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AbstractClimate adaptation is a complex policy area, in which knowledge, authority, and resources are fragmented among numerous public agencies, multiple levels of government, and a wide range of nongovernmental actors. Mobilizing and coordinating disparate public and private efforts is a key challenge in this policy domain, and this has focused research attention on the governance of adaptation, including the dynamics of interaction among interests and the institutions that facilitate collective action. This paper contributes to the study of adaptation governance by adopting the policy regimes perspective, an analytical framework designed to make sense of the loose governing arrangements surrounding complex, fragmented problems. The perspective's constructs are applied to a longitudinal case study of adaptation governance in Canada, which identifies, analyzes, and evaluates the policy ideas, institutions, and interests that comprise Canada's adaptation policy regime.

Openness and transparency, i.e. free and fair elections and the idea of enlightened citizens that can hold governments accountable, are cornerstones in modern democratic thinking. However, the aspirations of openness and transparency also inherit challenges, also in Sweden considered being one of the most open countries in the world. This is also the case in a regional context, characterized by collaborative planning, multi-level governance and network governance. In this qualitative empirical study based on interviews with political leaders from the Stockholm region, it is explored how openness and transparency is interpreted in regional political decision making. An institutional framework of four levels of social analysis (Williamson, 2000) and theories relating to democratic ideal, governance and the public sphere are used to understand and explain the mechanisms operating when dealing with openness and transparency in political decision making. ; QC 20170914

The Institutional Resource Regime framework is a realistic approach of the socio-ecological systems governance and sustainability, which is based on the combination of public policies analysis and institutional economics. If the effects identified by the framework have been confirmed, there is no clear understanding of the institutional mechanisms at work. The integration of a dynamic perspective provides the framework with tools capable of defining the workings of governance and extends its relevance to policy forecasting or specification. To do so, we propose to use concepts belonging to New Institutional Economics. Our research question is how changes in the characteristics of an Institutional Resource Regime contribute to improving the sustainability potential of a Socio-Ecological System. The paper provides an original analysis of environmental governance and transaction costs, which results in three generic theoretical propositions.

In seguito alle crisi finanziarie degli ultimi anni, si è incentrato un forte dibattito in tema di controlli interni e sulla necessità di gestire situazioni di irregolarità ed abusi tramite regole di Corporate Governance e di buon governo d'azienda. Per contrastare tali situazioni si è accenutata l'esigenza di un intervento legislativo volto a far prevalere i principi di correttezza, trasparenza sugli interessi personali. Nel settore assicurativo, tra le varie soluzioni legislative in tema di Sistema di Controllo e gestione dei rischi, spiccano le direttive Solvency I e l'attuale Solvency II. Nello specifico, il secondo pilastro della direttiva comunitaria Solvency II si focalizza sul Sistema di Controllo Interno e la sua interconnessione con il sistema di Governance e di Risk Management. Nell'elaborato sarà esaminato il Sistema di Controllo e il sistema di Governance della compagnia assicurativa InChiaro Life DAC (Dublino).

AbstractWhy do authoritarian regimes try to improve the quality of their governance? In the absence of democratic institutions to monitor, reward and punish their performance, authoritarian politicians are normally expected to seek their self-interest through corruption and rewards to cronies, rather than providing for the public welfare. However, the Chinese state has actively promoted improved governance in recent years, with greater attention to quality of life issues to balance the primary focus on sustaining rapid economic growth. This paper analyses intra-national variation in the provision of public goods in urban China and the impact of public goods on regime support. Does better governance lead to higher levels of public support for the regime, even in the absence of democratic elections? Our evidence suggests that it does, with a greater impact for the local level than for the centre.

Why do autocratic regimes contain bureaucratic corruption in some economic sectors but allow it in other areas? This paper examines variations in governance outcomes and perceptions across firms in Morocco based on a survey of 659 businesses. Three factors explain better public services and control of corruption: the magnitude of potential rents that firms can exchange with the administration, the collective action capacity of the sector vis-à-vis the executive, and the taxability of the industry. Firms in sectors with low rent potential are more likely to coordinate, claim, and obtain better governance in exchange for taxes, whereas high-rent companies find it difficult to sustain effective pro-governance collective action. The findings shed light on business–state relations in autocratic political regimes that have to balance revenue raising goals, policy commitments to selected sectors, and incentives for grand corruption.

Synergy innovation is one of the emerging processes among global organizations. In the process of synergy innovation, cross-regional governance is very important to realize synergy innovation performance. Governing bodies need to have some abilities, including that providing institutional system in synergy innovation, participating in public Research and Development (R&D), allocating the resources of science and technology innovation. This article constructs the "governance–main body behavior–synergy innovation performance" three-order model, by using the structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the effect of various governance factors and taking the synergy innovation of science and technology in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei as a case study. The conclusion is that all the identified factors are important for developing and implementing a policy system in synergy innovation, R&D investment, and allocating the resources for science and technology innovation.

Urban governance is the software that enables the urban hardware to function, ensuring adequate legal frameworks, efficient political, managerial and administrative processes, as well as strong and capable local institutions able to respond to citizens' needs (UN-HABITAT, 2015a). Urban governance can become 'smarter' to help cities perform better by learning from the past, creating the present and enabling the future. Through a variety of e-solutions and new technologies, smart urban governance enhances the efficiency of complex urban systems, increases the quality and delivery of basic services, addresses environmental challenges and disaster risks, and empowers citizens through access to knowledge and opportunities (UN-HABITAT, 2015b). In this context, 'smart' approaches can help achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in making cities and humans settlements more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

In their critique of Spicer's and Wagenaar's account of value pluralism (VP), Talisse, Overeem, and Verhoef seem to suggest either that VP does not exist or that it is irrelevant for public administration (PA). My argument is that in public governance, there are many conflicting intrinsic values. This means we can speak of incommensurability, the key feature of VP, and there is much potential for PA in this realization. I propose additional research questions on the nature of value conflict in late modern governance: which intrinsic values conflict in public governance, how often do they conflict, and how is this dealt with by both individuals and institutions? Answers to these questions will have a great deal of practical relevance and might possibly lead to what Beck Jørgensen and Rutgers call a new "Public Values Perspective (PVP)" in PA.

This article aims to generate new thinking through application of the concept of trans-border governance to Southeast-Asia within the framework of new regionalism theory in order to fill some gaps in trans-border governance theory. In doing so, it will first elucidate in more detail what actors are involved in trans-border cooperation activities, how their responsibilities, jurisdictions and relative powers can be or have been altered by the interaction and whether trans-border cooperation can be used as a tool for further 'integration' or conversely whether it can enhance, as a counter effect, 'disintegration'. In examining the (economic and political) power relations developed within and between different levels of governments and relevant economic and political stakeholders in 'growth triangles', the author aims to clarify the impact of these elements on trans-border governance. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

Linking conservation and development activities requires local institutional change that can deliver global conservation as well as local socioeconomic benefits. Participatory approaches are considered a key element to this end, although recent research demonstrates that they may reinforce existing inequitable governance systems. This article examines microinstitutional formations and development interventions in the Mount Cameroon National Park. The study found that blending new governance approaches with traditional institutions at Mount Cameroon National Park led to diminished participation of the project and a failure to listen to and deliver meaningful development opportunities to Bavenga villagers. The article concludes that while local participation and governance institutions constitute laudable additions to Integrated Conservation and Development Projects, the implications of reproducing traditional authority structures must be carefully considered, and locally grounded development opportunities need to be better embedded into these projects.

AbstractThe growth in the use of collaborative governance arrangements has been accompanied by burgeoning scholarship in the field of public affairs that seeks to understand the benefits of engaging diverse stakeholders in common venues. However, few scholars have formally assessed the role of government actors in facilitating outcomes for individual participants in such efforts. Moreover, little work on collaborative governance examines how individual incentives and barriers to collective action are formed within the nested nature of these contexts. We contribute to the study of collaborative governance by formally investigating how the relative centrality of government actors in collaborative policy‐making venues affects individual relationship building and learning for participants therein. We find that government actor centrality is positively associated with relationship building and learning. However, in testing two different conceptualizations of "centrality," we find that the definition of this construct clearly matters.

Can governance impact directly on well-being? In this paper we examine subjective well-being using data for a cross section of countries from the World Values data set. We find that regional democratic satisfaction impacts on both individual happiness and life satisfaction. However, the impact is less evident for women, rich people and for those in rich countries. The fact that the governance variable analysis is based on regional differences in democratic satisfaction reminds us that governance and indeed happiness often differs within countries as well as between them. The use of regional satisfaction in this manner helps overcome endogeneity problems which would be present if we were to use individual democratic satisfaction. Other significant determinants of happiness include settlement size, marital status, income, unemployment and being part of a linguistic minority/majority grouping.

Band 2: Time, continuity and change, Historical architecture of Darwin -- Band 2: Civics, governance and social justice, Role of the Administrator of the Northern Territory -- Band 3: Time, continuity and change, Administrators of the Northern Territory -- Band 3: Civics, governance and social justice, Political role of the Administrator -- Band 4: Time, continuity and change, Role of the Administrator of the Northern Territory -- Band 4: Values, beliefs and cultural diversity, The Darwin Rebellion -- Band 5: Time, continuity and change, Roles of Government in the Northern Territory -- Band 5: Civics, governance and social justice, Role of the Administrator of the Northern Territory. ; Teachers resource for Band 2 through to Band 5 - Specific links to NT Curriculum Framework outcomes have been identified throughout. ; Made available by the Northern Territory Library via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).

The recent global financial and economic crises, followed by fiscal crisis, have led many governments in Europe to adopt austerity measures in order to cope with the concurrent problems of lower revenues and high public debt. It can be expected that the need to undertake large-scale cutbacks would lead to changes in budgeting practices, budgetary institutions and modes of fiscal governance. Based on the existing literature on fiscal governance and budgeting, it can be conjectured that in response to fiscal stress, the following shifts have taken (or are taking) place in fiscal governance and budgetary institutions: movement from decentralized and bottom-up modes of budget preparation to centralized and top-down modes, adoption of numerical fiscal rules, and the revival of the 'more rational' budgetary decision-making techniques (e.g., performance-based budgeting, results-based budgeting, etc.).