Adrian Campbell

Into the mainstream: Local democracy in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract When the newly liberated countries of Central and Eastern Europe created, as one of their first actions, genuinely elected local government, they were reacting against the centralisation of communist rule. They were also asserting a European identity, in line with the European Charter of Local Self-Government, in a system of multi-level governance. This article explores these themes, discussing the provision of services (the delivery of the welfare state), the governance of cities, the tax base, and the issues of scale where there is an immediate potential conflict between the right of the smallest communities to elect their own councils and the need for economies of scale in service delivery. It concludes that, while the future of democratic local government is far from inevitable, there is much that other countries can – and perhaps need to – learn from these recent experiences in Central and Eastern Europe.

State versus society? Local government and the reconstruction of the Russian state

Abstract This paper sets out to demonstrate that the evolution of Russian local government reflects the continuing debate between two traditions or theories of what local government should be: a centralising tradition which does not recognise the claims of either local autonomy or of political pluralism, and a romantic localism based on the society theory of local self-government, which imbues local self-government with an unrealistic mission and thereby (it may be argued) hinders the development of effective local institutions, and thus indirectly supports the consolidation of the state centralism it is opposed to. These two approaches to local government come into collision over the status of districts, which are not entirely state or local government institutions. Whereas the 1995 Law on Local Self-Government attempted to keep districts separate from local self-government, this did not prove practicable, and the Law of 2003, by reintroducing districts, may be seen as attempting to bridge the two opposing conception of the status of local government.

Local government in central and Eastern Europe: Introduction

In 1995 one of us edited a book Local Government in Eastern Europe: Establishing Democracy at the Grassroots (Coulson, 1995). It described, and reflected on, the recreation of local government following the revolutions of 1989 and 1990. It included studies of local government in the different countries, alongside thematic discussions of finance for local government in Hungary, city government in Russia, economic development in Slovakia, and community participation in Poland. When that book was published, local government in what we now call Central and Eastern Europe (the term Central Europe reflecting confidence and a refusal to be marginalised or pushed to the far boundaries of Europe) was a new and exotic plant. Local leadership, and local democracy – the people electing their own leadership – was a radical departure from the centralisation of power under communism. The right to have local elections had been quickly enshrined in the new constitutions, and a new cohort of local politicians had been elected. Many professional people had given up time or careers to stand as mayors in their home towns or villages. It became clear then that what was occurring in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of local government was not simply the democratisation of a level of government, nor the direct transfer of institutional models from Western Europe. Rather it was the rediscovery and reinvention of the purpose and rationale of local government, seen as playing a central role in the political and social life of the country, bridging the state and civil society. In the early years this may have seemed distant from the realities of the mainstream of contemporary local government in Western Europe. In retrospect the rediscovery of local democracy in Central and Eastern Europe may be seen as having helped to strengthen the institution of local government internationally in ways that perhaps need to be rediscovered in the wider Europe.

The restructuring of local government in Russia

There are two common misconceptions about Russian local government since 1990. One is to see in its democratic experiment a ‘tabula rasa’ into which principles and practices distilled from the experience of other countries can be introduced at will. The other is that the old Soviet order is still in place, and that the accumulated weight of tradition will prevent reform. The first underestimates the role of national traditions in shaping change, the second simplifies it by seeing national traditions as immutable and unchanging. This article places the changes in Russian local government, notably the adoption of elected strong mayors’ and appointed ‘heads of administration’, in the context of the debate over universal models and national traditions.

Microelectronics, Skill Shortages and Training Strategies: A Study of Selected British Companies in the High-technology Sector

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East, West, Rome's best? The imperial turn

The emergence of China and other ‘rising powers’ has effectively ended the period of unipolarity that followed the end of the Cold War. The gradual shift of power to the East entails both provisionalisation of the role of the United States as global hegemon and the provincialisation of Europe. Modernity and modernisation will continue but their pursuit is no longer synonymous with incorporation into the West. At the same time, this shift does not necessarily imply any fundamental challenge to the values of capitalism or ‘empire’ (however defined), but rather a transfer of power within a functioning global system. The combination of a change of epic dimensions with a strong element of continuity is redolent of the Roman concept of translatio imperii, of a succession from one ephemeral empire to the next, thereby attaining a semblance of eternity that empires aspire to but, almost by definition, do not achieve.

The great chessboard: Federalism and localism in Putin's Russia

Since coming to power in 2000 the Putin administration has pursued a policy of centralisation, reducing regional power and discretion and in the process radically altering the way the Russian state is perceived both at home and abroad. The Russian Federation is in many respects a supranational (or imperial) state, so that decentralisation is understood not simply as an internal matter but as having wider strategic importance – the

Training practices and product strategy in high technology enterprises

Abstract If skill requirements are interpreted differently in different cultures, even when the manufacturing strategy is similar, then it follows that training or skills provision strategies will vary even more markedly. This paper sets out to describe the extent of this variation between enterprises in the UK according to product strategy, also drawing general comparisons with the German sample as a whole.

Strategic human resource management in China: a multiple perspective

The book consists of seven chapters, with a full bibliography and a useful index. It is just over 220 pages long, in hardback. The respective chapters present empirical evidence based on their research over the last decade, with useful figures and tables. These are, in turn, ‘Chapter 1: Introduction’; ‘Chapter 2: Setting the scene: expatriates, language and culture in China’; ‘Chapter 3: Host country language: why it matters, and why expatriates need to learn it’; ‘Chapter 4: The impact of host country language skills on expatriate adjustment and the expatriate-local relationship’; ‘Chapter 5: Gaining acceptance from local colleagues: evidence from Indian expatriates in China’; ‘Chapter 6: The double-edged sword of ethnic similarity’; ‘Chapter 7: Conclusion: expatriate language and identity challenges and recommendations for expatriate management’. The chapter this reviewer found the most useful was the one presenting the ‘Conclusions’. There are, for example, a set of helpful ‘Do’s and Don’ts’. The authors sum up their findings that expatriation is pervasive in China and that it plays a role in helping to bridge the language barriers between headquarters and subsidiaries. However, they see language differences are a major source of conflict and misunderstanding in many multinationals located there. Indeed, language and cultural differences make people-management a persistent HR problem on-site. Speaking a little Chinese, for example, they add, may impress employees and may really help communication. ‘When in China, do what the Chinese do’, to paraphrase the old saying about Rome. Whilst this book has several merits, it could have been a little more comparative about HRM in Asia, more widely. Managing expats in, say, Japan or South Korea, for example, raises similar linguistic and identity issues. Greater reference to such locations might have been illuminating. The work should mainly appeal to third year management studies undergraduates, MBAs, PhD students, as well as HR professionals, who happen to be interested in China. A good deal of the book is not particularly technical and it is relatively easy to read. This reviewer would strongly recommend this book to anybody interested in the topic of expatriates and expatriation cross-culturally more generally.

From project Putin to brand Putin

In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin was declared the most powerful person in the world (Forbes 2015). However, Russia itself, although once again a major geopolitical player, was experiencing...