美国新兴技术治理的理念与实践

在中美科技博弈的背景下,新兴技术治理的实际效能兼具重要的经济价值和国际政治意涵。同时,新兴技术的高度不确定性对美国既有技术治理体系和能力提出全面挑战。美国新兴技术治理表现出明显的保护主义和技术民族主义倾向,服从并服务于其国家安全战略。新兴技术的革命性导致美国技术治理能力全面滞后于技术发展速度;国内治理体系碎片化且缺少有效协调机制的现实,制约着新兴技术治理的实际进程;全球范围内技术治理安全化的倾向严重阻碍着技术治理的国际合作,也阻碍美国与盟友之间的合作。拜登政府积极致力于实现美国技术治理体系和能力的现代化,试图采取多边主义策略对中国新兴技术发展进行限制和封锁;极有可能在坚持刚性措施的同时突出强调弹性措施在未来美国新兴技术治理中的优先等级;试图通过重建总统科技顾问委员会以及审查政府科学诚信政策等手段,重塑科学及科学家在新兴技术治理中的核心地位,突出“技术怀疑论”并对新兴技术发展采取更为严格的审查和监管措施,并可能重新确立基础研究在新兴技术治理中的基础性作用。     

Balance Between Local Economic Development and Environmental Sustainability: A Multi-level Governance Perspective

This study seeks to explain why U.S. local governments utilize environmental sustainability to promote economic development. Economic development and environmental protection need not be competing objectives, but rather, environmental protection can enhance local economic competitiveness. Using data from the ICMA Economic Development Survey, this study tests an empirical model that includes state sustainability initiatives, participation in climate protection networks, and political attitudes toward economic development as predictors of local policy decisions. The findings reinforce a multi-level governance perspective on explaining the balance cities seek to achieve between environmental protection and economic growth.     

Assessing the Possibility of a Pedophilia Panic and Contagion Effect Between France and the United States

In the early and mid-1990s, the United States experienced what could be called a societal sex crime crisis. This led to the passage of specific types of legislation aimed at addressing what was perceived by the public to be a major social problem. In the mid- and late-1990s, Europe (mainly Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Germany) found itself in the same predicament as the United States. Legislation was passed, varying in its nature, in order to provide the public with an answer to its panic. According to a social constructionist approach, a moral panic occurs when certain types of behaviors or individuals are thought to be utterly harmful to the fabric of the social body. The present article aims at assessing whether there is a pedophilia/moral panic and whether it goes beyond the borders of one country. In order to identify potential contagion effects or parallel trends between France and the United States, the historical evolutions of legislation, reported incidence of child sexual abuse, and written media coverage of the events are triangulated into a multilevel analysis including the years 1990 thru 2005. Differences in intensity and in the dynamics are then established between the two sexual abuse moral panics.     

City Management in the United States and Norway: A Comparative Analysis of Professional Orientations

This analysis examines the effects of political culture on the nature and practice of professional local government management by comparing the structures, responsibilities, and relationships of city administrative executives in the democratic countries of the United States and Norway. The findings suggest that, despite fundamental differences in societal institutions and settings, American and Norwegian city managers serve similar roles in their respective local government organizations. However, the notable variations in the processes of municipal management identified between the two nations appear to reflect the contextual influence of divergent political foundations on the operational environment of professional public administrators.     

A Tale of Two Cities: Bureaucratisation in Mayor-Council and Council-Manager Municipalities

This paper presents a theory that predicts under what circumstances self-interested politicians ‘bureaucratise’ their administrations, in the sense that they delegate the powers to hire, fire and promote public employees to autonomous bodies (like civil service commissions). The main testable proposition is that, in polities with a higher concentration of powers, politicians will bureaucratise their administrations to overcome time inconsistency problems in their relationships with public employees. This prediction is tested with data drawn from US municipalities, where two main types of local governments co-exist: mayor-council and council-manager. Results show that municipal governments with a higher concentration of powers (i.e. mayor-council) tend to have more bureaucratised administrations.     

Civil Service and Civil Society Collaboration: A Comparative Analysis of Disaster Management Results in China and the United States

This article explores the way natural disasters provide an opportunity to address relations between civil society and the state as mutually empowering. Such opportunity can be reinforced when civil servants help to mobilize the interests of marginalized communities into disaster management and collaborate with active civil associations in seeking to reduce disaster vulnerabilities. This requires that public administration be able to respond to disaster in an effective and equitable way. Civil servants should be capable of being socially reliable by building and maintaining trust in relationships with communities and civil organizations. Using the Gulf Coast Hurricanes (United States) in 2005 and the Wenchuan Earthquake (China) in 2008 as case studies, this article comparatively addresses the significance of public administration's role in developing mutual empowerment in state and civil society relations in the face of adversity. Given the fact that civil service capacity becomes a crucial factor in determining state-civil society relations, it also has important implications for the potential of democratization in China.     

A Tale of Two Kazakhstans: Sources of Political Cleavage and Conflict in the Post-Soviet Period

Departing from some prominent scholarship on Kazakhstani politics, the author argues that competition between financial–industrial groups over scarce economic and political resources—rather than inter-clan or centre–periphery rivalries—largely determines who gets what, when and how. While clan politics and regional grievances may still influence struggles over the distribution of power and wealth, their importance has diminished in recent years. Instead, observable political conflict has centred around competing financial–industrial groups, which represent the diverse, and at times clashing, interests of Kazakhstan's business and political elites.     

Meeting the Information Needs of Older People: A Challenge for Local Governance

The challenge of the ageing population is not just to provide more services but to employ new strategies. One of these is the need to rethink the provision of information to older people and their carers. This paper makes four points. First, that information and access to information have become more critical issues. Second, that older people may place a much higher value on information than other citizen groups but their access is poor for a range of reasons. Third, that the processes by which older people seek information may be empowering. Finally, effective partnerships with creative older people can be a catalyst to changing governance cultures which is a vital step in modernising local government. The paper draws upon examples from the author's experience of working alongside older people under the umbrella of the Better Life in Later Life project in Newcastle upon Tyne.     

Women and Local Governance in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Ejisu,Ghana

Since 1988, Ghana has implemented comprehensive reforms to promote grassroots and citizen participation in government. This article examined women’s participation in local governance. Through an interview of 353 women in Ejisu, it was found out that the women performed almost all household chores, 62.3% of whom partly financed their households while 17% solely financed their households. About 27% of the women were members of CBOs, and 25% were assembly members. The women were restrained in local government participation by marriage, perceived superiority of men, and illiteracy. Encouragement of women and girls’ education are contingent to promoting women’s participation in local governance.     

The New Mode of Public Governance and Public Accountability in Developing Countries: An Analysis with Particular Reference to Bangladesh

Public accountability is a fundamental element of good governance. All countries all over the world strive to ensure the accountability of public officials by adopting different kinds of mechanisms. Following the liberal democratic tradition, most countries in the world have relied on the legislative instruments, executive means, judicial and quasi-judicial processes, official rules, codes of conducts, official hierarchies, public hearings, interest groups, media scrutiny and so forth for ensuring public accountability. However, in recent years, the new mode of public governance has brought new dimensions to the discourse on public accountability. This new mode focuses largely on the market- and society-centered mechanisms. This article is an attempt to assess the effectiveness of these market- and society-centered mechanisms in ensuring public accountability in Bangladesh. The article has the following objectives:

(a) to explore contemporary debates on the market- and society-centered mechanisms of public accountability;

(b) to sketch the state of public accountability in Bangladesh; and

(c) to analyze the effectiveness of the market- and society-centered mechanisms in view of the contemporary socio-economic and political dynamics of Bangladesh.     

The Effects of Media and their Logic on Legitimacy Sources within Local Governance Networks: A Three-Case Comparative Study

Although theoretical and empirical work on the democratic legitimacy of governance networks is growing, little attention has been paid to the impact of mediatisation on democracies. Media have their own logic of news-making led by the media’s rules, aims, production routines and constraints, which affect political decision-making processes. In this article, we specifically study how media and their logic affect three democratic legitimacy sources of political decision-making within governance networks: voice, due deliberation and accountability. We conducted a comparative case study of three local governance networks using a mixed method design, combining extensive qualitative case studies, interviews and a quantitative content analysis of media reports. In all three cases, media logic increased voice possibilities for citizen groups. Furthermore, it broadened the deliberation process, although this did not improve the quality of this process per se, because the media focus on drama and negativity. Finally, media logic often pushed political authorities into a reactive communication style as they had to fight against negative images in the media. Proactive communication about projects, such as public relation (PR) strategies and branding, is difficult in such a media landscape.     

Between Government and Governance: Opening the Black Box of the Transformation Thesis

The notion of going from government to governance, known as the transformation thesis, as depicted in early Governance Theory has been subjected to substantive critique. This paper explores two different stances of such critique. The first critical stance is represented by Jonathan S. Davies’ 2011 book “Challenging Governance Theory: From networks to hegemony” and entails a radical rejection of the transformation thesis. The second stance offers a more moderate reconfiguration of the transformation thesis and is represented by the recently co-authored work of several prominent governance theorists titled “Interactive Governance: Advancing the paradigm”. While both aspire to set new agendas for governance research, this paper argues that the latter reconfiguration carries a problematic preposition towards overemphasizing the separation between government and governance practices.     

Quality of Political Management and the Role of Corruption: A Cross-Country Analysis

Using the Bertelsmann Transformation Political Management Index (PMI, 2008), which measures the role and quality of political leaders, this study empirically investigates the relationship among corruption, economic freedom, and political management, controlling for the underlying socio-economic and cultural factors that shape the success of a country's political leadership. The results suggest that corruption significantly affects the quality of political management and that the effect is dependent on the level of economic freedom.     

NPM Reforms in Napoleonic Countries: A Comparative Study of Management Accounting Innovations in Greek and Italian Municipalities

This is a comparative study of the rationale and effects of management accounting innovations in Greek and Italian municipalities, as part of the NPM reform in the public sector. This article aims to understand the extent of adoption of accounting innovations in Greek and Italian municipalities, and the factors affecting the specific techniques in use. The study reports on a survey based on medium-sized and large Italian and Greek municipalities, targeted at public municipalities’ accountants, the users of accounting techniques. The study identifies the intended purposes of NPM reform and, particularly, management accounting innovations, analyzes a set of factors that affect the implementation of management accounting technologies, and discusses determinants and features of such innovation on a comparative perspective.     

Exploring the Relationship between Operational and Financial Indicators: The Case of Water and Sewer Utilities

ABSTRACT

There is debate in the literature on whether or not general management principles are applicable to the study and practice of public administration. This research responds by exploring how local officials manage the performance of public services with private good characteristics, where general management principles could be embraced for service delivery. The relationship between operational and financial indicators is explored within the functional areas of water and sewer, with the hypothesis that operational outcomes impact financial outcomes similar to private enterprises. Because the findings do not support this hypothesis, the authors conclude that general management principles may not be applicable to all forms of administration given that public cannot be removed from the management of public services even with private good characteristics.     

Fiscal Stress Management During the Financial and Economic Crisis: The Case of the Baltic Countries

The Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—were severely hit by the global financial and economic crisis in 2008–2011. In response to the crisis, all three states chose to undertake extensive fiscal consolidations. This article examines the strategies adopted by the Baltic governments for managing fiscal stress and consolidating their budgets in the light of the existing literature on cutback budgeting. In all three countries, the governments combined expenditure and revenue measures, with a larger share of adjustment taking place on the expenditure side. Among expenditure measures, a mix of across-the-board and targeted cuts was adopted, though the importance of targeted cuts increased over time. The case studies also indicate that although the theoretical propositions of the cutback budgeting literature point to the correct directions overall, further refinement is needed in several theoretical issues.     

A Comparative Approach to Performance Management: Contrasting the Experience of Australia,New Zealand,and the United States

Abstract

Despite the use of the same vocabulary and seemingly similar agendas, the experience of these three countries cannot be comprehended without attention to the different contexts in which the countries operate. This paper focuses on the experience in these three English speaking countries dealing with the structure or context of the institutional arrangements, the process of defining outcomes, issues related to timing, availability and investment in data systems, predominant values that are at play, experience with gaming, and accountability arrangements. It provides thumbnail sketches of the framework and experience of these three countries and compares their experience in performance management. While there are significant differences that emerge from contextual variety, there are some shared dynamics in the three systems. I call these “normal tensions” in the system. Yet these tensions have been largely ignored in the performance management movement.