National Competition Policy: The Downside

Identifying the ‘downside’ of competition policy raises the question of whether there is an ‘up-side’. Competition is supposed to drive the organisers of commodity production to minimise the costs they have to bear in some short to medium term, within environments more or less circumscribed by government regulations. The actual period tends to be that for which the providers of finance are prepared to wait for returns after a poorly performing company is restructured. Economists used to say that cost minimisation requires an industry structure in which there are many independent producers. Nowadays, more enlightened writers speak of ensuring that the market positions held by existing producers are contestable by prospective new producers. The question of what government in Australia may do to establish competition in this sense of competition has recently focussed on the desirable re-organisation of public enterprises, perhaps especially those that exist at the level of the states. So what are the dimensions of the ‘downside’ of opening the market positions occupied by public enterprises to contestation by private companies, especially those which are monopolies? The answer takes a large measure of the gloss off the Hilmer promises. The problems to be addressed are: the limit put on contestability where there is an element of natural monopoly; the tendency for cost minimisation to depend on the tighter management of labour; and, the difficulty of insisting simultaneously on both ‘competition’ and the satisfaction of ‘community service obligations’ (CSOs).     

The Importance and Limits of Party Government: Problems of Governance in Denmark*

Pluralist democracies face the dilemma of reconciling representation of interests and government control. The tension between representation and governance is a problem for political parties in particular and has presumably become more important in recent years, at least in Denmark. Using data from questionnaire surveys of Danish political elites it is shown that interest organizations and bureaucrats indeed pose problems for party government. Some institutional changes might lighten the tasks of parties, but there is no way of avoiding the basic democratic dilemma.     

Governance Reform in Thailand: Questionable Assumptions, Uncertain Outcomes

This article examines the nature of governance reform in Thailand. The argument is that Thai citizens are not especially benefiting from the public reform initiatives of Thai governments because government reformers made fourquestionable assumptions about reform which have in turn produced uncertain outcomes and provided the opportunity for government reformers to avoid responsibility for their reform choices. First, the reformers support the belief that a global reform paradigm with ready-made reform packages exists which can be easily transplanted in the Thai public sector. Second, the reformers prefer to define success largely as reform output rather than reform outcomes or long term reform consequences. Third, Thai government reformers have overemphasized the efficiency aspects of the new public management at the expense of other governance goals. Fourth, governance reform in Thailand has been portrayed as a managerial problem instead of a political one. The author supports his arguments by drawing on theoretical debates in the international literature on administrative reform, and relating these debates to the Thai case. Governance reform in Thailand is still at an early stage, but the role of unintended consequences is important to administrative reform. Furthermore, the Thai case may reflect governance reform in other countries as well.     

The Implications of National Competition Policy

The Competition Policy Reform Bill 1995 is part of a national policy package which aims to free up competition in Australian markets. The objective is to systematically remove anti-competitive behaviour so that efficiency is improved to the public benefit.
While one can endorse the concept that economic efficiency is best served in a purely competitive market, where businesses can get on with their responsibilitiy to maximise profits, concerns exist as to whether it is possible to impose legislatively and unilaterally an economic principle or philosophy on a nation that will achieve its lofty objectives.
These proposals were developed before the 1996 federal election.     

农村公共事务治理：寻求政府主导与农民主体的平衡

中国农村家庭联产承包责任制推行以后,完全由政府主导的乡村社会,开始向政府放松管制的农村自治体转变.农村公共事务的治理需要农民的参与.目前农村建设的制度设计没能给农民参与提供足够的保证.问题集中体现在:在公共物品的提供中未能让农民有效参与,政府的过多干预阻碍了村民自治能力的形成.农村公共事务有必要在政府主导与农民主体中找到平衡的制度设计,即推动公共设施建设的村民参与,基于促进农村治理能力的政策创新,走向更为公平的资金配置.     

The "Race Card" Revisited: Assessing Racial Priming in Policy Contests

In The Race Card (2001), Mendelberg finds support for her theory that implicit racial appeals, but not explicit ones, prime racial resentment in opinion formation. She argues that citizens reject explicit appeals, rendering them ineffective, because they violate widespread egalitarian norms. Mendelberg's innovative research, however, suffers from several limitations. We remedy these deficiencies using two randomized experiments with over 6,300 respondents. We confirm that individuals do tend to reject explicit appeals outright, but find that implicit appeals are no more effective than explicit ones in priming racial resentment in opinion formation. In accounting for the differences between previous research and our own, we show that education moderates both the accessibility of racial predispositions and message acceptance. This suggests that the necessary assumptions of Mendelberg's theory hold only for different and exclusive subsets of the general population.     

国家治理体系和治理能力现代化的价值旨归

人民的幸福人民对美好生活的向往作为中国共产党人的初心和使命,是对马克思主义人民观的丰富和发展,是贯穿国家治理的一条价值红线,是推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化的价值目标,是检验国家治理成效最根本的价值尺度。将马克思主义最新理论成果、中国特色社会主义道路和制度、党的坚强领导和党同人民群众的血肉联系、中国智慧和中国方案置于党领导人民进行伟大梦想、伟大斗争、伟大工程、伟大事业的实践中,是实现人民的幸福人民对美好生活的向往之现实路径,彰显国家治理的价值逻辑与深刻的历史逻辑、创新的理论逻辑、坚实的实践逻辑的统一。     

全球治理视阈下我国外交的应对方略

全球治理是应对全球化的一种反应,它的出现是对传统国际关系的挑战。全球治理已是不可逆转的历史趋势,它给中国的内政外交带来了难以估量的冲击和影响。我国外交必须制定出应对方略:坚持发展中国家的属性与定位,统筹协调好大国关系,打牢同发展中国家互信合作的基础,推进周边区域治理,开展好公共外交,善用并倚重各种全球治理平台,参与全球化,推进全球治理。     

政策谣言的生发与治理

政策谣言即未经证实合乎政策事实的民间政策传言;只有那些完全缺乏政策事实的政策传言才是真正的政策谣言,其他的属于准政策谣言。政策谣言的生发诱因主要包括政策价值的重要性、政策信息的模糊性、社会环境和个体心理、政府公信力缺失等多个方面。互联网和新媒体时代的到来,助推了政策谣言的传播;政策谣言的典型传播机制主要有社会流瀑、群体极化和偏颇吸收等。政府应从五个方面提升政府的政策谣言治理能力和水平:增强政府公信力;强化政策的宣传、解读与回应;提升政务信息公开水平;建立健全辟谣工作系统,分类治理政策谣言;加强对新媒体信息传播的监管。     

The Conditional Effect of Specialized Governance on Public Policy

What are the policy consequences of creating functionally specialized venues for decision making? This study directly compares special districts with general purpose local governments to evaluate how specialization influences responsiveness and policy choice. Previous theorizing has assumed that specialization should have the same effect across all policy contexts. The findings presented here show instead that its effect is conditional on the status of public problems. Objective conditions related to a policy issue more strongly influence the responsiveness of multipurpose legislatures than that of special districts; thus the institutional effect of functional specialization varies with the severity of the public problem. The result is that governing structure matters most where problems are least severe. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering policy context when analyzing the effects of political institutions.     

The Governance of Fiscal Policy in the United Kingdom and Canada

This article analyzes the governance of fiscal policy in the United Kingdom and Canada under the Blair Government and the Chrétien Government. It seeks to identify whether the capacity of the core executive to steer fiscal policy has been “hollowed out.” The conclusion drawn is that in both the United Kingdom and Canada, far from having been hollowed out, there has actually been a strengthening of the capacity of the Treasury and the Department of Finance, respectively, to steer fiscal policy.     

Beyond Kyoto: Climate Change Policy in Multilevel Governance Systems

Climate change policy has commonly been framed as a matter of international governance for which global policy strategies can be readily employed. The decade of experience following the 1997 signing of the Kyoto Protocol suggests a far more complex process involving a wide range of policy options and varied engagement by multiple levels of governance systems. The respective experiences of the United States and Canada suggest that formal engagement in the international realm of policy is not a good indicator of domestic policy development or emissions reductions. The different contexts of intergovernmental relations, varied resources available to subnational governments for policy development and implementation, and role of subnational leaders in policy formation have emerged as important factors in explaining national differences between these North American neighbors. Consequently, climate change increasingly presents itself as a challenge not only of international relations but also of multilevel governance, thereby creating considerable opportunity to learn from domestic policy experimentation.     

The Rise of 'New' Policy Instruments in Comparative Perspective: Has Governance Eclipsed Government?

Governance is a term in good currency, but there are still too few detailed empirical analyses of the precise extent to which it has or has not eclipsed government. This article explores the temporal and spatial characteristics of the governance transition by charting the deployment of new policy instruments in eight industrialised states and the European Union. The adoption and implementation of ('old' and 'new') policy instruments offer a useful analytical touchstone because governance theory argues that regulation is the quintessence of government. Although there are many 'new' environmental policy instruments in these nine jurisdictions, this article finds that the change from government to governance is highly differentiated across political jurisdictions, policy sectors and even the main instrument types. Crucially, many of the new policy instruments used require some state involvement (that is, 'government'), and very few are entirely devoid of state involvement (that is, pure 'governance'). Far from eclipsing government, governance therefore often complements and, on some occasions, even competes with it, although there are some cases of fusion. Future research should thus explore the many complex and varied ways in which government and governance interact in public policy-making.     

The Politics of Climate Policy: Strategic Options for National Governments

This article summarises the results so far of an international investigation aimed at identifying political strategies that make it easier for national governments to take more effective action against climate change while avoiding significant political damage. The numerous strategic options identified included strategies involving unilateral action by governments, strategies of persuasion, damage limitation strategies, strategies that can be used in political exchange with other political actors, and strategies designed to improve the bargaining position of governments by altering the terms of political exchange. The article concludes with a shortlist of especially promising strategies.     

Policy Networks, Policy Communities and the Problems of Governance

This article reviews and evaluates the literature on policy networks and policy communities that has emerged in the comparative public policy field. It argues that these concepts are important innovations because they suggest a renewed attempt to be both encompassing and discriminating in describing the policy process: encompassing because they refer to actors and relationships in the policy process that take us beyond political-bureaucratic relationships; discriminating because they suggest the presence of many communities and different types of networks. Yet if the concepts are going to continue to make a contribution, some problems must be resolved. The article suggests three that are particularly important: network and community concepts encounter obstacles in incorporating the influence of ma-cropolitical institutions and the power of political discourse; they have some difficulty in accommodating the internationalization of many policy domains; they have not addressed well the issues of policy innovation and policy change.     

An Evaluation Crucible: Evaluating Policy Advice in Australian Central Agencies

Policy advice is a core function of government that until quite recently remained outside the formal processes of performance evaluation. Evaluation, by its very nature, is designed to question both the effectiveness and relevance of government activities; applying it to policy advice opens up a traditionally confidential and politically sensitive arena. This paper reports on an evaluation experiment in Australian government — policy management reviews (PMRs) — that sought to evaluate the quality of central agency policy advice. It traces the development of the PMR model around interdepartmental committee processes, the bureaucratic politics that diluted the focus on policy outcomes, and examines how central agencies steered evaluation away from questions of public accountability towards arrangements for achieving more effective control of the processes underpinning production of advice. By targeting the process rather than outcomes of policy advising, PMRs sought unsuccessfully to adhere to the divide between management and policy and, in doing so, marked out the limits to performance evaluation.