农业保护——日本实现贸易自由化的“绊脚石”

一、日本的农业保护政策(一)农业保护政策的含义日本经济学家速水佑次郎在其《日本农业保护政策探》一书中,将农业保护政策被定义为“通过政府对农产品和农业投入品市场的干预来增加农业产出和收入的政策”。其中农业投入品被限制为可在市场交易的“私人物品”,而不包括重要的排灌渠道等众多农民联合使用的“公共物品”。因为公共物品是不能在市场上进行交易的,或不能通过市场有效地进行     

影响国会外交及安全决策的关键因素及冷战后的新特点

在外交及安全政策领域,美国国会是一个重要的决策主体.冷战结束后,国会在这一领域的作用进一步提升.本文从领导能力与领导作用、利益集团、舆论、党派政治和机构五个方面分析了影响国会决策的关键因素,并重点探讨冷战结束以后这些方面出现的新特点,以求对美国的外交及安全政策进行更全面、更深入的透视.     

泰国的双边FTA战略

随着泰国经济的复苏与发展,泰国在对外经贸政策上发生了由支持多边全球性贸易机制到推行双边FTA的战略转变.这种战略的转变是因多种因素引起的,它给泰国的传统收益与非传统收益带来影响.而对于这种转变所表现出来的不同声音给泰国目前的FTA热带来一些反思,但在一定程度上也促进了泰国FTA战略的进一步成熟.     

欧洲经济政策结构评述

马约为经济货币联盟建立起一套全面的经济政策结构,将统一货币政策的相关职权授予欧元体系,而将其他经济政策职权保留给成员国,不过这些政策要在不同程度上受到有关多层次管理和政策协调的约束性规则的制约。协调形式最强的是已经形成统一政策的领域,包括竞争政策、货币政策和汇率政策;其次是属于密切协调的政策领域,包括财政政策和结构政策;再次是协调形式相对较弱的政策领域,包括劳动力市场政策、产品和资本市场政策、工资政策等。协调结构的核心是广泛经济政策指导方针,具体的执行程序包括在执行财政政策方面的稳定与增长公约、关于劳动力市场的就业指导方针(卢森堡进程)、关于产品和资本市场的经济改革报告(卡迪夫进程)、有关工资增长的宏观经济对话(科隆进程)。     

欧共体共同商业政策运行机制中的法律问题初探

共同商业政策作为规制欧共体对外贸易关系的重要法律框架,代表了欧洲经济一体化的高度成就。《欧共体条约》为该政策提供了明确的法律基础,却未能就其概念作出清晰界定。从欧洲法院的判例实践来看,共同商业政策应作广义理解方能适应内部市场建设的演进和世界经济贸易形势的变化。在共同商业政策的运行机制中,涵盖领域、权能属性,以及组织机构方面的理事会决策机制和欧洲议会的监督作用问题争议较多,其根源在于该政策突出的"超国家性"触动了成员国敏感的神经。《欧洲宪法条约》对共同商业政策的发展虽然由于该条约自身多舛的命运而存有缺憾,但很大程度上预示了该政策的未来发展方向。     

智库在日本安保政策形成中的影响——兼论“另类日本型”安保智库的作用

日本的安保智库,在相应的政策制定过程中虽然作用受到制约,但仍具有可观的影响力。在日本安全防卫领域具有一定影响力的智库,大致可以划分为四类:官方研究机构、准官方专业思想库、经济单位附属的调研机构、各种临时咨询委员会或小组。这些智库对日本安保决策的影响途径主要有自下而上、自上而下、平面对流三种。综合而言,四类智库中的第四种,情况与其他国家相异,在日本主要安保决策和文件拟定中,发挥了重要作用,可称为"另类日本型"安保智库。当今时代,需要引起注意的是,包括另类形态在内的日本安保智库的研究内容和政治立场,带有明显的价值观和政策倾向,对中日关系改善、中国对日本公共外交,提出了现实的挑战。     

新宪法出台与泰国政治走向分析

泰国新宪法于2016年8月7日全民公投通过,并于2017年4月6日正式颁布,成为泰国1932年实行君主立宪制以来颁布的第20部宪法。相较于1997年宪法和2007年宪法,新宪法改变了国会上下两院的选举制度,扩大了上议院、独立机构权力范围,增加了修改宪法的难度。新宪法使得泰国政党地位进一步降低,实现了政党与精英阶层的分权,泰国将进入一个受控制的权威主义民主时期。     

浅析欧盟公共部门的竞争力

一、公共部门在欧盟经济中的重要地位 作为一种特殊形式的组织实体,公共部门往往通过向社会提供公共物品和服务,以实现并维护整个社会的公共利益.纯粹的公共部门即指主权国家政府或超国家机构,它的基本职责是要为便利公众的社会经济活动提供纯公共产品或服务,如制订法律规章、调节经济、维持治安秩序、确保社会稳定等.     

美国国家安全委员会决策体制研究

国家安全委员会是美国对外决策的核心机构。随着美国成为超级大国,国家安全委员会逐渐成为美国对外决策过程中的一个法定机构。总统在国家安全委员会中居于核心角色,也是对外政策的最后决策者。同时,国家安全委员会最大限度地整合了政治、经济、军事,以及外交力量,同时避免了各行政部门由于片面追求部门利益而造成的相互倾轧,保证了总统对外决策进程的控制。然而,在实际政策操作上,这种正式的决策程序需要与大量非正式决策程序及个人关系的交互作用,从而最终形成以总统为核心的决策体系。     

特朗普政府的贸易保护主义政策——基于政党政治的研究视角

特朗普执政以来,美国政府的贸易保护主义政策呈现出不同于以往的理念和特征,这同美国当前政党政治的需要和变化密切相关。政党政治是美国政治体系当中的重要组成部分,两党之间为争夺对政府或国会的控制权的博弈贯穿于公共政策的整个决策过程,贸易政策特别是对华贸易政策更是双方争相使用的重要工具。特朗普政府的贸易保护主义是以逆全球化的经济民族主义和国家参与的"对等贸易"为理念,从外在表现形式来看,具有贸易保护手段更为直接、更为立体、对华贸易态度更为强硬、以维护美国经济霸权为核心目标四个鲜明特征。究其原因,贸易保护主义在本质上依然是美国政党政治的工具:它是共和党和特朗普谋取两党力量比较优势和总统选举的重要工具,是他们参与国际政治博弈以纾解来自国内政治压力的工具,是两党对贸易保护发展路径依赖的制度性工具,更是特朗普及共和党应对国会中期选举和2020年总统竞选连任的现实有效工具。     

日本量化质化宽松货币政策效果及原因分析

面对日本长期通货紧缩与经济增长乏力,日本央行开启量化质化宽松货币政策:日本央行持续大肆增加基础货币的投放,大胆采取负利率政策,实施收益率曲线控制,引导社会公众预期。政策实施以来,通胀目标时限一再推迟,政策虽在短期内改善了经济形势,但又受到全球金融市场及外国政策的干扰。究其原因,货币政策传导机制不畅、企业部门缺乏稳定预期、少子老龄化及财政货币政策相互掣肘等因素均影响了货币政策的经济效果。     

The Koreans of Japan: An Issue of Human Rights

Abstract

By 1965, Taiwan has changed from a labor surplus economy into a labor shortage economy. This article examines how rising demand for labor due to rapid economic growth in Taiwan has been met since 1965. This article attempts to answer 1) Where did the labor supply come from? 2) Has all of the potential labor supply been tapped and exhausted? 3) Is it possible for labor shortage and unutilized labor reserve to occur simultaneously? The authors hope that this study will lead to a better understanding of the limitation of the free market mechanism and help identify the proper public policies to enhance labor utilization.     

The Problem of Macroeconomic Policy Crossroads:Explaining the Economic Policy Paradox of Switzerland and Japan in the 1990s

The 1990s, which can be characterized as a decade of disinflationary growth and austerity policies for most developed market democracies, was the decade of stagnant growth and policy complacency for Switzerland and Japan. Based on a framework that emphasizes the structure of policy choices available to governments at economic crossroads (or crisis), I show Switzerland and Japan are unique in that (a) disinflationary fundamentals spared the countries from speculative or inflationary pressure that required drastic responses and (b) the governments paradoxically maintained conservative economic policies despite room for expansion in order to continue policies based on the compromise between export and domestic sectors. The policy crossroads perspective stresses the importance of endogenous coalitions even in a world of economic globalization to explain concerted politics and conservative policies, and to assess the true impact of international finance on domestic changes.     

Bounding the Commons: Land Demarcation in Northeastern Nicaragua

In north-eastern Nicaragua, territorial titling of communal lands conflates particular notions of ethnicity with proprietary conceptions of space to generate new forms of conflict within and between indigenous and black communities, and with mestizo migrants. Notions of rights between competing groups, or within conflicting normative frameworks, become increasingly polemic during demarcation. While analysis of three land titling case studies demonstrates that results are socially contingent and place based, trends include: (a) power disparities; (b) tension between 'traditional' and 'modern' patterns of land tenure and resource rights; and (c) contradictions fed by international conservation agendas and neoliberal economic reforms. Combining critical actor-based analysis with practical policy critique our work illuminates how contestations over the bounding of communal territories contribute to social injustice.     

The politics of national‐populism: Ideology and policies of the German Republikaner party

In this article, the Republikaner party's ideology and policies are explored on the basis of programmes and other public statements. There will be an emphasis on economic policies and issues of national and ethnic identity. It will be argued that the Republikaner party is targeting a broader electoral coalition than its main competitors and predecessors on the extreme right. In its attempt to mobilise a broad and heterogeneous protest coalition and to attract voters beyond the narrow confines of traditional right‐wing extremism the party makes contradictory promises to various sectional groups without being able to integrate them into a consistent framework of economic policy. These contradictions are covered up by the party's radical nationalism, extreme xenophobia and populist propaganda.     

Economics before politics– a colonial phantasy

I shall now try to recapitulate the argument of the paper and to draw a conclusion from it. The early pages gave evidence that, although the Australian government during the 1960s took the initiative in setting up the constitutional framework for a democratic polity, on the whole they assigned primacy, especially in the second half of the period, to policies of economic development. Without entering into the merits or successes of those policies themselves, I attributed the basic order of priorities to a mixture of motives and assumptions. The first assumption was that Australia's colonial responsibility and her commitment to heavily subsidised economic development required restraints on political development, and hence the prolongation of colonial dependence. The conflict between this assumption and Australia's trusteeship obligations could be rationalised by the notion of cautious ‘preparation’ of the people for self-determination, under Australian official guidance, and with the bait of continued Australian aid. This rationalisation seemed to be supported by a ‘vulgar’ Marxian belief in the primacy of economic activity and the secondary importance of political and other social functions. However, it was also hoped that economic change need have no awkward political repercussions. To sustain that hope, it was further assumed that while the colonial regime lasted, the government of Papua and New Guinea could be treated as essentially an administrative task, untrammelled by the claims of autonomous political ideologies and interests. If the policy makers for Papua and New Guinea held such a set of assumptions, consciously or otherwise, it would go far to explain some of the leading features of the country's governmental history in recent years: the strength of its economic planning machinery and the lack of sophistication in its administrative and political dealings; the relatively perfunctory efforts at political ‘preparation’; the attempts to keep local government and the public service ‘non-political’ and to contain incipient politics in the House of Assembly; the paternalistic controls over members of formal government institutions; above all, the failure to maintain meaningful communication with the groups of people most profoundly affected by the incidence of economic development itself. For experience had falsified the basic assumptions of policy, so far as they accord a primary role to economics, relied on a comfortable continuance of the colonial relationship, and conceived government mainly in terms of administration. Politics the demand for the reconciliation of conflicting interests by autonomous negotiation—had erupted in local government, in the House of Assembly, in political associations, and in the villages. I t had erupted in spite of the assumptions of the regime—and also because of them, for the more rigidly such beliefs are practised, the more violent is the reaction likely to be. The conclusion, then, is that politics is independent of economics, and interdependent with it. In the government of Papua and New Guinea, as of any such country, political skills are as important as economic planning if economic growth is to be matched by political stability.     

Constructing Reform Coalitions: The Politics of Compensations in Argentina's Economic Liberalization

It is frequently argued that the key to "successful" economic liberalization is to marginalize interest groups that profit from existing regulatory regimes. This paper contends that some established interests can craft public policies to protect their rents in the new market setting. The state may shape the interests of social actors and create proreform constituencies out of old populist and interventionist groups. In Argentina, this coalition building was achieved by constructing reform policies that granted rents in new markets to business and organized labor and by deliberately avoiding unilateral deregulation in sectors where reform would hurt traditionally powerful actors. This argument is developed through a comparative analysis of policy reform in the labor market institutions and protected industrial sectors, areas where the costs of deregulation are said to be unavoidable for the established actors.     

Neoliberalism,the State and Economic Policy Outcomes in the Post-Arab Uprisings: The Case of Egypt

Despite the radical upheavals during the revolution of 2011 whereby the Egyptian public rejected neoliberalism and authoritarianism, Egypt has reverted back to the neoliberal model of economic development. This paper discusses the reasons behind the resilience of neoliberalism focusing on the role of dominant economic ideas, the influence of international financial institutions in policy making and the challenging domestic political environment, which has so far precluded a break from the neoliberal model. The paper ends with a critical assessment of current policies and their broader social implications for different classes and groups in Egypt.     

Understanding Turkish secularism in the 21th century: a contextual roadmap

ABSTRACT

This paper asserts that Turkish secularism and Islamism represent two faces of one coin – contemporary Turkish politics – when one considers their goals and strategies. The two ideological movements have shaped one another and each now seeks to impose itself as superior. This article unpacks these differences and similarities in the following steps: (a) it defines the socio-historic modes of Turkish secularism and (b) examines its social and political origins; (c) it then explores Islam’s return to the public domain as an oppositional Turkish identity; (d) and thereafter considers the diverse understandings of secularism resulting from neoliberal policies that relaxed state control over Islam, which then prompted socially-acceptable reinterpretations of Islam; and finally (e) describes how the AKP’s has re-imagined secularism while (mis)using Islam as a political instrument. The comparison highlights such commonalties as a collectivist character, a desire for state control as a vehicle to realize an ideology, intolerance of diversity and criminalization of other perspectives, and the differentiation of religion as morality in the private sphere versus its cultural role in the public sphere. It concludes that, under the AKP government, Islam is used as a tool to consolidate the power of Erdo?an’s kleptocratic regime.     

Islam and economics in the political sphere: a critical evaluation of the AKP era in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Since Weber’s articulate conceptualisation of the nexus between religion and economics, these phenomena have been examined through various academic viewpoints. While some take religion as a determining factor of economic performance, others argue that it is the economy that influences religiosity. This paper focuses on the manifestation of religion and economics in the political sphere regarding the case of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). After discussing the literature on the relations between religion and economics, it scrutinises the AKP period, considering three specific pillars: (a) the early years of the AKP in which Western economic policies were implemented as a continuation of the Kemal Dervi? period; (b) between 2008 and 2015, when the idea ‘we can do as well’ maintained the centre stage; and (c) 2015 and onwards, when the Islamist influence on economic policy became highly apparent, particularly regarding interest rates. This study argues that the AKP changed politically in terms of Islamic influence upon the economic sphere, however this remains at the discursive level for the time being.