This paper examines the institutions for participatory governance that have been created in Chile through a case study of Huechuraba, a low income municipality in the Santiago metropolitan area. The case of Huechuraba suggests that in certain contexts, the meetings that take place between government officials and grassroots organizations can become a forum for the state to colonize public space and bolster the hegemony of the status quo by establishing the parameters of citizenship.

Recent debates about the most appropriate political agents for realising social justice have largely focused on the potential value of national political parties on the one hand, and trade unions on the other. Drawing on the thought of Murray Bookchin, this article suggests that democratic municipalist agents – democratic associations of local residents that build and empower neighbourhood assemblies and improve the municipal provision of basic goods and services – can often also make valuable contributions to projects of just (...) social change. I identify a long-term and a more short-term argument for the value of democratic municipalist agency in Bookchin's thought and claim that the latter provides a compelling case for the valuable contributions this form of action can make to the achievement of a wide variety of visions of social justice. This provides a useful partial corrective to recent political theorising about the nature of the partisanship and trade unionism necessary to secure social justice. (shrink)

Recent debates about the most appropriate political agents for realising social justice have largely focused on the potential value of national political parties on the one hand, and trade unions on the other. Drawing on the thought of Murray Bookchin, this article suggests that democratic municipalist agents – democratic associations of local residents that build and empower neighbourhood assemblies and improve the municipal provision of basic goods and services – can often also make valuable contributions to projects of just (...) social change. I identify a long-term and a more short-term argument for the value of democratic municipalist agency in Bookchin's thought and claim that the latter provides a compelling case for the valuable contributions this form of action can make to the achievement of a wide variety of visions of social justice. This provides a useful partial corrective to recent political theorising about the nature of the partisanship and trade unionism necessary to secure social justice. (shrink)

A wave of recent scholarship has warned about the potential for discriminatory harms of algorithmic systems, spurring an interest in algorithmic accountability and regulation. Meanwhile, parallel concerns about surveillance practices have already led to multiple successful regulatory efforts of surveillance technologies—many of which have algorithmic components. Here, we examine municipal surveillance regulation as offering lessons for algorithmic oversight. Taking the 2017 Seattle Surveillance Ordinance as our primary case study and surveying efforts across five other cities, we describe the features (...) of existing surveillance regulation; including procedures for describing surveillance technologies in detail, requirements for public engagement, and processes for establishing acceptable uses. Although the Seattle Surveillance Ordinance was not intended to address algorithmic accountability, we find these considerations to be relevant to the law’s aim of surfacing disparate impacts of systems in use. We also find that in notable cases government employees did not identify regulated algorithmic surveillance technologies as reliant on algorithmic or machine learning systems, highlighting definitional gaps that could hinder future efforts toward algorithmic regulation. We argue that finer-grained distinctions between types of information systems in the language of law and policy, and risk assessment tools integrated into their implementation would strengthen future regulatory efforts by rendering underlying algorithmic components more legible and accountable to political and community stakeholders. (shrink)

This article attempts to open the debate on a territorial development perspective that fixes the interest in organized territories that are characterized by the existence of a community with a local identity, politically and administratively regulated. We conceive these territories as subjects of development promotion interventions. For this we propose a model for the creation of Municipal Development Forums, which with the participation of local actors, can generate a tailor-made Local Development Program. The development program will consider a diagnosis (...) of the productive profile of the territory and its relationship with the characteristics and origin of goods or services consumed at the municipality. Based on the diagnosis, the causes of the decoupling between the local production system and consumption needs can be detected. And with this, find a way to readjust local production systems to meet the demand for goods and services of the inhabitants, generating new companies and encouraging local consumption. (shrink)

This paper attempts to open the debate on the idea of local and territorial development of microregional nodes in the Province of Buenos Aires. Under this approach, a model that proposes the creation of Municipal Development Forum, with the participation of local actors, generate local development program is proposed. The proposal is formulated for territories over 5,000 and below 30,000 inhabitants. This criterion is based on the applicability of the proposed model to municipalities with potential for territorial development, large (...) and balanced internal consumption, but where progress is hindered by the proximity of one or two political jurisdictions of a larger productive scale that have became regional administrative centers. The development program will consider a diagnosis of the productive profile of the territory and its relationship with the characteristics and origin of goods or services consumed at the municipality. This territorial development model aims to move towards self-sufficiency on goods and services, to create new jobs and to promote effective and efficient use of local resources. In short, we propose to tackle territorial development from an innovative perspective, focusing on the creation of Municipal Development Fora that foster the improvement and growth of the productive system, the creation of jobs, local identity and the consumption of goods and services locally produced. (shrink)

American Municipal experienced the evolution from traditional to modern historical process. The early 19th century, municipal governments to develop a political oligarchy dominated municipal, the early 20th century and lived through the municipal reform, the government today showing many of the numerous state metropolitan area, the change process and the social, economic and cultural development are closely related. Their point of view on municipal, municipal-scale growing, more and more functions, management from the British model (...) to mimic the stress scientific management. (shrink)

This article examines the municipal ID card programs in New Haven and San Francisco. With a municipal ID card, undocumented immigrants can access basic city services and identify themselves with police and other city officials. The article draws on twenty-eight interviews with key stakeholders to show that city officials navigated the conflicting demands of ID card supporters and opponents to create a local membership policy focused on improving city administration, not expanding the rights of undocumented immigrants. In capitalizing (...) on their discretionary administrative powers to develop programs that safeguard the health, safety, and welfare of all city residents, officials in New Haven and San Francisco managed to promote the integration of undocumented immigrants into city affairs without upsetting the federal monopoly over immigration and citizenship powers. This new form of local bureaucratic membership has implications for the urban citizenship literature and illustrates that city officials have some freedom to develop programs that benefit undocumented immigrants. (shrink)

One of the main characteristics of today’s democratic societies is their pluralism. As a result, liberal political philosophers often claim that the state should remain neutral with respect to different conceptions of the good. Legal and social policies should be acceptable to everyone regard- less of their culture, their religion or their comprehensive moral views. One might think that this commitment to neutrality should be especially pronounced in urban centres, with their culturally diverse populations. However, there are a large number (...) of laws and policies adopted at the municipal level that contradict the liberal principle of neutrality. In this paper, I want to suggest that these perfectionist laws and policies are legitimate at the urban level. Specifically, I will argue that the principle of neutrality applies only indirectly to social institutions within the broader framework of the nation-state. This is clear in the case of voluntary associations, but to a certain extent this rationale applies also to cities. In a liberal regime, private associations are allowed to hold and defend perfectionist views, focused on a particular conception of the good life. One problem is to determine the limits of this perfectionism at the urban level, since cities, unlike private associations, are public institutions. My aim here is therefore to give a liberal justification to a limited form of perfectionism of municipal laws and policies. (shrink)

Brazil's health councils appear to offer inspiring examples of what Fung and Wright term “empowered participatory governance.” But what happens in practice? This article narrates an episode in the life of a municipal health council in northeast Brazil, in which democracy itself came under deliberation. It seeks to locate normative assumptions embedded in theories of deliberative democracy and participatory governance in everyday conduct in one of these institutions. It suggests that assessing the democratizing potential of the myriad new spaces (...) that now populate governance landscapes the world over calls for far closer attention to be paid to power, political culture, and politics. (shrink)

The article considers approaches in order to study large municipal entities and their economic potential. The authors specify that large municipal entities in modern conditions have a multifunctional structure, so they propose an interdisciplinary approach to their study. The article discusses such approaches to analyzing large municipalities as: philosophical; research from the perspective of social sciences and the humanities (political science, sociological, psychological, historiographic and ethnographic approaches). The authors analyze large municipalities from the perspective of the geographical approach; (...) urban theory; urban planning and architecture. The problem of studying large municipalities in the legal sciences is separately investigated. With the help of the economic approach the authors show that at the core of urbanization and the emergence of large municipalities there are three effects: comparative advantage, concentration effect, and localization effect. The authors give classification of large municipalities. The authors propose a systematic approach to analyzing large cities, representing the unity of the functional approach, open systems methodology and the factor approach. Under the latter, it is proposed to understand the economic potential of the city, which presupposes the possibility of efficient use of available resources and their maximum inclusion in social reproduction in order to meet the needs of the municipality population. The authors substantiate the classification of the economic potential of a large municipal formation, which consists of: the resource (basic and used), innovative and infrastructural potentials. (shrink)

Although South African and international research has been enriched by a wide variety of empirical findings regarding supply chain management (SCM) corruption in South Africa, there is a significant gap in the literature, particularly in terms of the direct and indirect connections of black economic empowerment (BEE) entrepreneurs, local government and to processes of SCM at South African municipalities. This study is based on an inductive, qualitative and interpretative methodology aimed at analysing and dissecting relationships in the context of BEE (...) entrepreneurs engaging in corruption. Within this realm of corruption, the article also looks at the role of supply chain and procurement at two South African municipalities. The municipalities selected were situated in both urban and rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. The eight interviewees represented the political, administrative and workers’ sections of the municipalities. The findings pinpoint the realities of aspects of BEE associated with the nature of corruption in public procurement in the municipalities and the influence of BEE entrepreneurs in processes of corruption, particularly in SCM functions and processes. Contribution: Corruption remains a key threat to South Africa’s young democracy. This is particularly true at the local level, the central pivot in our society building exercise. A multidisciplinary journal of this nature will benefit from the focus of this article, particularly in light of the fact that it also hopes to ignite thought around the moral ramifications of rampant corruption in South Africa. (shrink)

In this commentary, we respond to the editorial letter by Professor Luciano Floridi entitled “AI as a public service: Learning from Amsterdam and Helsinki.” Here, Floridi considers the positive impact of municipal AI registers, which collect a limited number of algorithmic systems used by the city of Amsterdam and Helsinki. We question a number of assumptions about AI registers as a governance model for automated systems. We start with recent attempts to normalize AI by decontextualizing and depoliticizing it, which (...) is a fraught political project that encourages what we call ‘ethics theater’ given the proven dangers of using these systems in the context of the digital welfare state. We agree with Floridi that much can be learned from these registers about the role of AI systems in municipal city management. The lessons we draw, on the basis of our extensive ethnographic engagement with digital wellfare states, are distinctly less optimistic. (shrink)

In 2011, two Chinese municipalities, Chongqing and Shanghai, enacted a property tax on rich homeowners. However, the two municipal governments sharply diverged in their designs of the tax and the justifying frames used. Whereas Chongqing explicitly framed the tax as a redistributive measure targeting the economic elite, Shanghai framed it as an ad hoc technical intervention in the housing market that would antagonize no one. This article explains how the only two Chinese cities that introduced this unconventional tax ended (...) up enacting the tax in such different ways. In doing so, this article proposes a theoretical framework synthesizing two main pillars of Bourdieu’s state theory – a conceptualization of the state as a field of competition, and a careful consideration of the symbolic dimension of state power. The political competition in which the top leaders of the two municipalities were engaged drove them to enact the tax. The positions these leaders occupied in the field of competition shaped their specific strategies of accumulating competition-specific capital, getting their capital noted and recognized by other players in the field, and theatricalizing their capital-seeking acts as serving some universal interest. These dynamics gave rise to divergent styles of enacting the tax. (shrink)

In the science of administrative and constitutional law, administration science and many other sciences, including political science, it is widely accepted that the basic, inherent feature of a municipality, deciding the essence of the territorial self-government unit as an entity of public administration, is the self-reliance it is entitled to. The self-reliance of territorial self-government units is even defined as a constitutional norm.In principle, self-reliance is perceived as a fundamental attribute of a decentralised public authority and constitutes one of the (...) fundamental systemic principles of the Republic of Poland. It was formulated expressis verbis in art. 165 par. 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, which states that the self-reliance of territorial self-government units is subject to judicial protection, meaning that TSGUs can defend themselves against illegal attempts, not grounded in the law to interfere in their self-reliance. This protection seems to encompass both the private-law and public-law spheres of territorial self-government activity.The essence and guarantees of territorial self-government units’ self-reliance also arise from other constitutional principles, including the aforementioned decentralisation principle, subsidiarity principle, separation of powers, supremacy of the nation and democratic state under rule of law.The goal of this article is to interpret the principle of municipal self-reliance in the context of constitutional principles of law, in the light of the Polish Constitution. The studies were conducted based on analysis of normative acts, doctrinal views and case law. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to extend research which has looked at moral judgment. Specifically, the study examines the impact of moral judgment on the budget allocations made by government budget officers. Additionally, and as a result of previous research findings, the study looks at the relationship between political ideology, gender, age, profession and moral judgment.Results support prior research which has found an association between political ideology and moral judgment, and between gender and moral judgment.There was no indication that (...) the level of moral judgment among accountants is different from that of other individuals serving as budget officers, or that age is significantly related to moral judgment. Additionally, the study finds that an individual's level of moral judgment has less of an impact on the individual's actions than does political ideology. Study results contribute to an understanding of the relationship of moral judgment to accounting, and the relationship of moral judgment to behavior. The study also adds to research into the relationship of political ideology and moral judgment. (shrink)

The relationship between descriptive representation and substantive representation is an issue that has been widely discussed by women’s studies scholars. In general, it is assumed that there exists a positive relationship between the two, but the literature and empirical analysis show that substantive representation also depends on the action of other critical actors, such as gender agencies and the women’s social movement. Comparative research has shown the existence of a common pattern in post-industrial democracies: the development of women-friendly policies depends (...) on the existence of coalitions between these critical actors. However, the analysis usually focuses on the national or regional level, and there is very little analysis at the local level, despite this being a political arena in which these processes can be developed. The aim of this article is to analyse the effect of coalitions of critical actors on the responsiveness to the demands of women’s groups in the case of Spanish municipalities using a representative survey. The objective, therefore, is to apply advances in the women’s substantive representation literature to the local level in Spain. Main results show that responsiveness is higher in municipalities where women’s coalitions exist. (shrink)

Numerous U.S. cities suffered immense fiscal strain following the subprime mortgage crisis and financial crash of 2007–8. Diminished revenues, tightened credit, and speculative financing that went bad in the aftermath fueled widespread fiscal distress on the local scale. Although the current moment resembles fiscal crises that crested in cities in the 1970s–90s, two factors distinguish the current period. First, municipal affairs have become thoroughly financialized—dominated by speculative securities and volatile debt arrangements—such that local crisis can no longer be understood (...) apart from financial market instability. Second, local fiscal politics have become increasingly removed from democratic oversight and control. This de-democratization hinders the capacity of political communities to reregulate markets and rebuild urban communities. An analytic model derived from the work of Hyman Minsky and Karl Polanyi emphasizes how cities become ensnared in a “financial instability” cycle and how communities seek to protect themselves by way of the “double movement.”. (shrink)

The Second World War and its associated political events of a national and global scale brought new circumstances, which was considerably influenced the development processes of Tehran. During World War II, Iran hoped that Washington would keep Britain and the Soviet Union from seizing control of the country’s oil fields. In 1951 and 1952 Truman worked with Iranian Prime Minister, though unsuccessfully, to regain some of those lost oil rights for Iran. By the late 1950s and President Kennedy’s presidency, he (...) used aid as leverage for social reform. During the early years of 1960s, the Kennedy Administration was urging its allies in the third world to carry out necessary reforms in order to prevent popular discontent and enhance the dominant ideology of ‘modernism’. In 1968, a major piece of legislation, the Urban Development and Renewal Act, enabled the municipality to implement Tehran’s Comprehensive Plan (TCP 1968), which integrated all the elements of a 1960s’ American city such as the separation of functions, highways, suburbs, shopping centers and housing area. The export of these American cities principles can only be understood from the background of the Cold War period, in which the east and west were both competing for cultural colonization of Middle Eastern strategically important cities like Tehran. During this period, the new developments supported by the oil boom of 1970s, were built in different forms to constitute an expanding metropolis. In 1974, the second “International Congress of Architecture” with the theme of “Toward a Quality of Life” held at Persepolis and brought together all leading world architects and planners to review Iran’s progress in its professional response to the challenges posed by increasing oil revenues. This research aims to represent the export of planning as a political means of cultural colonization of the Third World during the cold war period. (shrink)

How should broadly liberal democratic societies stop illiberal and antidemocratic views from gaining influence while honouring liberal democratic values? This question has become particularly pressing after the recent successes of right-wing populist leaders and parties across Europe, in the US, and beyond. This book develops a normative account of liberal democratic self-defence that denounces the failures of real-world societies without excusing those supporting illiberal and antidemocratic political actors. This account is innovative in focusing not only on the role of the (...) state but also on the duties of nonstate actors including citizens, partisans, and municipalities. Consequently, it also addresses cases where the central government has at least been partly captured by illiberal and antidemocratic agents. Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti's approach builds on John Rawls's treatment of political liberalism and his awareness of the need to 'contain' unreasonable views, that is, views denying that society should treat every person as free and equal through a mutually acceptable system of social cooperation where pluralism is to be expected. The authors offer original solutions to vexed problems within political liberalism by putting forward a new account of the relation between ideal and non-ideal theory, explaining why it is justifiable to exclude unreasonable persons from the constituency of public reason, and showing that the strictures of public reason do not apply to those suffering from severe injustice. In doing so, the book further politicizes political liberalism and turns it into a framework that can insightfully respond to the challenges of real politics. (shrink)

Introduction. The paper contains political and psychological profiles of the local self-government deputies in the city of Chelyabinsk. The purpose of the study is to examine how municipal reform in 2014 influenced institutional opportunities for creating a new model of political leadership in terms of its effectiveness on political and psychological level. Methods. The author’s approach is based on the combination of political and psychological techniques, such as qualitative content analysis, psychobiography and in-depth interview (for assessing politicians’ images in (...) mass consciousness). Scientific novelty. The author presumes that political leadership is a complex phenomenon based on institutional and psychological factors. Its institutional framework for the purpose of the research is determined by the municipal reform. The deputies’ psychological profiles are viewed as individual patterns of political behavior shaped as a result of adopting individual psychological characteristics to the demands of political role presumed by the reform’s conceptual foundations. Results. The data contain evidence that political and psychological profiles of the deputies under analysis in general lack features which make it possible to uncover the institutional potential of the reform. A new model of political leadership presumed by the reform’s conception was supposed to possess such attributes as: 1) widening political representation; 2) enhancing effectiveness of communication between leaders and followers; 3) depoliticizing agenda. The analysis shows that deputies elected under reform on the “inner” level are rigid and reproduce inertial model of political behavior. On the “outer” level their perception is superficial and does not have explicit potential to improve due to revealed unconscious parameters. Conclusions. Two electoral cycles within the reform did not fully reveal the leadership potential of the deputies. Therefore, the perspectives of its prolongation are viewed by the author as highly problematic. (shrink)

A commonplace misconception identifies Kelsen as a one-dimensional legal positivist and Habermas as a one-dimensional legal moralist. I argue, on the contrary, that both theorists defend a complex normative conception of democratic proceduralism that straddles the positivism/naturalism divide. I then show how their extension of this conception to international law commits them to a monistic human rights regime. I conclude that their realistic acknowledgment of the fragmented nature of legal paradigms and regimes entails a complementary qualification of their monism. Section (...) 10.1 situates Kelsen and Habermas’s proceduralism between natural law reasoning and formal positivism in opposition to Schmitt’s political-theological defense of decisionism. Section 10.2 compares the different methods by which Kelsen and Habermas defend democratic proceduralism. Section 10.3 shows how they extend this conception to international law in defending a monistic human rights regime. Section 10.4 discusses their respective views about the decisive role played by courts and constitutional review in this regime, and critically examines their proceduralist understanding of constitutional review. Section 10.5 concludes with an assessment of the limits and possibilities of constitutionalizing humanitarian law in international law in the face of persistent legal pluralization. (shrink)

Does direct democracy enhance political efficacy? This article examines the effect of direct democracy on political efficacy. Normative theorists have suggested that direct democracy has educative effects on citizens, such as promoting political efficacy. While a number of studies have examined the corresponding hypothesis, their empirical findings are not clear-cut. This study attributes the inconsistent results to two problems of the existing studies: the employment of cross-sectional data and the heterogeneity of popular vote issues. This study closes this gap by (...) examining the effect of direct democracy in local politics on political efficacy in a more systematic and controlled way. More concretely, it utilizes the Japanese case: In the first decade of this century, more than 400 Japanese municipalities held a popular vote for the first time because the Japanese national government promoted municipal merger. Therefore, the Japanese case provides multiple popular votes on comparable substantive topics that can be conceived as an homogeneous treatment. By applying multilevel modeling to panel survey data, this study demonstrates the causal effect that the popular vote increases the level of internal political efficacy. (shrink)

In the fifteenth century, the desire of the laity for more convincing religious instruction in the vernacular was not entirely satisfied by wandering preachers like Vincent Ferrer , Bernardino of Siena or Giovanni of Capistrano . Therefore, north of the Alps, particularly in free cities of the Empire, so-called municipal preaching offices were introduced.3 For the most part, cathedral chapters and their bishops exerted a great influence over these foundations. Subsequently, the newly installed preachers were obliged to discipline the (...) urban population. According to the artes praedicandi, the preachers were expected to avoid any criticism of the religious hierarchy and the .. (shrink)

This ethnographic study of political life in the department of the Yonne, in the Burgundy region, explores a still richly Balzacian provincial world. The author, a French anthropologist, has extensive field experience in Ethiopia. Deploying the insights and methods of social anthropology by drawing on local history, interviews and participant observation, Abélès describes politicians at every level, from municipal officers to Members of Parliament and Ministers. He provides a clear picture of the process of 'decentralization' initiated by the Socialist (...) government in 1982, and undermines the simplistic notion of 'centralist France'. This book, which develops a fresh perspective on political life in France, past and present, illustrates more generally an exciting approach to modern political phenomena, from the point of view of anthropology. (shrink)

In Latin America, rights to local political participation in many indigenous communities are not simply granted, but rather “earned” through acts of labor for the community. This is the case in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, where almost three-fourths of municipalities elect municipal authorities through custom and tradition rather than secret ballot and universal suffrage. The alarmingly low rate of women’s formal participation in these municipalities has garnered attention from policymakers, provoking a series of legislative reforms designed to increase (...) women’s roles in local politics. However, these initiatives often miss their mark. Focused on a liberal model of women as individual rights-bearers, they fail to understand the complex ways in which gendered labor influences political participation in nonliberal contexts. This article examines a case in which indigenous women reject such an initiative because it would exacerbate their exploitation within the local terms of gendered collective labor instead of promoting equality. It thus explains potential barriers to indigenous women’s political leadership at the local level and suggests ways in which gender equality can be promoted in nonliberal contexts. (shrink)

This ethnographic study of political life in the department of the Yonne, in the Burgundy region, explores a still richly Balzacian provincial world. The author, a French anthropologist, has extensive field experience in Ethiopia. Deploying the insights and methods of social anthropology by drawing on local history, interviews and participant observation, Abélès describes politicians at every level, from municipal officers to Members of Parliament and Ministers. He provides a clear picture of the process of 'decentralization' initiated by the Socialist (...) government in 1982, and undermines the simplistic notion of 'centralist France'. This book, which develops a fresh perspective on political life in France, past and present, illustrates more generally an exciting approach to modern political phenomena, from the point of view of anthropology. (shrink)

As the EU implements measures to tackle the climate emergency on a continental scale, national governmental and economic actors haste to claim better positions in an eco-friendly low carbon market of goods and resources. With this gradual change, surprising factors hinder local community support for the de-carbonized promised future. In order to understand what inspires rural communities to contest and negate green economic action, I investigate a case of local unrest against the erection of an RES plant on public non-arable (...) agricultural land. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with local villagers, rebelling against the photovoltaic plant and municipal representatives, deciding the fate of the land, I outline three main axes of exclusion. These, I argue, fuel the opposition to the EU’s green acts: the symbolic exclusion of differing types of greenness (natural vs political); the geopolitical political exclusion of the local human for the benefit of the global one; the local exclusion, depriving some citizens of legitimate instruments for social claims-making. (shrink)

This volume contains four of Hegel's most important political tracts which he produced for the attention of the general public. Included are "The German Constitution," "On the Recent Domestic Affairs of Wurtemberg, especially on the Inadequacy of the Municipal Constitution," "Proceedings of the Estates Assembly in the Kingdom of Wurtemberg, 1815-1816," and "The English Reform Bill." Passages omitted in the translation of the third of these writings have been summarized by Knox. Pelcynski's [[sic]] "introduction" is a monograph in itself, (...) considering, in an historical and a critical fashion, Hegel as a political writer and political philosopher.—E. A. R. (shrink)

After reestablishing the connection between morality and the law, the author develops a coherent position on many of the most controversial issues of urban life: the political uses of the streets; verbal assaults and the defamation of racial groups; the legitimate restriction of public speech; segregation, busing, and the use of racial quotas; education, housing, and the problem of the ghetto"; prostitution, gambling, and the "regulation of vices." Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology (...) to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This article examines the efforts of the Obama administration and many other actors-ranging from non-governmental organizations, municipalities, and state governments to some Congressional representatives-to put the United States back on track towards international climate leadership. Efforts to shift policy direction, however, still face many hurdles. Over the course of the better part of a decade or more, climate skeptics and policy change opponents were able to seed doubt about the urgency of the issue in the public’s mind, establish new organizations (...) and strategies to fight against climate action, and institutionalize serious obstacles to meaningful policy change. (shrink)

This article examines how algorithmic accountability is translated into action at the municipal level in the United States. Based on a review of task forces, ordinances, and policy toolkits from New York City and Seattle, I demonstrate the ways municipalities and local publics operationalize abstract notions of accountability. Municipal interventions often prioritize revealing computational tools (transparency) and their effects on people (impact assessments). While these two forms of accountability are crucial, they may neglect to examine institutions—and how they (...) change—as they incorporate automated decision systems. I thus propose a political-economic approach that recognizes algorithmic systems as part of municipal institutions and focuses on their role in intensifying data collection and commodification between public agencies and markets. I argue that algorithmic accountability, especially in public agencies, needs to focus on incompetence and asymmetries of power within a network of governments, tech companies, community groups, and technologies. With a mix of transparency, impact assessments, and political economic review, the paper proposes a more comprehensive assessment of automated decision systems through their development, procurement, use, impact, and decommissioning. (shrink)

In the study of the reproduction of state power through urban space, more attention has been paid to how states organize urban space to construct the disciplined subject than the converse of how states cultivate subjects who reproduce the material and symbolic significance of the built environment. Using the case study of public housing in the developmental state of Singapore, I argue that states attempt to shape how inhabitants navigate and interpret the built environment by constructing spatial-political subjects who reproduce (...) state hegemony through internalized mental and emotional schemas towards urban space. I analyze fifty years (1972—2021) and nearly 700 issues of periodicals by Singaporean housing authorities to illustrate two distinct phases of spatial-political subject formation which corresponded to deliberate shifts in the physical sites of state legitimacy. In the two decades following independence, the ruling People’s Action Party sought legitimacy for its program of slum clearance and public housing “New Town” construction, and accordingly cultivated the modern urban resident oriented towards the rationally-planned New Town and the high-rise apartment. Faced with political opposition in the mid-eighties but having already housed 80% of Singapore, the PAP then shifted the stakes of legitimacy towards the maintenance of existing common areas and cultivated the sociable urban citizen who equated ongoing municipal maintenance with ruling party provision while actively participating in state-sanctioned neighborhood activities. The following findings will illuminate an overlooked strategy in the state’s toolkit for reproducing its hegemony through urban space. (shrink)

The present paper is an attempt at examining the value configuration and the socio-demographical profiles of the local political elites in four countries of East-Central Europe: Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Poland. The treatment is a comparative one, predominantly descriptive and exploratory, and employs, as a research method, the case-study, being a quite circumscribed endeavor. The cases focus on the members of the Municipal/Local Council in four towns similar in terms of demography and developmental strategies (i.e. small-to-medium sized (...) communities of around 35,000 inhabitants, with economies largely based on food industry and commercial activities): Tecuci (Galați county, Romania), Česká Lípa (Liberec region, Czech Republic), Targovishte (Targovishte province, Bulgaria), and Oleśnica (Lower Silesia province, Poland). Hypothesizing that the local elites of the former Sovietized Erurope tend to differ in outlook, priorities, and value attainment, as compared to their Western counterparts, the paper considers the former’s attitudes and perspectives in regard to seven values: a series of values customarily connected with the concept of ‘democracy’ (i.e. citizen participation, political conflict, gradual change, economic equality), state intervention in economy, decentralization and increased local autonomy, cultural-geographical self-identification. The study uses, as well, five models of value attainment in what concerns the ‘ideal portrait’ of the local councilor (Putnam 1976): ethical, pragmatic, technocratic, political, and gender. According to the results of a study applying a standard written questionnaire among the local councilors of the three communities in the period December 2010-February 2013, the paper distinguishes among three corresponding types of local elites: (1) ‘predominantly elitistic,’ (2) ‘democratic elitist,’ and (3) ‘predominantly democratic,’ following two types of explanation accounting for the differences among the four cases: the legacy of the defunct regime and the degree of administrative decentralization. (shrink)

Abstract In 1995, the constitution of the Mexican state of Oaxaca was reformed to recognise indigenous usages and customs for the election of municipal governments. This recognition is problematic from a normative perspective, as women, new?comers and dwellers in municipal sub?units are disenfranchised in a good number of indigenous municipalities of the state. Nevertheless, this article argues against a summary assessment of the (presumably illiberal) consequences of this recognition policy. Following James Tully, it advocates an intercultural, dialogical and (...) inclusive procedure to tackle the perils of the politics of recognition in Oaxaca and Mexico. However, this procedure?based approach raises problems of its own related to the issues of representation and intra?communal divisions. As a result, the ultimate role of substantive commitments, in particular to individual rights, needs to be recognised. Despite these shortcomings, though, an approach based on an intercultural, dialogical and inclusive conflict?solving procedure is the best option to deliver more just answers to indigenous demands for recognition. (shrink)

We investigated the relation between economic and social attitudes and the psychological underpinnings of these attitudes in candidates (N = 9515) in the Finnish 2017 municipal elections. In this politically elite sample, right-wing economic attitudes and social conservatism were positively correlated (r =.41), and this correlation was predominantly driven by those on the economic left being socially liberal, and vice versa. In terms of underlying psychological processes, consistent with dual process models of political ideology, the anti-egalitarian aspect of social (...) dominance orientation was more strongly associated with right-wing economic attitudes, and the conventionalism and aggression aspects of right-wing authoritarianism with social conservatism. Our results show that even in a non-US context in which the masses organize their political attitudes on two independent dimensions, these dimensions are moderately aligned among certain parts of the political elite, and that the political attitudes of the political elite can be traced to underlying psychological motivations. We argue that equality concerns could play a role in explaining why the left-right and liberal-conservative dimensions are more strongly aligned among those on the left and those more liberal. (shrink)

AtPol.7.12, 1331a19–20, Aristotle states it as a matter of fact that the citizenry of the best city should be divided into ‘public messes’ (syssitia). His primary concern in the rest of the chapter is to uncover the optimal way in whichsyssitiashould be organized, and the way in which they should be situated in relation to other facilities, public buildings,agoraiand temples in the city. The proposed plan is roughly as follows.Syssitiawould be divided into three main sections. First, thesyssitiaof soldiers would be (...) held at the guardhouses located at strategic points along the walls surrounding the city (1331a20–3). Next come ‘the most supremesyssitiaof the magistrates’ (τὰ κυριώτατα τῶν ἀρχείων συσσίτια: 1331a24–5) and thesyssitia‘of the priests’ (τῶν ἱερέων: 1331b5). These would be held at a place appropriately having ‘an appearance directed at establishing virtue and [being] more strongly positioned than the neighbouring parts of the city’ (1331a28–30), that is, the highest place in the city. This envisioned acropolis would also house temples (1331a24–5). Situated below it would be the ‘freeagora’, which would include gymnasia (1331a35–7) and would be generally directed at leisurely activity (1331b12). Finally, below the freeagora, a ‘necessaryagora’ and buildings of officials entrusted with legal, commercial and municipal duties would be established, at a location conducive to importing and exporting goods (1331b6–12). (shrink)

Rosario, Argentina, a city of more than one million people strategically located on the Paraná River in the heart of a fertile agricultural region, is home to a significant industrial corridor where ongoing urbanization for industry, including that associated with the port complex and agroexport industries, vies for real estate space with peri-urban and urban farming production. The city is also the site of thriving municipal programs seeking to change food production and consumption outcomes through urban and peri-urban agriculture (...) projects rooted in agroecology. This paper identifies the socio-natures critical for the formation and endurance of these agroecology assemblages. Based on interviews with 30 stakeholders in government, civil society, and agricultural production, we describe the integrated approach to environmental, social, and economic sustainability embedded in Rosario’s institutional agroecology programs. In particular, we discuss the actors and strategies, discursive renderings of socio-natures, and the marketing of agroecological materialities that form and are formed by these assemblages. We also discuss the power dynamics embedded in sustaining urban and peri-urban agroecological projects through institutional means. This research contributes to literature on agroecology, urban agriculture, and the urban metabolism through providing empirical examples of socio-natural entanglements in urban agroecological assemblages. (shrink)

This biography, the first of Richard Spencer Childs, begins in the Progressive Era when Childs initiated and pursued two fertile ideas: the short ballot doctrine and the council-manager plan. Childs understood that the simplification of the task of the voter was a question pressing for solution and that the council-manager plan would transform municipal government. This comprehensive work discusses other aspects of Childs' broad reform agenda. His proposals included: county government reform; reform in state government administration; unicameral state legislatures; (...) reapportionment of state legislatures; selection of judges by appointment; replacement of elective county coroners with appointed professional medical examiners; democratization of state political parties; and reform of the Presidential nominating system. Based on Childs' papers and personal interviews with Childs, this biography advances scholarship on the Progressive Era and contributes to the historiographical debate on the nature of reform. (shrink)

O presente artigo é fruto de uma pesquisa realizada no Programa de Pós-Graduação – Mestrado em Educação e de uma demanda da Escola Agrícola Municipal Carlos Heins Funke, que temos atuado em projetos de extensão desde 2014. A referida Escola tem se preocupado em ressignificar seu Projeto Político Pedagógico – PPP, tentando articular aspectos culturais locais ao currículo, sobretudo, em suas práticas. Desta forma, a pesquisa centrou seus estudos e ações educativas/investigativas nas seguintes indagações: como realizar ações a partir (...) das questões culturais locais? Em que sentido essas questões contribuem para um ensino e aprendizado significativos? Como construir um PPP, que articule essas questões e que tenha realmente a participação de todos os seguimentos - gestão, professores, alunos, comunidade e pesquisador? Portanto, o objetivo da pesquisa foi ressignificar e implementar o PPP da Escola Agrícola “Carlos Heins Funke”, em Joinville/SC, juntamente com seus protagonistas, a fim de analisar as contribuições de um projeto que articula experiências culturais as questões técnicas e conceituais. Para nos ajudar no desenvolvimento da pesquisa, alguns autores foram fundamentais, a exemplo: Saviani ;Veiga ; Gadotti ; Freire ; Arroyo ; Caldart, entre outros. Pensando em uma pesquisa, com abordagem qualitativa, que levasse em conta a participação de todos e que fosse de forma interativa, a metodologia utilizada foi a ‘Pesquisa Ação’ fundamentada em Thiollent e o instrumento ‘Grupo Focal’ baseado nos preceitos de Dias e Gatti. Foram desenvolvidos dois grupos focais para preservar as características e similaridades dos participantes, o primeiro grupo com professores e gestores e o segundo com pais, associação de pais e professores e estudantes. Os dados coletados foram transcritos, organizados e analisados utilizando a Análise de Conteúdo à luz de Bardin. Os resultados demonstram que as demandas da comunidade acadêmica, tais como: interdisciplinaridade, eventos culturais locais, uniforme dos estudantes, transporte dos alunos e as características diferenciadas da escola devem estar presentes no Projeto Político-Pedagógico, pois assim, tais peculiaridades serão oficializadas e valorizadas no documento e perpetuadas na memória e na identidade de toda a região. Palavras-chave: Práticas educativas. Educação do campo. Projeto Político- Pedagógico. Cultura. Grupo Focal. (shrink)

Municipal elections are not the only channel of participation in the municipal policy nor are they the only participation-problem. But it is nevertheless useful to make research into them because they are the unique institutionalized possibility of participation.This participation-research deals with the different aspects of the municipal elections.The first thing to note is that a number of council-members are pointed out by elections without competition. This phenomenon is not very extended: 373 out of some 2,600 municipalities, 12 (...) % of the council members, 200,000 voters. There is no notable change of size since 1920 in this phenomenon.Compared to the legislative elections, candidatures are very stable and limited : an average of 2,3 candidates per seat. These limited candidatures also mean that in practically half of the cases municipal elections have a two-parties system, by which the electoral corps chose directly the Court of Mayor and Aldermen. But even in municipalities with more than two parties, this «direct choice of the government» is made in 75 % of the cases. In respect of these facts, participation is qualitatively much better than in the case of the parliamentary elections.Forsaking of choice is notably lower at municipal than at parliamentary elections. As to the use of preference-votes, the choice of the municipal electorate is richer than that of the national electorate not only because municipal electors more aften express their preference for individuals, but also and not in the least because, by this more frequent use of preference-votes, they have real participation in the choice of the councilmembers themselves.The possibilities of choice at municipal elections offer an original alternative : to vote beyond party-frontiers with the «mixed vote». This multi-party vote is but seldom used : by 2,5 % of the electorate.And even then those who tlus mixed way lose half of their votingcapacity. Generally seen however, the municipal elections show a more favorable participation-pattern than the legislative ones. This leads to the question if it can be imputed to the voters when something is wrong with municipal politics. Is this problem not-situated on a higher level of the participation-pyramid? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Musa Lapidaria: A Selection of Latin Verse InscriptionsJane Bailey ThigpenCourtney, E[dward], ed. Musa Lapidaria: A Selection of Latin Verse Inscriptions. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995. Pp. x 1 457. 4 maps. Cloth, $41.95; paper, $27.95. (American Classical Studies, 36)Latin verse inscriptions have often been mined for philological, metrical, grammatical, and socio-historical data, but neglected as poetry worthy of study in and of itself. This oversight limits literary study to (...) the generally upper-class, cultured milieu of literary texts. Epigraphical verse, in contrast, allows the study of material from all levels of society and expertise—from highly literary to barely literate. Musa Lapidaria shows how rewarding in-depth literary study of epigraphical material can be. Although the book was written with graduate students and young professors in mind, it can also be read profitably (and enjoyably) by preparatory-level teachers and advanced undergraduates.Of the nearly twenty-three hundred inscriptions collected by Buecheler and Lommatsch in the Carmina Latina Epigraphica (the verse complement to CIL), most are highly formulaic and lack individuality and intrinsic literary worth. A few of these poems, however, are creative endeavors. In Musa Lapidaria, E. Courtney has picked some of the best from CLE and added thirty-four choice specimens from other epigraphical sources. He translates his collection of 204 inscriptions into literal but elegant prose and adds a commentary which provides bibliography for each inscription as well as a line-by-line analysis of significant linguistic, metrical, literary and historical features. As the commentary is written for literary non-specialists rather than epigraphers, the author only briefly describes the physical characteristics of inscriptions and archaeological features when pertinent and includes no pictures.The collection spans the centuries, running from the early Republic to a [End Page 152] fifth-century inscription on the Golden Gate of Constantinople. Although Courtney includes many inscriptions from late antiquity, he refrains from including those which are openly Christian. Republican inscriptions include Saturnian verse, the Scipio epitaphs, and a few other notable epitaphs. Imperial inscriptions are organized by topic: 1) emperors and notables, matters of state and public buildings; 2) baths and springs, private buildings, works of art, and furniture; 3) literary, educational, and philosophical connections; 4) inns, travel, and tourism; 5) erotic; 6) municipal politics and institutions; 7) games, public performances and performers; 8) trades and professions; 9) religion (mostly Hercules, Hermes, Aesculapius, Athena, the Vestals, Silvanus, and Priapus, hunt trophies to Liber Pater or Diana, and examples of late syncretism); 10) epitaphs, including several for horses and dogs.The resulting melange is a colorful, earthy slice of life. The reader encounters, among other things: graffiti from the pyramids, dinner etiquette from Pompeii, poetic complaints about the lack of chamber pots at an inn, a hash of elegiac “door-poem” cliches actually written on a door, an ad for a snake charmer, a clay theatre ticket, a braggart soldier who could have stepped off the Plautine stage, and lurid descriptions of peculiar deaths—including an accident with a play javelin à la Antiphon and an attack by witches.The inscriptions themselves show a broad range of literary styles and expertise. The offering of Republican verse runs from the austere, well-wrought dignity of upper-class Saturnian and elegiac epitaphs to the chatty wit of a Saturnian dedication by a collegium of cooks, who, as Courtney says, “know their Plautus, and play up to their traditional comic type-casting as pretentious boasters” (205) but are less competent in their handling of meter. The Imperial material runs from the coarse wit and vulgar Latin of obscene Pompeiian graffiti to the highly polished, elusive style of a second-century North African epitaph (199A) which spends most of its 110 verses describing the three-storey mausoleum—complete with weathercock—which it adorned. (If anyone wants to read the longest extant Latin epitaph, this is it.) Five epitaphs are bi-lingual (Greek/Latin): 112, 159, 160, 170b, 180. Courtney omits the famous epitaph of Allia Potestas because it has already received a thorough commentary by N. Horsfall, ZPE 61 (1985) 251.The commentary deals with all of this disparate material thoroughly and well, and is particularly informative regarding material... (shrink)

The Resolution of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania on the Approval of the State Sports Development Strategy for 2011-2020 states that it is important to create and develop a horizontal structure of public administration of sport, which includes many state administration areas and municipal institutions, which would allow to develop cooperation with non-governmental sports organizations and private sector of sports activities. To create legal and economic conditions for the fast development of active and healthy lifestyle and universal (...) sports clubs as primary subjects of the national sport system; to promote their contribution to non-formal sports education and employment of children and young people, development of various sports, interaction between amateur and professional sports. In this respect, the tasks have been set to create a multi-tier system of strategic cooperation with non-governmental sport organizations with public administration structures, to expand cooperation between municipal institutions in the field of sport, authorized by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania so that these resolutions include the National Sport for All Development Program implementation, enhancing the vitality of communities through sport, ensuring healthy lifestyle conditions and developing sports infrastructure through territorial planning documents and investment programs; to create and develop a system of partnerships in the field of sport between public and private sectors; to develop cooperation between institutions of all fields of management by developing and implementing physical activity, healthy lifestyles and work ability, social cohesion through sport, leisure employment and social prevention and other interinstitutional programs, accordingly reorganizing and expanding functions of the institution authorized by the Government, strengthening its administrative capacity. The implementation of the strategy is particularly relevant, as is the case at the level of municipal administrations and councils, to which functions are delegated to implement the priority functions of sport policy. Problems in the implementation of sport policy are analyzed by scientists as well as representatives of sports policy legislators. The aim of the research is to analyze how the sports policy of the Republic of Lithuania is formulated and implemented in the activities of municipal administrations and councils. Research methods -analysis of scientific literature, analysis of laws, analysis of sports management system. Research results and conclusions. The real role of municipalities and the priority to develop community sport, to promote the vitality of communities has not been realized yet. The role of private business for private investment in sports infrastructure for the development of sports movement and cooperation with socially responsible business representatives, the independent role of clubs and non-governmental organizations as a priority have also not been understood and finally not implemented. In the functional division of activities in the sport policy process, all chains of interaction between organizations, acting within the competence, must strive to implement laws and strategic goals of sports policy. In order to achieve these objectives, the activities of the institutions depend on the political decisions adopted jointly by the central government, public programs and projects. It is important that the executive structures are delegated the same kind of functions, so that the implementation of the policy is carried out consistently in all areas of the republic.Improvement of the process of implementing sports policy and the search for the improvement, trying to achieve the efficiency of activities of municipal administrations and councils must be the main goal of all institutions involved in it. The whole system of institutions involved in the development and implementation of sport policy is too centralized. Institutional differences in the management of interdependence and in the resolution of structural problems between national organizations and municipal organizations are very pronounced. This has a negative impact on the status of municipal territorial sports divisions, when grants are distributed from the state budget, selecting sportsmen, performing medical technological examination of promising sportsmen, setting up sports bases, and so on. (shrink)