Territorial administrative reorganization as a strategy for optimizing the structure of local government

Through the tough economic and social situation and the lack of values that has been experienced in recent years, local governments especially in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain have been forced to strongly consider the structure and size of their public sector. Despite some initiative to reduce the number of municipalities and provinces, little substantive progress has been made in improving the management of the local public Administration during this crisis. In this study a territorial administrative reorganization is proposed as a strategy to optimize the structure of local government, analyzing the Spanish situation in general, and an autonomous community in particular.

Cultural policy models and cultural facilities models: from national to local models. Analysis of Barcelona’s case

The development of cultural policy analysis by social science has been produced a theorization about cultural policy models from sociology and political science. This analysis shows the influence of the national model of cultural policy on the forms of governance and management of cultural facilities. However, in this paper we will defend that currently the local model of cultural policy decisively influences the model of cultural institutions. This is explained by the growing importance of culture in local development strategies. In order to demonstrate this we will analyze the case of the Barcelona Model of local development and cultural policy, that is characterized for the level of local government leadership, multilevel governance, the use of culture in urban planning processes and a tendency to use public-private partnership in public management. This Model influences the genesis and development of the cultural facilities and it produces a singular and relatively successful model.

Ecoturismo en comunidades rurales: análisis de los impactos negativos para la población local. Un estudio de caso

En los últimos años han aparecido nuevas formas de turismo más sostenibles, donde existen elementos relacionados con el descanso, el disfrute y la protección del medio ambiente o el conocimiento de la cultura local, a través de políticas que favorecen la sostenibilidad del destino. En este sentido, el ecoturismo se configura como una tipología turística que se desarrolla en contacto con la naturaleza. Este turismo ayuda a mejorar el desarrollo socioeconómico de las comunidades locales, a la vez, que fomenta la conservación de los recursos naturales y el respeto hacia el medio ambiente. Aunque, esta tipología de turismo también genera importantes impactos negativos. El objetivo principal de esta investigación es analizar los impactos socioeconómicos, culturales y medioambientales percibidos por el ecoturismo por parte de los residentes de comunidades rurales de República Dominicana. La técnica de recolección de datos utilizada ha consistido en un cuestionario. Entre las principales conclusiones, cabe destacar que actualmente no se perciben impactos negativos, pero si hay una serie de elementos que hay que ir considerando, con la finalidad de que no se conviertan en un impacto a corto plazo para la comunidad rural.

A delphy study of the cooperativisation of the social services in the historical territory of Gipuzkoa

This article shows the main results obtained from the Delphi study, which was made of politicians and technicians from the Department of Social Policy in the County Council of Gipuzkoa, concerning the possibility of cooperativizing the provision of social services in this historical territory. With this in mind, the structure of this article is in two different parts. The first part develops the theoretical framework which serves as inspiration for the empirical work, where note is made of the main theoretical proposals that have a bearing on the collective dimension of citizen participation in the management of public services. Among the various models, those which prioritise public participation through social and solidarity economy entities stand out. The second part concerns itself with the presentation of the field research results. To this end, the methodological notes concerning the preparation process for the Delphi analysis are presented first and this is immediately followed by a synthesis of the main results obtained in this study. The article ends with a section of conclusions and future lines of action.