非洲冲突后重建：中国日益增长的作用

随着中非关系的快速发展,中国在非洲的利益正从促进向着保护的方向发展,这与非洲安全面临的挑战和国际体系转型的压力一道,呼吁着中国在非洲冲突后重建中发挥更大的作用。中国已通过派遣维和部队、提供冲突后重建投资及其他支持活动,为非洲冲突后重建作出了重要贡献。尽管如此,由于多重不确定性的存在,中国未来在非洲冲突后重建中的作用仍有待进一步观察。     

National de-delegation in multi-level settings: Independent regulatory agencies in Europe

National politicians in Europe have created independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) with significant powers over markets such as communications and energy. After delegation, they have engaged in institutional politicization of IRAs and undertaken numerous attempted or actual de-delegations. Yet overall de-delegation over the period 2000–2020 has been limited, as many de-delegations have been abandoned, temporary or reversed, and also counterbalanced by extensions of IRA powers. The article examines different explanations for this pattern. It looks especially at Europeanization, which has operated through normative and particularly coercive mechanisms. EU coercion has involved threats of legal action, monitoring and enforcement of existing EU legal requirements, and EU legislation expanding IRA powers and protection. IRAs are more vulnerable to de-delegation than trustee non-majoritarian institutions because their position can be altered with simple legislative majorities. Yet even for such agents, the ability of national politicians to reverse delegation is constrained by multi-level institutional settings.     

Functioning strategies of the research groups' leaders in the context of funding and policy instabilities☆

We explore the strategies implemented by Research Groups' Leaders while coping with unstable contexts, characterized by incoherence and lack of coordination among different policy discourses and instruments, and scarce resources. We focus on a country where these conditions are present: Colombia. In doing so, we study two cases, one in nanotechnology and another one in biomedical engineering. Interviews, focus groups and workshops allowed us to identify and validate strategies grouped in four popular sayings, proper to local idiosyncrasy, highlighting the role of home institutions and principal investigators in facing such situations with resilience and resourcefulness, and even taking advantage of them. We find that Research Groups' Leaders use strategies such as: adapting, balancing agendas and funding sources, networking, and taking advantage of the support programs available at their home institution to continue functioning. These are setting the ground for a further survey which could pretend some generalization. However, policymakers could consider these findings when defining policy instruments or for assessing their effectiveness or impacts.     

Reversing delegation? Politicization,de-delegation,and non-majoritarian institutions

Elected governments and states have delegated extensive powers to non-majoritarian institutions (NMIs) such as independent central banks and regulatory agencies, courts, and international trade and investment organizations, which have become central actors in governance. But, far from having resolved the balance between political control and governing competence or removed certain issues from political debate, NMIs have faced challenges to their legitimacy by elected officials and sometimes attempts to reverse delegation through “de-delegation”. Our special issue studies the politicization of NMIs, and then whether, why and how it leads to de-delegation through reducing the formal powers of NMIs or increasing controls over them. In this article, we examine how to analyze de-delegation, how politicization of NMIs has developed, and how it has affected de-delegation. We underline not only institutional rules that constrain elected officials but also the actions of NMIs themselves and their relationships with other NMIs as part of multi-level governance systems. We find that politicization has varied, but even when strong, elected officials have not introduced widespread and long-lasting de-delegation; on the contrary, they have frequently widened the powers of NMIs. Insofar as elected politicians have sought to curb NMIs, they have often preferred to use existing controls and non-compliance. Finally, we consider the wider implications of the combination of politicization and lack of de-delegation for broader issues of governance such as the division of powers between the elected and unelected and democratic accountability.