Crisis and Response: Treasury Cash Balance Crisis in Thailand 1980-1982

The author traces the treasury cash balance crisis in Thailand from 1980-1982 and finds that the crisis was a result of economic, political and technical factors. The world recession had a significant impact on revenues, as did the inability of the government to accurately project revenues. Politically, budget participants evaded prescribed procedures and resorted to emergency spending, which resulted in expenditures beyond budget planning. The Thai government resorted to borrowing, spending cuts, adjusting corporate tax payments and increasing taxes to cope with the crisis. The author calls for legal reforms to limit discretionary spending.     

生态危机:当代技术文化危机与系统转化

生态危机是人类当代技术文化危机的征候之一。当寻求生态危机的根源时,我们不应把技术当成一种纯粹"工具理性"进行质疑甚至贬抑,辩证剖析生态危机与技术文化的内在关联,实现系统转化,进而选择适宜的生态文化模式,才能使我们的反思和批判达到一个新的高度。     

Crisis Navigation: Lessons from History for the Crisis Manager in Chief

As fundamental tests of presidential leadership and organizational capacity, crises can make or break an administration. This article presents a conceptual analysis of what makes any crisis situation challenging to deal with, and it develops a set of analytical steps that can help crisis managers diagnose particular crisis situations they might face. The proposed crisis navigation framework brings together case research studies and theories of organizational processes, so that those assuming responsibility for steering the government and society through crises—including the Obama administration—have a useful point of entry into the growing crisis management literature.     

危机、公共危机和公共危机管理

对于"危机"的概念,不同学者从不同侧面给出不同的定义.危机的分类主要有组德尔和安托可将危机界定为五类等诸种分法.与危机相关的概念有紧急事件、灾难、重大事故和风险等.对于从事公共组织危机研究的人员,他们表述的"危机"与"公共危机"的词意,在内涵和外延上没有本质的区别.像加拿大管理发展中心等组织和学者对其的定义比较典型.危机管理与公共危机管理可作为同一概念来对待,许多学者对其有自己的阐释.危机管理阶段论也有不同的分类,主要有:二阶段论、三阶段论、四阶段论和五阶段论.三阶段四步骤的危机管理过程可被作为公共危机管理研究的基本框架.     

JISB Interview: Kosova in Dependence: From Stability of Crisis to the Crisis of Stability

Abstract

Albin Kurti is the leader of Lëvizja VETËVENDOSJE! (Movement for Self-determination!) in Kosova. The movement was standing candidates for the first time in the December 2010 Kosova elections and on 28 October 2010 launched its political programme entitled ‘Development and Statebuilding: Together (it) is Possible’. David Chandler interviewed Albin Kurti at the Lëvizja VETËVENDOSJE! offices in Pristina on 2 September 2010 and it was agreed that JISB would publish Kurti's essay (updated after the elections) articulating how the movement understands the barriers to independence in Kosova today and outlining the political development of its strategy of resistance.     

Stability,Crisis and Breakdown: Some Notes on the Concept of Crisis in Political Analysis*

The argument of the paper is that political science would benefit from clarification of the concept ‘crisis’. and that this clarification should be related to neighbouring concepts such as ‘stability’ and ‘breakdown’. It is suggested that the stability of a political regime is demonstrated by its ability to avoid transformation as well as breakdown at times of crisis when the continuity of the regime's identifying characteristics is threatened.     

Labour and Antisemitism: a Crisis Misunderstood

In this article, we argue that Labour’s antisemitism crisis has been misunderstood. We suggest that a more accurate and sophisticated understanding of antisemitism offers a way forward. There are three elements to this claim. First, by drawing on existing data on attitudes towards Jews, we criticise the widespread focus on individual ‘antisemites’, rather than on the broader problem of antisemitism. In turn, we conceive of antisemitism not as a virus or poison, as in so many formulations, but rather, as a reservoir of readily available images and ideas that subsist in our political culture. Second, following on from this understanding, we offer five ways forward. Finally, we set this analysis in the context of a historical parting of the ways between anti-racism and opposition to antisemitism. An anti-racism defined solely by conceptions of whiteness and power, we argue, has proven unable to fully acknowledge and account for anti-Jewish racism.     

The Imprisonment Crisis in America: Introduction

This article provides an overview of recent trends in imprisonment rates in America and introduces the articles in this issue of The Review of Policy Research. Incarceration rates have increased by more than 500 percent since the early 1970s and have now reached a rate of almost 700, higher than anywhere else in the world. The impact has been particularly hard on racial minorities, especially women (whose incarceration rate went from around 8 in 1975 to 59 in 2001). The “war on drugs” has been one of the main reasons behind the increases in imprisonment, along with the more general “get tough on crime” movement that began in the late 1970s. The articles in this issue center around how this recent trend in incarceration impacts the entire society, but especially poor communities. Several of the articles focus on race, age and gender as important variables, in addition to the tendency of the parole system to sort of “recycle” released prisoners back into the prison system.     

Crisis Accountability: Ministerial Resignations in Sweden

Accountability processes after crisis events sometimes entail harsh criticism from public and political players alike, forcing cabinet ministers to be on top of the political game and sometimes even resign. However, harsh accountability processes are just as likely to leave ministers undamaged. This article combines two existing theories that propose different factors to account for variation in outcomes: ministerial resignations as a consequence of cabinet formation and individual positions; or resignations as a result of blame management strategies involving individual actors within the cabinet and beyond. Ten crisis episodes in Sweden are analysed and compared. The findings suggest that individual political power bases and experience matter to how well blame management strategies can be employed, while the composition of the government gives structural constraints. The dynamic interplay and framing battle between incumbent decision makers, and external arenas and the skill with which individual ministers engage and frame responsibility, play a key role in determining their post‐crisis careers.     

Learning under Uncertainty: Networks in Crisis Management

This article examines learning in networks dealing with conditions of high uncertainty. The author examines the case of a crisis response network dealing with an exotic animal disease outbreak. The article identifies the basic difficulties of learning under crisis conditions. The network had to learn most of the elements taken for granted in more mature structural forms—the nature of the structural framework in which it was working, how to adapt that framework, the role and actions appropriate for each individual, and how to deal with unanticipated problems. The network pursued this learning in a variety of ways, including virtual learning, learning forums, learning from the past, using information systems and learning from other network members. Most critically, the network used standard operating procedures to provide a form of network memory and a command and control structure to reduce the institutional and strategic uncertainty inherent in networks.     

Crisis and employment: The case of Korea

This paper examines Korea's employment dynamics and analyzes how adverse impacts could be mitigated during the recent economic crisis in comparison with the 1997 to 1998 Asian crisis. A clear lesson is that policies to mitigate adverse impacts of financial crisis on the macroeconomic level should be given priority for preserving employment. In this regard, expansionary monetary and fiscal policies to keep aggregate demand from collapsing need to be emphasized once a crisis breaks out. However, equally crucial is the maintenance of sound pre‐crisis fundamentals to help keep negative impacts from proliferating, even when a crisis is triggered. In addition, flexible labor market structures and temporary employment‐boosting policies appear to be necessary to reduce the negative impacts of a crisis on workers. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

我国政府危机管理与危机管理能力研究综述

我国政府危机管理研究的范围主要包括:各种概念的界定、危机的类型、危机的诱因;国外危机管理经验的借鉴、危机管理案例和政府危机管理体系等。我国的危机管理研究还处在初级阶段,在关于提升政府危机管理能力的措施研究上,主要有“制度论”、“经验论”、“全面整合论”和“公共关系论”。我国学界对危机和危机管理的研究,还存在概念界定不清、实证性研究不够、跨学科研究不够和还没有形成一套完整的系统的理论等等问题。     

Corporatism in Crisis: Stability and Change of Social Partnership in Austria

While recent developments in Western Europe provide numerous examples of the instability and decay of corporatist arrangements in the face of economic crisis, Austrian social partnership still exhibits remarkable stability. The article tries to explain this stability of corporatist politics in Austria. The Austrian case is also used to demonstrate some limitations of the academic literature on the breakdown of corporatism. However, stability in the Austrian case does not mean that nothing has changed. Changes have occurred within the existing institutional framework. Two main factors in the transformation of Austrian social partnership are pointed out, namely socio-cultural and political changes. Finally, some future perspectives of Austrian corporatism are outlined.