More than just an experiment? Politicians arguments behind introducing participatory budgeting in Budapest

As deliberative and participatory practices play a greater role in political decision-making of democratic political systems in many parts of the world, political parties must adapt to demands of an increasingly more cognitively mobilized citizenry. While there is a growing body of literature about the functioning of such procedures in different social and political contexts, little is known about politicians’ reasons behind introducing them. Based on qualitative data collected among Hungarian politicians, this paper brings evidence to empirically assess why local politicians introduced Participatory Budgeting in Budapest, Hungary. Our findings suggest that politicians accept theoretical arguments for promoting citizens’ participation, newly elected local politicians expect to increase their party’s local embeddedness by creating new contact opportunities and emphasize that the introduction of Participatory Budgeting is a ground for experimentation. The article ends with a discussion about arguments that are put forth in the literature on European Participatory Budgeting but missing from the views of politicians, and concludes by highlighting the risks of institutionalizing Participatory Budgeting.

The role of socio-economic embeddedness in promoting cooperation in the workplace: Evidence from family-owned Italian firms

Workplace relations can be defined as cooperative when actors are satisfied that both their work organization and material concerns are met. However, cooperation is difficult to achieve and especially to maintain over time. A useful point of reference is the work of Bélanger and Edwards, who argue that technology, product markets and institutional regulations are necessary preconditions. Their model is derived mainly from studies of large, publicly-listed enterprises based in particular institutional (Anglo-American) contexts. In the present article the authors examine the case of family-owned, medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in Northeast Italy. Bélanger and Edwards’ model provides some but limited theoretical purchase in explaining the high level of ongoing cooperation witnessed in the case firms. In addition, the firms’ concentrated, financially patient capital and family-ownership together with their local embeddedness increase their commitment to their community and facilitate collaboration and investments in it. The authors term these features firms’ socio-economic embeddedness.

The Role of Community-Led Food Retailers in Enabling Urban Resilience

Our research examines the extent to which community-led food retailers (CLFRs) contribute to the resilience and sustainability of urban retail systems and communities in the UK, contributing to existing debates on the sustainability and resilience of the UK’s urban retail sector. While existing literature has predominantly focused on larger retail multiples, we suggest more attention be paid to small, independent retailers as they possess a broader, more diffuse spatiality and societal impact than that of the immediate locale. Moreover, their local embeddedness and understanding of the needs of the local customer base provide a key source of potentially sustainable competitive advantage. Using spatial and relational resilience theories, and drawing on 14 original qualitative interviews with CLFRs, we establish the complex links between community, place, social relations, moral values, and resilience that manifest through CLFRs. In doing so, we advance the conceptualization of community resilience by acknowledging that in order to realise the networked, resilient capacities of a community, the moral values and behavior of the retail community need to be ascertained. Implications and relevant recommendations are provided to secure a more sustainable set of capacities needed to ensure resilient, urban retail systems which benefit local communities.

National Inspired or Locally Earned? The Locus of Local Political Support in a Multilevel Context

Despite greater responsibility being passed to local and regional tiers of government in many European countries, we still have limited understanding about what shapes citizens' support for such tiers of government. On the one hand we expect citizens to evaluate local government on its own merits, depending on the performance of local units. Yet in the context of multi-layered governance, we argue that local political support is likely to be at least partly a derivative of attitudes to the national level. The Dutch Local Election Study 2016 offers us the possibility to test these expectations. We show that local political support is mainly (in the case of local democratic satisfaction) or substantially (in the case of local political trust) related to national political support. To the extent that local support is shaped by local evaluations, appraisals of output performance are more important than appraisals of input or throughput performance. There is some evidence that these relations are conditional. Political sophistication increases citizens' sensitivity to local performance. Yet, local embeddedness only modestly reduces citizens' reliance on national-level evaluations.

EXPRESS: The Antecedents and Consequences of Local Product-Ethnicity Perception—A Study of an Asian Advanced Emerging Market

While local product ethnicity (local PE, i.e., consumers’ perception of their own country as the stereotypical origin of a particular category) can serve as a key factor in explaining home-country biases in local product superiority, this construct has been ignored since it was introduced. To address this limitation, this article proposes a four-phase research model (consumer characteristics – construction of product category schema – categorization of local PE – evaluation of local vs. foreign products) to examine the antecedents and consequences of local PE in an Asian advanced emerging market, which is argued to be a more appropriate context (e.g., more evenly distributed local PE and non-local PE categories and coexistence of local and Western product superiority), as opposed to developed countries or less-developed emerging markets, for this study. For the antecedents, factors related to consumers’ experiences, information searching, and cognitive bases that can affect consumers’ construction of structured knowledge (schemas) about local products within particular categories are identified. Specifically, local embeddedness of product categories is introduced to capture consumer knowledge about strong connotations stereotypically linking the local country to particular categories. As for the consequences, consumer evaluations of local versus developed-country products/services between local-PE and non-local-PE categories are compared. Four surveys were conducted to empirically examine the model of local PE. The results support the hypotheses.