Suchergebnisse

Metadata only record ; This review samples the rapidly expanding literature on decentralization in Africa. It examines design and implementation issues emerging in decentralization and identifies fruitful areas for policy research and analysis in this critical governance domain. From the review of the literature, it appears that decentralization is not taking the forms necessary to realize the benefits that theory predicts, because it fails to entrust downwardly accountable representative actors with significant domains of autonomous discretionary power. The decentralizations under way differ in terms of the level of legal reform involved; the scale and number of layers of local government; the kinds of local authorities being engaged and developed; the mix of powers and obligations devolved; the sectors involved; the nature of the enabling environment; and the motives of governments for launching the reforms in the first place. These variables are examined with respect to how they shape expected outcomes.

Examines the influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU) on governments' policy-making autonomy; Russia, Bulgaria, and Czech Republic; 1990s.

Metadata only record ; Decentralization across Africa are re-organizing the roles and powers of local actors in the name of increasing participation of local populations in governance. How these reforms affect popular participation depends on the local institutional arrangements they create: which actors receive powers, what powers they receive, and the relations of accountability these actors are located in. This review covers a portion of the literature and characterizes decentralizations and attempts to explain their outcomes in Africa. ; Available in SANREM office, FS

Examines regional cooperation among Japan, Russia, and China led by local actors concerned with economic development, beginning in the 1980s. As an example of non-state actors cooperating in international affairs.

Abstract: This article draws attention to the nature of the political process promoting economic interdependence among the regions surrounding the Japan Sea. At least in the case of Japan, the process is being carried forward by local authorities (prefectural and municipal governments) and other local actors. To explain this local initiative in international economic cooperation, the article refers to international systemic factors, such as the end of the cold war and globalization, as well as to national factors, i.e., the inability of Tokyo to meet the development demands of localities in the Japan Sea prefectures. At any rate, local initiative, and the gradual progress being made in this economic cooperation process, are at variance with the normal facts associated with Japan's economic cooperation activity in the postwar period. Economic cooperation has been dominated by the agendas of the central government bureaucracies and big businesses based in Tokyo. The article raises the possibility that what we see in Japan Sea cooperation may be the leading edge of change: the emergence of a new level of cooperation activity where local governments and regional interests set cooperation agendas in dialog with their overseas counterparts. The article then explores some of the implications of such a development for current debates in international relations and comparative politics.

The article aims at reviewing emerging structural factors in Japan's domestic and international affairs that are driving change in Japan's economic co-operation activities in East Asia. It draws attention to the nature of the political process promoting economic interdependence among the regions surrounding the Japan Sea. (DÜI-Sen)