Crises and Paradigm Shift

Crises can force leaders and technocrats together, highlight failures and, more rarely, precipitate changes in ideological worldview and the prevailing consensus. In 2007–8, the worst financial and economic crises since the Great Depression of 1929 caused a paradigm shift in financial and regulatory ideology. G20 leaders and central bankers reasserted collective power and authority over financial markets and global banks to an extent and in a manner not seen since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971. The retreat of state authority reversed direction. The spell of the ‘mystical Anglo‐Saxon model of liberalisation and deregulation’ was broken. In 2014 the paradigm shift is still underway and still under attack by recalcitrant bank CEOs and their lobbyists, but the shift may be durable—signalling a major change in international regulation of the world's largest financial markets and firms.     

我国矿产资源管理政策范式变迁研究

矿产资源是支撑国民经济发展的重要物质基础,系统探究矿产资源管理政策范式变迁历程、变迁机制与变迁逻辑,对优化当前矿产资源管理政策具有重要意义。基于政策范式变迁理论框架,以1986年到2019年年间中央层面颁发的511份矿产资源管理政策文本为研究对象,运用政策文献量化的分析方法,对我国矿产资源管理政策的范式变迁与演变逻辑进行研究。研究发现:自1986年《中华人民共和国矿产资源法》颁布实施以来,中国矿产资源管理政策范式经历了“规范化—市场化—集约化—战略化”四个阶段的变迁,每个阶段的政策问题、政策目标和政策工具各有侧重;理念转变和体制改革是推动政策范式变迁的主要原因,其变迁规律体现为政策问题由“基础性”到“战略性”、政策目标由“单一”到“多元”、政策工具由“严格管控”到“宏观调控”的演变逻辑。     

A New Cosmology of Risks and Crises: Time for a Radical Shift in Paradigm and Practice

Crises in the twenty-first century differ—structurally—from those we had to deal with in the last century. Crises of the twentieth century were traditionally defined and handled as a combination of "threat, urgency, and uncertainty." Today, crises are better described in terms of a destruction of vital references and a dynamic of systemic implosions. If crises were once a type of severe, dynamic accident, they are now the essential mode of life in our hypercomplex systems. These transboundary crises mark a watershed between mind-sets and tools of the past, and the new strategic landscape that we are now in. The intellectual and governance challenges are extreme. But looking back is not an option. It is vital to forge new routes into Terrae Incognitae . The goal of this article is to help build (1) a renewed understanding of the emerging challenges we face; and (2) a better strategic response to these systemic dislocations.     

Comparative Analysis and Economic Policies with Special Reference to Financial Crises

Policies for preventing or mitigating unfavorable economic conditions, such as inflation, balance-of-payments deficits, and recessions are usually determined by successful policies used in the past, but these policies may not be relevant for certain problems in the future due to changes in conditions. In the past, developing countries with balance of payments problems seeking help from the IMF were usually required to reduce their budget deficits, restrict the money supply, and make other macroeconomic restrictions. However, financial crises experienced by the East Asian countries in 1995–1996 arose mainly from declines in their securities markets accompanied by capital exports and sharp currency depreciation. The IMF provided generous assistance conditioned on the recipients' applying restrictive macroeconomic measures, even though there was no inflation or excessive monetary expansion. The cause of the financial crises was primarily capital outflows generated by defaults on loans made by banks largely for real estate projects, and in some cases resulting bank failures. The capital outflow and the sharp depreciation of the currencies, coupled with macroeconomic restrictions, led to recession and unemployment in these countries. The article goes on to discuss the policies the IMF should have promoted. Its credits should have been used to sustain imports rather than to support currencies and maintain debt service repayments.     

Path Dependence and Paradigm Shift: How Cetacean Scientists Learned to Develop Management Procedures that Survived the Controversial Whaling Regime

The transformation of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) into a preservationist regime met with extremely fierce opposition from the prowhaling countries and created an unprecedented and famous polarization of the IWC parties into pro and antiwhaling camps, which can be observed even today. In such a bipolar and harsh process, it would be typically argued that scientific advice would be powerless because it would become subject to heightened scrutiny from both camps resulting in endless technical debate. Our case shows that, on the contrary, the advisory scientists learned to successfully develop a scientific management procedure that was accepted by both the pro and antiwhaling camps. The objective of this paper is to explain this process and examine to what extent collective learning in the assessment process affected the political effectiveness of the management procedure and, more broadly thereby, to contribute to the groundwork of analyzing how the scientists participating in the scientific assessments collectively learn. With a view to cross‐fertilization between institutionalism and science and technology study (STS) approaches, we develop an analytical framework and apply it to the international whaling regime to examine the usefulness of it and provide some general lessons to be learned for making learning assessments more effective. The framework was capable of showing that path dependency and paradigm shift were among the key factors of the scientific assessment's increased effectiveness. Overall, the cross‐fertilization between institutionalism and STS appears to be a fruitful way forward for the next generation of scientific assessment studies.     

The Government's Plans for Decentralisation and Localism: A Progress Report

This article assesses progress on the coalition government's ambitious agenda for decentralisation and localism against six actions set out in the government's own guide to decentralisation. It critically examines the government's case that the previous government's centralised approach failed. The six actions cover reducing bureaucracy, community empowerment, more local control of public funding, provider diversification, more public scrutiny and stronger local accountability. The paper concludes that accountability is the most challenging and that progress is hampered by tensions between the actions and between government departments. It argues that the government needs a clearer, shared vision for localism going forward.     

Response and responsibility: China in East Asian financial cooperation

Abstract

China's behaviour in East Asian financial cooperation has overall changed from passively responding to external pressures to taking proactive initiatives, which are highlighted by Chinese elites as evidence of a sense of responsibility. China has taken varied positions towards proposals for Asian financial regionalism, from ‘silent’ objection, to lukewarm or superficial support, to enthusiastic participation and substantial contribution, and this variance has not always taken place in a chronological order. Despite much speculation over the trajectory of China's role in East Asian regionalism, there has not been a study focused on China's policymaking towards East Asian financial cooperation. Therefore, this paper fills the gap by analysing the factors and policymaking processes that have led to those varied positions. It argues that China, recognising the momentum in the region to enhance cooperation, has replaced the blunt dismissals of proposals, particularly those from Japan, with a more subtle approach that is aimed at ensuring China's influence and promoting the image of a responsible great power; that the extent to which it can contribute to this process is mainly constrained by its economic conditions, particularly the financial institutions.     

From Neoliberalism to Pluralism: A Response to Mulheirn and Jacobs

This essay puts into context the debate between Michael Jacobs and Ian Mulheirn, exploring the theories and themes underpinning their arguments, published in issue 84 1 of the Political Quarterly. It discusses, firstly, the roots of Mulheirn's approach in European neoliberalism and, secondly, the roots of Jacobs' approach in a range of sources currently contending for authority over debates within the Labour party. These include themes drawn, broadly, from Polanyi, Keynes, Schumpeter and Schumacher. In a conclusion the article makes the case for a ‘pluralistic’ to the organisation of political and economic power in the UK.     

Politics and Mass Media: A Response to John Street

This short article is a response to an overview of research on media-political relations written by John Street and published in the Political Studies Review in 2005. The usefulness of the exercise is recognised but issue is taken both with the organising concepts of Street's account and the way he excludes a significant body of research from his assessment, raising questions about his characterisation of the field under scrutiny. A case is made for assessing the tensions and the varieties of work in this broad area by the use of other categories, including the play-off between media-centric and politics-centric accounts, the continuing strand of work informed by critical theory and the sheer variety of the topics upon which researchers have chosen to focus as a way into a broader agenda. The importance of work engaging with issues at an international level is emphasised together with the value of new comparative studies. In conclusion, the state of the area is judged more positively than in Street's assessment. Questions of power are argued to be the principal point at issue in comparing research approaches and the need for further explicitness and clarity here is noted.     

Structure, Agency and Ontological Confusion: A Response to Hay

Colin Hay's article 'King Canute and the "Problem" of Structure and Agency' aims to: (1) 'gain an interesting political analytical purchase on a seemingly familiar tale', and (2) 'generate a series of valuable and more general insights into our understanding of the structure–agency relationship'. I argue that he fails on both counts.     

Political Studies and Cultural Studies: A Response to Finlayson and Martin

Cultural Studies has more to learn from Political Studies than Political Studies had to learn from Cultural Studies. In a recent issue of Politics (Vol 17, No 3), Finlayson and Martin argued that Political Studies should learn from the conceptions of 'culture' and 'politics' employed in Cultural Studies. This response reviews the development of Cultural Studies in order to elucidate its approach and argues that alternative approaches to the issue of culture are more useful for students of politics than Cultural Studies approaches.     

Professionalism and the Millbank Tendency: A Response to Webb and Fisher

This short response examines critically both the analysis and data provided in the Webb and Fisher article concerning the trends towards professionalisation. It calls for a more thorough understanding of the idea of professionalisation and a more careful use of the word when applied to particular organisational contexts.     

Innovation and the cost of mortgage credit: A historical perspective

Abstract

Since the inception of U.S. institutional mortgage lending in the 1830s there have been major changes in mortgage instruments, the delivery system, and funding sources. Some of these changes qualify as innovations that have lowered the cost of credit and increased its availability. This article divides the history of U.S. mortgage finance into three periods and identifies the source and type of major innovations.

The “Origins” period, from 1831 to 1931, included the development of many mortgage lending institutions and instruments. The second era, “A Wonderful Life,” featured a government‐supported special circuit that dominated mortgage finance from 1932 to 1981 and witnessed development of mortgage‐backed securities. The current era, “A Brave New World,” features a new system of credit delivery dominated by specialized institutions and technology. In it, application of automated underwriting and artificial intelligence may have far‐reaching effects on the market and the accessibility of low‐income households to mortgage credit.     

The Complexity of Tolerance and Intolerance Judgments: A Response to Gibson

In a recent paper, we posited that tolerance and intolerance judgments are characterized by two forms of variance. First, the distinction between tolerance and intolerance is dichotomous in that individuals are or are not willing to extend the full rights of citizenship to all others without exception. Second, among those not so willing, variance exists in the breadth and depth of their intolerance. James Gibson challenges our view, arguing that we have advanced a fundamental shift in how tolerance is conceptualized, and that this shift is not warranted empirically because very few Americans are tolerant under our definition. In this response, we first outline the rationale for why our view does not constitute a significant shift in the conceptualization of tolerance, but rather is merely an effort to pull the empirical treatment of tolerance into alignment with the concept’s common definition. Second, we explain that Gibson’s finding that few Americans are tolerant gains noteworthy meaning and significance from the view of tolerance we present. Lastly, we demonstrate that new insight on the antecedents of tolerance and intolerance emerges when analyses attend to the two-part structure of tolerance judgments highlighted in our research.