvydas Mikalauskas, Vytautas Magnus University).
While some authors dealt with the structural and capacity issues of local services and infrastructures, some others were dealing with the role of local actors and their impact on local policies. Some common features emerged from the various presentations, namely: the political economy approach; the importance of the local dimension in policy implementation; the need for increasing capacities of local institutions; the importance of trust for local public policy implementation and to establish fruitful relationships between local actors. Discussions that followed the paper presentations were fruitful, and led to new perspectives as well as potential interpretations of the presented data. This point is very important in terms of sustainability of the working group and cooperation between its members.
Franco Becchis, Turin School of Local Regulation and Saint John International University, Italy,
Daniel Klimovsky, Faculty of Scoial and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
On May 22, 2015 in the afternoon the session 2 of the Working Group on Local Public Policies was organized within the program of the 23rd NISPAcee Annual Conference in Tbilisi, Georgia. The session was chaired by Prof. Franco Becchis from the Turin School of Local Regulation, Torino, Italy. In total, three papers were presented during this session. The first paper "Local (Self-)government System and Local Governance in Slovakia: Case of Dilemma: Efficiency vs. Democracy” was presented by Dr. Daniel Klimovsky, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia. His co-author, Prof. Ludmila Malíková, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, took part in the session too, and she actively contributed in the discussion part of the session. The paper itself addressed the issues linked to decentralization and its impacts in terms of quality of local democracy as well as managerial efficiency. The second paper "Performance of Water Infrastructure Planning Network: Case of Bratislava (Slovakia)” was aimed at water governance in Slovakia. Its presenter, Ms. Veronika Ferčíková, University of Economics of Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia dealt especially with network analysis in regard to planning stage of the water policy making. Last but not least, Dr. Davide Vannoni, University of Turin, Torino, Italy presented the third paper "Corruption, Accountability and Effficiency: An Application to Municipal Solid Waste Services”. The paper was elaborated by the group of co-authors, and besides the presenter, the group consisted of Dr. Graziano Abrate, University of Piemonte Orientale and HERMES, Italy, Dr. Federico Boffa, Free University of Bolzano, School of Economics and Managment, Italy and Institut dí Economia de Barcelona, Spain, and Dr. Fabrizio Erbetta, University of Piemonte Orientale and HERMES, Italy. Presentation was highly interesting, since the presenter was dealing with hot issue of interconnections between corruption, accountability and efficiency.
All papers presented during this session were directly or indirectly linked to dilemma of efficiency vs. democracy at the local level. One of the papers was a bit more general, while two of them were rather aimed at narrower issue. Regardless of this diversity, all the papers evoked relevant discussion, and it is possible to conclude that the local governments of various European countries had faced serious challenges since the late 1980s, and in addition, they had to cope with deep fiscal stress in the recent years. However, introduction of the same (or similar) tools/measures has led to significantly different outcomes. It confirms that the socio-political and economic environment is very important determinant, and relevant decision-makers must be aware of them in order to avoid potential failures.
Franco Becchis, Turin School of Local Regulation and Saint John International University, Italy,
E-mail: franco.becchis.fa@gmail.com
E-mail: daniel.klimovsky@gmail.com
Working Group on Local Public Policies of the NISPAcee was established just in 2013. Generally, the working group intends to focus on the issue of regulation of local services – e.g. waste, water, transport, local energy networks, public assets, sport facilities, welfare policies – and their delivery in the CEE countries where the transition from the planned economy has set peculiar challenges to the relationship between local governments and markets.
The working group organized four own sessions within the programme of the 22ndNISPAcee Annual Conference. All of them were co-chaired by prof. Franco Becchis (Turin School of Local Regulation, Torino, Italy) and Dr. Daniel Klimovský (Technical University of Košice, Slovakia). In total, 13 papers were presented during the working group's sessions. Authors of those papers were dealing with different issues linked to local policy making. List of presented papers includes the following papers:
1)FIELD: A Methodology for the Analysis of Local Actors, Incentives and Information Endowment in the Context of Local Public Services (Franco Becchis, Elisa Vanin, Daniele Russolillo)
2)Institutional Framework as the Key Catalyzer for the Public-Private Partnership Projects and Concessions – The Case of Serbia (Tatjana Jovanic, Sladjana Sredojevic)
3)Public Transport in Urban Agglomerations: Transport Policy Issues for the Communication Between City and Suburbs: the Case of St. Petersburg (Ekaterina Sokolova)
4)Local Municipalities Featuring Volunteer Groups in Tackling Environmental Issues of Urbanized Communities in Slovakia (Matus Čupka)
5)Four Tools to Improve the Role of Municipalities in the Ger-man Energiewende: Re-Municipalisation of Local Energy Utilities, Energy Self-Sufficient Municipalities, Bioenergy Villages and Energy Cooperatives (Jochen Franzke)
6)Application of the Leadership Approach in Local Public Policy Implementation: Three Cases (Albena Taneva)
7)Different Types of Inter-Municipal Cooperation in Slovakia and the Czech Republic: Sufficient Solutions or Potemkin Villages? (Daniel Klimovský)
8)Inter-Municipal Cooperation in Lithuania and Slovakia: Does Size Structure Matter? (Oksana Mejere, Daniel Klimovský, Jurgita Mikolaitytė, Diana Šaparniene)
9)Optimization of Urban and Sub-Urban Public Transport System at the Klaipeda City Municipality: Strategies and Perspectives (Inga Normante, Gabrielė Burbulytė-Tsiskarishvili)
10) Municipal Policy Priority Setting, Implementation and Evaluation through Effective Budget Tools (David Amborski)
11) Ethics Management in the Context of Good Governance: The Case of Lithuania (Renata Bilbokaite, Rita Toleikienė)
12) Challenges in the Implementation of Performance Management System to the Russian Local Governance. Case Study of Krasnoyarsk City, Russia (Anastasiya Kichigina, Diana Silvia Stirbu)
13) Local Tax Policies in the Highly Fragmented Countries: State Paternalism or Real Tax Autonomy? (Olga Sharapova, Saša Drezgić, Daniel Klimovský)
The presentations were grouped in three sessions according to their main focus:
1) Institutions, actors, incentives framing local public policies: instruments for analysis and practical case studies
2) Inter-municipal cooperation and resulting governance issues
3) Governance of local public budget.
While some authors were dealing with structural and capacity issues of local services regulation, some others were dealing rather with quality issues. Some common features emerged from the various presentations, namely: the importance of the local dimension in policy implementation; the need of increasing capacities of local institutions; the importance of trust as the "fuel” for local public policy implementation and to establish fruitful relationships between local actors. Discussions that followed the paper presentations were fruitful, and led to new perspectives as well as potential interpretations of presented data. This point is very important in terms of sustainability of the working group and the cooperation between its members.