scholarly journals Cultural Mandate of Local Governance: Running in Place

Federalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 90-106
Author(s):  
V. Yu. Muzychuk

At present, local governments are unable to fulfil their cultural mandate either in terms of their functionality, or in the context of the required funding, or in terms of the scale and importance of tasks related to the development of culture. The article examines the problem of the ability of local governments to address the cultural agenda: the content of the network of municipal cultural institutions and ensuring the availability of cultural goods for the general population. The actions of the state over the past three decades testify to the implementation in Russia of managerial decisions that are extremely unfriendly to the cultural sphere. Firstly, we are talking about the reform of the budgetary sector, marked by the optimization, unification and commercialization of cultural institutions and a reduction in the number of employees. Secondly, within the framework of the reform of local government, all responsibility for the functioning of the so-called grassroots level of culture: public libraries, cultural and leisure institutions, local museums and art schools was transferred to the municipal level without bringing the required amount of public funding. The situation is aggravated by the accumulated socio-economic problems of municipalities, which reflected in the cultural sphere. A way out of the closed circle is seen in the revision and a clear definition of the area of responsibility of local government bodies in the field of culture and guaranteed public funding.

e-Finanse ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
Adam Mateusz Suchecki

AbstractFollowing the completion of the process of decentralisation of public administration in Poland in 2003, a number of tasks implemented previously by the state authorities were transferred to the local level. One of the most significant changes to the financing and management methods of the local authorities was the transfer of tasks related to culture and national heritage to the set of tasks implemented by local governments. As a result of the decentralisation process, the local government units in Poland were given significant autonomy in determining the purposes of their budgetary expenditures on culture. At the same time, they were obliged to cover these expenses from their own revenues.This paper focuses on the analysis of expenditures on culture covered by the voivodship budgets, taking into consideration the structure of cultural institutions by their types, between 2003-2015. The location quotient (LQ) was applied to two selected years (2006 and 2015) to illustrate the diversity of expenditures on culture in individual voivodships.


Author(s):  
Oryslava Korkuna ◽  
Ivan Korkuna ◽  
Oleh Tsilnyk

Development of a territorial community requires efficient use of its capacity taking into account all possible aspects in the course of elaboration and implementation of the development strategy and other local legal and regulative documents. The approach is directly related to maintaining the living activity of a territorial community and should correspond to the interests of population and European standards of state regional policy. In addition to the definition of a community provided by the Law of Ukraine “On Local Governance in Ukraine”, there are also some other. For example, some authors understand territorial community as a single natural and social entity that operates in spatial boundaries of a state and realizes daily needs and interests of population. The paper aims to analyze legal and regulative foundation of the development of territorial communities in conditions of decentralization. The authors analyze current condition of legal and regulative maintenance of local governance reforming in Ukraine in conditions of decentralization of authorities. The paper argues that the major elements of management strategy in CTCs in Ukraine are independence, efficiency, management innovations, quicker and more substantiated decision-making and everything to meet the needs of community’s residents. Management of this sector is grounded on the principles of the provisions of European Charter of Local Self-Government that provides for decentralization of authorities and transfer of resources and responsibilities to local governments. Liabilities of local governments (of consolidated territorial communities) and the mayors are analyzed. The authors prove that in general legal provision of decentralization of local governance corresponds to European requirements and creates reliable ground for practical stage of the reform. The list of issues that require further legal regulation is outlined.


Author(s):  
Kayode J Samuel ◽  
Samuel B Agbola ◽  
Olorunfemi A Olojede

Local governance encompasses the involvement of local governments and other community-based organizations in participatory decision-making for efficient delivery of public services. In the developing world, however, the weakness of the local government and local governance has inhibited the efficient and effective delivery of these services. Relying on water and sanitation data and interviews of relevant officials, this study analyses the structure of governance of water supply and sanitation (WSS) at the community levels in selected medium-sized urban centres in Nigeria. Results showed that majority of the city dwellers lacked access to safe water and sanitation, an indication of convoluted, poorly regulated provision regimes and the waning capacity of local governments to galvanize local actions towards the efficient provision and management of these services at community levels. Multiple provision regimes, weak coordinating and regulatory frameworks characterize WSS governance. Further, the sub-national authorities’ encroachment on local government funds which deprived these tiers of government the resources they could have used in providing these essential services presents a major setback. Local governments require financial and constitutional autonomy to provide basic services to the people and supervise and coordinate the activities of other governmental and non-governmental actors involved in service provision.


Author(s):  
Paula Gomes dos Santos ◽  
Carla Martinho

Public governance must ensure financial sustainability. This investigation aims to assess Portuguese local governments financial sustainability as the ability to service the upcoming obligations in commercial transactions (under the Late Payment Directive framework) and to study if accounting information enables public local governance with greater transparency and accountability about their financial sustainability. The study will focus on the 308 Portuguese local governments from 2009 to 2017. The number of local governments with average payment periods (PMPs) within 30 days had an increasing tendency. However, their adjusted average payment periods greatly exceed the 30 days, which means limited financial sustainability. In 2017, only 29% of the local governments have an adjusted PMP within 30 days against the 63% if it is used the officials PMPs. Therefore, accounting information does not enable public governance with greater transparency and accountability about Portuguese local government financial sustainability.


Author(s):  
Peter Demediuk ◽  
Stephen Burgess ◽  
Rolf Solli

Local governance occurs where a local government gives citizens a say in things that really matter to them, and e-governance initiatives provide electronic means to enable citizens to participate in this shared governing of the community. The clearer a local government is about the nature and degree to which it needs to act as a democracy actor (better citizens and better government) and/or a service delivery actor (better decision making), the greater the prospect that it can choose appropriate electronic means through an e-governance approach to meet those ends. In order to guide an e-governance practice and inform further research, this chapter: provides models that articulate the elements that constitute better decision making, better citizens, and better government, and presents examples from five local governments of how electronic means can satisfy particular ends.


Author(s):  
Paul T. Jaeger

Many residents and local communities rely on public libraries for access to and training to use e-government. Many local governments direct citizens to the public library for help in using e-government, while citizens seek help from the public library in using local e-government when they have no other means of connecting or when they want help using e-government. As a result, public libraries now serve not only as instrumentalities of local government, but as a primary location for access to local e-government and a very successful link between citizens to e-government. As residents, communities, and governments rely on public libraries as a main access point to e-government, it essential to better understand the connection and education roles of public libraries to improve the delivery of local e-government.


Author(s):  
Moazzam Ali Janjua ◽  
Rainer Rohdewohld

In 2013 and 2019, the local government legislation of the province of Punjab in Pakistan saw two rounds of major changes – each of which led to a new local government Act being passed. In 2013 the changes were driven by constitutional and judicial requirements and in 2019 by the political will of Pakistan’s new coalition government. This article analyses and compares the functional assignment (FA) architecture of the two Acts against a set of parameters. The study finds that marginal improvements to the FA architecture introduced by the 2019 Act are offset by continuing inconsistencies and lack of clarity over ‘who does what’ in the functions assigned to local governments. The authors suggest that improving the functionality of local governments requires full implementation of the design features of the new system, including institutional strengthening of provincial-level entities which regulate and oversee the local government system.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-134
Author(s):  
Khandakar Farid Uddin

Bangladesh has a history of political unrest and supremacy of the ruling party. Recently, representatives of the local government were suspended for being accused in cases of political violence. The ruling party is defining the suspensions as a legal process; on the contrary, the opposition political parties are claiming it as political hostility and a way of controlling local governments. There are shortages of research on contemporary political challenges and its consequences. Thus, this study considered local government representative suspensions as a case to exemplify the political hostility and local government crisis in Bangladesh. This study also demonstrated some theoretical points to frame the conceptual thoughts, likewise explained the status and some historical illustration of governmental intrusion over local government. Besides, this study applied the qualitative method to discover the research queries. Consequently, the analysis outlined substantial political supremacy and hostility in Bangladesh and its adverse impact on local governance.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Widjonarko - ◽  
Brotosunaryo

The Sustainable Capacity Building for Decentralization (SCBD) project funded by the AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB) aimed to strengthen the capacity of local governments in Indonesia.Banjarnegara Regency was selected by the ministry of internal affairs for the implementation ofthe project. The SCBD Project in Banjarnegara consists of five components including frameworkof capacity building, institutional capacity building, human resources management, humanresources development and sustainable financial and budgeting. This project will is held in fiveyears using two funding schemes phases, donor funded the first 3 years (2009‐2011), thencontinued by the local government of Banjarnegara. During the 2009‐2011period, the projecthas finished all five components, PMU then conducted evaluation to ensure achievement of theSCBD’s main goal: strengthening local governance for delivering good public services. The expostevaluation method used to evaluate the SCBD Project for short term outcomes found thatthe project hasn’t directly improved the public services performance even having completed allfive components of the project. Most people in Banjarnegara Regency felt no significantimprovement of public services provided by the government. The ineffectiveness of publicservices can be understood, because not all of the components of the SCBD project had beenthoroughly implemented at local government level. Moreover, many activities of the projecttend to overlap implying lack of coordination among the project implementation units.Key words: evaluation, SCBD


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 873-893 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tudor Cristian Ticlau ◽  
Bogdan Andrei Moldovan ◽  
Cristina Maria Hintea

The European Charter on Local Self-government is a defining document for local governments across the EU and was a guideline for developing a framework of local governance based on local autonomy, decentralization that is close to the citizens. It was especially important for Central and East European Countries as they faced the challenges of a total overhaul of their administrative systems after the fall of the communist regimes. Romania fits into this picture as a late comer to the European family, with an administrative system that transitioned slowly from a hyper centralized arrangement to one that offers significant power to local governments. After 20 years since the ratification of the Charter, local government in Romania displays mixed elements, between progressive (protection of local authorities) and conservative (consultation of authorities, financial autonomy) in relation to the charter recommendations. The current article is an analysis on the state of affairs concerning local governance in Romania using the Charter as the main theoretical framework.


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