Rescaling the state in Flanders: new problem or old solution?

The rescaling of state emphasizes the rise of the regional and the city-regional scale in particular, as a new unit for policy making. The new governing strategy is referred to as regional governance, were both governmental and / or nongovernmental entities work together for the purpose of joint policy making or service delivery. This paper focuses on the operationalization of regional governance and links those findings to the actual debates surrounding the institutional organization of Flanders. A quantitative analysis of regional arrangements in Flanders and in the area of Mid-West Flanders, helps to clarify the nature of the rescaling of the state: the rescaling is the result of bottom – up and top – down initiatives and covers as well joined government arrangements as collaborative governance arrangements integrating public and private organizations. Further, we notice different roles of the Flemish government, as she is present at the regional level both as a meta-governor, actor and financier. By showing the nature and the content of regional governance, this paper helps to clarify the political debate that is going on now in Flanders. A debate dominated by classical institutional discussions and related to the issue of institutional fuzziness, efficiency and accountability. It is argued however that the political discussion and the organization of the public sector in Flanders should be renewed and should be inspired by this relatively new phenomenon. The rescaling of the regional state should be understood by using concepts, theories and instruments inspired by the literature on networks and collaborative governance

Enhancing Ontario’s Rural Infrastructure Preparedness: Inter-Community Service Sharing in a Changing Climate — Environmental Scan

Given the research that has been done in this environmental scan and the gaps found in this research, it is our aim to find out: What types of service sharing are going on in Ontario municipalities, particularly in rural/remote areas? How can inter-community service sharing (ICSS) benefit the asset management planning process in these rural/remote areas to enhance capacities for climate change resilience? Climate change (CC) will exacerbate deterioration to existing infrastructure and increase replacement costs. Improved preparedness reduces risks and increases efficiency, readiness and coping capacity. To increase the preparedness of Ontario rural communities, this project develops CC-Prepared Inter-Community Service Sharing (ICSS) as an innovative strategy that expands cost-effective solutions within Ontario’s standardized Asset Management Planning (AMP) process. Overseen by a Project Advisory Board (PAB), it identifies a suite of best practice ICSS processes and principles and a range of factors and indicators that influence the uptake of ICSS as a viable and practical opportunity targeted to enhance rural infrastructure preparedness for CC. It utilizes a multimethod, interdisciplinary approach involving an environmental scan, interviews, a survey and case studies and develops an ICSS Toolkit consisting of reports, workbook, policy brief and media kit. Knowledge translation and transfer (KTT) includes blogs, teleconferences, articles, presentations and a workshop. For small rural Ontario communities, this study enhances management of CC impacts on infrastructure through the development of a CC-Prepared ICSS strategy, increasing anticipatory, collective actions that reduce dam age and increase efficiencies. It informs sound municipal/provincial level programs and policies about innovative ICSS that benefit rural communities through the identification of Ontario-wide trends, case study best practises and action-oriented recommendations

The introduction of mandatory inter-municipal cooperation in small municipalities: preliminary lessons from Italy

PurposeThis article studies effects of mandatory inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in small Italian municipalities. Data from 280 small Italian municipalities on effects of IMC in terms of higher efficiency, better effectiveness of local public services, and greater institutional legitimacy of the small municipalities participating in IMC have been investigated against four variables: size; geographical area; type of inter-municipal integration and IMC membership (the presence in the IMC of a bigger municipality, the so-called big brother).Design/methodology/approachData were gathered from a mail survey that was sent to a random sample of 1,360 chief financial officers acting in municipalities of under 5,000 inhabitants, stratified by size (0–1,000 and 1,001–5,000) and geographic area (North, Center, and South) criteria. To analyze dependency relationships between the three potential effects of participating in IMC and possible explanatory variables, we used a logistic regression model as the benefits were binarily categorized (presence or absence of benefits).FindingsFindings show that in more than two-thirds of the municipalities participating in IMC there were benefits in terms of costs reduction and better public services, whereas greater institutional legitimacy was detected in about half of the cases. Our statistical analysis with logistic regression highlighted that IMC type is particularly critical for explaining successful IMC. In particular, positive effects of IMC were mainly detected in those small municipalities that promoted a service delivery organization rather than participating in service delivery agreements or opting for mixed arrangements of joint public services delivery.Originality/valueThe paper focuses on small municipalities where studies are usually scant. Our analysis highlighted that the organizational setting is particularly critical for explaining successful IMC

The Spanish Long-term Care System. ENEPRI Research Report No. 88, 15 June 2010

Launched in January 2009, ANCIEN is a research project that runs for a 44-month period and involves 20 partners from EU member states. The project principally concerns the future of long-term care (LTC) for the elderly in Europe and addresses two questions in particular: 1) How will need, demand, supply and use of LTC develop? 2) How do different systems of LTC perform? This case study on Spain is part of the first stage in the project aimed at collecting the basic data and necessary information to portray long-term care in each country of the EU. It will be followed by analysis and projections of future scenarios on long-term care needs, use, quality assurance and system performance. State-of-the-art demographic, epidemiologic and econometric modelling will be used to interpret and project needs, supply and use of long-term care over future time periods for different LTC systems

European Arctic Initiatives Compendium

Julkaistu versi