The challenge of assessing governance in Asian states: Hong Kong in the Worldwide Governance Indicators ranking

As countries in Asia work towards achieving development, the state of governance emerged as a benchmark for them. Assessing governance is an important exercise because a country’s image is influenced by its position in world rankings which plays a role in decisions by the international community regarding aid and trade. The methodology adopted in preparing the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) rankings underlines the preference for some values that are dominant in Western liberal democratic systems. This places Asian states at a disadvantage as other traditional values are ignored in assessing the state of governance. This article examines the methods and criteria of the WGI with reference to the case of Hong Kong. An overview of the critiques of WGI and analysis of the scores awarded to Hong Kong reveal the challenge of assessing governance across countries with the same instrument without taking into consideration the context of the units. The article argues that there is a need for developing alternative criteria for accommodating indigenous institutional structures, processes, and practices to ensure that Asian countries can benefit from the desired values of governance and help overcome the partial picture of governance that emerges in the WGI.     

Modernising social service delivery in Russia: evolving government support for non-profit organisations

Russia has recently cracked down on politically active civil society, increasing regulation and undercutting foreign support. However, apolitical, service-oriented parts of civil society have not been subject to these restrictive policies. In contrast, since 2009 Russia has introduced a set of government tools to support socially oriented non-profit organisations. These tools present a framework akin to concepts of ‘third-party government’ and collaborative governance that have come to dominate Western public administration discourse. This article discusses the Russian government’s divergent positions towards civil society, the nature and extent of the supportive tool kit, and its prospects.     

Piecing it all together and forecasting who governs: The 2015 British general election

This paper discusses a new probabilistic forecasting method that was designed for the 2015 British general election. It proceeds in a series of steps from opinion poll averaging, forecasting national-level vote shares and uncertainty estimates, and subsequent simulation of hypothetical election results, through modelling of constituency polls and survey data to identify and adjust for patterns in the constituency-level variation in party performance, and finally to probabilistic forecasting of seat outcomes and of different combinations of parties commanding relevant governing majorities in parliament.     

Assessment of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme in Karaga district,Ghana

This article assesses the contribution of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme in reducing rural poverty in the Karaga district of Northern Ghana, using a mixed research design to compare the livelihoods of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. It concludes that the programme is contributing to poverty reduction among the poor and vulnerable, and recommends that school children benefiting from LEAP should be exempted from paying extra expenses such as examination and PTA fees. There should also be a system to provide subsidies for agriculture inputs to enable beneficiaries to engage in agriculture to promote longer term poverty alleviation.     

行政执法案卷信息的解释与适用——以《政府信息公开条例》第16条为中心的初步观察

行政执法案卷信息从作为行政执法案卷评查的对象到作为政府信息公开的例外事由,“行政执法案卷信息”在司法实践中呈现出概念扩张的趋势,具体体现在案卷类型的溢出与案卷内容的形式化。反映出作为相对不予公开事项的行政执法案卷信息,在不予公开的实质的理由上存在模糊之处,使得法定公开与裁量公开的适用难以深入展开。与此同时,与之相关联的卷宗阅览权在行使方式上被进一步挤压。如何获得相对确定的内涵与外延,形成适当强度的司法审查路径,是行政执法案卷信息合理解释与适用中需要解决的问题。     

政务服务“好差评”制度：政策意蕴、理论阐释与路径建构

党的十八大以来,政务服务已成为建设服务型政府的新引擎。政务服务质量高不高、企业群众满意度如何衡量,长期以来缺乏制度化保障。公共管理学界已经认识到,构建科学合理的政务服务“好差评”制度已提上日程。基于政务服务助力推进政府治理现代化的宏大视角,本文探讨了现阶段我国政务服务“好差评”制度的政策意蕴,基于公共受托责任理论和新公共管理理论阐释了政务服务“好差评”与服务型政府的理念映射,并从价值取向、评价机制、评价内容、评价方法四个维度勾勒出了其建构路径。本文研究既丰富和发展了新公共管理运动的理论体系,亦有助于在实践中为加快我国服务型政府建设提供方法论借鉴。     

预算绩效标准设置及应用:国际经验与中国现实

绩效标准作为绩效指标的参照物,体现了绩效判断的方向,是全面实施预算绩效管理的重要核心命题。作为一个中间性的指标,绩效标准在预算管理过程中的应用较为分散,且其设置及应用对具体项目或领域具有较高的专业性要求,故而如何设置绩效标准、如何保证绩效标准的有效应用等问题,尚未得到系统回答。本文结合国际经验,就绩效标准设置的基本因素进行了探讨,并分析了绩效标准在实践中三种具体应用形式。     

旧乡村里的新城区：城市“新增空间”的社区风险治理

伴随城镇化建设的迅速推进，我国城市群和中心城市周边出现了大面积“新增空间”。由于地处城乡结合带，人口结构复杂、城乡文明交融，城市“新增空间”很容易成为“风险集中带”，大量风险矛盾向社区层面挤压。调研发现：生长于旧乡村的新城区，面临城镇新市民融城之难、治理主体权利互损之险、社区治理滞后之乱等风险。引入无缝隙政府和整体性治理的视角后分析得出：城市新增空间的社区风险是上游政府职责缺失问题在下游社区的集中爆发，社区治理面临“政府职责脱嵌”与“政府社会失联”的“双重缝隙”。为推进社区治理，应当构建“前期土地审批规划—中期质量监管—后期社区管理和自治”的无缝隙职责体系，强化政府社会之间的整体性治理。     

Bargaining in legislatures,portfolio allocation,and the electoral costs of governing

What motivates political parties in the legislative arena? Existing legislative bargaining models stress parties’ office and policy motivations. A particularly important question concerns how parties in coalition government agree the distribution of cabinet seats. This article adds to the portfolio allocation literature by suggesting that future electoral considerations affect bargaining over the allocation of cabinet seats in multi-party cabinets. Some parties are penalised by voters for participating in government, increasing the attractiveness of staying in opposition. This ‘cost of governing’ shifts their seat reservation price – the minimum cabinet seats demanded in return for joining the coalition. Results of a randomised survey experiment of Irish legislators support our expectation, demonstrating that political elites are sensitive to future electoral losses when contemplating the distribution of cabinet seats. This research advances our understanding of how parties’ behaviour between elections is influenced by anticipation of voters’ reactions.     

Commercialising smallholder agricultural production in Lao People’s Democratic Republic

Many smallholder farmers in Lao People’s Democratic Republic are transitioning from subsistence to commercial production. This article employs the Agriculture Innovation System (AIS) framework to report on empirical findings from six case studies of Lao smallholder production. It identifies the actors, organisations, and institutions involved in systemic commercialisation of subsistence farming and articulates patterns of interactions that contribute to the relative success of the transition. Of the factors identified in the case studies, the most important enablers of commercial production and adoption of innovative technologies were technical and financial assistance, access to markets, and the formation of farmer associations/organisations.