Governance reform and institutional change in Brazil: fiscal responsibility and tax

This paper contrasts two processes of governance reform that occurred in Brazil in the 1990s, one in relation to fiscal responsibility, the other in relation to tax. It illustrates that the degree of institutional change possible depends on whether changes in the positions of actors and their relative powers have occurred to the extent that a new social pact can be built. Brazil’s Fiscal Responsibility Law of 2000 followed on from a series of subtle but significant shifts in the positions of actors and their relative powers, which produced a change in the social pact supporting federal relations. This shift in the social pact allowed for a wholesale change in federal institutions. Major changes in fiscal and administrative policy ensued, and the outcome is that federal institutions have been imbued with greater capacity and accountability. The process of tax reform was similar, in that it occurred slowly and gradually. But the social pact that supports the tax regime has changed only marginally. In this context, the scope for institutional change was limited within the boundaries of existing institutions. Policy changes that were implemented did lead to an increased tax take, but the tax system remains inefficient and inequitable. This paper highlights that although governance reforms can take multiple forms, wholesale institutional change was a necessary prerequisite for an increase in the capacity and accountability of government. Wholesale institutional change was only possible because of the articulation of a new social pact. Keywords: governance; fiscal policy; tax; institutions; Brazil

SHIPYARD WORKERS, NEW ORLEANS, AND U.S. DEMOCRACY

This project explores the civic engagement of workers in the Avondale shipyard on the outskirts of New Orleans. Avondale workers earn decent incomes, patronize local businesses, join associations and support those organizations with their leadership, contributions, and civic engagement. This engagement creates the social capital that holds the community together, training people to take an interest in the public good, and driving them to seek political information. As leaders in the community, Avondale workers share that information with family, friends, and fellow workers, and build the sense that they can participate effectively in public life. They are politically engaged, vote at high rates, and participate in democratic life. The workers themselves are clear on where their civic activism comes from – the struggle and victory of securing union representation in the workplace. That struggle was difficult, and it taught workers to intertwine their civic future with that of the community. It also secured the material benefits of income and stability that allowed workers to plan for a lifetime of increasing productivity, income, and generational advancement.Esse estudo explora a engajamento cívico dos trabalhadores do estaleiro Avondale na fronteira de New Orleans. Os trabalhadores de Avondale ganham uma renda decente, compram em empresas locais, associam-se a grupos cívicos e apóiam essas organizações com liderança, contribuições e engajamento cívico. Este engajamento constrói o capital social que mantém a comunidade, ensinando pessoas a pensar no bem público, e impulsionando-os a procurar informação política. Como líderes da comunidade, os trabalhadores de Avondale compartilham esta informação com familiares, amigos e outros trabalhadores, e constróem o sentimento de que podem participar efetivamente na vida pública. São engajados politicamente, votam apresentando altas taxas deste tipo de participação e participam na vida democrática. Os trabalhadores têm claro de onde vem seu ativismo – a luta e vitória de representação sindical no estaleiro. Esta luta foi difícil e ensinou aos trabalhadores entrelaçar seu futuro cívico com o futuro da comunidade. Também assegurou benefícios materiais de renda e estabilidade no emprego que possibilitou aos trabalhadores planejar para uma vida de crescente produtividade, renda e avanço geracional

Total Men!: Literature, Nationalism, and Mascuilinity in Early Canada

This thesis identifies the figure of the totally competent man (a model of early Canadian masculinity distinguished by an unprecedented breadth of competence) as a recurrent feature of early Canadian literary texts, and examines the development and representation of this figure with particular attention to its deployment as a model of national manhood by early Canadian literary nationalists. It argues that the production of a broadly competent model of manhood as an ideal model of national manhood by early Canadian literary nationalists was an anxious work carried out in the face of real and sensible threats to the new nation and their brand of nationalism, and that the figure of the totally competent man attained a position of prominence in their work because of how effectively this model of national manhood answered the anxieties that perplexed them. After tracing early Canadian literary nationalism’s emphasis on masculine heroism, the catholicity of the national community, and the nordicity of the nation to the new nationalism’s origins in German Romanticism, it explores the development of the totally competent man as a model of uniquely Canadian masculinity in Canadian texts preceding Confederation and the emergence of the new nationalism. The dissertation as a whole argues that the totally competent man evolved through an anxious process of adaptation that saw aspects of competing models of masculinity grafted onto genteel masculinity to produce a broadly competent model of masculinity whose heterogenous makeup allowed specific examples of this figure to serve double duty as both symbols of national unity, and active agents of social cohesion

Taxation, governance and poverty : where do the Middle Income Countries fit?

Tax reform can contribute to improved governance and poverty reduction both directly and indirectly: by redistributing income, and by helping establish stronger fiscal social contracts in poorer countries. Middle Income Countries can play an especially important role in this process. First, they are especially likely to suffer very high levels of income and wealth inequality and very unjust tax systems. Second, recent experience shows that Middle Income Countries have a greater capacity than Low Income Countries to design tax reforms that are appropriate to local circumstances and likely to command local political support. Because of a series of recent and current changes in the fiscal environment and in tax policies, tax-payers in many Middle Income Countries are likely to become politically more engaged in the near future. Issues of taxation and public spending will become more prominent in public policy debates and election campaigns. This represents an opportunity to promote constructive tax reform – directly in Middle Income Countries, and indirectly in the many Low Income Countries over which some Middle Income Countries are beginning to exert increasing development policy influence. Aid donors and international financial institutions have made substantial useful contributions to tax policy reform in the South in recent decades. They could continue to have a positive influence, especially if they remain engaged with Middle Income Countries and become more willing to allow and encourage the opening up of tax and fiscal policy issues to broad democratic debate

Get what you want, give what you can : embedded public finance in Porto Alegre

The problem of public finance in Latin America is a structural contradiction. The historical pattern of insertion in the international economy creates a large number of poor who have very real material needs for public services, but they cannot individually or collectively contribute the funds to pay for them. Rich people hold wealth, but they are unwilling to contribute to public services that go to other groups while they turn to private schools, education and transportation. They are especially unwilling to hand over their wealth to governments perceived as corrupt, inefficient, and illegitimate. This raises a basic puzzle: how do governments provide for those in need while securing the compliance of those with wealth? In this context, the innovation of participatory budgeting is a striking example of embedded public finance in which taxes and expenditures are rooted in government legitimacy. Three elements comprise embedded public finance: l Democratic participation in which an increasing number of citizens participate in public decisions, and different groups, especially the poor, have been incorporated; l Progressive public spending in which investment in poor neighbourhoods has increased both in absolute terms and in relation to rich neighbourhoods; l Competent governance in which perceptions of corruption have decreased, and administrative structures riddled with clientelism and patronage have been reformed. These three elements rest atop a political coalition that joins middle sector and poor voters. Because these citizen groups have different needs, the state had to tailor the benefits it extended to the demands of each group. This strategy allowed the state to mobilise distinct contributions from each group, votes from the poor and tax compliance from those with wealth. Keywords: public finance, participatory budgeting, tax, Port Alegre, investment, public expenditure

Governance hybrids : pro-poor, rights-based approaches in rural Peru

How do we understand the hybrid forms of governance that occasionally emerge when rights-based approaches (RBA) are introduced into contexts of extreme poverty? Poverty is multidimensional, and any attempt to respond to poverty must offer internally consistent responses to each of the dimensions. RBA offers a coherent set of economic, social and political responses to poverty that promise substantive change in the social order. In rural Peru in 2002, a host of local and national movements were eager to experiment with new RBA alternatives to address intense poverty. The introduction of RBA did not occur in a vacuum, however, and existing clientelist practices mixed with RBA to produce governance hybrids. At first glance, this combination seems unusual. Clientelism and RBA are usually seen as mutually exclusive, polar opposites; clientelism reproduces poverty while RBA transforms it. Yet, the current study demonstrates a variety of hybrid RBA and clientelist practices that imply different degrees of benefit for poor citizens. At a conceptual level, this study suggests we need to reevaluate discrete categories of rights and clientelism and allow for a continuum that would include a number of intermediate, hybrid steps. Policymakers may want to take these hybrids into account when designing their interventions to move in the direction of greater rights, rather than watered down RBA or reversion to clientelism. Keywords: rights, citizenship, democracy, decentralisation, clientelism, politics, party, Peru, governance

Trustworthiness as a Limitation on Network Neutrality

The policy debate over how to govern access to broadband networks has largely ignored the objective of network trustworthiness-a set of properties (including security, survivability, and safety) that guarantee expected behavior. Instead, the terms of the network access debate have focused on whether imposing a nondiscrimination or network neutrality obligation on network providers is justified by the condition of competition among last-mile providers. Rules proposed by scholars and policymakers would allow network providers to deviate from network neutrality to protect network trustworthiness, but none of these proposals has explored the implications of such exceptions for either neutrality or trustworthiness. This Article examines the relationship between network trustworthiness and network neutrality and finds that providing a trustworthiness exception is a viable way to accommodate trustworthiness within a network neutrality rule. Network providers need leeway to block or degrade traffic within their own subnets, and trustworthiness exceptions can provide them with sufficient flexibility to do so. But, the Article argues, defining the scope of a trustworthiness exception is critically important to the network neutrality rule as a whole: an unduly narrow exception could thwart innovative network defenses, while a broad exception could allow trustworthiness to become a pretext that protects a wide range of discrimination that network neutrality advocates seek to prevent. Furthermore, monitoring network providers\u27 use of a trustworthiness exception is necessary to ensure that it remains an exception, rather than becoming a rule. The Article therefore proposes that network providers be required to disclose data regarding their use of a trustworthiness exception . It also offers a general structure for managing these disclosure