This article investigates the dynamics that gender quota reforms create within and between government and opposition parties in electoral authoritarian dominant-party states. A dominant-party state regularly holds relatively competitive elections, but the political playing field is skewed in favor of the government party. We investigate the circumstances under which gender quotas’ goal of furth...

This paper reviews the background, rationale, and prospects for India's recent reforms in the structures of local government. It begins by commenting on some dimensions of governance, and why it is useful to focus on decentralization, especially in the current Indian context. Then some of the theoretical arguments on federalism as an important mechanism for decentralization, as well as India's ...

This chapter examines the spread of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in South Australia. It starts by assessing South Australia’s leading role in the adoption of democratic reforms in the nineteenth century. It then suggests that there is not the same enthusiasm for the more contemporary reforms found in the implementation of e-democracy. The chapter draws from an appraisal of ...

Across the developing world, many governments have implemented political reforms—heavily promoted by international donors—designed to transfer greater power to subnational levels of government and to provide a more substantial policymaking and oversight role to citizens. Although economic analyses have frequently argued that such decentralization programs improve the efficiency of public expend...

Over the recent decades, China experienced several emerging virus outbreaks including those caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome- (SARS-) coronavirus (Cov), H5N1 virus, and H7N9 virus. The SARS tragedy revealed faults in China's infectious disease prevention system, propelling the Chinese government to enact reforms that enabled better combating of the subsequent H1N1 and H7N9 avian ...

This paper reviews Indian economic policy and performance. It traces first how the economy evolved from independence through the 1980s. The early emphasis on industrialization through import-substitution led to a restrictive trade regime and sluggish growth in exports. Pervasive government regulations and controls over private economic activity during this period also impeded economic efficienc...

the health sector, a foremost service sector in nigeria, faces a number of challenges; primarily, the persistent under-funding of the health sector by the nigerian government as evidence reveals low allocations to the health sector and poor health system performance which are reflected in key health indices of the country.notwithstanding, there is evidence that the private sector could be a key...

Fiscal Policy assumes a central place in the overall macroeconomic framework. As government sector and private sector compete for resources and for consumption in the economy, fiscal policy needs to be designed in a framework where an increase in government activity would result in net gains to the economy even when it may negatively impact in private sector activity, or reduce foreign exchange...

This paper examines the performance of recent immigrants to Canada in the labour market as revealed in the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB). This is an administrative database constructed by Statistics Canada by combining an administrative landing file from Citizenship and Immigration with the T1 Family File (T1FF) of income tax returns from the Canada Revenue Agency. As this database n...

government is pushing ahead with a sweeping package of reforms that would radically overhaul funding arrangements for the nation’s public hospitals. The plan would see the federal government assume primary responsibility for the cost of running Australia’s public hospitals, which have historically been administered by the states and territories. It would also set new federal pricing and perform...