Theorisations of state violence under austerity have been criticised for their imprecision. In response, this article introduces the concept of institutional neglect: a specific modality of ...structural violence. We argue that institutional neglect occurs when state services deny care to eligible clients. This is a normative claim which locates an obligation to care in the body of the state. Through case studies of two local authority-run care services in the UK, we identify three banal, quotidian techniques of neglect: delay, deferral, and diversion. We emphasise that care is not necessarily an antidote to violence; instead, care and violence are increasingly entangled within state bureaucracies under austerity.
The voluntary-based initiative Covenant of Mayors (CoM) focused on the active role of local authorities and increased its targets by 2016, through the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans ...(SECAPs) in terms of GHG reduction from 20% to 40% by 2030. In actual fact, the SECAP, intended as an urban planning tool, has the potential to improve the resilience of the EU Municipalities to climate-change, developing adaptation/mitigation actions and increasing the 'environmental awareness' of the involved actors. From a planning point of view, we affirm that the CoM started a new season of urban planning in Europe that covers the planning demand in the domain of implementing sustainable territorial development objectives. It unlocks the current ineffective planning systems and represents a remarkable practice promoting feasible framework projects for public and private investments. This paper proposes a methodological proposal to exploit this spread of SECAPs in the EU, including the systemic strategic planning approach in the process of SECAP design and ensuring an integrated vision of city development over the list of actions per sector required by the Global CoM procedures. Besides the methodological proposal, a review of the major EU energy policies is provided and relevant Best Practices are presented.
The complex processes of nineteenth-century nation-state building included ways of settling prerogatives between national, provincial and municipal governments. This article focuses on the tensions ...generated by the government of the rural towns between the Estado de Buenos Aires and the Confederación Argentina at a time of debates and confrontations over the organisation of the national state in the mid-nineteenth century. The aim is to analyse the different changes of authorities generated in the rural towns as a resonance of the confrontations over the constitution of the nation state and as an expression of tensions over the self-government of local communities. A significant number of cases are reconstructed and articulated in order to consider the interests and actions adopted by different actors in the different changes of authorities around the battle of Cepeda. We consider the disputes over the appointment of authorities in the towns as issues of representation and self-government typical of the nineteenth century that were articulated with policies of domination deployed at a time of armed clashes and tensions in the relations between the capital city and the rural towns.
Turning rhetoric into reality and fully embracing the principles and practice of the Care Act 2014 in innovative, citizen-focused and creative ways has been a journey constructively embraced in ...Birmingham over the last two years. This has been a journey with critical learning points which incorporate theoretical reflection, managerial and practitioner innovation and an emphasis on citizen-focused co-production. This article considers the context, examines the nature of the change process and appraises the findings from the eighteen-month evaluation. All of these learning points and the process of change itself are eminently transferrable to other Local Authorities operating in the four countries which comprise the UK as well as to the international arena.
Purpose This paper follows the call for more future-oriented practices within organisations, particularly in relation to how they respond to growing concerns about Earth’s sustainability and life on ...the Planet. This study aims to explore how the data produced by major scientific projects in the Space sector can support future-oriented accountability practices by enabling both a projection and an imagination of a more or less distant future, thereby feeding into accountability practices. Design/methodology/approach We rely upon a multiple interpretative case study analysis and interview-based data from three main organisations in the Earth observation (EO) value chain: an International Space Company, a Research Centre of Energy Transition and a European Private Equity Firm. Findings We find that future-oriented accountability practices can be fed by a creative assemblage of scientific data provided by Space sector’s programmes with different sources of knowledge and information. These data are embedded into a broader accountability system, connecting different actors through a “value chain”: from the data providers, gathering data from Space, to the primary users, working on data modelling and analysis, to the end users, such as local authorities, public and private organisations. The predictive data and expertise exchanged throughout the value chain feed into future-oriented accountability efforts across different time-space contexts, as a projected and imagined, more or less distant, future informs the actions and accounts in the present. Originality/value This research extends the literature on the time dimension of accountability. We show how a creative assemblage of scientific data with different sources of knowledge and information –such as those provided by Space sector’s programmes and EO data – enable organisations to both project the present into (a more or less distant) future and imagine this future differently while taking responsibility, and accounting for, what could be done and desired in response to it. We also contribute to the limited literature on accountability in the Space sector by examining the intricate accountability dynamics underpinning the relationships among the different actors in the EO data value chain.
Modern states are distinguished by the breadth and depth of public regulation over private affairs. This aspect of state capacity and state power is predicated on frequent and dense encounters ...between the state and the population it seeks to control. We argue that literacy in the language of state administration facilitates state-society interaction by lowering the transaction costs of those encounters. We support this claim with evidence drawing upon detailed historical data from nineteenth-century France during a crucial period of state and nation building. Focusing on the specific domain of French marriage regulations, we find that increasing literacy predicts greater popular involvement with local authorities across French regions over time. These results demonstrate that literacy plays an important role in political development not solely by enhancing loyalty to the state, as the literature has recognized, but also by lowering linguistic and human capital barriers to state-society interaction.
•A well-functioning space heating system can operate below 70 °C for 98% of the year and below 55 °C for 71% of the year.•The performance gap between measured and calculated energy use is widening ...across building age groups, with a clear increase for post-1980 buildings.•Pre-1980 buildings can operate with supply temperatures below 70 °C for 96–99% of the year and below 55 °C for 67–71% of the year.•Building envelope improvement, whilst recommended, is not a pre-requisite for using low-temperature supply in pre-1980 buildings.•Post-1980 buildings could have limitations in respect of using low-temperature heat under windy conditions.
Decarbonising heat in the UK by 2050 will require the wider adoption of low-temperature heat. Current systems, largely relying on gas boilers, have design operating temperatures of 82/71 °C (supply/return) while new standards for 4th Generation District Heating are 55/25 °C. Local authorities must set-up strategies to get their buildings “Heat network ready” but this raises the question of the ability for existing buildings to use low-temperature heat. The aim and the novelty of this paper is to establish a relationship between an energy ‘performance gap’ in Scottish public buildings and their ability to use low-temperature heat. This performance gap has been evaluated for 121 non-domestic buildings, primarily schools, operated by The City of Edinburgh Council. Space heating system are assumed oversized by 10%. The results show that renovation of the building envelope, while highly desirable, is not a pre-requisite for using low-temperature heat in pre-1980 constructed buildings, which represent 64% of the stock. It also highlights that post-1980 buildings, predominantly utilising mechanical ventilation systems, demonstrate an increasing performance gap which could limit their ability to use reduced operating temperature, especially in windy conditions.
Urbanisation and a changing climate are leading to more frequent and severe flood, heat and air pollution episodes in Britain's cities. Interest in nature-based solutions to these urban problems is ...growing, with urban forests potentially able to provide a range of regulating ecosystem services such as stormwater attenuation, heat amelioration and air purification. The extent to which these benefits are realized is largely dependent on urban forest management objectives, the availability of funding, and the understanding of ecosystem service concepts within local governments, the primary delivery agents of urban forests.
This study aims to establish the extent to which British local authorities actively manage their urban forests for regulating ecosystem services, and identify which resources local authorities most need in order to enhance provision of ecosystem services by Britain's urban forests.
Interviews were carried out with staff responsible for tree management decisions in fifteen major local authorities from across Britain, selected on the basis of their urban nature and high population density. Local authorities have a reactive approach to urban forest management, driven by human health and safety concerns and complaints about tree disservices. There is relatively little focus on ensuring provision of regulating ecosystem services, despite awareness by tree officers of the key role that urban forests can play in alleviating chronic air pollution, flood risk and urban heat anomalies. However, this is expected to become a greater focus in future provided that existing constraints – lack of understanding of ecosystem services amongst key stakeholders, limited political support, funding constraints – can be overcome.
Our findings suggest that the adoption of a proactive urban forest strategy, underpinned by quantified and valued urban forest-based ecosystem services provision data, and innovative private sector funding mechanisms, can facilitate a change to a proactive, ecosystem services approach to urban forest management.
•British urban forests are managed reactively, in response to risks and complaints.•Tree officers are aware of urban forests’ delivery of regulating ecosystem services.•Limited funding and lack of political support are obstacles to a proactive approach.•Awareness raising via ecosystem service valuation and strategic planning is needed.•Research into a public-private urban forest funding model would be beneficial.
Currently, new suburban settlements are often being localized in rural areas. As a result of this, rural areas have been taking on various urban functions, especially residential ones. Intense ...migration has been observed, especially in rural areas neighboring large cities. The urban population has been settling in the most attractive residential localizations, and thus creating new housing developments with a high population density, characterized by urban type of construction. Such a process, both favorable and inevitable, leads to other effects, including changes among the local authorities and thus, local policy. The main purpose of this article was to answer the question of whether new urban functions in rural areas resulting from urban sprawl can lead to urban people governing rural areas? If the answer is positive, what other consequences may this bring? The aim was accomplished through the careful examination of a selected area of Poland. The particular value of this study is that its structure and suggested scenarios of possible effects can help local authorities governing areas neighboring cities create suitable spatial plans that include residential areas.
•Rapid suburbanization leads to changes in member composition of local authorities.•It can lead to conflicts among been-heres and newcomers.•Planners should assess the impact of population density on local council.
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