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The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has encouraged political scientists to re-examine the comparative literature on democratisation. A vast literature has now been produced comparing transitions from authoritarianism and democratisation in different parts of the world. However, there are two major omissions in the transition literature. First, the focus of research has primarily been on national level politics, and second, the relationship between federalism and democracy has largely been overlooked. This study seeks to redress this imbalance by moving the focus of research from the national level to the vitally important processes of institution building and democratisation at the local level and to the study of federalism and democratisation in Russia. Federal states are much more difficult to set up than unitary ones, and forging a new federal system at the same time as privatising the economy and trying to radically overhaul the political system has clearly made Russia's transition triply difficult. This book builds on Cameron Ross' earlier work, 'Regional Politics in Russia', by combining theoretical perspectives with empirical work to provide a comparative analysis of the electoral systems, party systems and governmental systems in the ethnic republics and regions and to assess the impact of theses different institutional arrangements on democratisation and federalism. Overall, this study argues that Russia's weak and asymmetrical form of federalism has played a major role in thwarting the consolidation of democracy. Federalism and democratisation in Russia exist in contradiction rather than harmony. In a vicious circle authoritarianism at the centre has been nourished by authoritarianism in the regions and vice versa. 'Elective dictatorships' and 'delegative democracies' are now well entrenched in many republics and authoritarian regimes are firmly established in a majority of the regions. This book will be vital reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of Russian politics and democratisation.

Democratization. --- Democratic consolidation --- Democratic transition --- Political science --- New democracies --- Russia. --- comparative analysis. --- democratisation. --- electoral systems. --- ethnic republics. --- federalism. --- governmental systems. --- institution building. --- institutional arrangements. --- party systems.

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This paper focuses on an evaluation and benchmarking of the governance of regulatory agencies in the electricity sector in Latin American Countries (LAC). Using a unique database, we develop an index of regulatory governance and rank all the agencies in the LAC countries. The index is an aggregate number of the evaluation of four key governance characteristics: autonomy, transparency, accountability, and regulatory tools, including not only formal aspects of regulation but also indicators related to actual implementation. Based on 18 different indexes, we analyze the positions of agencies with regard to different aspects of their regulatory governance, considering not only performance in each variable but also scores in the different components of each category. This evaluation allows for the identification of particular country shortcomings regarding governance, and indicates needed improvements. Although the region shows an overall good governance design of their regulatory agencies, the implementation of the independent regulator model still faces several challenges. This is particularly evident in political autonomy and in the informal aspects of governance, where the region shows the largest number of countries with the lowest scores. Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil show the best results and Ecuador, Honduras, and Chile the poorest performances. The rest of the countries vary according to the different indexes. We give each governance variable equal weights and positively test the robustness of our approach using Principal Component Analysis.

Accountability --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Country Strategy and Performance --- Disclosure --- Good Governance --- Governance --- Governance Indicators --- Institutional Arrangements --- Institutional Development --- Judiciary --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- National Governance --- Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures --- Regulatory Policies --- Regulatory Policy --- Transparency

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Many low-income countries contend with a governance syndrome characterized by a difficult combination of seeming openness, weak institutions, and strong inter-elite contestation for power and resources. In such countries, neither broad-based policy nor public management reforms are likely to be feasible. But are broad-based approaches necessary? Theory and evidence suggest that in such settings progress could be driven by "islands of effectiveness"-narrowly-focused initiatives that combine high-quality institutional arrangements at the micro-level, plus supportive, narrowly-targeted policy reforms. This paper explores whether and how local-level collaborative governance can provide a platform for these islands of effectiveness. Drawing on the analytical framework developed by the Nobel-prize winning social scientist Elinor Ostrom, the paper reviews the underpinnings of successful collaborative governance. It introduces a simple model for exploring the interactions between collaborative governance and political economy. The model highlights the conditions under which coordination is capable of countering threats from predators seeking to capture the returns from collaborative governance for themselves. The relative strength in the broader environment of two opposing networks emerges as key-"threat networks" to which predators have access, and countervailing "trumping networks" on which protagonists of effective collaborative governance can draw. The paper illustrates the potential practical relevance of the approach with three heuristic examples: the governance of schools, fisheries, and road construction and maintenance. It concludes by laying out an agenda for further empirical research, and suggesting what might be the implications of the approach for future operational practice.

Collaborative governance --- Economic Policy, Institutions and Governance --- Environmental Economics & Policies --- Governance Indicators --- Institutional arrangements --- Inter-elite contestation --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- National Governance --- Political economy --- Poverty Reduction --- Public management reforms --- Public Sector Corruption & Anticorruption Measures --- Public Sector Development

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This paper focuses on an evaluation and benchmarking of the governance of regulatory agencies in the electricity sector in Latin American Countries (LAC). Using a unique database, we develop an index of regulatory governance and rank all the agencies in the LAC countries. The index is an aggregate number of the evaluation of four key governance characteristics: autonomy, transparency, accountability, and regulatory tools, including not only formal aspects of regulation but also indicators related to actual implementation. Based on 18 different indexes, we analyze the positions of agencies with regard to different aspects of their regulatory governance, considering not only performance in each variable but also scores in the different components of each category. This evaluation allows for the identification of particular country shortcomings regarding governance, and indicates needed improvements. Although the region shows an overall good governance design of their regulatory agencies, the implementation of the independent regulator model still faces several challenges. This is particularly evident in political autonomy and in the informal aspects of governance, where the region shows the largest number of countries with the lowest scores. Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil show the best results and Ecuador, Honduras, and Chile the poorest performances. The rest of the countries vary according to the different indexes. We give each governance variable equal weights and positively test the robustness of our approach using Principal Component Analysis.

Accountability --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Country Strategy and Performance --- Disclosure --- Good Governance --- Governance --- Governance Indicators --- Institutional Arrangements --- Institutional Development --- Judiciary --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- National Governance --- Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures --- Regulatory Policies --- Regulatory Policy --- Transparency

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In this paper, the implementation of the activities under the interim poverty reduction strategy and progress toward the elaboration of poverty reduction strategy are described. Institutional framework is strengthened by the creation of the inter-ministerial committee on the implementation of the National Strategy for Poverty Reduction. The goal is to identify priorities and strategies at the community level, and their capacity to operationalize sectoral and thematic poverty reduction strategies. The macroeconomic and financial situation has been stabilized. The poverty reduction strategy budget has been prepared on the basis of detailed cost estimates for each task.

Public Finance --- Social Services and Welfare --- Poverty and Homelessness --- Government Policy --- Provision and Effects of Welfare Program --- Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: General --- Health: General --- Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue: General --- Social welfare & social services --- Poverty & precarity --- Health economics --- Public finance & taxation --- Poverty reduction strategy --- Poverty --- Health --- Institutional arrangements for revenue administration --- Revenue --- Congo, Democratic Republic of the