Rethinking Local Democracy

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Eric Oliver ◽  
Shang E. Ha ◽  
Zachary Callen
Keyword(s):  
Local Democracy ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Government Services ◽  
General Management ◽  
Civic Activism ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
Municipal Boundaries ◽  
Managerial Democracy

This chapter considers the managerial character of local democracy. It asks: Does managerial democracy inhibit or enhance the capacity of most Americans for meaningful self-governance? Who governs in a managerial democracy? In most places, local democracy is less about coalitions of property speculators and machine politicians establishing local fiefdoms or about marginalized groups, such as minorities or the poor, empowering themselves through civic activism. Rather, it is more about large portions of the electorate attaining relatively easy consensus over the general management of a limited number of government services and a greater stratification of different groups across municipal boundaries. Local democracy in suburban America is less about intramunicipal political struggle than it is about intermunicipal political exclusion. This situation creates a much more complicated picture of “who governs” America than what most existing research suggests.

scholarly journals Unraveled Practices of Participatory Budgeting in European Democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 287-313
Author(s):  
Juraj Nemec ◽  
David Špaček ◽  
Michiel S. de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Porto Alegre ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Status

AbstractThe goal of the final chapter was to summarize lessons about the worst and best practices, causes, and effects of (successful or unsuccessful) participatory budgeting, delivered by the country case studies included in this book. The information collected serves to check to what extent participatory budgeting as practiced in the countries involved presents a real attempt to change municipal budgets toward addressing the needs of marginalized groups and to improve decision-making based on local democracy and participation, or whether these processes as such are to be judged to be more important than any output and outcomes. All in all, the practices of PB as they evolved in European countries out of the innovative original as developed in Porto Alegre in the 1990s can be seen neither as a process of policy diffusion nor as a process of policy mimesis. The terminology of participatory budgeting remained, but the goals and tools to achieve the goals resulted only in marginal changes in the status quo in municipalities in European countries practicing participatory budgeting, instead of resulting in radical changes to increase spending in favor of marginalized groups. Participatory budgeting in selected European countries is far away from the level of “best practice” in which local democracy and participation are promoted. However, it is also not possible to conclude that all experiences are just “trivial pursuits”.

scholarly journals Analisis Layanan Digital Kependudukan Untuk Masyarakat Miskin di Kota Palembang Menggunakan Framework Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 590
Author(s):  
Reni Septiyanti ◽  
Darius Antoni ◽  
M Izman Herdiansyah ◽  
Widya Cholil
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Service Design ◽  
Service Level ◽  
It Services ◽  
Technology Infrastructure ◽  
Information Technology Infrastructure ◽  
Government Services ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

As it is known that the Government of Palembang has implemented e-government, but how much e-government can help the Palembang city government to interact between the government and all levels of society including the poor in the city of Palembang. In its application, the condition of e-government services is still insufficient infrastructure that supports                e-government services for the poor in palembang. To design a good e-government service, it is necessary to design SI/IT services for the community in Palembang with service design stages in the Framework Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Version 2011 in order to be accepted in all levels of society including the poor in the city of Palembang. SI/IT service design based on the results of analysis of the condition and needs of SI/IT services to the business process of community service. This research uses qualitative approach method and analysis with reference standard approach using ITIL standard version 2011 in Service Design. The result of this research is in the form of the design of information system of digital service of population such as administration and population services, Family of Hope Program (PKH) services and digital archive storage services based on the Stages of Service Design in ITIL Version 2011 that has been done, namely the Service Level Management process in the form of Service Level Requirement, Service Level Agreement and Operational Level Agreement documents.

scholarly journals The Case of South Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 85-110
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Ruling Party

Multiple crises have emerged in South Africa in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. General well-being is in severe danger from the immediate effects of the virus and the longer-term impact of hunger due to a growing economic crisis. While the working-class majority struggle, there is a political struggle for political power playing out among factions in the ruling party. These tensions flared up in the wake of President Jacob Zuma’s imprisonment in July 2021, leading to widespread unrest and destruction. These experiences point to a failing economic system that neglected the poor. If this neglect continues, then this unrest may continue. In making this argument, I base my analysis upon the views of political luminaries such as Neville Alexander, Archie Mafeje, and Roger Southall. Their views are linked to the experiences of many South Africans during the pandemic.

Representing the Disadvantaged

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina F. McNally
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Institutional Characteristics ◽  
Disadvantaged Group ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Fresh Insight ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Do So

The limited attention Congress gives to disadvantaged or marginalized groups, including Black Americans, LGBTQ, Latinx, women, and the poor, is well known and often remarked upon. This is the first full-length study to focus instead on those members who do advocate for these groups and when and why they do so. Katrina F. McNally develops the concept of an 'advocacy window' that develops as members of Congress consider incorporating disadvantaged group advocacy into their legislative portfolios. Using new data, she analyzes the impact of constituency factors, personal demographics, and institutional characteristics on the likelihood that members of the Senate or House of Representatives will decide to cultivate a reputation as a disadvantaged group advocate. By comparing legislative activism across different disadvantaged groups rather than focusing on one group in isolation, this study provides fresh insight into the tradeoffs members face as they consider taking up issues important to different groups.

The Medical Guesswork Problem

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Eric M. Patashnik ◽  
Alan S. Gerber ◽  
Conor M. Dowling
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Clinical Decision Making ◽  
Clinical Decision ◽  
Medical Evidence ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Treat Prostate Cancer ◽  
Performance System ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The U.S

This chapter defines the “medical guesswork” problem and explains how the poor integration of evidence into clinical decision making harms the performance of the health care sector. The lack of an effective and politically sustainable response to the medical evidence problem—and this is a sad indictment of the U.S. political system—would be somewhat less surprising if the medical evidence problem harmed “only” politically marginalized groups, such as the poor. But all Americans, including wealthy patients covered by generous insurance plans, suffer if doctors do not follow best practices or if evidence does not exist about, for example, the best way to treat prostate cancer or back pain. The pathologies of the U.S. medical system thus cannot be attributed to distributional bias in an otherwise high-performance system. These inefficiencies and performance breakdowns are widespread and systemic.

‘THE CHIEFS, ELDERS, AND PEOPLE HAVE FOR MANY YEARS SUFFERED UNTOLD HARDSHIPS’: PROTESTS BY COALITIONS OF THE EXCLUDED IN BRITISH NORTHERN TOGOLAND, UN TRUSTEESHIP TERRITORY, 1950–7

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Stacey
Keyword(s):  
Minority Groups ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Typical Pattern ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
Native Status

AbstractThis article examines the use of tradition by minority groups whose territorial incorporation into British Northern Togoland under UN trusteeship was marked by political exclusion. This contrasts with the more typical pattern of productive and inclusive relations developing between chiefs and the administering authority within the boundaries of what was to become Ghana. In East Gonja, marginalized groups produced their own chiefs while simultaneously appealing to the UN Trusteeship Council to protect their native rights. The article contributes to studies on the limits of the ‘invention of tradition’ by showing the influence of external structures on African agency and organization. As the minority groups sought UN support on the basis of their native status, the colonial power affirmed alternative versions of tradition that were perceived locally as illegitimate and thereby rendered ineffective.

Informal Economies and Urban Governance in Nigeria: Popular Empowerment or Political Exclusion?

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Meagher
Keyword(s):  
Informal Economy ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Organizational Strategies ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Informal Economies ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
And Coping

Abstract:This article examines how popular organizational strategies and coping mechanisms affect broader trajectories of urban governance in contemporary Africa. Does the proliferation of informal livelihood networks and associations foster economic empowerment and popular political participation, or do these informal processes breed poverty and organizational chaos? This article explores the link between popular organizational strategies and structural outcomes, focusing on how institutional process and power relations shape the access of the poor to resources and decision-making structures in decentralizing urban environments. Case studies from Nigeria trace how liberalization has fragmented informal organizational strategies into networks of accumulation and survival that tend to marginalize the interests of the poor within informal enterprise associations. Distinctive political strategies of informal enterprise associations are analyzed to show why dynamic informal organization is unable to break through the barriers of social and legal marginalization that trap the urban poor in cliental forms of political incorporation. This suggests that “social capital” within the informal economy may fail to improve popular political representation and governance outcomes even in contexts of decentralization.

scholarly journals Digital Distrust: Assuring Security and Trust in Egovernment

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Fernandes ◽  
Francesca Patten
Keyword(s):  
Trust Building ◽  
Service Access ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Government Services ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
Ease Of Access

As we enter the Anthropocene for digital information, governments are constantly seeking new ways to ‘plug-in’ populations and promote ease of access of government services. Dubbed ‘e-governance’, this concept uses Information and Communicative Technologies (ICT) to create and expand e-channels of service access to populations through the transformation and improvement of technology (Bannister & Connolly 2012). In doing so, however, the ability for government to connect with populations poses both technical and normative challenges surrounding assurance, security, and trust. Although the Government of Canada, for example, states explicitly that encryption and secure-sending of data should provide citizens with an adequate assurance of protection, this relationship is dependent upon the trust of the citizenship it serves (Immigration and Citizenship Canada 2018). What should happen, however, if the government is seeking to provide this service to a group with which it is not perceived to have a fully-established trust relationship with? Can the government ‘create’ trust through e-governance by highlighting access and transparency? This paper explores the theoretical frameworks of mutual trust and assurance which currently dictate the terms of Canadian e-government. Specifically, we explore both the normative elements of trust between marginalized groups and the government, as well as how policymakers use e-governance not only as a means of efficacy, but for explicit trust-building as well.

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