Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LoGov (Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay)
Período documentado: 2019-02-01 hasta 2022-09-30
What is the impact of increasing population movements from the countryside to cities and towns on local public services? How can urban and rural local governments provide and finance these services in times of urbanisation? Does the merging of smaller municipalities really entail efficiency gains and how do other solutions like inter-municipal cooperation fare in comparison? What is urbanisation’s impact on the relations of local authorities with other government levels and how does it affect people’s opportunities for political participation?
These are only some of the questions that the LoGov project seeks to answer. What they all have in common is their growing urgency as a result of fundamental demographic changes. The phenomenon of urbanisation sparked the emergence of metropolitan areas, on the one hand, and the depopulation of rural areas, on the other. According to World Bank data, between 1960 and 2017, the share of rural population worldwide fell from 67 to 45 per cent. The demographic challenge of urbanisation brings along a wide variety of social challenges, including, for instance, ageing rural populations, and causes political challenges such as an increase of disparities between local authorities in terms of their political leverage and financial resources.
These trends inevitably entail lasting changes in the interplay between urban and rural areas, which prompted us to launch the LoGov project. It is our ambition to provide solutions for local governments to address this changing urban-rural interplay and to strengthen collaborative research through staff exchange between the project partners. LoGov identifies, evaluates, compares and shares innovative practices in five major local government areas:
• Local responsibilities and public services
• Local financial arrangements
• Structure of local government
• Intergovernmental relations of local governments
• People’s participation in local decision-making
Our research on local government practices in all five of these areas benefits from the – in many respects – diverse partner institutions that join forces within the LoGov project. The multidisciplinary nature of the consortium, combining expertise in public law, political science, public administration and economics, enables us to look at local government practices from multiple angles. With 18 partners from six continents, LoGov’s comparative research can draw on a wealth of different experiences and a truly global exchange of knowledge. The fact that academic partners are complemented by local government associations and political consultants guarantees that the project is tailored to the needs of local policymakers and facilitates the uptake of the project results by these stakeholders.
These are only some of the questions that the LoGov project seeks to answer. What they all have in common is their growing urgency as a result of fundamental demographic changes. The phenomenon of urbanisation sparked the emergence of metropolitan areas, on the one hand, and the depopulation of rural areas, on the other. According to World Bank data, between 1960 and 2017, the share of rural population worldwide fell from 67 to 45 per cent. The demographic challenge of urbanisation brings along a wide variety of social challenges, including, for instance, ageing rural populations, and causes political challenges such as an increase of disparities between local authorities in terms of their political leverage and financial resources.
These trends inevitably entail lasting changes in the interplay between urban and rural areas, which prompted us to launch the LoGov project. It is our ambition to provide solutions for local governments to address this changing urban-rural interplay and to strengthen collaborative research through staff exchange between the project partners. LoGov identifies, evaluates, compares and shares innovative practices in five major local government areas:
• Local responsibilities and public services
• Local financial arrangements
• Structure of local government
• Intergovernmental relations of local governments
• People’s participation in local decision-making
Our research on local government practices in all five of these areas benefits from the – in many respects – diverse partner institutions that join forces within the LoGov project. The multidisciplinary nature of the consortium, combining expertise in public law, political science, public administration and economics, enables us to look at local government practices from multiple angles. With 18 partners from six continents, LoGov’s comparative research can draw on a wealth of different experiences and a truly global exchange of knowledge. The fact that academic partners are complemented by local government associations and political consultants guarantees that the project is tailored to the needs of local policymakers and facilitates the uptake of the project results by these stakeholders.
To achieve its aim of providing solutions for local governments to address this changing urban-rural interplay and to strengthen collaborative research, LoGov relies on a four-stage research process. This process involves the (1) identification, (2) evaluation, (3) comparison and (4) sharing of local government practices with the first two of these four phases completed so far. We are going through these four stages with regard to the major local government areas mentioned above, which are at the same time the basis for our thematically organized Work Packages (WPs) 1-5.
Phase 1 of the project, that is identifying local government practices, resulted in the collection of such practices in 16 country reports covering Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Croatia, Albania, Moldova, South Africa, Ethiopia, Argentina, India, Australia, Malaysia and Canada. Overall, these reports contain as many as 174 local government practices (WP1: 36 practices, WP2: 34, WP3: 35, WP4: 34, WP5: 35).
Phase 2 of the project was about evaluating the local government practices previously collected in the reports. This was done through semi-structured interviews and workshops in which both academic and non-academic experts expressed their views on the practices collected. In total, we conducted 83 interviews and our 38 workshops involved 947 participants, amounting to an average of 25 people involved per event. Getting an external perspective on the 174 practices was essential for the LoGov partners to achieve a more balanced assessment of these practices and to revise their country reports accordingly. Upon completion of this revision process we were able to publish the final versions of the country reports together with the workshop/interview reports via Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/communities/logov-823961/search?page=1&size=20&q=).
Phase 1 of the project, that is identifying local government practices, resulted in the collection of such practices in 16 country reports covering Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Croatia, Albania, Moldova, South Africa, Ethiopia, Argentina, India, Australia, Malaysia and Canada. Overall, these reports contain as many as 174 local government practices (WP1: 36 practices, WP2: 34, WP3: 35, WP4: 34, WP5: 35).
Phase 2 of the project was about evaluating the local government practices previously collected in the reports. This was done through semi-structured interviews and workshops in which both academic and non-academic experts expressed their views on the practices collected. In total, we conducted 83 interviews and our 38 workshops involved 947 participants, amounting to an average of 25 people involved per event. Getting an external perspective on the 174 practices was essential for the LoGov partners to achieve a more balanced assessment of these practices and to revise their country reports accordingly. Upon completion of this revision process we were able to publish the final versions of the country reports together with the workshop/interview reports via Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/communities/logov-823961/search?page=1&size=20&q=).
LoGov started from the recognition that comparative research on local government has experienced a boom, especially from the 1990s onwards, and that at least some issues linked with changing urban-rural relations have already inspired some scholarly work to build on. Our project goes beyond the state of the art in four ways: the extensive geographical scope of expertise of the global LoGov consortium, a focus on underexplored case study countries, a transversal theme-based approach to comparison and an emphasis on practice-oriented research including local government stakeholders in all phases of the research process.
As for the expected results during the second half of the LoGov project, we aim to build on the wealth of data that has been collected with the 16 country reports, as well as the 83 interviews and our 38 workshops. In the current phase 3 of the project, we will engage in both small- and large-scale comparison of local government practices. Furthermore, results from our comparative research will be presented at events targeted at both the academic and non-academic stakeholder communities. The latter group will be key in the final phase 4 of the project, which is about sharing local government practices with practitioners.
This is linked with the impact which we envisage for the project and which it has already yielded so far. First, we aim to enhance cooperation and mobility between the academic and non-academic sectors so that we have included local government practitioners at all stages of the LoGov research process and have implemented so far 18 out of 45 secondments as intersectoral exchanges involving non-academic partners. Secondly, our research addresses one of the most pressing Societal Challenges under Horizon 2020, namely that of supporting inclusive, innovative and reflective societies (SC6) by identifying, evaluating, comparing and sharing with local governments concrete practices on how they can tackle territorial inequalities between urban and rural municipalities. Thirdly, through such public-sector innovation, the project also ties in with the Innovation Union, one of the seven Flagship Initiatives for implementing the Europe 2020 Strategy. This is because our research provides solutions for municipalities to cope with the impact of changing urban-rural relations with local government practices in five major areas. Our research provides solutions for municipalities to cope with the impact of changing urban-rural relations with local government practices in five major areas, making them more efficient in providing public services (WP1), more sustainable in financial terms (WP2), better integrated in the overall local government structure (WP3), stronger in relations with other government levels (WP4), and more responsive through popular involvement in local decision-making (WP5).
As for the expected results during the second half of the LoGov project, we aim to build on the wealth of data that has been collected with the 16 country reports, as well as the 83 interviews and our 38 workshops. In the current phase 3 of the project, we will engage in both small- and large-scale comparison of local government practices. Furthermore, results from our comparative research will be presented at events targeted at both the academic and non-academic stakeholder communities. The latter group will be key in the final phase 4 of the project, which is about sharing local government practices with practitioners.
This is linked with the impact which we envisage for the project and which it has already yielded so far. First, we aim to enhance cooperation and mobility between the academic and non-academic sectors so that we have included local government practitioners at all stages of the LoGov research process and have implemented so far 18 out of 45 secondments as intersectoral exchanges involving non-academic partners. Secondly, our research addresses one of the most pressing Societal Challenges under Horizon 2020, namely that of supporting inclusive, innovative and reflective societies (SC6) by identifying, evaluating, comparing and sharing with local governments concrete practices on how they can tackle territorial inequalities between urban and rural municipalities. Thirdly, through such public-sector innovation, the project also ties in with the Innovation Union, one of the seven Flagship Initiatives for implementing the Europe 2020 Strategy. This is because our research provides solutions for municipalities to cope with the impact of changing urban-rural relations with local government practices in five major areas. Our research provides solutions for municipalities to cope with the impact of changing urban-rural relations with local government practices in five major areas, making them more efficient in providing public services (WP1), more sustainable in financial terms (WP2), better integrated in the overall local government structure (WP3), stronger in relations with other government levels (WP4), and more responsive through popular involvement in local decision-making (WP5).