Obtaining redress for abuse of office in Russia: The Soviet legacy and the long road to administrative justice

This article examines the options for redressing abuse of office available to citizens in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. I consider the courts, the procuracy, and the complaint mechanism as sites for citizens to lodge claims against abuse of office in late-Soviet and post-Soviet times. After the collapse of the Soviet system there was an attempt to overcome the Soviet legacy, to strengthen legal institutions and establish administrative justice. Analysis of Soviet and post-Soviet normative documents and statistical data allows us to argue that opportunities for Russian citizens to combat service crimes in the courts have improved substantially. However, the system for coping with abuse of office remains imperfect, and retains features of the Soviet legacy despite vague legislation about administrative justice and dual ways of coping with abuse through legal and quasi-legal mechanisms. The re-establishment of the complaint mechanism in the conditions of contemporary Russia exacerbates this imperfection. Overall, the complaint mechanism occupies a significant place in people's options for making claims against officials, especially claims against high-ranking officials.     

Insulation by administration: the neutralization of competing interests in a rent control program

Many attempted solutions to the rental housing shortage in urban areas have resulted either in deterioration of the housing stock or the abandonment of the proposed solutions with a consequent fundamental change in the nature of the community. The competing interests--landlords, tenants, banks, taxpayer groups, social reform groups--cannot afford to have any single interest dominate the program. The administrative processes of rent control programs become the focus of conflict between these irreconcilable forces. The rent control program in Brookline avoids much of the problem by a calculated policy to neutralize the competing interests. The history of the program which describes the development of this policy is divided into three parts: (1) 1970-73 when conflict between the groups all but destroyed the program and produced various adjustments in it; (2) 1972-75 when a definite policy of neutralization was followed by a new board chairperson and a new director-counsel; and (3) 1975-77 when the policy was continued under a new chairperson (with the same director-counsel) who faced a very different board membership. Since a majority of Brookline voters and some 75% of its population are tenants, this policy provides an opportunity to discuss a normative theory of democracy as majority rule and the way it relates to the solution of pressing social problems.     

The ideology of professionalism in public administration: implications for education

One of the most influential themes in contemporary public administration is the focus on professionalism. As Dwight Waldo has argued, public administration should act as if it were a profession even if there is hardly any chance of becoming one. This article will explore the pedagogical implications of the ideology of professionalism on education, and how it has impacted the intellectual development of the field. It will be argued that the intellectual baggage of professionalism poses critical challenges to the meaning and substantive purpose of public administration.     

The changing nature of urban affirmative action programs: the search for race-neutral alternatives

In January, 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court cast in doubt the legality of minority set-aside programs. The Court required government set-aside programs to meet a “strict-scrutiny” standard of review and required cities to first explore race-neutral means for increasing minority firm participation prior to utilizing any type of rigid quota system. This paper examines how four cities have reacted quite differently, with some cities continuing old practices, and others developing a mixture of new policies and implementation structures. It is argued that the Supreme Court's decision will have only a minor impact on minority contracting programs, with cities seeking to combine affirmative action contracting programs with those that stress economic development.     

The national school of administration: training for the higher levels of the French civil service

The National School of Administration (Ecole Nationale d' Administration or ENA) in France is a unique graduate school whose program emphasizes applied problem solving and lngically corrects blutions. While this practical progrem (programme d' application) does not result in the award of degrees, it can stitutes the sole avenue of entry in to Iesponsible generalist administrative positions of the, French civil service.     

刑法要加大控制未成年人毒品犯罪的力度--扩大未成年人毒品犯罪的刑事责任范围

毒品在世界各国都是法律严格禁止的。但据联合国统计,1998年,全世界吸毒人数已达1.9亿。而在庞大的吸毒队伍中,青少年成为主力军。据国家禁毒委的统计,截至1999年底,通过对23个省、市、自治区、直辖市的统计,吸食毒品和麻醉品的年龄在17—35岁之间的占总数的85.1％。目前登记在册的吸毒人员60％以上年龄在25岁以下。 吸毒不仅对吸毒者身体和精神有双重摧残,而且是引发社会犯罪的一个源泉。吸毒耗资巨大,绝大多数人在经济上是无法承受的,何况在经济上不独立的未成年人。而吸毒者一旦毒瘾上来,就完全丧失理智,变得六亲不认,毫无廉耻,为了满足一时无法抑制的毒瘾,筹集毒资,可以用尽人间一切最卑鄙、最凶残     

The world's trading system in the post cold war era: implications for public administration

The authors of this article argue that the world is evolving into a regional bloc trading system with important public policy implications. Recent developments in North America and Europe suggest that regional integration is becoming an alternative approach to the multilateral trade deliberations under the auspices of the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The reasons for the evolution are suggested in this article, and arguments are presented on how the negative implications of this trend in world trade can be countered effectively by constructive domestic and international government action.     

The prevention of suicide in India and the developing world: the need for population-based strategies

Very high rates of suicide have been reported from India and the developing world. However, much of the debate on suicide prevention focuses on individuals, methods, site-specific solutions, or particular suicide prevention strategies. This article argues for population based approaches that focus on improving the general health of populations (e.g., macroeconomic policies that aim for social justice, schemes to meet basic human needs, organizing local support groups within vulnerable sections of society, developing and implementing an essential pesticide list, addressing gender issues, and increasing public awareness through the mass media) rather than medical, psychiatric, and other strategies that target individuals (e.g., treatment of mental illness, counseling, etc.) in order to reduce high suicide rates in India and developing countries. Individual approaches will help people in distress and prevent individuals from committing suicide, but will not reduce population suicide rates.     

Medical underservice: The source and the potential of the special district solution

This paper is concerned with the appropriateness of various structural approaches t o the problem of medically underserved areas (MUAS). The failure of the private sector in this regard and the experience with public sector responses to the problem are noted. The paper compares the merits of applying the device of the special district to MUAs with arguments favoring a general government solution. The experience of the state of Arizona with Health Service District legislation is observed.

The logic of the special district and the nature of medical underservice offerslim hope that this device might materially ameliorate the problem. A t the same time, the past initiatives of general purpose government have not served t o erase medical underservice. The point is made t h a t empirical evidence is needed t o fully test the assumptions underlying the arguments of the respective approaches.     

The unassailable principle: why luther gulick searched for a science of administration

Luther Gulick's two contributions to the Papers on the Science of Administration are often regarded as a statement of the “orthodoxy” in the field of public administration in the pre-war period. This paper challenges this view. It argues that the two basic claims in Gulick's work--the notion that public administration could be considered as a science, and that field could be studied without regard to politics--were widely contested throughout the 1920's and 1930's. Gulick adhered to these claims in part because they were useful in protecting a young and weakly-institutionalized field against powerful critics. By the late 1930's, academics in public administration may have confronted a dilemma: the position staked out by Gulick and others, while essential to the development of the field, was regarded by many within the field as being intellectually untenable.     

新加坡人民行动党缘何能长期执政

新加坡是个非常具有政治特色的国度,它具有一系列的民主体制应该具备的要素,但包括人民行动党领导人在内,普遍认为新加坡并不是一个西方式自由民主国家.应该说,是在多党民主体制构架下成功保持一党独大的权威体制的国家.建国之初,执政的人民行动党很快成功地把新加坡由一个没有任何自然资源的第三世界小国转变为一个在世界舞台上颇具竞争力的发达国家.政权基本稳定后,人行党通过一系列自身的调整和改革,并时时对出台的政策进行检讨,使人民生活质量不断提高,而赢得了选民的持续支持,在历次选举中始终以压倒多数取得选举胜利,并于2001年大选中取得83个议席中的81个,创下历史新高.人行党就像一双"无形的手",掌控着国家的一举一动,始终保持着政治上的高度稳定和行政运作上的高效率.     

Communication induced distortion in scholarly research -- the case of action theory in american public administration

The history of action theory in American Public Administration provides the basis for development of a conceptual scheme for understanding how the operating codes that define communication processes used by theorists can distort scholarship. Transaction is a mode that induces distortion; relationship is a mode that helps avoid it. Some suggestions for reissuing the current operating code -- in the direction of making it better fit the relationship model -- are presented.     

Marketing-oriented planning in public administration: The case of the state development agency

Noting that concepts from marketing are not often found in the public management: literature, the authors present a multi-stage marketing-oriented planning model which can be used in the public sector. the mods1 is applied to the case of industrial development agencies, wit11 emphasis on the use of the model in recruiting foreign direct investment. The model includes the determination of organization mission, goals and objectives, resources, and growth strategies as elements of the management planning process. The marketing planning stage of the model includes opportunity analysis, positioning for target markets, marketing mix selection, and control. The two main stages of the process are mediated by factors in the internal and external environments of the organization.     

The most common method of suicide in Tehran 2000-2004: implications for prevention

The likelihood of completing suicide depends to some extent on knowledge of effective means and also on the availability and/or acceptability of such methods. Since studying suicide methods may have an implication for prevention, the focus of this study was on the most favored method of suicide in Tehran, Iran. The study uses confirmed suicide data provided by the Beheshet Zahra Organization (BZO), which gathers all mortality data within Tehran and enters them into a computerized database, from which the relevant information for all the recorded suicide cases during the year 2000 to 2004 were obtained and analyzed. There were 703 cases of suicide (632 males and 71 females) in the BZO database, with a sex ratio of 8.9. The mean (standard deviation) of age at suicide for those who chose hanging and for those who have chosen other methods of suicide were 33.93 (14.2) and 34.60 (13.4) years, respectively. Hanging was the method favored by 572 (85.9%) of cases. Use of hanging was higher in females (61, 85.9%) than in males (511, 80.9%), and higher among the married (304, 53.6%) than among singles (268, 46.4%). The high proportion of persons using hanging as a method of suicide in Tehran may reflect the fact that this method is more acceptable and/or easily available and/or less likely to be misclassified as accidental or undetermined death. The prevention of such suicides is extremely difficult in the general population. Therefore, it is suggested that, to prevent suicide by hangings, the authorities should focus on the causal factors of suicide rather than on the acceptability and/or the availability of this method.