Blockchain Papers

Harihar Bhattacharyya

The chapter examines the structures and processes in intergovernmental or centre–state relations in federations in Asia. The relations are the operative part of federalism. While there is a constitutionally mandated distribution of powers and responsibilities for each tier of government in federations, the actual operations may take different forms. Beyond the constitutional structure, there are factors such as the party system, leadership, fragmented society etc. which factor into whether the relations are to be cooperative, conflictual or both. Democracy is the silver lining in centre–state relations, for it alone provides the scope for dialogue. But often democracy can be an irritant for smooth federal-provincial relations when the federation is held hostage by some recalcitrant forces. A federation may be very centralized and authoritarian, in which case the federal units are dependent on the centre’s whims for disbursement. Structurally, Myanmar and Malaysia are centralized, but federalism there does not work. In India, constitutionally, the Union government is very powerful, but then administratively it is decentralized. The Finance Commission here has followed a particular formula in financial disbursement to the states which has ensured a good balance in centre–state relations. Finally, this chapter highlights the new role of the federal units in the wake of implementing neoliberal reforms.

Lisa Passavant-Guion

For some years (2008-2010), territorial authorities have been facing a drastic decrease in their resources. The local business tax reform in 2010 has slowed down the dynamism of tax revenues. The regional political representatives no longer have the ability to determine the tax rate. The funds allocated by the State, after having first experienced a freeze in their value, are now reduced as a consequence of successive « stability », « responsibility » and "growth" pacts introduced by different governments. In parallel, the transfers of competences at the beginning of the 2000’s (rail transport and the second act of decentralization) are causing increasingly rigid financial charges for the Regions. Our research aims to understand the causes of these transformations and to qualify the changes that are impacting regional resources. It seeks to determine if there is a growing financialisation of regional politics or if, on the contrary, there is still some local political control despite budgetary constraint. Through a comparative analysis of three Regions (Limousin, Alsace and Nord-Pas-de-Calais), and based on the observation of the reorganization that is happening within regional institutions, our thesis envisages to understand how the political / financial duo evolves in a framework of unprecedented budget constraint.

DANIELA COIMBRA SWIATEK AND ANDREAS NOVY

Neither East nor West East-West cleavages in Europe are a key determinant to understanding Vienna as a rich, but nevertheless semi-peripheral city between Eastern and Western Europe. The Habsburg Empire (1282-1918), of which Vienna was the capital city, covered large parts of the region between Western Europe, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. It was characterized by multiple nationalities and was internally structured with multiple and changing centre-periphery relations – North-South, as well as East-West, and dominant German/Hungarian nationalities versus the other, mainly Slavic nations. Vienna is thus a privileged site for the study of the spatial imaginaries and strategies accompanying the transformations of this broad region, and their socio-economic, political and cultural implications. East and West have been crucially antagonistic mind maps in Western thought, like ‘we’ and ‘the others’, Orient and Occident, and the West and ‘the rest’ (Hall 1994). In the ninth century, Charlemagne separated the Franco-Germanic part of Europe from the Slavic East with an East-West divide very similar to the one later erected by the Iron Curtain (Szücs 1990: 13). In the West, a Christian feudal order evolved out of a symbiosis of the Roman slaveholder latifundium and the German communitarian social organization. Its relatively decentralized power structure permitted a plurality of languages and autonomous cities evolved from the power vacuum (Anderson 1978: 148), constituting a fertile ground for later modernization. From the end of the Middle Ages onwards, the territorial expansionism of the West resulted in the crusades, reconquista and colonization (Komlosy 1994; Hobsbawm 1990). The East experienced a different trajectory. Russia, the sentinel of Europe on the eastern front, had to bear the brunt of repeated invasion waves by Mongols, Tartars and other Asian nomadic people (Anderson 1980), a crucial determinant to an understanding of the centralist and authoritarian structure of its state and society. These different historical-geographical trajectories have significantly contributed to shaping the ‘morphological contrast between the state in the East and West’ (Gramsci 1971) and the different forms of political praxis: ‘In the East the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between State and civil society’ (Gramsci 1971: 238). The Habsburg Empire was part of eastern Central Europe, which was surrounded by the West and Russia. This ‘in-between region’ (Szücs 1990), consisting of Poland, Prussia and the Habsburg Empire, for centuries oriented itself towards the West, but had difficulties in building truly Western institutions, especially a strong civil society. The countryside was sparsely populated (Anderson 1980), the cities were smaller and less independent, the nobility was larger and more influential (Szücs 1990), and the Counter-Reformation was strong. The Habsburg Empire was thus a hybrid, combining elements of the East and the West under one dynasty for more than 600 years.

Horst Siebert

No abstract is available for this record.

Bob Hancké

This article discusses the adjustment of large firms in France, in particular how they regionalized their production structures in the 1980s. Throughout the ‘Golden Age’, large firms had geographically reorganized their activities: strategic planning remained in Paris, while the actual production was decentralized into the provinces, primarily to address cost and labour conflict issues. When the large firms faced a profitability crisis in the 1980s, and the traditional state‐financed way out of the problems was no longer available, they saw in these proto‐regional production systems a chance to become more competitive. They relied on the decentralization policies of the governments in the 1980s, and used the second‐order effects of the new policies as a means to modernize their own operations. L'article examine l'adaptation des grandes entreprises françaises, notamment la régionalisation de leurs structures de production dans les années 1980. Durant ‘l'Age d'Or’, les grosses entreprises avaient réorganisé géographiquement leurs activités: la planification stratégique restait à Paris, tandis que la production réelle se décentralisait en province, principalement pour résoudre des problémes de couûts et de conflits sociaux. Lorsque ces grandes entreprises se heurtèrent à la crise de rentabilité des années 1980, alors que la solution traditionnelle de financement étatique n'existait plus, elles virent dans ces systèmes de production proto‐régionaux une chance d'améliorer leur compétitivité. Elles s'appuyèrent donc sur les politiques de décentralisation des gouvernements de l'époque, profitant des effets secondaires de ces initiatives pour moderniser leur propre fonctionnement.

Jacques Le Cacheux, Laure Tourjansky

Ten years after the decentralization laws were adopted by the French Parliament, the once-and-for-all effects of the changes introduced have had time to work themselves out and the observed evolutions can safely be assumed to reflect the permanent functioning of the French system of local goverments in their new institutional environment. The present paper reviews some of the major consequences of the reforms, mostly on local public finance. It stresses the potential dangers of a system in which, due to the disproportionate share of some taxes and to the important role of central government in financing, locally elected authorities may well not be «accountable» enough. In addition, the equalization properties of existing inter-governmental grants seem much too limited compared to the tendencies, inherent in the current system of local finance, to strong polarization of economic development and to geographic segregation of population according to income levels.

Gérard Pelissionnier, Jacky Perreur

A study of the process of administrative decentralization in the period of 1950 - 1983 is the subject of the present article. The substantial part of the discussion is devoted to presentation of actions undertaken after 1981, i.e. in the course of changes brought about by presidential and parliamentary elections. As far as the period to 1931 is concerned, the authors view its organizational moves as a manifestation of deconcentration of power tendencies, rather that a genuine decentralization. Legal acts enacted after 1981 prove a real will of the legislator to carry out a decentralization process. The article discusses in detail all acts and decrees regulating a new competence division between local communities and the state, changes in executive powers in regions and departments, new functions of regions,, new role of state representatives in communities, principles of financing and control a posteriori, possibilities of communities intervention in economic and social matters. All that results in eliminating the state's tutelage on local communities in the respect of administration and financing. The period which has passed since 1981 is too short to allow drawing any far reaching conclusions. It is therefore advised to undertake an attempt at resuming that new stage of decentralization after a certain time.

Tore Modeen

Aspects of the finnish administration. After a short historical introduction (before and after independence), the author describes the organization of central administration and decentralized units and presents some services : Finance, Education, National Defense. Reforms are under way or in the blueprint : they concern the administration of justice, deconcentration of some services, democratization of administrative life, departmental autonomy.