Halduskultuur

Plan Bee: The Case of an Islamic Honey Cooperative in Morocco

2023-04-06T09:26:15+03:00

Taddaret Inzerki is an indigenous honey cooperative (i.e. apiary) in rural Morocco that has operated autonomously for centuries. To understand the devolved status of the apiary, and accordingly, explore the often overlooked field of (non-Western) traditional community-based administrative systems and practices, this essay first provides a brief summary of devolution theory (based on Althusius’ Politica) and the track record of similar policies in the context of natural resource management. The case of Taddaret Inzerki, which is the core contribution of the essay, is then presented along the lines of a Geertzian thick description, revealing both the apiary’s historical foundation and its three enduring institutional goals stemming from the rules of the commons: ensuring the welfare of bees, properly treating fellow beekeepers, and fulfilling Islamic requisites. The result for the villagers upholding their sacred craft of Islamic beekeeping is that they are able to generate a reliable livelihood and preserve their shared natural resource commons. However, this essay argues that this administrative arrangement also proves beneficial at the national and even global level, and concludes by suggesting potential avenues of future research.

To experiment or not to experiment in tax policy?

2023-04-06T09:26:16+03:00

Despite the increasing use of experiments in policy-making the suitability of experimenting in the public sector context is still under debate. In this article, we focus on experimenting in the field of tax policy and ask: what are the promises and pitfalls of using experimental approaches in tax policy? While the existing discussions on tax policy experimentation focus on randomized controlled trials from a legal perspective, we adopt a broader view and provide a more comprehensive discussion by synthesizing insights from the fields of political science, public policy, public administration, and governance. Our analysis encompasses randomized controlled trials, non-randomized policy pilots and design experiments. We summarize the existing knowledge on using experimental approaches in policy-making and discuss the implications of the knowledge for experimenting in tax policy. We seek to offer a more holistic and critical take on whether we should promote the use of experimental approaches in this domain.

The Urban Management of Secondary Raw Materials in the Light of Commons Theory

2023-04-06T09:26:16+03:00

This paper intends to verify to what extent the theory of the commons and, in particular, the theory of shared administration can give useful suggestions in dealing with the problems of managing secondary raw materials, in a perspective compatible to the paradigm of circular economy. To this end, the discussion will be divided into three parts. First, the evolution of the regulatory framework for by-products will be analyzed in order to identify whether there is room for bottom-up mechanisms of by-product care. Second, we will examine to what extent by-products can be configured as commons, and what implications this has in the light of the Italian debate on commons. Third, the theoretical and practical scope of the theory of shared administration in the management of secondary raw materials will be analyzed. The analysis conveys the importance of embracing the commons theory and practice in order to concretely implement the circular economy paradigm with regard to the use of byproducts.

Supports for Multi-hazard Risk Reduction in Urban Local Bodies

2023-05-16T12:46:46+03:00

India’s urban assets and populations are highly vulnerable to a multitude of natural hazards, climate variability and environmental change. This can well impact on the entire nation, as economic output comes primarily from in and around its urban settlements. Empirical evidence from recent disasters, despite some major successes, reinforces the limited preparedness of Indian towns and cities to withstand multiple hazards such as fires, floods, extreme temperatures, earthquakes and strong winds. Unregulated growth and the quality of built environment are among a host of factors that have resulted in this vulnerability to disaster events. The research issue that this paper addresses is that of enabling the Urban Local Bodies (ULB) to implement disaster risk reduction and recovery framework(s) developed and agreed on at the national and sub-national levels. This paper highlights capacity challenges within local government for managing natural disasters amongst wider challenges of service provision. The paper draws upon empirical observations to argue that despite their best intentions ULBs are currently constrained in implementing the extensive comprehensive disaster risk & recovery approach driven by a multiplicity of national and multilateral policies. The paper provides observations from the Kosi River flooding disaster (2008) in Bihar state to illustrate this point. The paper further highlights that while this situation will not change overnight there are a number of practical opportunities to support ULBs in making an immediate start and superimpose risk reduction onto development programmes.