Local Policy Making, Globalized Coalitions, and Resource Allocation

Author(s):  
Ling Chen ◽  
Ling Chen

This chapter delves into the coalitional politics of policy making and resource allocation by investigating strategies of city government officials. The chapter examines the patterns of bureaucratic competition between international commerce departments and newly emerged domestic technology departments and their respective business clients, including foreign and domestic firms. I explain the influence of FDI attraction on domestic politics by showing (1) how the overlap between FIEs and exporters shaped the degree of perceived threat and the cohesiveness of the vested interests in international commerce under the rule of fragmented bureaucratic competition and (2) how the existence of large foreign firms strengthened the bargaining power of the vested interest bureaucrats against allocating resources to the domestic technology coalition. The direction and the magnitude of foreign influence, therefore, is filtered and channeled through local bureaucracy.

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 317-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nives Dolšak ◽  
Aseem Prakash

Climate action has two pillars: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation faces collective action issues because its costs are focused on specific locations/actors but benefits are global and nonexcludable. Adaptation, in contrast, creates local benefits, and therefore should face fewer collective action issues. However, governance units vary in the types of adaptation policies they adopt. To explain this variation, we suggest conceptualizing adaptation-as-politics because adaptation speaks to the issues of power, conflicting policy preferences, resource allocation, and administrative tensions. In examining who develops and implements adaptation, we explore whether adaptation is the old wine of disaster management in the new bottle of climate policy, and the tensions between national and local policy making. In exploring what adaptation policies are adopted, we discuss maladaptation and the distinction between hard and soft infrastructure. Finally, we examine why politicians favor visible, hard adaptation over soft adaptation, and how international influences shape local policy.


1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Larry W. Bowman

Relationships between U.S. government officials and academic specialists working on national security and foreign policy issues with respect to Africa are many and complex. They can be as informal as a phone call or passing conversation or as formalized as a consulting arrangement or research contract. Many contacts exist and there is no doubt that many in both government and the academy value these ties. There have been, however, ongoing controversies about what settings and what topics are appropriate to the government/academic interchange. National security and foreign policy-making in the U.S. is an extremely diffuse process.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geraint Parry

These Words Spoken By President Clinton At His Inauguration on 20 January 1993 can usefully serve as a leitmotif for the present issue of the journal Government and Opposition. The issue is itself the outcome of a conference organized by the journal and the Department of Government of the University of Manchester. The theme was the ‘Influences of Domestic and International Factors on Processes of Policy-Making’. However, this title does not quite catch the interactive quality of the phenomenon which the group was seeking to examine. Increasingly, it has been contended, policies at the domestic level whether in what we once called the first, second or third worlds are being profoundly influenced by international or ‘global’ considerations. But it is also the case that international agreements are being accommodated to the sensitivities of the domestic politics of the partners.


Author(s):  
Patrick Gallagher ◽  
Seán Ó Riain ◽  
Fergal Rhatigan ◽  
Michael Byrne

The chapter traces the historical development of banking and finance in Ireland. The financial system has historically been characterized by domestic economic weakness alongside significant activity by foreign firms, with state agencies filling the gap. Overall, the sector has been vulnerable to internationalization, and booms and risks. The chapter explores how, through the 1990s, it transformed from a sleepy backwater to one of the most financialized systems in Europe. This was driven by the transnational integration of the Irish banking system, linked to a shift towards market-based banking. In the 2000s, new technologies formed a disastrous combination with domestic conditions, ultimately leading to the banking crisis and the loading of banking debts onto the public purse. Finally, the chapter examines the politics of the Irish bailout. This was not simply a matter of domestic politics, nor of the bargaining power of banks, but involved EU interstate politics.


Author(s):  
Adrian Sinfield

Increasing inequality was a deliberate policy of the Thatcher governments, marking a significant shift in UK policy-making. The strategy was supported by strong vested interests and active myth-making that stigmatized both social spending and its recipients. The legacy of Thatcherism has been powerful and persistent, leading to an acceptance of the increased inequality and a lack of challenge to its proponents and beneficiaries. There now appears to be a growing challenge to this acquiescence from many quarters including the churches and, surprisingly, the IMF, as well as many more detailed analyses of the wide differences in income and wealth. The arguments against increased inequality have strengthened again, bolstered by growing evidence of exploitation of the tax system, but is the political will strong enough to bring about significant changes?


2018 ◽  
Vol 236 ◽  
pp. 1088-1110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Jingwei He

AbstractPolicy entrepreneurs play a pivotal role in policy changes in both electoral democracies and authoritarian systems. By investigating the case of healthcare reform in Sanming City, this article illustrates how the fragmented bureaucracy in China enables and constrains local policy entrepreneurs, and how entrepreneurial manoeuvring succeeds in realigning the old institutional structures while attacking the vested interests. Both structural conditions and individual attributes are of critical importance to the success of policy entrepreneurship. Four factors and their dynamic interactions are central to local policy entrepreneurship: behavioural traits, political capital, network position and institutional framework. This study furthers theoretical discussion on policy entrepreneurship by elucidating the fluidity of interactional patterns between agent and structure in authoritarian China. The malleability of rigid institutions can be considerably increased by the active manoeuvring of entrepreneurial agents.


2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (spe) ◽  
pp. 33-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato Baumann

Although Brazil has traditionally been characterized by a culture of inward-looking policy making, the presence of foreign firms in the Brazilian productive sector has always been significant. The share of foreign-owned firms is one of the highest that can be found among developing countries. This article discusses the main features of the external sector of the Brazilian economy, regarding trade flows, foreign investment, the internationalization of Brazilian entrepreneurial groups and the short-term financial requirements in foreign currencies


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