Um dos temas de debate político em Portugal reside no Setor Empresarial do Estado (SEE), pela sua... more Um dos temas de debate político em Portugal reside no Setor Empresarial do Estado (SEE), pela sua dimensão, despesas no PIB,resultados (positivos ou negativos) e ainda os passivos. A discussão sobre esta temática aumentou desde que Portugal,no âmbito do acordo celebrado entre o governo português e a TROIKA, assumiu o compromisso de reduzir este setor. Diversas são as questões que se colocam: deve o Estado limitar-se ao papel de regulador e entregar a grande maioria dos serviços prestados pelo SEE ao setor privado? Ou seja, deve privatizar grande parte da carteira das empresas que constituem o SEE? Ou, deve o Estado continuar a ter um papel ativo em alguns setores económicos, e em quais? Independentemente da existência de diferentes opiniões sobre o SEE e das consequências a curto prazo da implementação das medidas previstas pelo acordo firmado, importa desde logo conhecer o setor para, com base na análise da informação, melhor se entender as questões a ele associadas. Dando seguimen...
Diariamente os meios de Comunicação Social questionam o papel do Sector Empresarial do Estado (SE... more Diariamente os meios de Comunicação Social questionam o papel do Sector Empresarial do Estado (SEE) na economia portuguesa e, em particular, o contributo deste sector para a dívida pública, a premência da sua existência e a eventual adopção de medidas políticas que visem a privatização de algumas Entidades que o integram. E, neste contexto, são frequentes as referências ao volume dos passivos, aos prejuízos verificados, aos vencimentos praticados ou ao número de administradores dos Conselhos de Administração. Por outro lado, alguns dos partidos políticos têm-se pronunciado sobre este sector aludindo-se ao esforço financeiro do Estado com maior acuidade pela actual crise económica mundial. Na qualidade de académicos, e alguns pela experiência adquirida enquanto autores do Anuário Financeiros dos Municípios Portugueses, considerámos oportuno proceder à análise económica e financeira do SEE. O presente estudo incide sobre as Entidades que integram a carteira principal das participações...
OECD and other international organizations have been very keen in recommending principles and ins... more OECD and other international organizations have been very keen in recommending principles and institutional safeguards to curb corruption and to enhance transparency and integrity in public procurement. Despite the fact that Portugal is being considered a good example of e-procurement policies and practices among European countries, this is a very sensitive issue. Based on the the literature that provides evidence of a politicized administration of public procurement contracts, but limited to a specific municipality, this paper extends the analysis of political effects to other municipalities. Specifically, it asks if there is a relation between the political parties in power in a given municipality and the frequency of contracts awarded to a given firm? Our results show that for political reasons private firms are more likely to win a contract in a given municipality if they have already won contracts in other municipalities led by the same political party. We rely on a dataset (’b...
The purpose of this chapter is to fill the lacuna found in the literature with regard to describi... more The purpose of this chapter is to fill the lacuna found in the literature with regard to describing the role of EFTs for water conservation policies. The literature tells us that ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) are analysed so to pursue biodiversity conservation policies and solid waste management (SWM). For biodiversity conservation policies, EFTs have two purposes: (1) to incentivize municipalities to create local protected areas (PA); and (2) to compensate municipalities for corresponding land-use restrictions. In the case of SWM, the main idea is that, even considering the fees paid by the households, it is still costly to maintain waste services in the municipal territories. In this context, EFTs are appealing policy instrument to help local governments create landfills or composting plants. However, in Brazil EFTs are functioning as a policy instrument which also includes a wide range of policy domains, such as water conservation, indigenous land, fire-control, and so on. S...
International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2021
Ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) is a policy schema that uses ecological indicators to allocate... more Ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) is a policy schema that uses ecological indicators to allocate revenues to local governments. Such intergovernmental fiscal transfers are also suited to address social policies, such as the protection of indigenous land and the reduction of infant and child mortality rates. This study offers a new conceptualisation of EFT to achieve sustainable local development that brings together economic, ecological, and social perspectives. Framed on the theories of environmental federalism, fiscal federalism, and public policy, this paper unfolds the concept of sustainable fiscal transfers (SFTs) rather than the more conventional EFTs. SFTs expand the potential of the EFT to other policies, functioning as a policy tool to reach goals in social, economic and environmental policies at the local level. In order to illustrate this new conceptualisation, it describes the SFTs as a Brazilian state policy.
Talking is cheap, at least in the short term; elected officials may profess their preferences for... more Talking is cheap, at least in the short term; elected officials may profess their preferences for IMC and yet deny IMA organisations the necessary resources to fulfil their missions. Driven by a focus on revealed preferences for inter-municipal cooperation, the article aims to answer two questions: Why do some IMA exhibit a high level of commitment on the part of their local government members whereas others remain underutilised, reflecting a choice by local governments to retain these responsibilities themselves? How does this commitment to IMAs vary over time? We use data from 25 IMAs over a 10-year period (2008-2018) in Portugal to assess the intensity of cooperation among Portuguese local governments through stand-alone organisations. The panel analysis regression supports the hypotheses that a larger number of local governments involved in IMAs and higher levels of heterogeneity among them make cooperation more difficult. In contrast, longer interaction in IMAs reinforces the intensity of cooperation.
Funding information Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia The relationship between decentralisat... more Funding information Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia The relationship between decentralisation and quality of government is theoretically ambivalent and remains empirically mixed. The classical theory argues that decentralisation improves the ability of governments to fully respond to collective preferences. A different perspective points to some disadvantages related to problems of coordination and inertia. This paper provides a worldwide cross-sectional analysis that tests these two contrasting views and the effect of democracy. The results robustly support that (a) decentralisation has an independent and positive effect on the quality of government, but that (b) political, fiscal and administrative types of decentralisation have quite different effects and that (c) the effect is attenuated when the effect of democracy is considered. Together, these results shed light with regard to the optimal design of reforms towards decentralisation across the world.
We provide a comprehensive analysis of the Portuguese parties and their policy space. We show how... more We provide a comprehensive analysis of the Portuguese parties and their policy space. We show how and how well the parties have been able to adapt to the changing environment in the party system. Our analyses show that, not only are we able check existing static expert assessments of the Portuguese party and policy space, but we are also able to track the dynamics of the system. In this way, we expand on what little has been said thus far about the Portuguese party system. We conclude with three important ideas. First, we confirm that the Portuguese policy space is unidimensional, with the parties lining up from Left to Right, as some but not all experts, have suggested. Second, we propose that the environment of the Portuguese party system is one of compression, that is, parties have been office-seekers in that they have all been approaching the Centre of the political spectrum for a number of reasons we explore in detail. Last, we learn that only through issue dimensions and how parties pronounce themselves on these dimensions are the smaller parties able to survive and avoid extinction in the compressing environment of the party system. *Mendes and Camões are grateful to the University of Minho. And all of us wish to thank Ian Budge and Andrea Volkens for providing us with updated data of the manifestoes.
Corruption, political cover-ups, and fraud in a general form have become a matter of political de... more Corruption, political cover-ups, and fraud in a general form have become a matter of political debate in the last few years in Portugal. It is not that corrupt politicians and government officials were not around before the 21 st century and are only now abusing their public authority, but is it only now coming out in public and in a big way. After thirty years of democracy, Portuguese public misuse of power is apparently no longer tolerated for government officials suspected of fraud and corruption now are being formally charged. The literature on corruption and democracy indicate that this is a positive sign of progress in the democratic development of sound political institutions. Empirical studies are few and recent, but they generally tend to point to a negative effect of corruption on attitudes toward government. In Portugal, however, despite public knowledge of alleged events, citizens do not seem to assign any blame. In fact, perceptions of corruption and fraud do not always seem to affect citizens' propensity to trust in political institutions. Using surveys conducted by the Eurobarometer in Portugal, we explore the relationship between corruption and fraud and political trust in different political institutions. We find that this relationship varies depending upon the institution. Citizens with a greater perception and concern for corruption and fraud in general express lower levels of trust in government and in the justice system. Results also show that this relationship does not hold in the case of the parliament, political parties, and the police.
The objective of this paper is to begin to explore coalition behaviour in Portuguese local govern... more The objective of this paper is to begin to explore coalition behaviour in Portuguese local government. Electoral rules exclude formal post-electoral coalition formation here. Given this, why study coalition behaviour in Portuguese local government? We argue that there is a coalition-like type of bargaining in the form of delegation, i.e., the distribution of portfolios to some but not all members of councils. This makes Portuguese local governments attractive sites for study. In the paper, we first describe the institutional structure and rules of the game at the local government level. Second, using descriptive evidence on recent local election data, we look at how parties behave post-electorally and discuss how this behaviour in light of the portfolio allocation and coalition bargaining literature.
He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University South Carolina. His general resear... more He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University South Carolina. His general research interests are local government and public budgeting and finance. Specifically, the main focus is on fiscal and political institutions of decentralization, namely the determinants of institutional change and their effects. He published in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Local Government Studies, and Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. He is member of the Center for Research on Public Policy and Administration (NEAPP). He is the coordinator of a publicly funded research project on the importance of local accounting in the performance of municipal governments.
unpublished paper, Department of Political Science, …, 2002
How does political decentralization affect the quality of government? Greater decentralization mi... more How does political decentralization affect the quality of government? Greater decentralization might make governments more honest and efficient by bringing officials closer to the people and forcing them to compete for mobile capital. Or it might create coordination ...
Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, 2019
Electronic public procurement (EPP) has been considered an important tool for promoting competiti... more Electronic public procurement (EPP) has been considered an important tool for promoting competition, simplifying procedures, and ensuring transparency in decision-making processes. In Portugal, EPP replaced paper-based pre-contractual procedures for communication and processing. Addressing this general issue, the authors designed and proposed TrivPlat, a free access tool for monitoring, managing, and evaluating electronic platforms of public procurement. This paper presents the TrivPlat project, reporting its development so far: the identification and characterization of legal requirements that electronic platforms for public procurement are required to follow in Portugal. Legal requirements may be grouped into four types: general operating rules, functional requirements, technical requirements, and safety requirements. The first phase of the TrivPlat project diagnosis is expected to result in the development of an aggregate evaluation framework for public procurement platforms in order to reach the fundamental principles: equality of treatment, confidentiality, traceability, effectiveness, compatibility, interoperability, security and general availability.
Um dos temas de debate político em Portugal reside no Setor Empresarial do Estado (SEE), pela sua... more Um dos temas de debate político em Portugal reside no Setor Empresarial do Estado (SEE), pela sua dimensão, despesas no PIB,resultados (positivos ou negativos) e ainda os passivos. A discussão sobre esta temática aumentou desde que Portugal,no âmbito do acordo celebrado entre o governo português e a TROIKA, assumiu o compromisso de reduzir este setor. Diversas são as questões que se colocam: deve o Estado limitar-se ao papel de regulador e entregar a grande maioria dos serviços prestados pelo SEE ao setor privado? Ou seja, deve privatizar grande parte da carteira das empresas que constituem o SEE? Ou, deve o Estado continuar a ter um papel ativo em alguns setores económicos, e em quais? Independentemente da existência de diferentes opiniões sobre o SEE e das consequências a curto prazo da implementação das medidas previstas pelo acordo firmado, importa desde logo conhecer o setor para, com base na análise da informação, melhor se entender as questões a ele associadas. Dando seguimen...
Diariamente os meios de Comunicação Social questionam o papel do Sector Empresarial do Estado (SE... more Diariamente os meios de Comunicação Social questionam o papel do Sector Empresarial do Estado (SEE) na economia portuguesa e, em particular, o contributo deste sector para a dívida pública, a premência da sua existência e a eventual adopção de medidas políticas que visem a privatização de algumas Entidades que o integram. E, neste contexto, são frequentes as referências ao volume dos passivos, aos prejuízos verificados, aos vencimentos praticados ou ao número de administradores dos Conselhos de Administração. Por outro lado, alguns dos partidos políticos têm-se pronunciado sobre este sector aludindo-se ao esforço financeiro do Estado com maior acuidade pela actual crise económica mundial. Na qualidade de académicos, e alguns pela experiência adquirida enquanto autores do Anuário Financeiros dos Municípios Portugueses, considerámos oportuno proceder à análise económica e financeira do SEE. O presente estudo incide sobre as Entidades que integram a carteira principal das participações...
OECD and other international organizations have been very keen in recommending principles and ins... more OECD and other international organizations have been very keen in recommending principles and institutional safeguards to curb corruption and to enhance transparency and integrity in public procurement. Despite the fact that Portugal is being considered a good example of e-procurement policies and practices among European countries, this is a very sensitive issue. Based on the the literature that provides evidence of a politicized administration of public procurement contracts, but limited to a specific municipality, this paper extends the analysis of political effects to other municipalities. Specifically, it asks if there is a relation between the political parties in power in a given municipality and the frequency of contracts awarded to a given firm? Our results show that for political reasons private firms are more likely to win a contract in a given municipality if they have already won contracts in other municipalities led by the same political party. We rely on a dataset (’b...
The purpose of this chapter is to fill the lacuna found in the literature with regard to describi... more The purpose of this chapter is to fill the lacuna found in the literature with regard to describing the role of EFTs for water conservation policies. The literature tells us that ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) are analysed so to pursue biodiversity conservation policies and solid waste management (SWM). For biodiversity conservation policies, EFTs have two purposes: (1) to incentivize municipalities to create local protected areas (PA); and (2) to compensate municipalities for corresponding land-use restrictions. In the case of SWM, the main idea is that, even considering the fees paid by the households, it is still costly to maintain waste services in the municipal territories. In this context, EFTs are appealing policy instrument to help local governments create landfills or composting plants. However, in Brazil EFTs are functioning as a policy instrument which also includes a wide range of policy domains, such as water conservation, indigenous land, fire-control, and so on. S...
International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2021
Ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) is a policy schema that uses ecological indicators to allocate... more Ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) is a policy schema that uses ecological indicators to allocate revenues to local governments. Such intergovernmental fiscal transfers are also suited to address social policies, such as the protection of indigenous land and the reduction of infant and child mortality rates. This study offers a new conceptualisation of EFT to achieve sustainable local development that brings together economic, ecological, and social perspectives. Framed on the theories of environmental federalism, fiscal federalism, and public policy, this paper unfolds the concept of sustainable fiscal transfers (SFTs) rather than the more conventional EFTs. SFTs expand the potential of the EFT to other policies, functioning as a policy tool to reach goals in social, economic and environmental policies at the local level. In order to illustrate this new conceptualisation, it describes the SFTs as a Brazilian state policy.
Talking is cheap, at least in the short term; elected officials may profess their preferences for... more Talking is cheap, at least in the short term; elected officials may profess their preferences for IMC and yet deny IMA organisations the necessary resources to fulfil their missions. Driven by a focus on revealed preferences for inter-municipal cooperation, the article aims to answer two questions: Why do some IMA exhibit a high level of commitment on the part of their local government members whereas others remain underutilised, reflecting a choice by local governments to retain these responsibilities themselves? How does this commitment to IMAs vary over time? We use data from 25 IMAs over a 10-year period (2008-2018) in Portugal to assess the intensity of cooperation among Portuguese local governments through stand-alone organisations. The panel analysis regression supports the hypotheses that a larger number of local governments involved in IMAs and higher levels of heterogeneity among them make cooperation more difficult. In contrast, longer interaction in IMAs reinforces the intensity of cooperation.
Funding information Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia The relationship between decentralisat... more Funding information Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia The relationship between decentralisation and quality of government is theoretically ambivalent and remains empirically mixed. The classical theory argues that decentralisation improves the ability of governments to fully respond to collective preferences. A different perspective points to some disadvantages related to problems of coordination and inertia. This paper provides a worldwide cross-sectional analysis that tests these two contrasting views and the effect of democracy. The results robustly support that (a) decentralisation has an independent and positive effect on the quality of government, but that (b) political, fiscal and administrative types of decentralisation have quite different effects and that (c) the effect is attenuated when the effect of democracy is considered. Together, these results shed light with regard to the optimal design of reforms towards decentralisation across the world.
We provide a comprehensive analysis of the Portuguese parties and their policy space. We show how... more We provide a comprehensive analysis of the Portuguese parties and their policy space. We show how and how well the parties have been able to adapt to the changing environment in the party system. Our analyses show that, not only are we able check existing static expert assessments of the Portuguese party and policy space, but we are also able to track the dynamics of the system. In this way, we expand on what little has been said thus far about the Portuguese party system. We conclude with three important ideas. First, we confirm that the Portuguese policy space is unidimensional, with the parties lining up from Left to Right, as some but not all experts, have suggested. Second, we propose that the environment of the Portuguese party system is one of compression, that is, parties have been office-seekers in that they have all been approaching the Centre of the political spectrum for a number of reasons we explore in detail. Last, we learn that only through issue dimensions and how parties pronounce themselves on these dimensions are the smaller parties able to survive and avoid extinction in the compressing environment of the party system. *Mendes and Camões are grateful to the University of Minho. And all of us wish to thank Ian Budge and Andrea Volkens for providing us with updated data of the manifestoes.
Corruption, political cover-ups, and fraud in a general form have become a matter of political de... more Corruption, political cover-ups, and fraud in a general form have become a matter of political debate in the last few years in Portugal. It is not that corrupt politicians and government officials were not around before the 21 st century and are only now abusing their public authority, but is it only now coming out in public and in a big way. After thirty years of democracy, Portuguese public misuse of power is apparently no longer tolerated for government officials suspected of fraud and corruption now are being formally charged. The literature on corruption and democracy indicate that this is a positive sign of progress in the democratic development of sound political institutions. Empirical studies are few and recent, but they generally tend to point to a negative effect of corruption on attitudes toward government. In Portugal, however, despite public knowledge of alleged events, citizens do not seem to assign any blame. In fact, perceptions of corruption and fraud do not always seem to affect citizens' propensity to trust in political institutions. Using surveys conducted by the Eurobarometer in Portugal, we explore the relationship between corruption and fraud and political trust in different political institutions. We find that this relationship varies depending upon the institution. Citizens with a greater perception and concern for corruption and fraud in general express lower levels of trust in government and in the justice system. Results also show that this relationship does not hold in the case of the parliament, political parties, and the police.
The objective of this paper is to begin to explore coalition behaviour in Portuguese local govern... more The objective of this paper is to begin to explore coalition behaviour in Portuguese local government. Electoral rules exclude formal post-electoral coalition formation here. Given this, why study coalition behaviour in Portuguese local government? We argue that there is a coalition-like type of bargaining in the form of delegation, i.e., the distribution of portfolios to some but not all members of councils. This makes Portuguese local governments attractive sites for study. In the paper, we first describe the institutional structure and rules of the game at the local government level. Second, using descriptive evidence on recent local election data, we look at how parties behave post-electorally and discuss how this behaviour in light of the portfolio allocation and coalition bargaining literature.
He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University South Carolina. His general resear... more He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University South Carolina. His general research interests are local government and public budgeting and finance. Specifically, the main focus is on fiscal and political institutions of decentralization, namely the determinants of institutional change and their effects. He published in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Local Government Studies, and Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. He is member of the Center for Research on Public Policy and Administration (NEAPP). He is the coordinator of a publicly funded research project on the importance of local accounting in the performance of municipal governments.
unpublished paper, Department of Political Science, …, 2002
How does political decentralization affect the quality of government? Greater decentralization mi... more How does political decentralization affect the quality of government? Greater decentralization might make governments more honest and efficient by bringing officials closer to the people and forcing them to compete for mobile capital. Or it might create coordination ...
Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, 2019
Electronic public procurement (EPP) has been considered an important tool for promoting competiti... more Electronic public procurement (EPP) has been considered an important tool for promoting competition, simplifying procedures, and ensuring transparency in decision-making processes. In Portugal, EPP replaced paper-based pre-contractual procedures for communication and processing. Addressing this general issue, the authors designed and proposed TrivPlat, a free access tool for monitoring, managing, and evaluating electronic platforms of public procurement. This paper presents the TrivPlat project, reporting its development so far: the identification and characterization of legal requirements that electronic platforms for public procurement are required to follow in Portugal. Legal requirements may be grouped into four types: general operating rules, functional requirements, technical requirements, and safety requirements. The first phase of the TrivPlat project diagnosis is expected to result in the development of an aggregate evaluation framework for public procurement platforms in order to reach the fundamental principles: equality of treatment, confidentiality, traceability, effectiveness, compatibility, interoperability, security and general availability.
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Papers by Pedro Camões