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Government Activity (government + activity)
Selected AbstractsReinventing government through on-line citizen involvement in the developing world: a case study of taipei city mayor's e-mail box in Taiwan,PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2006Don-Yun Chen Abstract Since the 1980s, a global administrative reform movement is reshaping the relationship between citizens and state. A major concern is how government can be more responsive to the governed through citizen participation. However, the more citizens participate, the more costly it is to govern. And the application of new information and communication technology (ICT) seems to be a cure for this limitation. In this research, authors take the Taipei City Mayor's e-mail-box (TCME) in Taiwan as a case to illustrate the complex relationships among citizen involvement, e-government and public management. After a series of empirical investigations, the authors show that although ICT can reduce the cost of citizen involvement in governing affairs, it cannot increase citizens' satisfaction with government activities without reforming the bureaucratic organisation, regulatory structure, and managerial capacities of the public sector. The results could be helpful to public managers in planning and evaluating online governmental services in the developing countries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] An Evaluation Crucible: Evaluating Policy Advice in Australian Central AgenciesAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 1 2000Michael Di Francesco Policy advice is a core function of government that until quite recently remained outside the formal processes of performance evaluation. Evaluation, by its very nature, is designed to question both the effectiveness and relevance of government activities; applying it to policy advice opens up a traditionally confidential and politically sensitive arena. This paper reports on an evaluation experiment in Australian government , policy management reviews (PMRs) , that sought to evaluate the quality of central agency policy advice. It traces the development of the PMR model around interdepartmental committee processes, the bureaucratic politics that diluted the focus on policy outcomes, and examines how central agencies steered evaluation away from questions of public accountability towards arrangements for achieving more effective control of the processes underpinning production of advice. By targeting the process rather than outcomes of policy advising, PMRs sought unsuccessfully to adhere to the divide between management and policy and, in doing so, marked out the limits to performance evaluation. [source] Poverty and Local Governments: Economic Development and Community Service Provision in an Era of DecentralizationGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2009LINDA LOBAO ABSTRACT Social scientists have given substantial attention to poverty across U.S. localities. However, most work views localities through the lens of population aggregates, not as units of government. Few poverty researchers question whether governments of poorer localities have the capacity to engage in economic development and service activities that might improve community well-being. This issue is increasingly important as responsibilities for growth and redistribution are decentralized to local governments that vary dramatically in resources. Do poorer communities have less activist local governments? Are they more likely to be engaged in a race to the bottom, focusing on business attraction activities but neglecting services for families and working people? We bring together two distinct literatures, critical research on decentralization and research on local development efforts, that provide contrasting views about the penalty of poverty. Data are from a unique, national survey of county governments measuring activity across two time points. The most consistent determinants of activity are local government capacity, devolutionary pressures, and inertia or past use of strategies. Net of these factors, levels and changes in poverty do not significantly impact government activity. There is no evidence the nations' poorest counties are racing to the bottom. Findings challenge views that poverty is a systematic structural barrier to pursuing innovative economic development policies and suggest that even poorer communities can take steps to build local capacity, resources, and networks that expand programs for local businesses and low-wage people. [source] Law and the demoralisation of medicineLEGAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2006Jonathan Montgomery In his Dimbleby Lecture in December 2002, the Archbishop of Canterbury examined the effect of the emergence of the market state on the legitimacy of government activity in areas of morality. He suggested that, while this is becoming limited, the continuing need to provide a moral context for social life provided an opportunity for religious communities to play a crucial role. This paper suggests that the increasing significance of market concepts in healthcare law poses a similar challenge to the moral basis of medical practice, threatening to drive moral argument outside the scope of the discipline, with the consequent effect of undermining the values that drive good healthcare. Thus, the de-moralisation of medicine is also demoralising for those within the health professions. To counteract this tendency, a strong sense of a common moral community needs to be maintained amongst those engaged with the discipline of healthcare law. This paper also examines the role of law in this area. Traditionally, legal scholars have attacked the reluctance of legislators and the judiciary to wrestle from the grip of doctors the authority to determine ethical issues. The dominant view has been that this was a failure to recognise the fact that society has a stake in these matters and that legal non-intervention was an abdication of responsibility that undermines the rule of law. However, the integration of medical and moral decision making into a collaborative enterprise can also be seen as a more effective defence against the forces of demoralisation than the separation that the orthodox approach implies. If this is correct, then a key task for healthcare lawyers, as yet undeveloped, is to consider how to establish a legitimate common moral community, and what role the law might have to play in that process. [source] Capital cities: When do they stop growing?,PAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2002Kristof Dascher Capital city; public goods; urban growth Abstract This article is an attempt to explain a capital city's size. We assume away explanations such as exploitation of the capital city's hinterland. Instead, we emphasise the role of the localisation of government activity (i.e., administration or legislation) in the capital city for both the capital city economy and the hinterland economy. We assume in the model that larger regions benefit from agglomeration economies. We discuss the interaction of those agglomeration economies with an agglomeration diseconomy specific to the capital city. Under certain conditions, a stable population distribution between the capital city and its hinterland emerges where neither region captures the entire population. We also analyse the comparative statics properties of this stable equilibrium. [source] Tradition and interaction: research trends in modern Japanese industrial historyAUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 3 2004Tomoko Hashino This paper surveys research findings since the early 1970s, focusing on the growth processes of both traditional and modern industries and their relations with government activity in the period between the 1870s and 1940. Most of the surveyed research can be seen as a response to two theses: first, that pre-1940 Japan was essentially a market-led economy; and second, that the traditional sector did not decline in the industrialisation process, but in fact prospered. The survey argues that there were a good deal of interactions between the modern and traditional sectors at regional levels and that the regional economy occupied a significant place in the ways in which government business relations were structured. [source] | ||||||||||