Annual Conference 2019 Lex Localis, Journal of Local Self-Government

Lex localis - Journal of Local Self-Government will host on May 30 - May 31, 2019 respectively, an international Lex localis - Journal of Local Self-Government Annual Conference 2019 organized by Institute for Local Self-Government Maribor (Slovenia) & Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Law (Hungary) that will be held in Budapest, Hungary.

Contributions will be reviewed by internationally recognized reviewers. Selected scientific papers will be published in a special issue of Lex Localis - Journal of Local Self-Government (abstracted and indexed in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, Current Geographical Publications, Academic's OneFile (Gale), International Political Science Abstracts, ProQuest, Scopus, Current Law Journal Content - an index to legal periodicals, International Bibliography of Periodical Literature (IBZ), International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)).

The following topics will be discussed: Constitutional and legal foundations for local self-government; Local self-government and local public services (analysis of exclusive municipal functions: education (preschool), general administration (fire and civil protection), social welfare (kindergarten, nursery school and family welfare services), the environment and public sanitation (refuse collection and disposal, cemeteries and crematoria), urban and economic development (town planning and local economic development), public utilities (district heating and water supply); Fiscal decentralization (comprises the financial aspects of devolution to regional and local government and covers two interrelated issues, i.e. the division of spending responsibilities and revenue sources between levels of government (national, regional, local etc.) and the amount of discretion given to regional and local governments to determine their expenditures and revenues (both in aggregate and detail); Politics and decentralization (includes political power sharing, democratization, and market liberalization, expanding the scope for private sector decision-making as a way of opening governance to wider public participation through civil society as an alternative to provide public services in a more cost-effective way); Responses to the current economic conditions and development of global and regional economies (all the regions are addressing enormous challenges emanating from the growth slowdown in developed countries as well as the global credit crunch. Shared impacts across regions are a slowdown in exports, fall in asset markets, reduced credit for consumption and investment, the resulting increase in unemployment and poverty. A joint approach to promoting debate and political consensus on recommendations for reforming the global financial architecture could be pursued through an inter-regional dialogue between the regions, including through cooperation in research culminating in the meeting of policy decision-makers from each region).

RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION AND COMPARATIVE PARTICIPATION FOR DOWNLOAD

I am pleased to share with you recent publications related to cities and more generally, democratic participation, 

• Citizen Participation and The Rise of Digital Media Platforms in Smart Governance and Smart Cities. 2019. International Journal for E-Planning Research.  Gil, O., Cortés-Cediel, M. E., Cantador, I. Abstract is enclosed below and you may access the full article as well through the UCM repository link. 

  
  
• For fans, I also recommend the Book ¿Como se gobernan las ciudades?, comparing over eight world city cases, including Shanghai, Iskandar, nine cities in Japan, New York, Amsterdam, Málaga, Tarragona and Santander. Download the full book here

At the moment with my team of researchers at UCM (TFGs, TFMs, PhD) we work in progress on:

1. The philosophical differences in participation in public administrtion in China and western countries
2. Political participation in democracies 
3. Ideas and the objectives of the Millenium
4. Ideas and the nature-based-city
5. Ideas and the grand design of Madrid Nuevo Norte neighborhood
6. Ideas and how financial ratings influence regimes, local, regional and national levels