In this study, we examine the computerization activities of local governments to determine the relationships of architecture. Focusing on the characteristics of the design, development, and operation of computerization, we propose the architecture of computerization based on the manufacturing architecture. Furthermore, we analyze several cases and try to classify the information activities of o...

Distributive politics models often predict that legislators will demand inefficiently large projects, with inefficiency increasing in the number of districts, and that this will translate into larger projects and higher spending. The relationship between efficiency and legislature size is often referred to as the ‘‘law of 1/n’’(Weingast, Shepsle, and Johnsen 1981). We demonstrate that the ‘‘law...

US conscription in the Civil War is analyzed. Conscription was designed to gain federal control of enlistments, leaving state and local governments much of the fiscal and administrative responsibility for raising troops. Due to the hiring of substitutes, the payment of a fee to avoid service (commutation), and community-provided funds, only 2% of those who served were conscripted. Theory sugges...

This article proposes that understanding public employee use of performance information is perhaps the most pressing challenge for scholarship on performance management. Governments have devoted extraordinary effort in creating performance data, wagering that it will be used to improve governance, but there is much we do not know about the factors associated with the use of that information. Th...

A fundamental requirement for making sustainable improvements to rural infrastructure is a clear understanding of who will finance maintenance and capital improvements. In the past the question of financing rural roads has centered primarily on the role of governments. Given the acute scarcity of financial and human resources in most developing countries, there are simply too many kilometers of...

The 2003 SARS outbreak highlighted the importance of maintaining an adequate public health (PH) infrastructure, and cast doubt on the wisdom of basing the system locally without adequate provisions for higher-level oversight and coordination. Structurally, it highlighted the policy legacy of the 1998 Ontario decision to download full responsibility for funding PH services to municipal governmen...

China has been highly successful in electrifying rural areas in the past half century. Institutional structure and its reform are important for investment and, therefore, development of rural electrification. Over time, there have been three major institutional changes initiated by the central government;When the People’s Republic was founded in 1949, it was short of capital, technology and man...