Suchergebnisse

Perhaps the single most important items of news concerning international organizations since my last column was the official notification by the U.S. Government late in December 1983 of its intention to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the end of 1984. Numerous articles and editorial pieces have appeared in the press since that time. According to news accounts the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, a nongovernmental advisory body, adopted a resolution December 16 at its annual meeting stating that continued U.S. membership in UNESCO "… is in the national interest," but as far as the author can determine the text of the resolution, adopted by a 41 to 8 vote, has not been made public. It is my understanding that a 700-page report evaluating U.S. participation in UNESCO has been prepared and an executive summary is to be published by the State Department. From its origins UNESCO has been one of the most controversial and complex of the organizations within the United Nations system of organizations as shown in a new reference work on the Organization, Guide to UNESCO, by Peter I. Hajnal of the University of Toronto library staff. The reader's attention is directed to a review of the Guide published in this issue. Another event highlighted in the press was the failure of the December 1983 meeting of the European Council of Ministers in Athens to come to any agreement on reform of the European Community's Common Agricultural Policy and the 1984 Community budget. The meeting broke up without even agreeing on a final communique. In a statement issued December 7 the Commission of the European Community referred to the gravity of the situation but stated that "… the failure of the European Council session is not the failure of the Community, let alone the failure of a historical process that is to ensure the prosperity and strength of Europe." (European Community News no. 23, December 9, 1983.) Another noteworthy event late in 1983 was the November 14 announcement by the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Alejandro Orfila, of his intention to resign. In a very outspoken speech, the OAS Secretary-General stated "… that the OAS has been detached from, or only tangentially involved in, many of the major issues that affect the present and determine the future of America." (Washington Post, November 22, 1983.) At the United Nations discouragement also has been expressed increasingly at the inability of the Organization to do its first job of preserving peace. Upon his retirement from the UN in November 1983, Philippine Foreign Minister Carlos Romulo, head of his delegation since the founding conference in 1945, said "the world has changed [since then] but we have not changed enough. Human perspective is still transfixed on the precious but inadequate loyalties of home and country when it needs, at a time when men aim for the stars, to encompass at least the human family on a tiny planet, circling a minor sun." (Quoted by Flora Lewis, New York Times, December 27, 1983.) In a New Year's message, the President of the 38th UN General Assembly, Jorge Illueca of Panama, called for an infusion "… of new energy into the machinery of the United Nations." At the same time, he noted that our fate depends on "… human geography more than physical geography," and he urged "… these human nucleii of diverse cultures" to come together so that "… we the peoples of the world, may strengthen our will to save mankind from the scourge of war." (United Nations Weekly News Summary WS/1161, January 6, 1984.)

This study aims to determine the orientation of the budget in the process of preparing and determining local government budgets. The research was conducted by the local government of Gorontalo City. Habermas's communicative action theory approach as part of the critical approach was chosen as the method in this research to capture the reality of budget orientation in the preparation and determination of local government budgets. Data collection techniques were carried out through in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation. The informants in this study were from BAPPEDA, members of BANGGAR, and several officials from offices related to regional finance as many as 10 people.This study finds that the act of compromise in the communication pattern of local government administration on budget policies is motivated by political interests. Budget policy decisions are dominated by the power possessed by actors to determine budget priorities. Communication practice is characterized by negotiation and compromise and ignores the value of honesty as a prerequisite for validity to fulfill comprehensive aspects of communication competence (truth, accuracy, honesty). Communication that is built only because of interest as the cause of communicative action is not effective. The results of the study show that the shackles of communication harmony are the basis for consideration for making policy changes by prioritizing rationality to gain legitimacy and trust from the public to government administrators.

This paper documents the integration of microsimulation tools for direct taxation, indirect taxation, and social benefits in the context of the European tax and benefit simulator, EUROMOD. Integration has been developed parallely for the two countries, Belgium and Germany. The paper at hand documents the process and presents simulation results for the case of Germany. An integrated data base underlying EUROMOD that contains household-level information on income and consumption is generated. Consumption micro data from the 2008 cross section of the household budget survey for Germany is used to impute information on spending for durable and non-durable commodities into EU-SILC data, applying regression-based imputation techniques. Engel curves are estimated at the household level for total non-durable spending, expenditures on durable goods, as well as non-durable expenditure share equations. Distributional plots evaluate the goodness of fit of the imputations. As a result, status quo tax legislation is simulated in EUROMOD on imputed household spending, and incidence analysis of baseline VAT is undertaken. Finally, several arbitrary policy reforms implementing VAT rate uniformity are analysed with respect to their distributional impact.

Planning and budgeting process is the most crucial process in the administration of local government. Results of previous studies in Solok, the increase in the total budget is not accompanied by spending management capabilities. Expenditure of public service has always fluctuated, but ideally should always increasing. This study aimed to analyze the outcome of the budget in the allocation of public spending in an effort to realize the presence of trust on the budget in Solok West Sumatra Province. This study uses qualitative research methods with the type of research that is selected using descriptive type. While the techniques of data collection are done through an interview, observation and documentation study. This study further highlights the emic perspective, is the voice of the informant, not the personal opinion of the researchers (etic). Then, the data analysis is done categorically and chronologically, viewed repeatedly, and will continue to be encoded. To test the verification of data, triangulation is done by comparing the results of interviews with documents obtained in the field and testing of concepts used by researchers with the information given by the informant. The results showed that the pathology was found that budget allocations reflect inefficiencies as a failure of the link between policy, planning, and budgeting as a fragmented system. But on the other hand, it must be admitted there has been "trust" among policymaking actors in allocating public expenditure budget in playing the role in the budget policy.

Budgeting process is a political activity that is the monitoring tool for society toward government. This process will involve various elements which have an interest in the budget arranging process. They are not only Executive element, but also Legislative. The purpose of this research is to analyze the dynamics of Allocation Budget Contestation of Direct Expenditure in Arranging Local Income and Expenditure Budget (APBD) of Sungai Penuh Town in 2012. This research is descriptive research by using a qualitative approach. The location is chosen to help the researcher to understand the problem of research. The location is determined purposely and based on the problems that happened in the field that related to Political Budget in Arranging Local Income and Expenditure Budget process of Sungai Penuh Town in 2012. The Location is in the Government of Sungai Penuh Town and around the society. Triangulation technique is chosen in this research because it uses some data from interview and documentation. According to Principal and Agent Theory, there are 4 stages in the budgeting process. They are Executive planning, Legislative Approval, Executive Implementation, and Ex-pose Accountability. Based on the result of this research, Dynamics of Allocation Budget Contestation of Direct Expenditure in Local Income and Expenditure Budget of Sungai Penuh Town are: 1) there is a Mutual Coordination Relationship between Executive and Legislative in Arranging Local Income and Expenditure Budget process. It stars from composing General Budget Policies–Provisional Budget Priorities and funding Level (KUA-PPAS) and Integrated Work Plan and Budget (RKA) and the agreement between Mayor and Sungai Penuh Legislative. 2) In interdependence, there are political domination and transaction among institutions in arranging until determining Local Regulation. Domination is between Executive and Legislative. 3) Negotiation (Lobbying) evidence in Executive and Legislative relationship. Legislative doesn't have an authority to make work plan, but Legislative can change the budget even they can change the program that they want. It makes negative negotiation happens.