scholarly journals From Municipalist Activism to Institutional Changes: An Analysis of the Subnational Dimension in Mercosur (1995-2019)

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-540
Author(s):  
Cairo Gabriel Borges Junqueira
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Regional Agenda ◽  
Subnational Governments

Abstract Mercosur has gone through distinct phases, leading to the articulation between a myriad of sectors, groups, and actors, among which subnational governments stand out. Local governments started this movement in 1995, with the foundation of the Mercosur Cities Network. In 2000, the Specialized Meeting of Municipalities and Intendencies (REMI) was created, replaced in the following years by the Mercosur Advisory Forum of Municipalities, States, Provinces, and Departments (FCCR), known for being the channel for subnational representation in the bloc. Drawing on bibliographic and document analysis, in addition to interviews and questionnaires, this article aims to analyze the internationalization and inclusion of subnational actors in Mercosur, mainly focusing on the changes observed over the years within these three institutions. The first section introduces the literature on paradiplomacy and deals specifically with Mercosur, seeking to verify how the regional agenda has been expanded, despite decision-making processes not being decentralized. The second and third sections analyse the origins of subnational integration through Mercocities alongside the development of REMI and FCCR. Considering the historical and institutional specificities of Mercosur, the research concludes by questioning the assumption of International Relations literature that regional blocs are potential arenas for effective internationalization of subnational governments.

Evolution of e-participation in Greek local government

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Constantina Costopoulou ◽  
Maria Ntaliani ◽  
Filotheos Ntalianis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Community ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Mobile Apps ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Impact

Local governments are increasingly developing electronic participation initiatives, expecting citizen involvement in local community affairs. Our objective was to assess e-participation and the extent of its change in local government in Greece. Using content analysis for 325 Greek municipal websites, we assessed e-participation status in 2017 and 2018 and examined the impact of change between these years. The assessment regards two consecutive years since the adoption of digital technologies by municipalities has been rapid. The main findings show that Greek local governments have made significant small- to medium-scale changes, in order to engage citizens and local societies electronically. We conclude that the integration of advanced digital technologies in municipalities remains underdeveloped. We propose that Greek municipalities need to consider incorporating new technologies, such as mobile apps, social media and big data, as well as e-decision making processes, in order to eliminate those obstacles that hinder citizen engagement in local government. Moreover, the COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the need for enhancing e-participation and policymakers’ coordination through advanced digital technologies.

E-Governance and Natural Hazards in Mozambique

2015 ◽  
pp. 253-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avelino Mondlane ◽  
Karin Hasson ◽  
Oliver Popov
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Impact

Strategic planning is a decisive process toward sustainable development for any organization. Mozambique has developed many tools toward good governance, among which Poverty Alleviation Strategy Paper (PARPA) is an umbrella. PARPA includes different key decisive segments of society, particularly the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as the pool for development. This chapter investigates to what extent e-Governance, particularly the development of strategies based on ICTs, can contribute to minimize the impact of floods at local governments by addressing best practice and decision-making process. The authors address backcasting methodology as an approach to consider in a participatory strategic planning for long-term decision-making processes. They use Chókwe District as a showcase where e-governance has an impact in mitigating and preventing the impact of floods.

Citizenship at the Margins: Exploring Participation as ‘Right to the City’ in Vizhinjam, Kerala

Urbanisation ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-93
Author(s):  
Aarathi Ganga
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Fishing Community ◽  
Urban Citizenship ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Right ◽  
National Governments ◽  
The City

This article explores the nature of urban citizenship among fishers in Kerala, one of the state’s most marginalised communities, by analysing their participation in a centrally sponsored slum rehabilitation programme—Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY)—in Vizhinjam, Thiruvananthapuram. The ‘right to participate’ is considered an integral part of the ‘right to the city’, and the inability of the fishing community to participate in the decision-making processes of urban development programmes that directly affect their lives reveals the exclusionary nature of their citizenship. In a state that is renowned for its achievements in human development and governance, the fishing community continues to be marginalised and lack collective power to influence policies. Participatory meetings in such contexts become tokenistic, and their transformative capacity is undermined. The inefficiency of participatory meetings organised under RAY also stems from the powerlessness of local governments to alter urban programmes designed by national governments.

Rationality and risk-taking in Russia’s first Chechen War: toward a theory of cognitive realism

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-210
Author(s):  
Jason J. Morrissette
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Utility Maximization ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Adequate Explanation ◽  
Russian President ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Cognitive Realism ◽  
Made In

This article seeks to establish a better scholarly understanding of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s decision to launch an ill-planned, risky, and ultimately disastrous invasion of the breakaway republic of Chechnya in 1994. Examining the decision-making environment that led up to the invasion, I conclude that while neorealism provides an adequate explanation for Yeltsin’s motives in this case, the decisions that he made in pursuit of these goals do not reflect the logic of rational utility maximization commonly associated with neorealist theory. Instead, I suggest that prospect theory – based on the idea that decision-makers tend to be risk averse when confronted with choices between gains while risk acceptant when confronted with losses – offers significantly more explanatory insight in this case. Thus, the article offers further support for an alternative theoretical approach to international relations that some scholars have termed ‘cognitive realism’, incorporating neorealist motives with a more empirically accurate perspective on the decision-making processes undertaken in pursuit of these motives.

scholarly journals Tourism Communication in Community Based Tourism in Dieng Community, Central Java, Indonesia

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manik Sunuantari
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Tourist Destination ◽  
Central Java ◽  
Sustainable Economy ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Aida Model

To encourage a community’s role in the field of tourism, the local government of Central Java, Indonesia promotes a Community Based Tourism (CBT) as a tourism development for the sustainable economy. It involves the community in decision-making processes, especially related to the acquisition of income, employment, and the preservation of the environment, and culture of the indigenous people. This research aimed to determine communication activities in the implementation of CBT. The theory used was tourism communication using Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA) model. Then, the method was a case study by choosing Dieng as a tourist destination, and the tourism communication activities were undertaken in Dieng’s society, especially in the activities of Dieng Culture Festival (DCF). The results show that the tourism communication activities involving the community, POKDARWIS (Kelompok Sadar Wisata - Tourism Awareness Group), tourism advocates, and local governments should pay attention to the cultural and natural tourism potentials, and empower the local communities.

The Origins, Dynamics, and Termination of the Cold War, 1942–91

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale C. Copeland
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Economic Interdependence ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cold War History

This chapter considers the relative causal importance of economic interdependence and changes in commercial expectations which led to the ups and downs of Cold War history. It seeks to rectify the lacuna in the international relations field by showing the truly powerful impact of commercial factors on the dynamics of US–Soviet relations after 1941. The problems with realist and liberal thinking about economic interdependence are starkly revealed by the Cold War case. The theoretical logics for both camps are based on the actual present trade between great power spheres. But in situations where current trade is low or nonexistent, leaders' expectations of future trade and commerce can be still critical to their decision-making processes.

Research Bets and Behavioral IR

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (S1) ◽  
pp. S265-S277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Powell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Behavioral Research ◽  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Decision Making Processes

AbstractBehavioral IR faces a fundamental challenge. The actors in most IR models and theories are not individuals—they are aggregates like states, ministries, interest groups, political parties, and rebel factions. There are two broad approaches to attempting to integrate behavioral research about individuals. The first, a quasi-behavioral approach, makes nonstandard assumptions about the preferences, beliefs, or decision-making processes of aggregate actors. The second tries to build theories in which the key actors are individuals. Pursuing the former means that the assumptions about actors will be only weakly linked to the empirical findings propelling behavioral research. The second approach faces formidable obstacles that international relations theory has confronted for a long time and for the most part has not overcome.

Factions in Committees: The U.S. House of Representatives

1979 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn R. Parker ◽  
Suzanne L. Parker
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Relations ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Component Analysis ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Agriculture Education ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Committee Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Commerce ◽  
The U.S

This study undertakes a major reanalysis of the decision-making processes in eight committees of the U.S. House of Representatives–Agriculture, Education and Labor, Interior and Insular Affairs, International Relations, Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Post Office and Civil Service, Public Works and Ways and Means. While past studies have relied mainly on interviews, this study uses a data base composed of recorded committee roll-call votes. The analysis consists of a Q-component analysis to determine voting blocs or factions; an R-component analysis to discover issue dimensions; and step-wise regression and correlation utilizing demographic, political and electoral characteristics to define the nature of the voting blocs. The results are then compared with previous analyses of the same eight committees to determine what changes, if any, have occurred since the committees were last analyzed. The findings suggest that partisanship and ideology have become stronger influences on committee decision making than previously noted.

The “revival” of civil society in Central Eastern Europe: New environmental and political movements

Human Affairs ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Torsello
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
Environmental Activism ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
State And Local

AbstractThe idea of civil society is one of the oldest and most contested in Western political and sociological thought. Among the social sciences, anthropology has been the discipline that has prompted the boldest critiques of the concept. This paper argues that the “revival” of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe in one particular field—that of environmental activism—has been contingent with the outcomes of EU enlargement policies. I introduce the case study of one of the most complex and contested transport development projects in Central Eastern Europe: the Budapest Ring Road. I maintain that within the EU enlargement project alternative forms of political power have been built from below and that they eventually come to compete with the state (and local governments) to influence decision-making processes. These forms, to be individuated in the emergence of environmental activism, take shape at local, state and transnational levels and aim, although often contradictorily, at restituting political agency under the condition of lowering public participation in decision-making processes.

Does e-participation Influence and Improve Political Decision Making Processes? Evidence From a Local Government

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 873-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ángel Iglesias Alonso ◽  
Roberto Luciano Barbeito
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Large City ◽  
City Government ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
Local Politicians ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Local Decision Making

In Local Governments, the quality of representative democracy is also measured by the extent to which demands of citizens and groups influence the agendas of local politicians. In this context, the potential of Internet and the NIT as tools that encourage participation, exchange and deliberation, have not been fully explored by either the local elites or the citizens to foster the discursive and decision-making dimensions of local democracy. But despite the growing importance of e-participation in improving local democracy, it remains unclear to what extent it also contributes to the introduction of new repertoires of action to improve efficiency and quality of local public service provision and, therefore, involving citizens meaningfully in the decision-making process continues to be a challenge. With this in mind and using recent empirical evidence from the current development of e-participation to improve administrative performance in a large city government, intended to enhance not only local democracy but also better decision-making, the paper focus on this gap on research by exploring to what extent e-participation contributes to foster, influence and improve local decision-making.

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