Competing for father's love? The politics of central government agency termination in China

It is well known that public agencies are nearly immortal, but what explains their termination? This article argues that apart from conventional antecedents, political salience defined by top leaders largely shapes government agencies' life cycle. In one of the first large‐N analyses of agency termination in a non‐Western authoritarian regime, we used longitudinal data for the central apparatus in China from 1949 to 1976 to test this hypothesis. We specifically used Chairman Mao's written directives to measure political salience and found that agencies that received more directives were less likely to be terminated. In contrast, agencies less attended to the boss were less likely to survive major restructurings. We also found that peripheral agencies (e.g., smaller, lower‐ranking agencies with noncore functions) benefited more from leaders' attention. We compare the results with the existing literature and suggest some theoretical and policy implications.     

Barriers for Crowd’s Impact in Crowdsourced Policymaking: Civic Data Overload and Filter Hierarchy

While crowdsourcing is an increasingly common method of open-government practices to strengthen participatory democracy, its impact on governance is unclear. Using data from a crowdsourced city-plan update by the City of Palo Alto, California, this article examines the impact of a crowd’s input on policy changes. We used an enacted policy change to quantify government’s response to crowd suggestions, whether crowd suggestions are adopted in the policy changes or not. While the city responded to less than half of the crowd’s suggestions, the likelihood of its doing so increased by 51.42 percentage points when the crowd’s ideas were amplified by a citizen advisory committee (CAC), a panel of residents working with the city in the policy update. We also found that the government is more likely to respond to crowd suggestions that are perceived as actionable. These two factors—CAC and the perceived data quality—constitute a filter which the crowd’s suggestions have to pass to make into the policy. This filter created a hierarchy in the participatory practice. Although crowdsourcing intends to create equality and inclusiveness in policymaking, our findings reveal that the civic data overload and the filter hierarchy complicate the adoption of crowdsourcing as a democratic innovation in governance.     

Yao Li,Playing by the Informal Rules: Why the Chinese Regime Remains Stable despite Rising Protests (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 207 p. £ 75.00 hardback

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

高校研究生网络行为现状研究——以上海某高校为例

随着互联网近十几年的发展,学生群体已成为最大的网民群体,其规模和人数远超其他网民类型。研究生是高学历群体,对这一群体网络使用的基本特征和趋势进行研究具有重要意义。     

粮食金融属性增强与我国粮食安全

随着金融全球化进程的推进,粮食的金融属性日益突显,粮食价格大幅波动且受衍生品市场的影响越来越显著。粮食金融属性的突显是衍生品市场不断发展与粮食的能源化倾向双重作用的结果,不仅进一步放大了粮食价格的波动,还对我国的粮食安全构成新的威胁。我国对内要促进农业规模化生产,对外要加强国际农业合作,科学运用衍生品市场套期保值,规避粮食价格风险,维护我国粮食安全。     

行政合同司法审查现状审视与现实路径分析

现行《行政诉讼法》修改后,虽能解决行政合同纠纷进入行政诉讼程序的法律问题,但对于建构系统的行政合同司法审查制度仍缺乏针对性。因此,应具体考察行政合同立法现状与司法实践,补充设立单独的行政合同司法审查规则。本文认为,要明确行政合同纠纷必须以准用私法的公法模式予以解决,同时应建立双向性诉讼结构,逐步完善行政主体原告资格、举证责任分配、调解原则、审查原则、判决形式的制度规则。     

大数据环境下数字图书馆的基本职能

数字图书馆作为一种信息环境,其基本属性仍是收藏属性,基本职能仍是文献收藏。在大数据环境下,尤其需要重视对数字信息资源的整理与收藏,在这个过程中需要政府的强力支持,数字资源呈缴制度的建立与法律保障,数字图书馆联盟的组织,国家图书馆的核心领导,信息生产商、出版商、网络用户、技术商的合作,图书馆、档案馆、个人用户的协调,以发挥数字图书馆在大数据环境下保存和传承人类文化的基本职能。     

法国行政法的法典化:起源、探索与借鉴

法国行政法对法典化发展路径的选择,根源于对其传统判例法发展路径的反思.在行政法发展的初期,判例法发展路径能够克服成文法的规范分散、填补成文法的规范空白并避免与行政机关的直接冲突.然而,进入20世纪下半叶,判例法已日益无法满足民主性及体系化要求,法国改革者决定通过法典化重建清晰、稳定的行政法规范体系,以提升行政法规范面对社会公众的可接受性与可理解性.法国行政法之法典化的发展,先后经历了行政汇编模式、立法审议模式与特定法令模式,其对法典内容的编排乃基于判例规则形塑成文规范,调适成文规范嵌入目录结构,并划定法典边界协调内容交叠.借鉴法国行政法之法典化经验,我国行政立法领域之法典化应当明确以实体优化为主兼顾形式优化之目标;并采用不同组织形式分别编纂行政纲领性法典与行政领域性法典;对编纂之范围应当选择存量规范分散但同质性较强的领域进行法典化;并应引入结构性十进制编码完成条款整合;在法典编纂结束后,应由全国人大常委会法工委与司法部协作完成对于增量规范的持续嵌入.     

青年群体的信仰迷失与回归:私人生活空间视角

青年信仰的形成与其私人生活状态之间存在着密切的相关性。作为一种空间实践,私人生活则与媒介关系紧密。以媒介为中介所建构的交往空间往往成为私人生活呈现的重要场域,并通过培育个人主体性及其公共素养,进而生成稳定的社会信仰。青年信仰同样如此,其私人生活于媒介空间的演变构成信仰嬗变的重要因素。数字化媒介时代的到来,青年私人生活成为象征性交换对象,陷入透明化与私密化困境,这导致当下青年信仰的迷失。与此同时,青年私人生活变化同样蕴含着新的公共性建构因子,亦即通过陌生性交往衍生出来的差异性经验认同、互助行动等公共生活契机,背后突显青年信仰的重构路径。