Regions can get involved in international-relations activity defined as paradiplomacy. It is similar to state diplomacy as it is subject to its law and policy and uses similar tools such as diplomatic protocol, but is not pursued by professional diplomats. Regional paradiplomacy needs to be analysed as a source of new international relationships. Consequently, regions should be perceived as new actors in international relations. The article focuses on the paradiplomacy of Polish regions (voivodships, or województwa) and Croatian counties (Hrvatske županije). The case study discusses the cooperation between the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship and the Split-Dalmatia County.
Update from 25/07/2024: Parts of this article in the form of literal quotes without providing the source were used in a subsequent article by the same author entitled "Implementation of the partnership principle in the process of implementing regional operational programs in Poland" published in "Opinie i Komentarze Fundacji Rozwoju Demokracji Lokalnej" 3/2023.
The aim of the paper is to examine the level of application of the partnership rule in the process of implementing regional operational programmes (ROP) in Poland in 2014–2019. It has been assumed that the Monitoring Committees (MC) operate as the institutional manifestation of the partnership principle. The scope of comparative analysis includes practical aspects of the functioning of MCs within ROPs in three voivodships: Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Lubuskie and Świętokrzyskie. The analysis focused on five institutional factors: number of Committee meetings in the financial perspective 2014–2020, number of circular voting events, percentage of socio-economic partners in the total number of Committee members, number of working groups within the MCs, as well as the number of meetings of working groups. The research hypothesis adopted in this article assumes that the regulatory activities expressed in the preparation of guidelines for the application of the partnership principle under the regional operational programs in the 2014–2020 financial perspective turned out to be insufficient for disseminating developed partnerships under ROPs.
The article describes the perceived burden of transaction costs in externalising three local services in Poland – transport, care services and water and sewage services. The tool for interpreting the results of the empirical study is the concept of transaction costs concerning the difficulties of monitoring services. The article poses questions about which of the analysed monitoring costs are perceived by local government officials as more painful and how this perception differs between the organisational forms of public service provision. The study found that contracts with a public agent are perceived as more expensive than contracts with a private agent. Administrative agreements and purchases from other local governments are important tools for providing services in Poland; they are used to adjust the structure used to provide the service to the size of the market and the resources needed to provide a given service. The effective monitoring of these contracts is a crucial element in building the quality of governance in Poland.
The aim of the article is to depict the issue of commemorating foreign partnerships of municipalities present in the public space. The municipalities of the Gniezno district were selected as a case study. The author initially verified the following hypothesis: although foreign cooperation is an optional and secondary task of municipalities, their authorities commemorate it as a manifestation of their international ambitions. The source base was: secondary data, first-hand sources (information from town halls), as well as photographic documentation made during field trips. The identified commemorations took various forms: welcome boards at the entrance to the municipality, monuments, and the name of the square. They were established in locations important to the municipalities. In the case of one of the monuments, state diplomacy and paradiplomacy merged.
In the face of constant pandemic-related and military threats to citizens’ right to work, collective bargaining has become almost the only real instrument to reconcile the interests of social partners and consolidate their efforts. The authors proposed a methodology for assessing the development of social partnership in the regulation of labour remuneration based on a set of indicators and a comparative analysis of the indicators in several public organisations: the State Audit Service of Ukraine, the State Treasury Service of Ukraine, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the Police of Ukraine, and the Pension Fund of Ukraine. Based on the challenges and general trends revealed by the results of the analysis, the authors identified areas for improving collective wage bargaining and the best practices in social partnership for their dissemination in public organisations.
The aim of the paper is to analyse the allocation of resources from the Cohesion Policy provided to individual regional programmes in the European Union’s 2021–2027 financial scheme. In addition to the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund Plus funds, funds from the Just Transition Fund distributed under the European Funds for Just Transition programme, as well as funds from the European Funds for the Eastern Poland programme were also analysed. The analysis covers the proposition of allocation of funds to regions in the context of the experience gained so far in Poland in the implementation of regional programmes. The carried out analysis confirmed the decrease in the importance of regional programmes in shaping the Regional Development Policy in the 2021–2027 perspective due to the reduction in allocation.
The author explores the problem of territorial reorganization of the metropolitan area within the Canadian evolutionary federal system, taking as an example the cities of Toronto and Montreal. The results of the research indicate that adaptation strategies, applied by states aiming at empowering the metropolis, depend on the general level of the territorial units’ autonomy. The existence of strong local self-government favours creation of intercommunal cooperation structures without dissolution of current local territorial units. Territorial reorganization in the case of states with a low level of local autonomy may facilitate elimination of former local units by theirs amalgamation in new, larger metropolitan self-government structures. As far as this context is concerned, Canada constitutes a very interesting study case. Taking into consideration Canadian evolutionary federal system, highly limited local autonomy of the cities, and its mix of European and American traditions, one can observe almost all the above-mentioned dimensions of reform and adaptation strategies. Advanced and institutionalized intercommunal cooperation, developed in Toronto and Montreal in the middle of the 20th century, was interrupted by amalgamation imposed by provincial government, which resulted in creation of new, enlarged metropolitan cities of Toronto in 1998 and Montreal in 2002. In both cases the amalgamation has not been accepted by a part of the population and destabilized cooperation in these metropolitan areas. The trouble with amalgamation led to abandonment of further structural and territorial reforms, which were replaced by functional ones, taking the form of special agreements between Toronto and Montreal and their respective provinces (Ontario and Quebec), giving them both new competences and financial resources. Regardless of any difficulties in pursuing an appropriate metropolitan regime and the suitable position for the metropolis in the structure of a political and territorial system, both cities have achieved strong economic performance and high quality of life.