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Working Group on Local Public Policies /
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Activities: Working Group on Local Public Policies
Joint Meeting of the Working Group on Local Public Policies and Working Group on Local Government
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.
Activities in 2016
Meeting of the Working Group on Local Services and Infrastructure
WG Programme Coordinators:
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
Place: 24th NISPAcee Annual Conference, Zagreb. Croatia
Date: May 19-21, 2016
The NISPAcee Working Group on Local Public Policies was established in 2013. In 2016, the Working Group changed its name to Local services and Infrastructure - Institutions, Regulation, and Finance. Generally, the working group intends to focus on the issue of local services – e.g. waste, water, transport, local energy networks, public assets, sport facilities, welfare policies – delivery and infrastructures, with an analysis that takes into consideration the role of local institutions, the absence or presence of a regulatory framework, and the role of traditional and innovative financial institutions and tools at local level.
The 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.
Activities in 2015
Meeting of the Working Group on Public Finance and Public Financial Management
WG Programme Coordinators:
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
Place: 23rd NISPAcee Annual Conference, Tbilisi, Georgia
Date: May 21-23, 2015
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.
Activities in 2014
Meeting of the Working Group on Public Finance and Public Financial Management
WG Programme Coordinators:
Franco Becchis, Turin School of Local Regulation and Saint
John International University, Italy,
E-mail: franco.becchis.fa@gmail.com
Daniel Klimovsky, Faculty of Scoial and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
E-mail: daniel.klimovsky@gmail.com
Place: The 22nd NISPAcee Annual Conference, Budapest, Hungary
Date: May 22-24, 2014
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.
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(c) NISPAcee, Generated: May 6, 2024 / 04:04 |