The reforms driven by New Public Management (NPM) led to the introduction of management principles in local governments, marketisation and outsourcing. They made the greatest impact in the United Kingdom, but were also put in place in other European countries such as Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and – to the least degree – in France (compared to other countries discussed in this paper). There is a risk that NPM-inspired reforms may come to lose sight of the underlying social purpose of public services. NPM has not however become a new, universal model for public sector management. Issues tackled in the debate concerning the reform of public services have moved (mostly in the UK) beyond the concerns of NPM towards the emerging concept of networked community governance.
The author of the paper describes the process and conceptions of regional development which have been used in the past 40 years of the economic transformation in the Ruhr Region in Germany. The article describes the socio-economic situation and explains the need for transformation in the region. It also presents a wide range of possible solutions for restructured mining regions and discusses the effects of implementation of the development methods used in the Ruhr Region. Finally, it describes the main points of the current strategy of development for the Ruhr Region. The data presented in the paper have been collected and developed thanks to a scholarship at the University of Duisburg-Essen, financed by The Foundation of Polish-German Cooperation.
Regional differentiation of the state may be caused by geopolitical factors. Different European states have seen the formation of so-called ideological regions. In Germany, such a region was Prussia and in Poland – East Borderland (Kresy Wschodnie). Both of them were relatively undeveloped, and peripherally situated. These features were accompanied by strong cultural position that is great significance of regional problems in cultural circulation of Germany and Poland. An analysis of long-term processes shows that after Germany’s reunion, Prussian areas play the same economical role as in the 19th century.
Along with time-related changes in the migration of Poles to Germany, the invisibility that has been ascribed to them has also evolved: from intentional hiding to deliberate merging into local social and spatial structures. The city of Berlin, perceived as an open, modern and multicultural metropolis, is an exceptional laboratory of transformations and diversity of social behaviours shown by Polish migrants. It attracts new citizens who not only want to make a living here, but also – and more frequently – to achieve self-fulfilment. While the invisibility of the economic migrants is mainly a result of their alienation in a new country, the representatives of lifestyle migration deliberately merge into the culturally diverse society of Berlin and they try to identify with other social groups. The aim of this article is to identify the existence and forms of every-day functioning of Polish migrants in Berlin in the context of invisibility.
The following article shows the problem of environmental pollution in contemporary world as an side-effect of economic development. The main aim of the article is to present two political theories of an environmental protection extend – Green Political Theory and environmentalism and ecological modernization as a possibility of solution for the environmental protection problem in the process of development. Action is complex and guided by the state. The role of context is pointed out, which is proved on the example of USA, Germany, Norway, Great Britain, socialist states, Poland and European Union. Additionally, article analyses the directions of environmental policies – ecocentrism, technocentrism, ecoliberalism and ecocollectivism.
Horizontal transfers in the local government financial equalization system have been raising a lot of controversies in Poland during the last few years. The paper shows similar instruments functioning in other European countries: Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The paper discusses two mechanisms of equalization: that of revenue and of expenditure needs. European experience is discussed in a way which makes it possible to draw comparisons with regulations in Poland as well as with current debates in Poland.
The paper offers a comparison of changes which have been taking place in the eastern regions of Poland and Germany in the recent years. It sets out to identify the main problems of these areas and explain how they have affected economic development processes. The development trajectories of the eastern regions of Poland and Germany are discussed in the context of the reuni?cation and trans-formation processes, and are related to the policies implemented by the public authorities. In its conclusions, the study evaluates the relevance and scale of the problems affecting the eastern parts of Germany and Poland, among them the effectiveness of their regional policies.
Endogenous growth theories presume knowledge plays the key role in economic growth (1). Yet, new economic geography along with empirical findings suggest the possibility of divergence occurring in development processes (2). Combining (1) and (2) indicates the importance of studying knowledge factors’ distribution. To obtain the fully fledged picture of a given economy one shall go beyond simply analyzing knowledge factors but include also their spatial location. The article touches upon this issue. It is devoted to Germany and examines three territorial and administrative levels: one referring to former country division (DDR & BRD), the second relating to NUTS 1 (16 Bundesländer) and third represented by 41 Regierungsbezirke (NUTS 2). Results are obtained by investigating 5 factors (e.g. expenditure on R&D, human resources in S&T, patent applications) and applying 4 measures (Gini, Rosenbluth, Ellison–Glaeser and Herfindahl–Hirschman Coefficients). This paper is meant to supplement earlier studies as well as a good starting point for further research devoted to country’s knowledge landscape.
The transformation of the German economy, which has been in progress for the last twenty years, determines the changes of the labour market. Since the reuni?cation in 1989, a major increase in atypical forms of employment has been observed as a result of deregulation processes of the labour market. The aim of this paper is to present the spectrum of problems regarding the diverse development of these forms in the eastern and western parts of the Federal Republic of Germany, with particular focus on the different situation of men and women. The author assumes that in order for non-standard forms of employment to ?ourish, the employment of women has to be considerable. The differences appearing in both parts of Germany are caused not only by economic factors, but also to a high degree by social and institutional ones.
In Western Europe, the model of local government has been changing in the previous decades: from a council-committee model to more executive-oriented ones, like the parliamentary and the presidential models. Political leadership lies at the heart of many of the recent institutional reforms of local government. An explicit aim of these reforms has been to strengthen the executive power, and to provide strong, visible and effective leadership. For example, the position of the mayor in Britain and Germany and of the board in the Netherlands has changed. The direct election of mayors is one of the ways to strengthen the political executive. Not all countries are undergoing such kind of transformation. In some of them, changes have been restricted to few municipalities. Others have been relatively immune to this international trend towards institutional reforms.
New Public Management – inspired reforms have influenced implementation of management principles in local government, the marketisation and outsourcing. These reforms were mostly visible in the United Kingdom but appear also in other European countries, for example: Ireland, Sweden, Germany, the least in France (among described in this article). There is a risk that NPM-led reforms may come to lose sight of the underlying social purpose of public services. NPM has not became a new, universal model of public sector management. The debate about public service reform has moved (particularly in UK) beyond the concerns of NPM to an emerging concept of networked community governance.
As a result of broad demilitarization process, numerous military bases had been locked out in the last years all over the world. In the regions whose economies depended heavily on military orders, and large share of employment was in the army-oriented services, the closure of the military bases had huge negative impact on the economy, as finding new development path showed to be difficult. The article demonstrates the examples of successful demilitarization and conversion of the cities and regions in France, Germany and USA and formulates recommendations for the Polish communes experiencing military base closure.
Neither the history nor the theory of economics indicates unambiguously the sources of high yet stable economic growth. The aim of this paper is a thorough assessment of various growth determinants in German Bundesländer in the years 1991-2009 in terms of both current levels and recent developments. In order to evaluate the economic growth potential the summary index (SG) encompassing various dimensions of economy has been constructed and carefully calculated. Such an approach gives a holistic and comprehensive view on economic growth factors, encompassing business and political dimensions prevailing in the media and a scientific approach drawing on a specific methodology. Our results confirm to some extent earlier studies pointing to existing West-East discrepancies in Germany. However, one must not ignore achievements of the new Bundesländer as measured by positive time developments. Conceptual framework put forward shall be seen as scaffolding, at the same time synthesizing and differentiating various growth determinants, a possible “navigation tool” for other case studies.
The article was published in Polish in "Studia Regionalne i Lokalne", 3/2004
The notion of replacement migration is frequently used in recent literature on migration policy and demographic forecasts. Such migration streams could theoretically compensate for the natural decrease and population ageing, observed in most of developed countries. In the long run, however, international migration can only slow down, rather than reverse these processes. In this respect, the situation in Poland is unique as its migration balance will most likely remain negative until around 2020. Nevertheless, the population outflow abroad could to some extent be offset by the population inflow. This would require, among other conditions, a reformulation of Poland`s migration policy, with an increase of provisions enabling selective legal immigration, preventing at the same time the so-called irregular immigration. Such provisions are already being implemented in some EU countries (including Germany), and in the future will probably form the basis of EU migration policy.
The article is devoted to the problems of the handicapped people with special reference to the functioning of the Railway Missions in a metropolitan environment. From the beginning of industrialization process the railway stations in Europe were creating a specific social environment, including such phenomena as prostitution, slaves trade, drugs dealing or just individual stories of the travelers. Specifically to deal with these problems, a social institutions called `missions` were established at the railway stations in Germany and Poland. This article shows the historical development of the German and Polish Railway Missions with special reference to its role for the local societies.
Integrated forms of planning and managing local development are seen today as essential for implementing a successful development policy. This is emphasized by the high priority of these forms in EU local development approaches. In his analysis, the author contrasts the Polish and the German planning system in order to evaluate the compatibility of the Polish spatial planning system with the requirements of integrated local development planning and management. The analysis concerns the areas defined as having key importance for integrated form of local development, i.e. the organization of planning and participation processes, the role given to planning documents in spatial management, and the availability of operational planning tools. The identified major differences between the two systems lead to the assumption that the Polish planning system hardly sustains integrated forms of planning and managing local development, as it is solely oriented towards regulating spatial development schemes.
The motivation for this paper comes from the recognition that our understanding of specialisation might be too simplistic and that the dichotomy of specialisation and diversification could be outdated not reflecting the richness of real complex economic and technological relations among industries. Drawing on a qualitative study of the Hamburg Aviation (HAv) cluster, this paper discusses the peculiarities of a cluster profile in the digital time – the age of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), touching upon the issues of cluster structure and the complexity of production, synchronising specialisation with diversification, branching, and bridging, and the I4.0 attributes facilitating complementarity. The final research proposal, which is empirically embedded in the studied context, states that related variety encompassing both ‘specialisation in diversification’ and ‘diversification within specialisation’ can be further developed by a blending process. This can lead to branching and is modulated by the universal character of the I4.0 and a problem-solving attitude. It takes the form of an additive (new entries) or multiplicative (spinoffs) evolution, and, ultimately, owing to the complementarity, it can provide sustainable competitive advantages.
