Path Dependency and the Reform of English Local Government

This paper uses the concept of path dependency to examine the changes to the political management structures of English local government. We note how the possible experience of decreasing returns among some local authority actors combined with the powerful intervention of politicians within New Labour at the national level led to a significant break from past policy and the imposition of measures to establish a separate executive that was claimed as a radical step forward for local democracy. Using survey data from the Evaluating Local Governance research team ( http://www.elgnce.org.uk ), we explore the establishment of a separate political executive in all major local authorities and map out the style of decision-making that is emerging. We find that some established institutional patterns reasserted themselves in the process of implementation, but that increasing returns are not as great as some theorists of path dependency would suggest and they may be a force for system change as well as for stability.     

对西方“列宁学”批判的批判

西方“列宁学”对列宁主义的思想来源以及列宁的经济和哲学等观点进行批判和诘难,并据此否定列宁主义.西方“列宁学”认为,列宁是典型的民粹主义者,列宁的经济思想具有“讽刺意义”,否定列宁哲学思想与马克思主义哲学之间的内在联系.必须对西方“列宁学”对列宁主义的歪曲和批判进行再批判,在揭露西方“列宁学”谬误的基础上,进一步阐明列...     

The Politics of Administrative Reforms in Ghana: Perspectives from Path Dependency and Punctuated Equilibrium Theories

Since 1957, various Ghanaian governments have made, and continue to make, attempts to reform the administrative state for development. In spite of this, not much seems to have been achieved over the years. Why has the passion of successive governments for reforming the administrative system failed to yield the desired outcomes? What is the nexus between regime turnover and frequent administrative reforms? Where do we want to go, and what will take us there or at least close to our intended destination? What approach is likely to maximize the chances of success and minimize those of failure? We argue that administrative reforms in Ghana have been consistently undermined by the discontinuity of reform initiatives undertaken by successive governments; the inability to have a “national agenda for development”; continuous reliance on expatriates as consultants and advisers; over-reliance on multinational institutions for financial support; and by the absence of a “developmental state.”     

Addressing the Challenges of Adaptation to Climate Change Policy: Integrating Public Administration and Public Policy Studies

With growing attention on formulating the “right” policies and programs to address climate change, the contribution that policy work will make in fostering adaptive capacity needs to be examined. Policy capacity is crucial to policy formulation and should be at the heart of climate mainstreaming. There are six hypotheses about the nature of climate-based policy work based on a survey conducted of Canadian federal and provincial government employees in the forestry, finance, infrastructure, and transportation sectors. To measure the simultaneous effects on perceived policy capacity, an Ordinary Least Squares regression was conducted. Among the key findings was that the increased demand for climate change science within an organization resulted in a decreased perception of policy capacity. Policy work was largely focused on procedure activities rather than on evaluation. The model found that networking was critically important for perceived policy capacity. Effective policy formulation will involve the participation of others normally not associated with traditional policy work. Evidence-based policy work illustrates that policy success can be achieved by improving the amount and type of information processed in public policy formulation.     

Dependency,the state and class in the neoliberal transition of Taiwan

The remarkable economic growth in Taiwan has served as a model of the developmental state as well as a source of scepticism about neoliberal policy for many less developed countries. However, since the mid-1980s Taiwan has gravitated from its previous statist model to the universally embraced 'market-orientated' restructuring. This study seeks to explain this neoliberal transition. A disaggregated approach is employed to break neoliberalism down into three distinct dimensions: market openness, fiscal austerity, and privatisation of public sector enterprises. The analysis results confirm that: (1) Taiwan's trade dependency on the USA constituted a decisive factor in the state opening its domestic market; (2) distributional politics was forged in a new but weak democracy to incorporate more interest groups in the fiscal expansion of the post-authoritarian era; and (3) the slow but increasingly steady progress of privatisation plans was influenced not by a 'back-to-the-market' idea but by the statist legacy with which bureaucrats attempted to manage public sector enterprises even after they became de jure private firms. The theoretical implications of this transition are discussed in the conclusion.     

Economic and Social Policy Trade-Offs in the Russian Regions: Evidence from Four Case Studies

Through case studies of four Russian regions, we examine the trade-offs between social and economic policy at the regional level. All four regions studied seek to stimulate entrepreneurship while preserving or expanding social welfare coverage. Regions differ in development strategies, some placing greater emphasis on indigenous business development and others seeking to attract outside investment. Variation in levels of democracy are unrelated to policy choices. All four regional governments consult actively with local business associations while organised labour is weak. The absence of effective institutions to enforce commitments undermines regional capacity to make social policy an instrument for long-term development.     

Jihadi Strategic Studies: The Alleged Al Qaida Policy Study Preceding the Madrid Bombings

This article analyzes an Al Qaida strategy document about Iraq that received considerable attention after the Madrid bombings because of its references to the Spanish elections. The current article discusses the origin, content, and significance of the document and argues that it represents a hitherto unidentified genre in radical Islamist literature, namely "jihadi strategic studies." The text, which is secular in style, analytical in its approach, and pragmatic in its conclusions, displays a level of political awareness that breaks with most preconceptions about religious fundamentalist thought. Moreover, it dispels the myth of a unified and coherent "Al Qaida ideology."‐     

新经济政策若干问题的研究评述

学术界对列宁新经济政策的产生和实质、停止退却的含义等问题进行了深入的研究.这些成果对理解和推进建设有中国特色社会主义的事业有重要意义.     

Suicide Terrorism,Occupation, and the Globalization of Martyrdom: A Critique of Dying to Win

This article offers a three-pronged critique of Robert A. Pape's book Dying to Win. The first section of the article highlights problems related to the book's definition of key concepts, its assessment of existing research on suicide terrorism, and its presentation of data. The next section challenges the book's argument that suicide attacks have a high success rate of 54 percent. The alternative analysis offered here arrives at a significantly lower success rate of 24 percent. The last section argues that Pape exaggerates the link between occupation and suicide terrorism, especially with regard to the case of Al Qaeda. In this context, a distinction between traditional (localized) and contemporary (globalized) patterns of suicide attacks is introduced. It is argued that the occupation thesis may help explain the traditional (localized) pattern of suicide attacks, but falls short of illuminating the causes of the contemporary “globalization of martyrdom.”     

Policy Networks and Policy Learning UK Economic Policy in the 1960s and 1970s

Policy networks are advanced as an alternative to the Westminster model of the UK polity but the theory lacks an internal dynamic and has typological problems. This article applies Peter Hall's (1993) concept of 'social learning' to policy networks and maps the networks found in two case studies of British economic policy making: Hall's own study of the shift from Keynesianism to monetarism in the 1970s and the author's research on the advent of 'Keynesian-plus' in the early 1960s. The article advances three main propositions. Firstly, that integrating the concept of social learning can dynamize the policy network model. Secondly, the case studies suggest that different network configurations are associated with different orders of policy change but that Hall's definition of 'third order change' may be too restrictive. Thirdly, policy networks can be much more complex and fluid then is generally claimed, sometimes becoming so extensive that they might be termed a 'meta-network'.     

Privatisation in Developing Countries: A Review of the Evidence and the Policy Lessons

Privatisation is widely promoted as a means of improving economic performance in developing countries. However, the policy remains controversial and the relative roles of ownership and other structural changes, such as competition and regulation, in promoting economic performance remain uncertain. This article reviews the main empirical evidence on the impact of privatisation on economic performance in developing economies. The evidence suggests that if privatisation is to improve performance over the longer term, it needs to be complemented by policies that promote competition and effective state regulation, and that privatisation works best in developing countries when it is integrated into a broader process of structural reform.     

Cohesion Policy and the Evolution of Regional Policy in Central and Eastern Europe

The paper considers the extent to which domestic regional policy in the Central East European EU member states has been ‘subsumed’ into cohesion policy approaches. It acknowledges that directions of domestic regional policy change vary with processes of EU policy transfer, adaptation, emulation or resistance. This variation occurs across time and across member states. Crucially, the paper argues that interaction between cohesion policy and national regional policy systems also varies according to different regional policy components. Drawing on research from across the member states, the analysis breaks policy down into a number of key dimensions (objectives, instruments, spatial targeting and governance) and assesses the interaction between EU and domestic approaches and agendas.     

Knowledge Utilization in Canadian Health Service Organizations: A Path Analysis

The aim of this article is to study direct and causality effects of variables involved in knowledge utilization (KU) explanations. Based on a survey of 928 managers and professionals in Canadian health service organizations (HSOs) (ministries, regional health authorities, and hospitals), the results of the path analysis indicate that the extent to which research results are used in policy and practice is influenced by the format of research results, by organizational and contextual variables (e.g., research culture and absorptive capacity), by the formal partnership activities initiated between the producers of research and users (formal linkage mechanisms), and by the user’s relational capital (informal linkage mechanisms), among other variables. Formal and informal linkage mechanisms have a positive and significant impact on KU in different causal explanations. The article shows that utilization processes are interdependent in their causes and effects, and thus complicated to study.