PLATEAUS NOT SUMMITS: REFORMING PUBLIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT IN AFRICA

Successful public sector reform is rare in Africa. Over 12 years, Ethiopia transformed its public financial management (PFM) to international standards and now has the third best system in Africa that is managing the largest aid flows to the continent. This article presents a framework for understanding PFM reform based on the Ethiopian experience. Reforms succeed when they are aligned with the four drivers of public sector reform: context, ownership, purpose, and strategy. PFM is a core function of the state and its sovereignty, and it is not an appropriate arena for foreign aid intervention—governments must fully own it, which was a key to the success of Ethiopia's reform. The purpose of PFM reform should be building stable and sustainable “plateaus” of PFM that are appropriate to the local context, and they should not be about risky and irrelevant “summits” of international best practice. Plateaus, not summits, are needed in Africa. Finally, a strategy of reform has four tasks: recognize, improve, change, and sustain. Ethiopia succeeded because it implemented a recognize–improve–sustain strategy to support the government policy of rapid decentralization. All too often, much of the PFM reform in Africa is about the change task and climbing financial summits. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public Financial Management Reform in South African Provincial Basic Education Departments

Since the transition to democracy in 1994, the South African government has engaged in a sustained programme of public financial management (PFM) reform across the national, provincial and local spheres of government. This study evaluates the progress of the nine provincial education departments (PEDs) in implementing the Public Finance Management Act of 1999 and explores the factors that facilitated or impeded reform. A PFM progress (PFMP) index is constructed to track each PED's performance from 1997/1998 to 2013/2014 and then used to benchmark its progress over time and relative to the education sector as a whole. The indicators comprising the PFMP index assess key PFM functions (budgeting, accounting, financial auditing and audits of performance information), financial leadership and the effectiveness of governance institutions such as audit committees. While there has been considerable progress in PFM, distinct differences in the quality and effectiveness of PFM practices across the nine PEDs remain. Stable top administrative leadership, availability of PFM skills, varying degrees of accountability and departmental capacity to establish PFM systems that conform to new accounting standards drive variances in reform outcomes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Regulating finance after the crisis: Unveiling the different dynamics of the regulatory process

It is now widely recognized that regulatory failures contributed to the onset of the global financial crisis. Redressing such failures has, thus, been a key policy priority in the post‐crisis reform agenda at both the domestic and international levels. This special issue investigates the process of post‐crisis financial regulatory reform in a number of crucial issue areas, including the rules and arrangements that govern financial supervision, offshore financial centers and shadow banking, the financial industry's involvement in global regulatory processes, and macroeconomic modeling. In so doing, the main purpose of this special issue is to shed light on an often understudied aspect in regulation literature: the variation in the dynamics of regulatory change. Contributors examine the different dynamics of regulatory change observed post‐crisis and explain variations by accounting for the interaction between institutional factors, on the one hand, and the activity of change agents and veto players involved in the regulatory reform process, on the other.     

农村财务管理中的腐败现状及其惩防模式构建

近年来,农村财务腐败问题从反腐败“盲区”变为社会关注的焦点之一,违纪违法案件也呈现出数量由少到多、案值由小到大的发展态势,成为影响农村经济社会和谐发展的重要制约因素。当前农村财务腐败的行为表征体现为：违规操作,牟取私利;巧立名目,虚假冒领;肆意隐瞒集体资产与收入;票据使用不规范,收支管理混乱;现金管理不合理,白条列支严重等方面。究其原因,主要是主体自律与他律意识呈现“双弱”态势,村级财务管理体制不规范,监控体系不完善,对现有的农村财务腐败案件的惩处力度也不够严厉。因此,要构建以教育反腐为基础、群众反腐和社会反腐为保障,技术反腐、体改反腐、司法反腐为手段的农村财务腐败惩防体系,为农村基层党风廉政建设奠定坚实的基础。     

The social order of Chinese capitalism: socio-economic uncertainty,communist party rule and economic development, 1990–2000

China's financially repressed economy remains characterized by a distinctly resilient political structure (the Chinese Communist Party, CCP) that penetrates both increasingly rational ‘private’ (market) and ‘public’ (state) organizations. How are we to understand the financial system's role in this persistently illiberal yet marketizing political economy? This paper develops a theory of China's financial reform as the management of socio-economic uncertainty by the CCP. Since the early 1990s, the financial system has formed a locus of the CCP's capacity both to manage and to propagate socio-economic uncertainty through the path of reform. The unique path of financial reform in China should thus not be viewed solely in terms of ‘partial’ or ‘failed’ free-market reform, but rather as the product of a more concerted vision of how the financial system enabled a mode of economic growth that combined the drive for accumulation of capital with the distinctive legacies of China's post-1989 socio-political circumstances.     

“新公共管理运动”的困境与转型——新西兰公共部门改革的反思及参鉴

新西兰公共部门改革是"新公共管理运动"的先锋,作为"改革实验室"和"政策创新者",因其彻底性、持续性及成效性被誉为"改革的典范"。然而近年来,西方公共管理学界提出了若干质疑,甚至认为"新公共管理运动已经死亡"。本文在考察新西兰公共部门改革实践的基础上,对实践模式的局限性及时代转换的压力两方面的批判性反思进行了梳理和分析:其"公平"与"公共"价值已经失落?是"经济学帝国"的扩张?还是"新泰勒主义"的表现?亦或是随着改革主题的衰落,数字时代治理的来临。对这一改革的实践发掘和理论反思对于当前我国政府职能转换与行政改革具有重要的参鉴价值:首先,推进改革的政府需要具备必要的能力基础;公共部门改革的核心命题是转变理念,优化政府职能,提高政府的效率和效能;而改革能否顺利推进,取决于广大民众和政府之间的深入互动;此外,改革需要尊重地方政府的主动性,充分发挥其作用。     

Organization and Reporting of Public Financial Accounts: Insights and Policy Implications from the Singapore Budget

This paper analyses the Singapore government budget's organization and reporting structure, and draws lessons and policy implications for improving public financial management practices. The paper finds that Singapore's fiscal marksmanship record has been poor with consistent underestimates of revenue and overestimates of expenditure. Second, subtle divergences from international reporting standards limit the information available and constrain the budget's analytical usefulness in international comparisons. Third, current reporting conventions of the budget fail to provide an adequate representation of the government's fiscal position. Fourth, revised estimates of budgetary balances in line with international reporting standards show a considerable increase in the fiscal space available. The policy implications of these findings are discussed, as well as some reporting changes which can help improve the fiscal marksmanship record, increase public sector transparency and accountability, and facilitate better quality discourse among all stakeholders on public financial management.     

Audit for Accountability in China: An Incomplete Mission

This article argues against the conventional wisdom that accountability is the raison d'être of auditing activities. Audit, admittedly, is a part of the accountability architecture as it contributes to the financial health of a government and the effective management of public money. This does not mean, however, that audit necessarily generates accountability. China's experience with establishing a power audit regime shows that without enabling goals, impartial structural arrangements, and effective procedures, auditing for accountability only remains an incomplete mission.     

Tracing policy influence of diffuse interests: the post-crisis consumer finance protection politics in the US

Dodd–Frank, the financial reform law passed in the United States in response to the 2008 financial crisis, established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new federal regulator with the sole responsibility of protecting consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices. This decision marked the end of a highly politicized reform debate in the US Congress, in which proponents of the new bureau would normally have been considered to be much weaker than its opponents. Paradoxically, an emerging civil society coalition successfully lobbied decision-makers and countered industry attempts to prevent industry capture. What explains the fact that rather weak and peripheral actors prevailed over more resourceful and dominant actors? The goal of this study is to examine and challenge questions of regulatory capture by concentrated industry interests in the reform debates in response to the credit crisis which originated in the US in 2007. The analysis suggests that for weak actors to prevail in policy conflicts over established, resource-rich opponents, they must undertake broad coalition building among themselves and with influential elite allies outside and inside of Congress who share the same policy goals.     

以公共价值为基础的政府绩效治理——源起、架构与研究问题

政府绩效管理兴起二十多年来,已由西方国家应对财政和信任危机、提高行政效率的工具拓展为各国政府改革和创新的重要内容,新公共管理的实践价值和理论优势在其中都得到了充分体现。但其理论缺陷和实践中的困惑,特别是在公共价值方面的冲突使学术界的探索从未停止过。本文通过对中国、美国、日本等国的实践案例考察,从制度变迁和公共行政学术史两个层面的质性研究,提出了以公共价值为基础的政府绩效治理理论体系框架。文章首先从"公共性"、"合作生产"和"可持续"三个方面对新公共管理背景下的政府绩效管理进行了反思,认为公共价值对政府绩效合法性具有本质的规定性。其次,初步论证了以公共价值为基础的政府绩效治理的两个基本命题——政府绩效是一种社会建构、产出即绩效;认为只有来源于社会的政府绩效才能获得合法性基础,也只有根植于社会的政府绩效才能产生其可持续提升的需要,这是政府绩效管理的根本动力;而在政府绩效价值建构基础上的科学管理,才能保证政府产出与社会需求的高度一致,充分体现科学管理的价值。再次,从这两个基本命题出发,以价值管理和管理科学理论为基础,构建起了以公共价值为基础的政府绩效治理模型,并对模型中政府绩效的价值建构、组织管理和协同领导系统等主要内容进行了阐述。最后,从模型如何"落地"、政府绩效管理的价值分析和研究拓展等方面提出了未来的研究方向。     

西方国家水利的社会管理与公共服务职能变革分析

20世纪80年代以来，在英、美等西方国家兴起了以治道变革为特征的新公共管理运动，其目标是为了应付一系列政府管理中出现的问题。发达国家水利的社会管理与公共服务职能的变革是新公共管理运动的一项重要内容。水公共产品作为一种以政府为主导提供的特殊公共产品，在以新公共管理理论为指导的政府改车过程中，水利的社会管理与公共服务职能的作用日益重要起来。本文通过对西方国家水利的社会管理与公共服务职能变革的背景、理论和实践的考察，提出对中国水利的社会管理与公共服务的借鉴意义。     

公共管理职能的重建——一个分析框架

重建公共管理职能是当下中国改革和发展的主要任务之一.如何构建与市场经济和民主法治国家相适应的公共管理,这是我国公共管理学界需要关注的问题.首要的任务是确立分析公共管理职能的框架.公共管理的职能体系受到社会价值观、时间、空间、制度、经济社会发展水平、政府能力等诸多因素的约束.关注这些因素对公共管理职能规定的影响是转变和重建公共管理职能过程中的一个重要的认识问题.同时,它也意味着公共管理职能转变和重建是一个动态和权变的过程.公共管理职能实现方式的变革是重建过程的一个主要维度,从单一的行政方式向市场、网络等多种方式转变是当前公共管理变革的关注点之一.     

Critical success factors for modernising public financial management information systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This article identifies a number of critical factors that have contributed to the successful implementation of a public financial management information system in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The information system, funded by USAID and implemented by Emerging Markets Group from 1999 to 2004, has revolutionised accounting practices and has contributed to a more transparent and effective public sector. This article describes the project's context and purpose, its main features, challenges and obstacles. It continues by outlining the critical success factors that have contributed to the success of the project in a challenging environment. The project was implemented in a rather unique environment since it was initiated not long after the end of the civil war and the creation of the Republic of BiH. The Republic of BiH inherited the former socialist Yugoslavian payment systems. There were no adequate public financial management systems in place, and the project team could essentially start from scratch. The project team designed and implemented an accrual accounting system, and unlike the situation in many countries, relieved the government from having to transform their financial management system from cash‐based accounting to accrual accounting. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Introduction to Neumann: law and socialist political theory

Abstract

Regulators attempt to understand financial markets and their risks in terms of categories of knowledge and datasets that are defined and produced by the markets. However, regulators cannot adequately interpret or utilize such knowledge, for reasons including their social distance from the sites of knowledge production, the diversity of financial firms’ proprietary risk models, firms’ abilities to game the rules thus rendering the ‘metrics’ meaningless and several backfiring aspects of global regulatory networking and reform. Calls for yet more information about trading, posed in terms of the merits of transparency, result in information swamping of regulators. Meanwhile, while policy-makers tinker with regulatory structures (‘architecture’), political reaction to the crisis de-legitimizes public regulation as a project. Yet there is one positive aspect of the reforms – enhancing powers for ‘resolution’ of financial firms in ways that impact upon investors while minimizing wider destabilization – upon which the regulatory information requirement can and should be refocused. To protect the public interest, legal transparency is required, trading transparency is not. This paper introduces these issues by drawing on critical work on transparency and markets.     

The unstable core of global finance: Contingent valuation and governance of international accounting standards

Accounting standards are the foundations of the financial regulatory edifice, and global financial governance is no more stable than the asset valuations that feed it. Yet for two decades and up to this day, no international accounting rule for financial instruments – the bulk of banks' balance sheets – has emerged that was more than a temporary fix, to be succeeded by further reforms. We show how banking regulators have been central to this dynamic and how their support for applying fair value accounting to financial instruments, the cornerstone of regulatory debate, has oscillated throughout the whole period. The two common international political economy approaches to global financial governance, which analyze it either as interest‐based bargaining or as ideas‐driven expert governance, fail to account for this pattern. In contrast, we show how the contingency of financial valuations itself has made it impossible for regulators to embrace or reject a stable set of accounting rules.     

政府公共管理新理念及其在社会实践中的运用

随着我国改革开放的深入和社会主义市场经济体制建设的日益完善,传统公共行政的那种僵化的、等级森严的官僚制式的观念正在被新的政府公共管理理念所替代。本文透析了我国政府在进行行政管理改革的进程中所暴露出的一系列有关政府公共管理事务能力、国民素质、非政府组织、政府外交管理事务、政府行政改革滞后于经济改革等方面的问题。最后认为,当前我国应该采纳新的政府公共管理理论,重塑公共政策的价值起点,加快新一轮的政府体制和职能改革,早日使我们的政府变成真正的“统一、高效、公正、廉洁”的政府。     

Public support for electoral reform: The role of electoral system experience

What affects public support for electoral reform? How does experience with different electoral systems affect people's willingness to support electoral reform? Given the salience of changes to election rules even when they are passed via the legislature and the increasing use of referenda as alternative mechanisms for change, these questions are critical to understanding when electoral reform will occur. I argue that experience (specifically, with an electoral system similar to that under consideration) affects public opinion by reducing uncertainty about the likely effects of reform and thus affects support for reform (although the direction of the effect depends on partisan bias). Moreover, I argue that experience is most important in the absence of strong party cues. I leverage subnational electoral system variation in the United Kingdom and find that experience does affect support for reform — negative experiences decrease support for reform. The results have implications for the possibility of electoral reform in the UK and beyond.     

行政冲突的价值分析--公共管理新模式探索

公共领域的冲突或危机管理模式是价值观、信仰以及稀少的地位、权力和资源分配上的斗争,具有一定的负功能;关注公共领域中的冲突管理或危机管理并不是涉及双方行政关系的基础,不是核心价值的冲突,而是民主性质的公共规则控制下的冲突,是公共领域可以承受,并对公共管理结构的整合提供动力的冲突,使人们能够运用冲突的危机探索并接近解决的可能性的冲突,因而是具有正功能的冲突.认为,虽然冲突管理或危机管理也具有反功能,有一定风险,但影响是有限的,因此,危机管理或冲突管理的正功能成为研究的重点.     

公共管理学：定位与使命

公共管理学由行政学、公共行政学发展而来,其最初源头在政治学。所以,政治学对于公共行政学的意义,犹如经济学对工商管理学的意义。但是,公共管理学有自己特定的研究对象、学科体系和指导原则,因为,公共管理是一项独立的管理活动,其对象就是公共资源,其主体就是以政府为核心所形成的政府、市场、社会多元统一的公共治理体系;而其原则就是公共性、公正性和效益性的有机统一。在中国,公共管理学要走向成熟,实现科学化,关键是要关注中国公共管理的实践,创造中国公共管理理论。为此,中国公共管理学应该在3个方面作出努力:一是确立公共管理学特有的问题意识;二是确立中国公共管理的规范性价值体系;三是形成理论与实践能够相互转化的研究能力。     

财政公共化改革的三个基本任务--支出结构调整、公开透明与责任落实

公共财政是公共管理和社会管理的经济基础,同时公共财政的运行制度和游戏规则是作为政治行政体制一部分的上层建筑。建立公共财政框架,需要对经济体制、政治行政体制进行全方位的改革。关键任务有:一是调整财政支出结构,确保社会公共需要的满足;二是提高公开透明程度,使公众确实能够了解、监督财政运行状况;三是落实财政责任,给权力以充分对应的制约。后两个任务的核心是民主和法治,旨在建立财政公共化的制度基础,关键是要重建政府预算制度。从历年的国家审计报告看,解决这个问题非常紧迫、相当艰巨、极端重要。