Managerial Innovations in the Egyptian Public Health Sector: An Empirical Investigation

The purpose of this article is to analyze the process of restructuring the Egyptian public health sector according to the new mode of governance principles and the concomitant dilemmas in the process. Based on an interpretative methodology, the findings of this research indicate that (a) despite some positive changes, serious doubts remain over the commercialization of basic public services; (b) confusions have emerged regarding the identity of public hospitals; (c) despite the introduction of the business management principles, the centralized hierarchical power of the state over the local governmental hospitals remains intact; (d) the new system has degraded the professional standards of medical practitioners and made them subservient to the whims of the financial management professionals; and (e) there have been some negative effects on equity.     

Civil Service Reform in Ethiopia: Issues,Lessons, and Future Directions

This article provides an in-depth review of the successes and challenges of public sector reform efforts in Ethiopia with a view to help other developing countries, particularly African countries, learn from Ethiopia's experiences in this regard so that they can improve the content of and approach to their public sector reforms. It also identifies the gaps in the existing literature and puts forward implications for further research in the area. The public sector reform program of Ethiopia has shown successes particularly in the areas of service delivery to citizens. However, the reform program is entangled with challenges such as lack of accountability and transparency on the part of implementing institutions, inadequate material and moral incentive to employees thus crippling the capacity to manage the implementation process, and participation from the side of different stakeholders.     

Rich Country Corruption

Corruption in rich countries is different to corruption in poor countries. There are many analyses and models of corruption in poor countries, and interventions are structured with these in mind. When analyzing corruption in rich countries, borrowing from the experiences in poorer countries does not fit well with public administration practices. Ironically, citizens in rich countries have high levels of perceived corruption, yet they reported very little personal experience with corruption in any form. This article uses data to outline some corruption risks and proposes that any analysis focuses on classifying specific types of corruption in rich countries.     

关于追缴犯罪所得的国际司法合作问题研究

作者根据我国目前在追缴犯罪所得方面国际司法合作的实践,列举了五个急需通过国内立法或者国际协议加以解决的问题,即:⑴如何根据外国的刑事司法协助请求对银行帐户资金实行扣划或者对有关的不动产实行处置;⑵如何在有关的追缴和返还合作中切实保护善意第三人和潜在权利人的合法权益;⑶如何在案犯外逃的情况下决定对属于犯罪所得的财产予以追缴和没收;⑷如何合理确定追缴程序中的举证责任;⑸如何处理发生在追缴合作中的费用补偿和收益分享问题。文章对外国的有关法律制度以及国际条约的相关规定进行了介绍和比较研究,在此基础上,就上述问题的解决提出如下建议:完善我国刑事诉讼中对赃款赃物的“简易处置”制度,增加配套的法院裁决程序;在我国建立承认与执行外国刑事罚没裁决的司法审查制度;在特定情况下将附带民事诉讼程序前移,并在条件成熟时设立独立的财产没收程序;变通现行的证据制度,要求特定案件中的财物持有人或者关系人承担关于合法来源或者善意享有的证明责任;本着互惠和务实的精神处理被追缴财物的国际分享问题,建立专门的基金组织将分享的资金转换为开展有关国际合作的资源。     

Coercive Policy Diffusion in a Developing Country: The Case of Public-Private Partnerships in Sri Lanka

Over the last two decades, public-private partnership policy has been adopted in developing countries to a lesser degree than in industrialised countries. This paper argues that this policy has been diffused to developing countries like Sri Lanka with coercion from international aid-granting organisations through conditionalities attached to financial assistance. It details the country-specific challenges faced by Sri Lanka in responding to conditionalities as it has sought to implement this policy. Drawing on policy diffusion theory the paper develops a framework to be used in analysing the issues under investigation.     

Rich doctors and poor patients: Market failure and health care systems in developing countries

This article argues that, in developing countries, health care systems (HCS) have been facing the problem of market failure, implying that the fair rules of market principles do not apply and patients often become losers. Explaining the theoretical issues involved, the article examines various causes of market failures in HCS, including: rent-seeking activities by doctors, asymmetric information between doctors and patients, between patients and insurance companies, and the oligopolistic behaviour of health care practitioners. The policy implications of the study suggest that, in many cases, government intervention is essential to eliminate market failures in the HCS in developing countries.     

东盟国家国际商事仲裁协议制度比较研究

仲裁协议是国际商事仲裁的基石。文章以国际商事仲裁的一般理论为基础,详细地比较分析了东盟主要国家有关国际商事仲裁协议的形式与内容、仲裁协议的当事人、可约定提交仲裁解决的争议事项以及仲裁协议的效力等方面的法律制度。     

THE DESIGN AND USE OF PERFORMANCE INFORMATION IN INDONESIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS UNDER DIVERGING STAKEHOLDER PRESSURES

Public sector managers in less developed countries are confronted with opposing forces. A lack of sufficient resources along with a tradition of corruption are obstacles for developing and using performance measurement systems. However, recent public sector reforms in less developed countries, including decentralisation and anti‐corruption programmes, stimulate the development and use of such systems. On the basis of a framework, which distinguishes different types of stakeholders, each with particular performance interests, we analyse how public sector managers are coping with the two opposing forces, given the relative power positions and the interests of their stakeholders. On the basis of four cases studies of local government agencies in Bali (Indonesia), we found that with respect to the annual performance reports, managers in these agencies focus more on fulfilling the formal requirements regarding the format of these reports and on their timely submission than on their contents, which are all symptoms of a symbolic rather than functional use of performance information. However, the reports include information on inputs that is linked to similar information in short‐term reports, which the managers use in a functional manner. These managers show a kind of juggling behaviour, in the sense that they partially try to serve conflicting performance interests. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The world bank,health policy reforms and the poor

Over the years, since the mid-1990s, World Bank-prescribed health policy reforms have successfully introduced market-based private-managed healthcare model in the developing world. This article presents a portrait of the private healthcare model, explores the factors that facilitated the introduction of this model in developing countries and examines the impact of the model on the health rights and health conditions of the poor. It argues that health reforms designed to promote private-managed care in developing countries affect the poor severely and violate their basic health rights, the rights to stay disease-free and lead a healthy life. A host of factors produced by the private-managed care model, most notably reduced social spending on public health, dismantling of public health systems and the ever expansionary grip of private sector health services have effectively diminished the health rights of the poor.     

The language that unites and the language that divides us: Why was Arabic kept and Serbo-Croatian abolished?

This article explores why the Arabs chose to keep a common language, while the Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrins chose not to. The study argues that the main reason for this can be found in the ideological constrains resulting out of the salience and interaction between different religious and ethnic group building projects in former Yugoslavia and the Arab states. Political elites in both regions favored the ethnic and religious category to different extents. Language planning reflected and implemented the respective ideological imperatives resulting out of these processes. This led to different approaches in defining the common language and its subsequent standardization.