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Purpose – This research analyzes and describes the implementation of the North Aceh Regency education budget policy for improving the quality of education in relationship to the impact of the special autonomy budget.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This research uses qualitative research, descriptive-qualitative analysis methods, and qualitative explorative methods.

Findings – The results show that the implementation of the special autonomy education budget policy of North Aceh Regency to improve the education quality has not run optimally. The main obstacle is the inadequate human resource issue, including the leadership problems of regional heads who should prioritize the development. Based on field data of the actors involved in the formulation of the education quality improvement program in Aceh Utara District, especially the legislative branch (namely BAPPEDA), the education office and members of the Aceh legislative team, the post-conflict Aceh representation of the legislature at the provincial level, the DPRA and DPRK at the district level / in the field of political will produced. The resulting program does not focus on the pattern of improving the quality of education, the policy is more rhetorical, and the program implementation is often adapted to the wishes of political actors.

Research Limitations/Implications – Given the fundamental differences in the root causes of primary and secondary education in Aceh, further research is needed to determine whether similar results will be obtained in other parts of Aceh.

Originality/Value – Identifies factors that lead to the low quality of educators and the unequal distribution of teachers in the Aceh Regency.

Paper Type – Research paper

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Special Autonomy policy to improve the community welfare of Papua Province.

This study was carried out using a qualitative approach assessing program activities and client satisfaction. It focused on program activity, target and implementation effectively and efficiently, involving the client’s evaluation process. Research data was obtained from the Papua Regional Development Planning Agency and separated into primary and secondary sources. Primary data was obtained through observation, interview and documentation from several informants. The informants were determined based on the role and involvement in the Papua Province Special Autonomy. Secondary data sources were obtained through field studies, scientific journals, previous research, written documents from relevant agencies, internet and electronic and print media.

This study exhibits characteristics of Papua Province Special Autonomy, which are identical to an asymmetric decentralization model, although it took 20 years of implementation because of the lack of evaluation and improvement. It disproves Katorobo’s (2004) theory that the said asymmetric decentralization model is more effective than symmetrical decentralization. Material requirement planning (MRP) empowerment or abolition should be considered important because of the lack of positive results. Otsus needs to improve the system and financial management, considering financial distribution for developed regions in the coastal areas and plains rather than mountainous regions.

This research was conducted because of the phenomenon of Papua Province Special Autonomy, also driven by the problems in the implementation of Special Autonomy Policy for Papua Province that had not borne optimum results. This study aimed to make recommendations for the Special Autonomy policy of the Papua Province to improve community welfare.

Job satisfaction is indispensable in the daily life of the workforce, and the mechanism that drives job satisfaction requires the attention of the management of corporate organisations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the predictors of work environment on job satisfaction among nurses in both federal and state tertiary hospitals in Lagos State.

The study used the longitudinal research design to elicit information from the respondents. The research instrument used is a nursing work index scale by Aiken and Patrician which has been established to have a high internal reliability coefficient. The simple random sampling strategy was used to administer the research instrument to 364 nurses. The study used hierarchical multiple regression to analyse the data obtained.

This study discovered that all the variables collectively determined nurses job satisfaction; however, the salary was the most fundamental essential predictor that drive nurses’ job satisfaction followed by advancement and promotion. All seven predictors, namely, socio-political climate; administrative and managerial support, autonomy and responsibility, salary, supervision and working condition, recognition and achievement, advancement and promotion, collectively exert positive relationship with nurses’ job satisfaction. The study concluded that to retain and prevent turnover intention among nurses, and other health-care workers, the management of hospitals must pay due attention to issues relating to job satisfaction, as this is likely to increase health-care system effectiveness, boost mental and social health of the nurses.

This study shows that job satisfaction in the workplace comes from diverse techniques, as other factors have been proven effective other than salary in international cultures and regions, but in Nigeria, salary and career promotion take pre-eminence above other factors. This is because of Nigerian socio-cultural realities and that is another paradigm shift.

This paper aims to examine the secessionist orientation of Kurdistan Region’s paradiplomacy in the context of two main variables: the internal structural variables in Iraq after 2003 and the nationalism variable.

This study relies on the theory of neoliberalism to explain the transformation of Kurdistan’s paradiplomacy to protodiplomacy. It also relies on legal approach through using the Iraqi constitution and the draft constitution for the Kurdistan Region.

The internal structural variables are one of the main variables to motivate the region with advanced nationalism to pursue a protodiplomacy. Secession or forming an independent state of Kurds is a historic requirement supported by the advanced nationalism of Iraqi Kurds.

This study encourages focusing on the crucial role of the internal structural variables that drive the regions, especially with the advanced nationalism to pursue a protodiplomacy. Also, this study recommends giving more focus on the external variables and Kurdistan’s secession.

This paper reveals the reality of Kurdistan’s protodiplomacy.

This paper focuses on governance in higher education in China. It sees that governance as distinctive on the world scale and the potential source of distinctiveness in other domains of higher education. By taking an historical approach, reviewing relevant literature and drawing on empirical research on governance at one leading research university, the paper discusses system organisation, government–university relations and the role of the Communist Party (CCP), centralisation and devolution, institutional leadership, interior governance, academic freedom and responsibility, and the relevance of collegial norms. It concludes that the party-state and Chinese higher education will need to find a Way in governance that leads into a fuller space for plural knowledges, ideas and approaches. This would advance both indigenous and global knowledge, so helping global society to also find its Way.

The purpose of this paper is to debate on how to achieve, in countries that have invested in the North American model of the regulatory state, the greatest efficiency in creating norms for the organization of public and private activities in order to guarantee the autonomy and technical impartiality required for the proper functioning of regulatory agencies.

This paper describes the development of the legal framework regarding regulatory agencies in Brazil. The research was based on bibliographical data, media reports, and the Brazilian Supreme Court decisions.

The regulation dissemination through regulatory agencies in Brazil has given rise to a series of controversies concerning the limits of their performance and the extent of their technical discretion. According to the findings, it is concluded that these independent agencies should be guided by the following four pillars: (1) the legal rule of fixed-term in office; (2) the principle of lesser control intensity (deference) of the agency acts; (3) the prohibition of contingency of agencies’ budgetary resources; and (4) the prohibition of agency powers suppression. Otherwise, the institutional capacity of agencies will be diminished and their neutral action in technical matters will be compromised.

This paper shows how enhanced autonomy and technical impartiality can be useful for better regulatory governance in other countries, preventing them from suffering from the same problems that have occurred in Brazil.

This paper analyses the degree of political decentralisation and its relation to the local councils in Tanzania. It explores the institutional and political set-up of the local councils originating from the degree of political decentralisation and how it influences the tension between the bureaucrats and local politicians.

Qualitative approach by a comparative case study is adopted to investigate the phenomenon in two local governments in Tanzania. The data were collected through interviews with 37 senior local government officials and eight focus group discussions with 48 administrators and councillors.

The findings indicate that the two local governments are subjected to a similar political system guided by similar rules and guidelines from the central government bureaucracy for implementing the party manifesto and central government priorities. Thus, the local politicians have little room for negotiation in adopting local agenda to reflect the preferences of the local community. Any attempt to challenge this status quo creates political tensions between bureaucrats and the administrators.

The findings provide invaluable insights to different stakeholders such as political scientists, government officials, and policymakers with interests in research or practice of political decentralization and political-administrative relation.

During the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, there was much debate about the future broader political direction of the country but little discussion about its impact on Scottish tourism. The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss the impact of the different future political options from a tourism perspective.

From the literature, four main political drivers were identified, and using Scotland as a reference, they were used in discussions with six experts to explore how tourism could develop under different political options. The outcomes from these discussions were combined by the researcher to develop in conjunction with the experts an agreed discussion note. This discussion note formed the basis for the exploration of the impact on tourism under four different future political options.

Of the four political options (devolution limited, devolution plus, devolution max/fiscal autonomy/federation and full independence), it is clear that all options had different positive and negative impacts for tourism. The devolution max option, however, was perceived as most damaging to tourism, because tourism would not be considered a priority, relative to other policy issues. The study concludes with six key lessons that destination management organisations (DMOs) should contemplate when considering the impacts of different political futures.

Being focussed on one country with a strong political party whose raison d'être is independence makes it difficult to extrapolate the results. Nevertheless, given the strong commonality of agreement of the impacts within the experts consulted, this study suggests that DMOs can and should engage in political debates about the future of tourism in their destination.

The 2014 independence referendum in Scotland failed to achieve its primary aim of independence for Scotland, but it did provide space for other political options to be explored. This paper provides a perspective on how tourism could develop under different political options, and so help raise its profile in any future debates, both in Scotland and other destinations.

This paper aims to examine the effects of domestic structure forces on “sub-national” foreign policy (SFP); an analytical concept provides a suitable operational framework for research on international activities of sub-national entities or regions.

The paper is carried out on the basis of a theoretical framework proposed by the author. First, the dependent variable is defined. Then, domestic structure is broken down into four variables, including legal grounds, the level of autonomy, the type of intergovernmental relations and institutionalization. A comparative method is used to examine the validity of the theoretical framework.

The paper finds out that domestic structural forces influence level and form of SFP with some regularity. The influence of these forces on SFP can be explained, as they recur and have such consistent effects that they create patterns and regularities in SFP. Such regularities can be detected through systematic analysis.

The topic of SFP is relatively controversial because of academic debate over international agency of substate actors. However, it is a worthwhile subject of research, as it has the potential to revolutionize research in foreign policy analysis. Moreover, the phenomenon of SFP is in need of theorizing and comparison as the literature on SFP is still in its infancy.