scholarly journals Local Government History and Localism

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Cookson

The received view of state development in New Zealand is that the abolition of the ‘provincial system’ in 1876 set in motion the inexorable rise of centralised authority. The counter thesis presented in this article argues that until about 1940 central  politicians, irrespective of party, were consistently engaged in empowering rather than diminishing local government. There was ultimate respect for the idea of local self-government; therefore, in colonial society, of local control of local development. This independence weakened only as technological change rendered ‘small’ local government increasingly inefficient and unable to meet new challenges and opportunities, particularly with respect to highways, housing and welfare.

Author(s):  
Eris D Schoburgh

Local development, whether construed broadly as community development or more narrowly as local as economic development (LED) is not always associated with local government but rather is the purview of a central government department or agency in Anglophone Caribbean policy systems. However with the emergence of ‘local place - and people-oriented approaches’ to development that offer new propositions about how to respond to risks and opportunities brought by globalization, local government is seen increasingly as an appropriate institutional context in which to pursue short-range objectives, such as creation of market opportunities and redressing the disparities within national economies; as well as the long-range goal of social transformation. A developmental role for local government raises two questions that form the central concerns of this paper: What are the institutional and organisational imperatives of a developmental role for local government? To what extent have these imperatives been addressed in reform? A critical analysis of local government reform policies in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica revealed substantive convergence around local development as an outcome of reform but also important divergence in the approach to achieving this goal which suggests the absence of a cohesive model. The paper argues for a new agenda in reform that links local government more consistently with a local development strategy. It asserts that such a strategy must incorporate gender equality, the informal economy and institutional organisational capacity in the process of transformation and as a basis for creating a local context in which all types of resources can be maximized in the process of wealth creation in a locality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 4105
Author(s):  
Luis Daniel Samper-Escalante ◽  
Octavio Loyola-González ◽  
Raúl Monroy ◽  
Miguel Angel Medina-Pérez

The reach and influence of social networks over modern society and its functioning have created new challenges and opportunities to prevent the misuse or tampering of such powerful tools of social interaction. Twitter, a social networking service that specializes in online news and information exchange involving billions of users world-wide, has been infested by bots for several years. In this paper, we analyze both public and private databases from the literature of bot detection on Twitter. We summarize their advantages, disadvantages, and differences, recommending which is more suitable to work with depending on the necessities of the researcher. From this analysis, we present five distinct behaviors in automated accounts exhibited across all the bot datasets analyzed from these databases. We measure their level of presence in each dataset using a radar chart for visual comparison. Finally, we identify four challenges that researchers of bot detection on Twitter have to face when using these databases from the literature.


Race & Class ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-72
Author(s):  
Cybèle Locke

This article examines the activities of the Freemans Bay Residents Welfare Association, which formed to promote residents’ welfare and to retain the neighbourhood’s integrity in the face of slum clearance during the 1950s and 1960s in Auckland, New Zealand. The Association’s objective was: ‘To combine socially for the cultural good of all people in the area. To unite as one, regardless of race, colour or creed, for the peaceful and fruitful existence of our residents.’ John (Johnny) James Mitchell, secretary of the Association, invoked working-class solidarity – to unite as one – to bring together residents who could also be classified by race, religion, political belief, employment status, ‘respectability’ and housing occupancy. This solidarity was assisted by the Auckland City Council who zoned the Reclamation Area for clearance, affecting all residents within its bounds. However, racial discrimination practised by private landlords, local government and state departments meant that Māori were more likely to occupy condemned housing to begin with and were the last to be assisted by the state in the slum clearance process. As a result, race remained a more potent signifier for Māori residents and they organised through the Māori Women’s Welfare League and the Māori Community Centre, in alliance with the Association.


Author(s):  
Zhang Zhehua

In the era of education information and globalization, a new mode of teaching and micro class has emerged in the background of the Internet, which brings new challenges and opportunities to the teaching of the classroom. MOOCs has been piloted and applied in many universities in the form of SPOC. As a new form of curriculum, micro course has been applied to the teaching and learning process. The integration of Moor and micro class resources helps to turn the classroom into a mixed mode. This article will focus on this hot topic to analyse the characteristics of the class, the characteristics of the micro class and the influence on the students and teachers, to improve the quality of teaching and to realize the individualized and active study of the students. The article summarizes the results of blended teaching mode at home and abroad, and explores the development and application of MOOC and micro class resources.


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