Local Legislative Process in Russia: Perspectives and Barriers

The legislative process is an important tool of direct democracy for creating checks and balances on public authority. Making local laws is an essential function of the local government that is linked to direct communication between public officials and citizens. This paper sets out to evaluate the opportunities, constraints and challenges in the practices of local direct democracy in Russian municipalities, and to describe the frameworks and capacities that municipal authorities provide for citizens. The paper analyzes the political and legal circumstances for law-making initiatives at the local level and examines citizens’ activities in the local legislative process. The research question is whether citizens have the capacity and opportunity to participate in the local legislative process and to what extent barriers and challenges prevent them from doing so. To answer the research question the authors use methods of context analysis to study Russian legislation and municipal legal documents, a case study of several Russian municipalities and a survey with representatives of local communities in Tyumen, a Russian mid-sized city located in Western Siberia. The results of the study show a reluctance on the part of local residents to engage in the various aspects of direct democracy and a lack of the necessary skills, knowledge and willingness to participate in the initiative process. The results further show that the initiative process is frequently not well planned and lacks clear objectives, requirements and guidelines. The study concludes that seminars and professional training as well as roundtable workshops are effective ways to support local law-making initiatives. One promising step towards modernizing initiatives would be to organize them in e-forms. Many citizens demonstrate their ability to use electronic options that can expand the possibilities for their participation in the local legislative process.

The Initiative Process and Policy Innovation in the American States

We utilize a new policy adoption database with over 500 policies to test whether the initiative process influences the timing of policy adoption. Prior studies have produced both supportive and null findings of the effect of the initiative, but typically examine policies one policy or a single composite score at a time. Theoretical accounts suggest that the initiative process should have heterogeneous effects on policy outcomes depending on the configuration of public and government preferences. By pooling hundreds of policies we are able to estimate the average effect of the initiative process on state policy adoption more systematically while also evaluating variation in its effect. We find via a pooled event history analysis that the initiative tends to increase innovativeness, but that this effect can be cancelled out by signature and distribution requirements. We find that this effect varies substantially across policies and is more consistently positive on average in states more liberal populations. We also find evidence that the initiative process moderates the effect of ideology on policy adoption, while making the adoption of non-ideological policies more likely on average.

Integrated Optimization of SIMOPS (Drilling, Well Intervention, and Production) on Jackup Rig : a Case Study of Under Cantilever Operations at X-1 Platform in Mahakam Asset

Deliverability of a field shall be reflected through its hydrocarbon production. In offshore fields, the backbone for stability of production comes from drilling and well intervention operations. One makes new wells while the other maintains existing wells to minimize impact of the decline. Nevertheless, these operations may become a double-edge sword for production. For example, rig activities that shut in existing wells in an offshore platform create production loss of that field. This situation may be ludicrous, but it is a dire consequence for mature/sensitive wells, in which potential loss might be proportional to shut in duration required. This ironic situation prompts two (2) challenges which are to maintain production existing wells and to start production of new wells while respecting the safety aspect in operation. Thus, in order to overcome these challenges, an integrated optimization of SIMOPS between drilling, well intervention and production is ushered in X-1 drilling campaign where production activities continue and well intervention operates under cantilever of the jackup rig during the whole drilling campaign.PT Pertamina Hulu Mahakam (PHM) delivers one well in offshore area between 17-25 days in average, depending on the well type. As a continuous saving initiative process, every possible scenario was exercise to optimize cost and three (3) objectives were identified for cost optimization which are to reduce the shortfall of existing wells by re-perforation to revive well, optimize rig duration at respective wells safely through offline well intervention activities and accelerate the production of new wells. As a result, all three (3) objectives had been achieved during the complex campaign with deliverability including no LTI during operation, three (3) new wells , two (2) workover and sidetracked wells with longer open hole record at X-1, offline well intervention activities (perforation) of existing well at X-1, offline production activities to revive existing wells at X-1 through offload to atmosphere and offline well connection activities for new wells (earlier). In the final analysis, integrated SIMOPS optimization generates production gain and enhances cost effectiveness safely. This paper shall provide the methodology to design and prepare an integrated SIMOPS as well as the corresponding result and lesson learnt.

Unfulfilled promise: How and why citizen initiative was created in British Columbia

Democracy serves as a governing philosophy where decisions are made by a vote of the population. Due to the large numbers of citizens who live in modern democracies, this is mainly done through elections to legislative assemblies as a form of representative democracy. But representative democracy does not always ensure policy alignment between citizens and elected representatives. Citizen initiatives serve as a means of promoting greater policy alignment by allowing citizens to propose their own legislation, to be voted on by the electorate. This thesis investigates why British Columbia chose to enact citizen initiative alone among Canadian provinces, and also why British Columbia’s policy was written with the provisions and constraints that elected representatives chose to include. The research shows that key individuals in power used their influence to advocate for citizen initiative in the province, and that British Columbia’s citizen initiative process was written to accommodate constitutional requirements and public opinion on what citizen initiative should look like.