"We do have space in Lausanne. We have a large cemetery": The non-controversy of a non-existent Muslim burial ground

In the context of the administration of spaces assigned by municipalities for the burial of the dead, this article provides a critical analysis of the techniques for the governance of political collectives of citizens implemented by public authorities. More broadly, this article shows how funerary practices (i.e. the social practices surrounding death-the rituals, the legislation, etc.) can be used to develop a critical reading of the social relations that structure the social production of space. To this end, the authors use the conceptual tools provided by critical legal geography to explore the controversy surrounding the development of a 'carré confessionnel' (denominational area) within the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery in Lausanne, Switzerland. Here, a focus on the techniques that allow 'nomosphere' technicians to convene a subset of the citizens within the public space reveals the administration of cemeteries as a means of governance, a method for mobilising bodies and a paradoxical means of managing flux.

Bureaucracy and the flypaper effect : Evidence from intercommunal fiscal equalisation in the canton of Vaud

Unlike classical theoretical expectations, our empirical study shows that financial transfers to decentralised governments increase local public expenditures much more than would be triggered by an equivalent rise in local income. This empirical evidence of the presence of a flypaper effect is achieved using panel data from 375 municipalities located in the Swiss canton of Vaud covering the period 1994 to 2005. During that time there was a major change in the financial equalisation scheme. Furthermore, our study confirms the analysis of the public choice theory: the effect depends partly on the degree of complexity of the municipal bureaucracy. These results show that local bureaucratic behaviour may impede the effectiveness of a financial equalisation scheme that aims to reduce disparities in local tax.

Tax simulation in the SHP

This paper describes a simulation package designed to estimate the annual income taxes paid by respondents of the Swiss Household Panel (SHP). In Switzerland, the 26 cantons have their own tax system. Additionally, tax levels vary between the over 2000 municipalities and over time. The simulation package takes account of this complexity by building on existing tables on tax levels which are provided by the Swiss Federal Tax Administration Office. Because these are limited to a few types of households and only 812 municipalities, they have to be extended to cover all households and municipalities. A further drawback of these tables is that they neglect several deductions. The tax simulation package fills this gap by taking additionally account of deductions for children, double-earner couples, third pillar and support for dependent persons according to cantonal legislation. The resulting variable on direct taxes not only serves to calculate household income net of taxes, but can also be a variable for analysis by its own account.

Do Agglomeration Economies Reduce the Sensitivity of Firm Location to Tax Differentials?

Recent theoretical work in economic geography has shown that agglomeration forces can mitigate 'race-to-the-bottom' tax competition, by partly or fully offsetting firms' sensitivity to tax differentials. We test this proposition using data on firm births across Swiss municipalities. We find that corporate taxes deter firm births less in more spatially concentrated sectors. Firms in sectors with an agglomeration intensity in the top quintile are less than half as responsive to differences in corporate tax burdens as firms in sectors with an agglomeration intensity in the bottom quintile. Hence, agglomeration economies do appear to attenuate the impact of tax differentials on firms' location choices.

Can PR voting serve as a shelter against declining turnout ? : Evidence from Swiss municipal elections

To assess the impact of electoral systems on voting turnout, cross-national studies can be usefully complemented by studies of turnout in local elections in countries using more than one electoral system at that level. In this article, we look at data from a 1998 survey of Swiss municipalities to revisit the findings of our earlier study. This previous study, based on a 1988 survey, concluded, in particular, that there exists a positive relationship between proportional representation elections, party politicization, and voter turnout. The moment is opportune since, in the interval, turnout has markedly declined in Swiss municipalities, as elsewhere. By testing whether municipalities with proportional representation voting were more or less successful in stemming the decline, we learn more about the relationship among these three phenomena. We use the results for those Swiss municipalities which participated in both surveys as our primary source.

Spatial planning to the test of property rights in Switzerland : an innovative land management approach to coordinate spatial planning goals with property rights interests

In Switzerland, the land management regime is characterized by a liberal attitude towards the institution of property rights, which is guaranteed by the Constitution. Under the present Swiss constitutional arrangement, authorities (municipalities) are required to take into account landowners' interests when implementing their spatial planning policy. In other words, the institution of property rights cannot be restricted easily in order to implement zoning plans and planning projects. This situation causes many problems. One of them is the gap between the way land is really used by the landowners and the way land should be used based on zoning plans. In fact, zoning plans only describe how landowners should use their property. There is no sufficient provision for handling cases where the use is not in accordance with zoning plans. In particular, landowners may not be expropriated for a non-conforming use of the land. This situation often leads to the opening of new building areas in greenfields and urban sprawl, which is in contradiction with the goals set into the Federal Law on Spatial Planning. In order to identify legal strategies of intervention to solve the problem, our paper is structured into three main parts. Firstly, we make a short description of the Swiss land management regime. Then, we focus on an innovative land management approach designed to implement zoning plans in accordance with property rights. Finally, we present a case study that shows the usefulness of the presented land management approach in practice. We develop three main results. Firstly, the land management approach brings a mechanism to involve landowners in planning projects. Coordination principle between spatial planning goals and landowners' interests is the cornerstone of all the process. Secondly, the land use is improved both in terms of space and time. Finally, the institution of property rights is not challenged, since there is no expropriation and the market stays free.

Putting Public Service Motivation into Context. A Balance Between Universalism and Particularism

Research on Public Service Motivation (PSM) has increased enormously in the last 20 years. Besides the analysis of the antecedents of PSM and its impact on organizations and individuals, many open questions about the nature of PSM itself still remain. This article argues that the theoretical construct of PSM should be contextualized by integrating the political and administrative contexts of public servants when investigating their specific attitudes towards working in a public environment. It also challenges the efficacy of the classic four-dimensional structure of PSM when it is applied to a specific context. The findings of a confirmatory factor analysis from a dataset of 3754 employees of 279 Swiss municipalities support the appropriateness of contextualizing parts of the PSM construct. They also support the addition of an extra dimension called, according to previous research, Swiss democratic governance. With regard to our results, there is a need for further PSM research to set a definite measure of PSM, particularly in regard to the international diffusion of empirical research on PSM.Points for practitionersThis study shows that public service motivation is a relevant construct for practitioners and may be used to better assess whether public agents are motivated by values or not. Nevertheless, it stresses also that the measurement of PSM must be adapted to the institutional context as well. Public managers interested in understanding better the degree to which their employees are motivated by public values must be aware that the measurement of this PSM construct has to be contextualized. In other words, PSM is also a function of the institutional environment in which organizations operate.

Faire la ville juste : une analyse "in itinere" de la maîtrise publique d'ouvrage du projet urbain Carré de Soie (métropole lyonnaise)

Dans certaines portions des agglomérations (poches de pauvreté de centre-ville, couronnes suburbaines dégradées, espaces périurbains sans aménité), un cumul entre des inégalités sociales (pauvreté, chômage, etc.) et environnementales (exposition au bruit, aux risques industriels, etc.) peut être observé. La persistance de ces inégalités croisées dans le temps indique une tendance de fond : la capacité d'accéder à un cadre de vie de qualité n'est pas équitablement partagée parmi les individus. Ce constat interroge : comment se créent ces inégalités ? Comment infléchir cette tendance et faire la ville plus juste ?¦Apporter des réponses à cette problématique nécessite d'identifier les facteurs de causalités qui entrent en jeu dans le système de (re)production des inégalités urbaines. Le fonctionnement des marchés foncier et immobilier, la « tyrannie des petites décisions » et les politiques publiques à incidence spatiale sont principalement impliqués. Ces dernières, agissant sur tous les éléments du système, sont placées au coeur de ce travail. On va ainsi s'intéresser précisément à la manière dont les collectivités publiques pilotent la production de la ville contemporaine, en portant l'attention sur la maîtrise publique d'ouvrage (MPO) des grands projets urbains.¦Poser la question de la justice dans la fabrique de la ville implique également de questionner les référentiels normatifs de l'action publique : à quelle conception de la justice celle-ci doit- elle obéir? Quatre perspectives (radicale, substantialiste, procédurale et intégrative) sont caractérisées, chacune se traduisant par des principes d'action différenciés. Une méthodologie hybride - empruntant à la sociologie des organisations et à l'analyse des politiques publiques - vient clore le volet théorique, proposant par un détour métaphorique d'appréhender le projet urbain comme une pièce de théâtre dont le déroulement dépend du jeu d'acteurs.¦Cette méthodologie est utilisée dans le volet empirique de la recherche, qui consiste en une analyse de la MPO d'un projet urbain en cours dans la première couronne de l'agglomération lyonnaise : le Carré de Soie. Trois grands objectifs sont poursuivis : descriptif (reconstruire le scénario), analytique (évaluer la nature de la pièce : conte de fée, tragédie ou match d'improvisation ?) et prescriptif (tirer la morale de l'histoire). La description de la MPO montre le déploiement successif de quatre stratégies de pilotage, dont les implications sur les temporalités, le contenu du projet (programmes, morphologies) et les financements publics vont être déterminantes. Sur la base de l'analyse, plusieurs recommandations peuvent être formulées - importance de l'anticipation et de l'articulation entre planification et stratégie foncière notamment - pour permettre à la sphère publique de dominer le jeu et d'assurer la production de justice par le projet urbain (réalisation puis entretien des équipements et espaces publics, financement de logements de qualité à destination d'un large éventail de populations, etc.). Plus généralement, un décalage problématique peut être souligné entre les territoires stratégiques pour le développement de l'agglomération et les capacités de portage limitées des communes concernées. Ce déficit plaide pour le renforcement des capacités d'investissement de la structure intercommunale.¦La seule logique du marché (foncier, immobilier) mène à la polarisation sociale et à la production d'inégalités urbaines. Faire la ville juste nécessite une forte volonté des collectivités publiques, laquelle doit se traduire aussi bien dans l'ambition affichée - une juste hiérarchisation des priorités dans le développement urbain - que dans son opérationnalisation - une juste maîtrise publique d'ouvrage des projets urbains.¦Inner-city neighborhoods, poor outskirts, and peri-urban spaces with no amenities usually suffer from social and environmental inequalities, such as poverty, unemployment, and exposure to noise and industrial hazards. The observed persistence of these inequalities over time points to an underlying trend - namely, that access to proper living conditions is fundamentally unequal, thus eliciting the question of how such inequalities are effected and how this trend can be reversed so as to build a more equitable city.¦Providing answers to such questions requires that the causal factors at play within the system of (re)production of urban inequalities be identified. Real estate markets, "micromotives and macrobehavior", and public policies that bear on space are mostly involved. The latter are central in that they act on all the elements of the system. This thesis therefore focuses on the way public authorities shape the production of contemporary cities, by studying the public project ownership of major urban projects.¦The study of justice within the urban fabric also implies that the normative frames of reference of public action be questioned: what conception of justice should public action refer to? This thesis examines four perspectives (radical, substantialist, procedural, and integrative) each of which results in different principles of action. This theoretical part is concluded by a hybrid methodology that draws from sociology of organizations and public policy analysis and that suggests that the urban project may be understood as a play, whose outcome hinges on the actors' acting.¦This methodology is applied to the empirical analysis of the public project ownership of an ongoing urban project in the Lyon first-ring suburbs: the Carré de Soie. Three main objectives are pursued: descriptive (reconstructing the scenario), analytical (assessing the nature of the play - fairy tale, tragedy or improvisation match), and prescriptive (drawing the moral of the story). The description of the public project ownership shows the successive deployment of four control strategies, whose implications on deadlines, project content (programs, morphologies), and public funding are significant. Building on the analysis, several recommendations can be made to allow the public sphere to control the process and ensure the urban project produces equity (most notably, anticipation and articulation of planning and real- estate strategy, as well as provision and maintenance of equipment and public spaces, funding of quality housing for a wide range of populations, etc.). More generally, a gap can be highlighted between those territories that are strategic to the development of the agglomeration and the limited resources of the municipalities involved. This deficit calls for strengthening the investment abilities of the intermunicipal structure.¦By itself, the real-estate market logic brings about social polarization and urban inequalities. Building an equitable city requires a strong will on the part of public authorities, a will that must be reflected both in the stated ambition - setting priorities of urban development equitably - and in its implementation managing urban public projects fairly.

The role of magma rheology during emplacement of the Listino Suite, Adamello Massif, Italy

This thesis studies individual and contextual antecedents of anti-immigrant attitudes by drawing on intergroup threat and contact, social representation, and value theories. As an alternative to previous multilevel research on the topic, it aims to articulate levels of analysis by putting forward a Person x Context Interaction approach. Moreover, rather than focussing exclusively on the impact of a large immigrant proportion, by introducing ideological climates, it develops and examines the normative societal context in which individuals are embedded. The studies largely draw on cross-sectional survey data across Swiss municipalities (Studies 1 to 3) and European countries (Study 4), but are complemented by elite discourses (Study 5) and online collected survey data (Study 6). Study 1 distinguishes between valued and devalued immigrants, thereby shedding light on the impact of immigrant proportion on intergroup contact and threat. Study 2 focuses on the link between immigrant proportion and attitudes towards the Muslim veil by examining its joint impact with conservative ideologies on the individual and municipality level. Aiming to explain threat related to immigrants, the interplay between immigrant proportion and ideological climates is studied across Swiss municipalities (Study 3) and European countries (Study 4). In addition, by adopting a Person x Context Interaction approach, it is investigated whether a context galvanizes individuals already prone to viewing immigrants as threatening, or mobilizes those generally least likely to express prejudice. Finally, to better understand the role political elites play in fuelling ideological climates, the official discourses on the 2011 England riots are analysed (Study 5). With online survey data collected during the riots, it is then shown that once endorsed, threat-eliciting climates are likely to mobilize negative ethnic diversity attitudes in the larger population (Study 6). Overall, this thesis proposes an integrative approach to studying anti-immigrant attitudes and discusses theoretical and methodological implications. - La présente thèse se penche sur les antécédents individuels et contextuels des attitudes négatives envers les immigré e s, en combinant les théories de la menace intergroupe, du contact, des représentations sociales et des valeurs. Elle a plus précisément pour but d'articuler différents niveaux d'analyse à travers une approche insistant sur les interactions entre Individu et Contexte. Ce faisant, elle propose une alternative aux recherches précédentes sur le thème, basées sur une perspective multiniveau plus « classique ». Au lieu de se pencher uniquement sur l'impact de la présence de populations immigrées dans un lieu donné, la recherche réalisée a par ailleurs développé et étudié le concept de climat idéologique, à savoir le contexte normatif au sein duquel les individus sont plongés au quotidien. Les études composant cette thèse se basent essentiellement sur des données d'enquête de grande échelle, récoltées dans diverses municipalités Suisses (Etudes 1 à 3) ou divers pays Européens (Etude 4). Elles sont complétées par l'analyse de discours politiques (Etude 5) et de données récoltées sur internet (Etude 6). Distinguant entre immigré-e'S valorisé-e s et dévalorisé-e-s, l'Etude 1 a eu pour but de mettre en lumière l'impact de la présence d'immigré e s sur le contact et la menace intergroupes. L'Etude 2 a, quant à elle, examiné si la présence d'immigré e s interagit avec les idéologies conservatrices, tant au niveau individuel que municipal, pour expliquer les attitudes envers le voile. Dans le même ordre idée, les études suivantes ont mis en exergue les effets conjoints de la présence d'immigré-e s et du climat idéologique au niveau des municipalités suisses (Etude 3) ou des pays Européens (Etude 4). En s'intéressant aux interactions entre Individu et Contexte, ces études ont en particulier cherché à observer dans quelle mesure ce dernier pouvait galvaniser les attitudes de personnes qui avaient déjà tendance à percevoir les immigré e s comme une menace ou, au contraire, mobiliser des individus desquels on n'attendrait pas de telles attitudes. Pour finir, les dernières études ont eu pour but de mettre en lumière la manière dont les élites politiques alimentent les climats idéologiques. Dans ce but, l'Etude 5 a analysé les discours officiels donnés pendant les émeutes qui ont secoué Londres en 2011, alors que l'Etude 6 a démontré comment le fait d'être en accord avec le message de menace véhiculé par ces discours avait poussé des individus égalitaires à exprimer des attitudes négatives envers la diversité ethnique. Dans l'ensemble, la présente thèse propose donc une approche intégrative d'étudier les attitudes négatives envers les immigré-e-s, et en discute les implications théoriques et méthodologiques.

The Demand for Social Insurance: Does Culture Matter?

Does culture shape the demand for social insurance against risks to health and work? We study this issue across language groups in Switzerland where a language border sharply separates social groups at identical actual levels of publicly provided social insurance. We find substantially stronger support for expansions of social insurance among residents of French, Italian or Romansh-speaking language border municipalities compared with their German-speaking neighbours in adjacent municipalities. Informal insurance does not vary enough to explain stark differences in social insurance but differences in ideology and segmented media markets potentially contribute to the discrepancy in demand for social insurance.

How Wages and Employment Adjust to Trade Liberalization: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Austria

We study the response of regional employment and nominal wages to trade liberalization, exploiting the natural experiment provided by the opening of Central and Eastern European markets after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990. Using data for Austrian municipalities, we examine di¤erential pre- and post-1990 wage and employment growth rates between regions bordering the formerly communist economies and interior regions. If the 'border regions'are de...ned narrowly, within a band of less than 50 kilometers, we can identify statistically signi...cant liberalization e¤ects on both employment and wages. While wages responded earlier than employment, the employment e¤ect over the entire adjustment period is estimated to be around three times as large as the wage e¤ect. The implied slope of the regional labor supply curve can be replicated in an economic geography model that features obstacles to labor migration due to immobile housing and to heterogeneous locational preferences.

Die Schweizer Gemeinden im Wandel : Konvergenz oder Divergenz?

Switzerland is currently going through a phase of political restructuring. The numerous reform activities at the beginning of the twenty-first century leave almost no area of political life untouched. The reforms are particularly abundant in the 2′867 municipalities, spanning from amalgamations, intermunicipal co-operation, New Public Management, to reforms of the political systems. Accounting for the fact that there are big socio-economic differences between the municipalities as well as their political systems, we investigate whether the municipalities are headed for divergence or convergence as a result of these reforms. The empirical results are derived from three surveys of the local authorities conducted in 1988, 1994, and 1998. The results indicate that the communes do convergence in regard to their administrative and political structure. However, the convergence appears to be limited to the single cantons and observable only among certain types of municipalities.

Nationalism and patriotism as predictors of immigration attitudes in Switzerland: A municipality-level analysis

Using Swiss data from the 2003 International Social Survey Programme (N = 902), this multilevel study combined individual and municipality levels of analysis in the explanation of nationalism, patriotism and exclusionary immigration attitudes. On the individual level, the results show that in line with previous research nationalism (uncritical and blind attachment to the nation) increased exclusionary immigration attitudes, while patriotism (pride in national democratic institutions) was related to greater tolerance towards immigration. On the municipality level, urbanization, socioeconomic status and immigrant proportion (and their interaction effects) were found to affect nationalism, patriotism and immigration attitudes. Nationalist and patriotic forms of national attachment were stronger in German-speaking municipalities than in the French-speaking municipalities. Path analyses further revealed that living in a Swiss-German municipality indirectly led to more negative immigration attitudes through an increase in nationalism. The research is discussed in light of social psychological and political science literature on political attitudes.

Cultural Biases in Public Service Delivery : Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach

What determines the share of public employment, at a given size of the State, in countries of similar levels of economic development? While the theoretical and empirical literature on this issue has mostly considered technical dimensions (efficiency and political considerations), this paper emphasizes the role of culture and quantifies it. We build a representative database for contracting choices of municipalities in Switzerland and exploit the discontinuity at the Swiss language border at identical actual set of policies and institutions to analyze the causal e↵ect of culture on the choice of how public services are provided. We find that French-speaking border municipalities are 50% less likely to contract with the private sector than their German-speaking adjacent municipalities. Technical dimensions are much smaller by comparison. This result points out that culture is a source of a potential bias that distorts the optimal choice for public service delivery. Systematic differences in the level of confidence in public administration and private companies potentially explain this discrepancy in private sector participation in public services provision.