Governance robustness put to the test by Covid-19. The case of Local Area Plans in the Lombardy Region

This article, using the concept of governance robustness, will study the reaction to Covid-19 of a peculiar system of local governance of social assistance;the Italian Local Area Plan (LAP). The article aims to fill the research gap on how a governance system can face external pressure and turbulent events by relying on adaptability and flexibility. In particular, the case of Lombardy, the European region most affected by the first pandemic wave, will be analysed using a survey conducted on 91 LAPS. The article will show how LAPS proved to possess a relevant degree of robustness and were able to effectively resist the external shock of Covid-19 without governance disruption, guaranteeing not simply continuity but also several strategies of adaptability and innovation. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of European Planning Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Adapting to Crisis: The Governance of Public Services for Migrants and Refugees during COVID-19 in Four European Cities

The lack of access to basic services played a big part among the key effects of COVID-19 on migrants and refugees. This paper examines the governance dynamics behind public services for migrants and refugees to understand how COVID-19 has impacted them and what accounts for different levels of adaptive capacity. It employs a mixed methods approach, using egocentric network analysis and qualitative interviews to compare the service ecosystems in four European cities from 2020 to 2022 (Birmingham, Larissa, Malaga, and Palermo). The paper explores the impact of two conditions on the service ecosystems' ability to adapt to the pandemic: the structure of governance and the presence of dynamic capabilities. We argue that the ability of local governments to manage pandemic challenges is highly dependent on the formal distribution of comprehensive competences across various levels (the structure of governance), and the quality of network cooperation between different administrations and civil society (dynamic capabilities). Our analysis reveals that while both conditions are critical for the level of adaptive capacity in public services' provision, the structure of governance is more likely to act as a constraint or trigger for coping strategies.

The role of NGOs in ensuring local governance in Bangladesh: from the perception of other actors of governance

Partnerships between Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and the local government are crucial to ensure optimal governance at the local level. In the last 2 decades in Bangladesh, NGOs have become essential actors in local development and governance. The present study investigated the role of NGOs for ensuring local governance in Bangladesh during the post-pandemic era. Periphery areas (two sub-districts) of the Natore District were selected for the field study. The qualitative analysis was mainly based on primary data. Four categories of respondents were targeted, namely NGOs (11), elected representatives and government officials (28), local elites (20) and general citizens (64) belonging to different genders, and educational and economic levels. In depth interviews, survey questionnaires and focus group discussions were used as the tools for collecting data from sampled respondents. Focus was placed on eleven issues including five development and administration related, five political and participation related, and management of the COVID-19 crisis. A qualitative matrix for the performance of NGOs on governance issues from the perspective of other actors in governance-local elected representatives and executive, local elites and general citizens was developed. The matrix revealed an optimistic story for NGO partnerships and social and governing issues such as women empowerment, disaster management, environment conservation, support during COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, indicators such as vote and election, people's awareness, dispute resolution, local tax collection and budget making revealed that the NGOs need to work more with the local government to ensure participation in the processes of governance. The findings directly from the peripheral field were not only based on investigation of the NGOs but also included the perception of other actors of governance so these results can definitely contribute to national social policy reforms and revision of NGO strategies. © 2023, The Japan Section of the Regional Science Association International.

Going global, locally? Decentralized environmental expenditure and air quality

Achieving more liveable cities is one of the main goals set by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to a recent survey, most subnational governments participate in SDG implementation, especially to achieve environmental goals. Moreover, the public health concerns of COVID‑19 have helped to motivate even more cities to improve local air quality. However, despite the importance of intergovernmental cooperation for the success of the SDGs, there is still limited progress at the regional and local levels, due to limited institutional capacity and doubts about electoral consequences of unevenly distributed costs. We use panel data for 2010-2019, covering 217 OECD metropolitan areas, together with consolidated environmental expenditure, and find that subnational public spending on environmental protection is more strongly associated with better municipal air quality than environmental expenditure by general governments. Moreover, environmental spending shows a relationship with reduced air pollution exposure through the mechanism of higher institutional quality. © This is an Open Access article distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License which permits non commercial use and redistribution, as long as you give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

Local variation and central-local relations in China's pandemic management

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of state capacity and organizational structure in responding to public health emergencies. The variegated outcome of response mechanisms across the world requires a comparative approach to policy response and learning as well as public governance. The Chinese case has so far been discussed in the literature with regard to its initial delay in launching pandemic management process, and later effectiveness in providing healthcare solutions at the epicenter of the pandemic. This research offers a three-dimensional approach to pandemic management: patient treatment, case containment, and welfare provision to compensate for public health measures. The variable policy processes of local governments outside the epicenter aimed at slowing down the spread of COVID-19 and alleviating the burden of lockdown. The research question is whether these policies were central government-led or cases of local variation? The dataset is composed of over 1000 documents published in the initial stages of the pandemic. The documents include local government policies for patient treatment, case containment and welfare provision from 10 provinces and 10 provincial-level cities across China, excluding the autonomous regions. Analysis of the data indicates that localities selectively implemented central directives and those localities that are critical in terms of geography, demography or economics took initiative for policy innovation. Inter-locality rivalry also played a role in the policy process. This research contributes to the literature on central-local relations in China, and public policy and governance in the post-pandemic era. China, Covid-19, local governance, local variation, emergency governance.

Designing for local policy: exploring preferable futures in the UK

The appetite for design in local government saw a rise in the late 2000s with the global financial crisis and the resulting economic austerity that required local government services to innovate. This appetite has been exacerbated by the awakening to the global climate emergency and inclusion of action plans to reduce carbon emissions at a local scale;and of course, the global health crisis caused by Covid-19. Local governments are responsible for responding to these unprecedented challenges ensuring continued and equitable access to public services for residents. Yet, design for local public policy is a nascent field of practice. This paper presents an approach to design for local policy characterized by "world-building preferable futures through Critical Service Design" which proposes a novel approach to participatory place-based local policymaking. This design-led methodology has been developed through theory and practice, informed by critical reflection on the successes and shortcomings of collaborative design practice research with public servants in England and developed iteratively at Service Futures Lab, as part of the postgraduate service design curriculum at London College of Communication. The paper aims to contribute to a growing a body of academic literature on design for local governance, supporting collaboration between design education and local government and the development of dedicated training programmes on design for policy.

“Scrambling”: Logic of horizontal competition between local governments based on three cases of interprovincial disaster counterpart support

Interprovincial counterpart support is a cooperative system used by local governments to achieve horizontal flow of resources based on cross-regional cooperation. Existing research has mainly focused on governance efficiency, institutional advantages, and ranking incentives while ignoring the scrambling behavior and operational mechanisms of local governments formed by ranking incentives and territorial responsibilities. This study selected the Wenchuan earthquake, Yushu earthquake, and COVID-19 as three typical cases. We constructed a theoretical framework for competition among provincial local governments and found that competition in interprovincial disaster counterpart support followed a dual behavioral logic of “striving to be first” and “fear of being last”. Specifically, local governments will choose striving to be first under the logic of time coercion, content games, and territorial responsibility;they will choose fear of being last under the logic of responsibility avoidance and moral pressure. This type of scrambling-based horizontal competition reflects the logic of local government competition tournaments. This study further revealed the specific processes, mechanisms, and results of horizontal local government competition, which can provide inspiration for cross-regional and provincial cooperation. © 2022 Shandong Normal University

The CCP, Campaign Governance and COVID-19: Evidence from Shanghai.

This paper examines Shanghai's grassroots COVID-19 management as a lens to explore the role of local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organisations in public policy implementation in China. We bring together literature on the Party-state relationship with literature on 'routine' and 'mobilizational' governance to construct a framework that conceptualises the CCP as the central actor in implementing public policy through campaigns. We distinguish 9 governance techniques deployed by the CCP in grassroots COVID management, which we illustrate with evidence from 37 semi-structured interviews conducted in summer 2021 with secretaries and directors from local Residents' Committees, government officials mobilised to assist with pandemic management, representatives from property management companies and Party-Mass Service Centres, as well as volunteers and residents. We demonstrate that, although Party-led policy implementation elicits comprehensive compliance, it places significant pressure on the system of grassroots governance.

Community Participation in Elementary Education and COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Public Schools in Bihar

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected elementary education adversely and exacerbated the pre-existing challenges. In such a situation, community support has become crucial and it can be ensured through School Education Committee (SEC). An empirical qualitative study was conducted to understand the notion of community in such a situation. Thematic analysis, triangulation, and purposive sampling were used. The study revealed that the community is willing to support but the education system has failed substantially to materialize it. We advocate for immediate interventions to reduce friction in the process of community participation in elementary education. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Asian & African Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Reflections on pandemic governance in Japan

The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe damage to many aspects of lives and its management has equally brought about different approach where many have witnessed lockdowns, state of emergencies, and travel restrictions. These measures in their own spectrum have achieved many results identified as successful or otherwise. To many, being liberal on the approach to managing the pandemic is key to ensuring continue flow of resources to promote economic sustainability. Others also have the view that, stringent measures ensure safety and healthy population which are essential to restarting economic structuring in postpandemic. However, adopting flexible but principled approach may be important in the midst of many approaches. This chapter looks at the governance system of Japan from the perspective of state emergency system and its application during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is discussed with some local context while placing it in other jurisdictional contexts to enhance the understanding of adaptive governance. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Understanding the nexus between local governance and social innovation: Evidence from an Italian study on family policies, with an ex-post COVID-19 interference

This paper stems from the «Progetto Pilota Natalità» in the province of Modena of the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy. Run between 2019 and 2021, the project introduces new evidence related to family policies in the Province of Modena. Specifically, we integrate primary qualitative firm-level evidence gathered during the Covid-19 pandemic with data on the voluntary organizations operating in the Italian third sector obtained just before the Covid-19 outbreak. We provide meaningful insights at the intersection of the public, the private and the voluntary sectors, while setting some guidelines to move forward in the design and implementation of family policies that are sensible across the territory. The study is interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic and, as a result, is mainly centered around two themes: (1) the processes involved in the territorialization of public policy, particularly family policies, that entail local collective action levers and bottom-up resilience for the application of national policies;(2) the potential of these policies in terms of social innovation, understood as the joint design of a social infrastructure within a value allocation process between the actors involved, given certain time and space aspects. The paper explores the dimensionality of social innovation through the emergence and the scaling up of innovative processes as a result of devolved governance from national and EU levels to the local level, which gives precisely the framework of this study. © 2022 Societa Editrice il Mulino. All rights reserved.

Dark and bright spots in the shadow of the pandemic: Rural livelihoods, social vulnerability, and local governance in India and Nepal.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented disruption to lives and livelihoods around the world. These disruptions have brought into sharp focus experiences of vulnerability but also, at times, evidence of resilience as people and institutions gear up to respond to the crisis. Drawing on intensive qualitative enquiry in 16 villages of Himalayan India and Nepal, this paper documents both dark and bright spots from the early days of the pandemic. We find intense experiences of fear and uncertainty, heightened food insecurity, and drastic reductions in livelihood opportunities. However, we also find a wide range of individual and collective responses as well as a patchwork of policy support mechanisms that have provided at least some measure of basic security. Local elected governments have played a critical role in coordinating responses and delivering social support, however the nature of their actions varies as a result of different institutional arrangements and state support systems in the two countries. Our findings highlight the changing nature of vulnerability in the present era, as demographic shifts, growing off-farm employment and dependence on remittances, and increasing market integration have all brought about new kinds of exposure to risk for rural populations in the context of the present disruption and beyond. Most importantly, our research shows the critical importance of strong systems of state support for protecting basic well-being in times of crises. Based on these findings, we argue that there is a need for greater knowledge of how local institutions work in tandem with a broader set of state support mechanisms to generate responses for urgent challenges; such knowledge holds the potential to develop governance systems that are better able to confront diverse shocks that households face, both now and in the future.

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on public engagement approaches to disaster preparedness for foreign residents: case of Tokyo Metropolitan Area, Japan

Purpose: Foreign residents in Japan are classified as one vulnerable group at risk of disasters. Therefore, various measures are in place to engage, educate and offer first-hand experiences of disaster countermeasures required to overcome systematic disaster preparedness problems. However, the need for Japan to prevent the spread and infection of COVID-19 has necessitated measures that prohibit public gatherings and other social activities. This study aims to look at how these arrangements have impacted public engagement approaches to disaster preparedness for foreign residents within the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Design/methodology/approach: This study identifies local organizations and examines their methods of engagement that enhance the disaster preparedness of foreign residents in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The activities are examined in the context of when there was no COVID-19 pandemic and the current state of the pandemic. A change in activities attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic is then extracted and explained through field surveys and interviews with the relevant organization. Findings: This study reveals that most disaster preparedness activities were best accomplished through in-person engagements. Nevertheless, online engagements have become the alternative option because of COVID-19 infection prevention. This change has widen the coverage of some activities but major setbacks include events cancelations and technical and technological challenges attributed to using online platforms. Research limitations/implications: This study did not examine the effectiveness of pre-COVID-19 pandemic engagement approaches and current changes attributed to the pandemic;many public engagement literatures acknowledge success to include the number of participants, the abilities of organizations to find ways to effectively and positively engage their stakeholders for meaningful partnerships, the number of clicks, access to a website and comments made online. Therefore, as organizations in this study have shown a glimpse of the above characteristics, there are indications of some level of effectiveness in their engagement approaches even amid a pandemic. Practical implications: To avoid such situations in the future, there is the need for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, local governments and associated organizations to develop public engagement approaches that are flexible to resist or cope with in-person, remote encounters, or sudden circumstances that could potentially derail planned activities. Social implications: The most effects attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic are the cancelation of many disaster drill exercises, community disaster walks, training of volunteers for foreign residents’ assistance and many hours of “Yasashii Nihongo” lesson. The cancelation of activities is a setback to the efforts of self-help and mutual aid campaigns by authorities to reduce the impacts of disasters. Originality/value: The spirit of inclusion has been an embodiment of disaster management approaches in Japan for years for which policy recognitions have been tagged along the dimensions of public aid, self-help and mutual aid. These are aimed at engaging the populace, especially foreign residents in disaster training and exercises, language study and other communal activities for disaster preparedness. However, to prevent the spread of COVID-19, there have been a series of restrictions on gathering and inter-personal public engagement activities in Japan. As foreigners are classified as the most vulnerable to disaster in Japan, it is important to understand how these restrictions will/are affecting the efforts of integration and disaster preparedness, which are a crucial part of the Government’s effort to reduce casualties and damage in the anticipated Nankai megathrust earthquake. Besides the results being useful for government interventions, it also adds to the knowledge of the repercussion of COVID-19 and how to plan for emergencies. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

THE LOCAL GOVERNANCE OF RURAL TOURISM AS A RESPONSE TO THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19

Within the tourism industry, rural tourism is an innovative phenomenon that contributes to the revitalization and generation of economic development and social cohesion in many municipalities at risk of demographic involution. Due to the restrictions on mobility and the measures of social distancing that have resulted from the health crisis of COVID-19, it is undoubtedly a sector that has been seriously affected. However, on the other hand, in the context of the health threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and as long as this threat is perceived, it is foreseeable that in the near future, citizens will opt for rural tourism as the least risky option for their leisure and rest destinations, so that the sector faces new challenges and opportunities arising from this new scenario. In this context, our thesis is that in order to face these new challenges, the sector needs to adopt innovative models of governance, of a collaborative nature and which take into account the specificities of each particular destination. To this end, the autonomy of local governments in the design and implementation of public policies for tourism development that are more appropriate to the place must be strengthened. Therefore, from the analytical framework provided by the concept of local governance, and based on a qualitative study, we will analyse networks created "ad hoc" of public, private and third sector actors as a result of the health emergency. We will deal with the reasons for the creation of networks, their impact on existing ones, their main drivers and leadership, the innovations introduced, and the challenges derived from the coordination and management between public and private actors of the new demands made on the rural tourism sector and its integration with other local national and European development policies (Next Generation EU).

Local Governance in China: A Comparative Analysis of the Prevention and Control of COVID-19

Pandemic prevention and control have become a top priority for local governance. This paper explores the governance logic and patterns in Hubei, Zhejiang, and Henan in China. Under the analytical framework (constituting decision-making and implementation capability, the effectiveness of information dissemination, infrastructural capability, the capability to coordinate horizontal departments and organize civil society, the capability to deliver services, and professional and innovative capability), governance behaviors embody different governance logics. Hubei embodies a traditional administrative-led bureaucratic system, Zhejiang realizes an inclusive public governance logic that relies on professionalism and innovation, and Henan exhibits a typical grassroots mobilization governance model based on mass participation. Speed, transparency, penetration, breadth, warmness, and intensity should be reflected in local officials' behavior. Local governments are required to be given sufficient decision-making space, local administrative agencies and officials are required to have professional qualities and skills, and local governance should be understood under a new comparative path that explicitly incorporates local specificities.

Protective policies for all? An analysis of Covid-19 deaths and protective policies among low-, medium-, and high-vulnerability groups.

Protective policies have been unequally and inconsistently applied in the United States throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. This study investigates the relationship between state and local policies and Covid-19 deaths, combining three datasets: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Social Vulnerability Index; local laws and regulations from the COVID Analysis and Mapping of Policies (AMP) database; and Covid-19 deaths by county reported by The New York Times. It examines, using propensity score matching, local policies and regulations as treatments during the crisis, and assesses how, inter alia, face mask requirements, gathering restrictions, stay-at-home orders, and social distancing mandates enacted at the county level altered Covid-19 deaths. The results indicate that the first three variables reduced average Covid-19 deaths in high-vulnerability communities. Despite clear gaps in federal policy guidance and coordinated policies, some efforts led by local and state governments promoted safer behaviour and lessened the impact of Covid-19 in communities, especially those with higher social vulnerability rates.