The article inquires into the role of the institutional context in explaining the governance of community co-operatives. These organizations do not solely focus on a member’s advantage but act on behalf of some collective identity. To enhance our understanding of the nature of co-operative governance on the neighborhood level, we draw on theoretical concepts that are context-sensitive, helping us to catch the institutional conditions in a specific place which are enabling individuals and groups to act and organize collectively. Thus, we enrich the abstract concept of governance put forward by New Institutional Economics. Based on a systematic analysis of case studies, the paper shows that the governance of community co-operatives is based on place-bound values. However, the encounter of divergent imaginations of the neighborhood results in different co-operative practices: e.g., either a government-directed practice to “discipline” the community or a community-initiated practice of self-organization.

The paper explores donors’ efforts to promote government-NGO partnership for the purpose of improving public services. Following a brief discussion of partnership, two illustrations support a relative definition of partnership and its added value. The examples represent alternative approaches to improving public services through partnership work, the choice of which may depend on (1) the will of the partners to change—particularly government, (2) the preexistence of effective public services, and (3) depth of mobilization and social capital sought. The examples similarly reveal alternative approaches to addressing partnership challenges either bureaucratically or through behavioral norms and organization culture. Implications of donors’ participation in such partnerships are highlighted.

The third sector is poised to play a leading role in public sector innovations in the twenty-first century. The third sector can enhance, facilitate, and promote greater citizen participation in the determination, provision, and governance of social services through co-production. This article explores some crucial conceptual issues related to the co-production of public services and the role of the third sector. It also provides some brief empirical evidence of the potential of the third sector, not merely as a service provider, but also as a facilitator of the re-democratization of the European welfare state. Here, collective action and third sector provision are crucial for distinguishing between co-production heavy and light. The conclusion focuses on the ability of the public, third, and for-profit sectors to embrace greater citizen participation and co-production.

The suboptimal size of municipalities is often a challenge for service delivery due to scale limitations. Intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) has expanded as an alternative to top-down amalgamations, offering a more flexible and typically voluntary approach. Many studies have been devoted to understanding the driving factors of IMC, providing static empirical evidence on the characteristics of cooperating municipalities. This article contributes to the literature with a dynamic analysis of the drivers of cooperation, using a Cox proportional hazards model over a long period and a very large sample of municipalities in Catalonia. This dynamic analysis unravels the direction of the causal relationship in complex relationships such as fiscal restrictions or political legitimation with cooperation. Furthermore, as we have data from eight relevant local services, we improve both the theoretical and empirical analysis of cooperation dynamics based on the characteristics of the services.

In Colombia, there has been very little discussion about the epidemiological transition in the 20th century, therefore, there are few empirical studies, and this mainly focus on the second half of the 20th century, and on the factors associated with improvements in mortality indicators. In this paper, we define three stages of the epidemiological transition in the country during the period 1918–1998, with special emphasis on changes in mortality rates, causes of death and the contribution of different age groups. Likewise, a co-integration analysis is carried out to model the long-term relationship between the mortality rate and the variables of nutrition, public health, education and economic growth. Finally, we show the results of the structural change tests of the mortality rates for pneumonia and tuberculosis to examine the impact of the arrival of sulphonamides and penicillin in Colombia.

Among the dilemmas faced by labor, socialist, and other movements of the subaltern classes striving to change society over the past two centuries, three are discussed here: forms of ownership, bureaucracy and “big tent” formulas for both unity of the working class broadly defined, and alliances with movements of independent owners or undefined class status. Examples are drawn from various countries (France, Italy, Britain, the USA, Brazil, Korea) and from international programmatic discussions. Socialists, notably Marxists, shared the radical republican goal of a true democracy of equals, but differed on the extent of collective ownership (state, local, cooperative) needed in the economy, and the definition of privately owned personal goods that insured an individual’s dignity and independence. The rise and contraction of capitalist states with social services (“welfare states”) complicated the issue. Such movements also accumulated experiences with the growth of experts and/or bureaucrats, and the means to limit their privileges and transformation into a caste-type elite. Three environments which generate such phenomena are identified: social-democratic and big labor, post-capitalist states and, more recently, nongovernmental organizations. Finally, the author discusses alliances with broader social forces which include working-class and non-working-class interests, and the management of cross-class ideologies such as certain varieties of nationalism, feminism, environmentalism, and anti-tax movements.

We explore the heterogeneous effect of migrant remittances on citizens' support for taxation using a sample comprising 45,000 individuals from the Afrobarometer survey round 7 [2016–2018] across 34 African countries. To correct for unobserved heterogeneity, we endogenously identify latent classes/subtypes of individuals that share similar patterns on how their support for taxation is affected by their unobserved and observed characteristics, including remittance dependency. We apply the finite multilevel mixture of regressions approach, a supervised machine learning method to detect hidden classes in the data without imposing a priori assumptions on class membership. Our data are best generated by an econometric model with two classes/subtypes of individuals. In class 1 where more than two-thirds of the citizens belong, we do not find any significant evidence that remittance dependence affects support for taxation. However, in class 2 where the remaining one-third of the citizens belong, we find a significant negative effect of remittance dependence on support for taxation. Furthermore, we find that citizens who have a positive appraisal of the quality of the public service delivery have a lower probability of belonging to the class in which depending on remittance reduces support for taxation. The findings emphasize the need for efficient public services provisioning to counteract the adverse effect of remittances on tax morale.

Living life on a poverty income remains commonplace in most modern welfare states. A growing literature highlights the impact on individuals, families, and communities of poverty, costs that are both current to the experience and reflecting its scarring effects. A further cost, one that is frequently hidden, is the cumulative and recurring public expenditure associated with policy responses to poverty. These costs derive from the identification of poverty as a determining factor in the need for, and demand for, a wide range of public services. Estimating the nominal value of these costs, based on an assessment of public expenditure in one EU-15 state, Ireland, is the focus of this article. The findings establish annual costs of between €3bn-€7bn and highlight for all members of society, whether above or below the poverty line, the recurring public expenditure costs incurred by society as a result of poverty.

The digitalisation of public services brought challenges for their access and use. This article looks at the migrants as claimants of the public services to analyse the problems with the digital delivery of public services. The previous research recognised the various resources, such as digital skills and administrative literacy, needed for the successful use of digital services. However, the role of administrative literacy has not been studied in linguistically and culturally diverse contexts, such as migration. This article draws on the qualitative study of Russian-speaking migrants in Finland. By analysing the perspective of the service users, it describes in detail the requirements that people with migrant backgrounds try to meet to gain access to social protection. Findings demonstrate the multiple obstacles that burden or prevent access to entitlements.