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Copyright of Public Money & Management 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article analyzes the dynamics behind the recentralization of health systems in Brazil and Spain. Recentralization in Brazil and Spain occurred after a long decentralization process when central governments stepped up their monitoring and coordination roles over the health system as a response to the shortcomings of decentralization. The analysis herein explains why Brazil shows a higher degree of recentralization than Spain and reveals two causes of this outcome: first, the different strategies of central governments to sideline at least one subnational level of government during decentralization, and second, the type of opposition these governments faced in the approval of recentralizing measures. This article contributes to the literature on health reforms in two ways: first, it allows for a better grasp on the main factors affecting the advancement of recentralization, and second, it aids in identifying how temporality and territoriality interfere in the recentralization of health systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments are becoming digital; however, a shift toward digital transformation may not always occur voluntarily. For example, despite their willingness or skills, local government accountants are usually forced to adopt a digital innovation to comply with requirements from top‐down public financial management reforms—a typical case of compulsory digital transformation. We observe local government accountants' attitudes toward compulsory digital transformation and their effects on the comprehensiveness of the digital transformation linked to accounting reforms in place. We empirically analyzed the public financial management oversight function in Brazil, in which digitalization requires local government accountants to report financial information to external authorities via computerized tools. Relying on interviews and an open‐ended survey with local government accountants, our findings revealed how Brazilian government accountants deal with compulsory digital transformation in the context of task overload. Most of the accountants present a resigned posture in which they opt to comply with the oversight authorities' deadlines at the expense of reductions in the reported data's accuracy. However, other accountants assume a visionary posture by adopting a transformative attitude and turning the mandatory digital transformation to their advantage to favor a broader reformist agenda. The implications of such a scenario are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal Public Administration & Social Management / Administração Pública e Gestão Social is the property of Administracao Publica e Gestao Social 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The expansion of financial autonomy increased the interest on the factors that influence the efficiency of local governments (LGs). Although fiscal autonomy and employee's wages have implications for efficiency, research has ignored their combined effects. This work aims to investigate the relation between salary, financial autonomy and the efficiency of LGs' health systems in Brazil. The sample was composed of 188 LGs in the state of Paraíba from 2011 to 2015. The study consisted of a two-stage analysis: (i) efficiency was measured by means of Data Envelopment Analysis; (ii) and multiple regression on panel data. Results demonstrate that (i) the average salary of doctors affected efficiency negatively, while the salary of non-doctors had a positive impact on efficiency; (ii) salary differences between doctors and non-doctors, as well as differences between members within each group, did not impact efficiency; (iii) LG's financial autonomy presented positive effects on efficiency even if not confirmed by all models. Results show that when an increase in salary affected groups receiving smaller salaries, the effect was positive on efficiency, while for groups with higher salaries, such an increase caused a negative impact. Finally, this study suggests that LGs' greater financial autonomy is positively correlated to greater efficiency in healthcare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All over the world, there is a pressing need to better understand how climate change has been incorporated into governmental agendas, and evaluate the status of adaptation planning and interventions at the local level. In this paper, we seek to contribute towards bridging this gap by identifying local practices connected to climate adaptation in six large Brazilian cities, and presenting a framework, based on the existing literature, for assessing constraints to adaptation across the municipal level. Although local governments are not the only actors who can take the lead through their actions, the employed framework considers that effective adaptation planning in urban areas is highly dependent on municipal efforts. Our findings indicate that six aspects have the highest levels of impact on adaptation in the Brazilian cities studied: administrative practices, political will, level of commitment, mismatch between the scale of urban issues and the extent of local government authority, pressures from private sectors, and inspection. Although these barriers are not specific only to climate issues and can be identified in other environmental arenas, when combined, they cause and worsen constraints to advancing urban adaptation at the local level. Specifically concerning the local dynamics of urban planning, the combination of pressures from private sectors and insufficient inspection negatively affects the ability of these cities to consolidate adaptation interventions. Our results are helpful in the context of large cities, particularly in Global South, where, as in Brazil, competitive urbanism and specific interest groups confront municipal efforts, and make achieving adaptation more difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Latin America is undergoing a process of metropolitanization, we argue that intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) arrangements may serve as a quality check of the region's metropolitan governance. We also adhere to the notion that IMC in a metropolitan region is affected not only by constitutional variables embedded in federalist arrangements but also in different ways. We test this assumption by building on a series of hypotheses taken from the literature on IMC. We then compare results from Mexico and Brazil, both federal countries with metropolitan regions. In testing the same variables, we observe different outcomes and a different explanatory power of the theoretical premises underlying IMC. We assign these explanatory differences to features of federalism, an understudied variable. We conclude that, while municipal drivers constitute relevant factors in predicting IMC within a metropolitan region, federalist arrangements modify the weight attributed to these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research argues that the leadership styles of men and women differ significantly, with women’s styles being more inclusive and participatory. I test this argument by examining whether women elected officials are more likely to increase citizen participation using data on the adoption of two different types of participatory institutions in Brazilian municipalities: participatory budgeting and participatory policy councils. Results suggest that women leaders are not inherently more participatory than men. Rather, the decision to initiate participation in a certain policy area appears to be a strategic choice. Mayors of both genders are likely to initiate participation in policy areas that appeal to constituents of the opposite gender and counter stereotypes: men are more likely to adopt participatory councils for women’s rights, children’s rights, and health care, while women are more likely to adopt a council for sports. These findings suggest that women’s styles of leadership are not inherently more inclusive than men’s. It appears that strategy, rather than style, likely determines whether a leader will be more inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The empirical literature on the effects of competition on the supply of public goods shows controversial results at the local level. The main objective of this paper is to investigate this relationship in a federalist country (Brazil) where the political system places few barriers to the entry of competitors and local governments have the independence to establish their own public policy. We show that a higher effective number of candidates running for the executive branch increase the supply of local public goods (the number of student enrollments, teachers, and free immunizations). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper develops an outputs assessement of the Sistema Unico de Assistencia Social's implementation after four years of its conception. Therefore, some relevant issues are subject of this article analysis: i) has the new implementation framework had an impact on local government improvement? ii) has Suas implementation had positive outputs in reducing inequality among municipalities? iii) What are the determinants of municipalities' improvement in welfare policymaking after this institutional change? In order to do so, data exploratory analysis and multiple regression are employed based on 2005 and 2009 Munic/IBGE surveys. As a result, the inquiry demonstrates that overall Suas has been successful improving the welfare policy, reducing the disparity among municipalities and, especially, political system's aspects impacted the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of URVIO - Revista Latinoamericana de Seguridad Ciudadana is the property of FLACSO - Ecuador (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Análise is the property of EDIPUCRS - Editora Universitaria da PUCRS 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Celina Souza analyzes two Brazilian mechanisms designed to improve local deliberative democracy: participatory budgeting and community councils. She addresses two questions: how these experiences are being implemented and how sustainably. She argues that despite the uneven capability of local governments to empower ordinary citizens, some progress has been made towards local deliberative democracy, although the sustainability of these experiences is not yet clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]