Representative bureaucracy and seconded national government officials in the European Commission

The bureaucratic arms of modern international organizations increasingly consist of staff with ambiguous organizational affiliations. This article analyses the implications of this trend from the perspective of representative bureaucracy – using seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission (Commission) as the empirical laboratory. Using a variety of datasets, we unveil Commission SNEs' profiles (to assess their passive representativeness) and link these profiles to their role perceptions (to evaluate their potential for active representation). This illustrates that Commission SNEs' background characteristics do not match those of their constituent population (i.e. the EU27 population) – suggesting a lack of passive representativeness. However, we also find that SNEs from countries favoring stronger national rather than European regulatory and policymaking powers are more likely to see themselves as a representative of their home country government. This suggests a potential for active representation in terms of SNEs' home country's policy preferences.     

Partisan technocratic cycles in Latin America

Given their powerful positions in presidential cabinets, technocrats are an important transmission mechanism for explaining economic policy choices, but have received less attention compared to other well-established channels such as elections or democratic tenure. I incorporate the role of technocratic advisors into a domestic policymaking framework. Specifically, I contend that left governments tend to appoint technocrats, or ministers with mainstream economics training, to signal their commitment to sound governance to the electorate. This partisan technocratic pattern, however, is conditioned by a country's place in its business cycle. During periods of high growth, left governments are more likely to align with their partisan preferences and appoint heterodox advisors that drift from fiscal discipline. Employing an originally constructed data index, the Index of Economic Advisors, I conduct a statistical test of 16 Latin American countries from 1960 to 2011, finding partisan shifts in technocratic appointments and fiscal governance that are conditioned by national business cycles.     

The simple analytics of slack-maximizing bureaucracy

Using a utility-based graphical model of bureaucratic choice, this paper develops four empirical predictions from the theory of slack-maximizing bureaucracy. These predictions are compared to those resulting from the Niskanen budget-maximizing model of bureaucracy. Slack-maximizing and budget-maximizing bureaucracies are similar in their response to changes in cost and in their generation of flypaper effects, but they differ in their responses to matching and lump-sum grants.     

论官僚制的反功能

自韦伯提出理性官僚制的概念以来,许多学者对官僚制提出了批评,其中有一些学者提出了官僚制的反功能问题,认为官僚制不仅仅存在正功能,而且会产生反功能问题,如效率低下、繁文缛节、保守主义等等.更有学者在官僚制反功能的基础上,提出来官僚制病理学研究的问题.本文首先检视了官僚制的反功能及官僚制病理学研究.其次在此基础上,尝试性地分析了官僚制的反功能及病理学研究对我国行政改革的启示.     

The innovative personality? Policy making and experimentation in an authoritarian bureaucracy

Why do local officials in an authoritarian bureaucracy experiment with policy, even when directed not to do so by central‐level officials? This study suggests that policy experimentation in this institutional environment can best be understood as an interaction between the structure in which local officials are embedded and individual‐level personality attributes. Leveraging a new data set from a series of original surveys with local policy makers in mainland China, conducted between 2016 and 2018, we discern three baseline personality types: authoritarian, consultative, and entrepreneurial. We thereafter examine the individual‐level characteristics of local officials who will innovate irrespective of a centralization of bureaucratic power and interests, as currently experienced under Chinese President Xi Jinping. We find that local policy makers engage in policy innovation when they are more focused on resolving governance problems and that increased risk reduces but does not eliminate their willingness to innovate. Based on these findings, we contend that future studies of policy innovation should use an evolutionary framework to examine the interaction between preferences and selection pressures.     

The size of government

Most research on the causes of growth in government expenditure has focused on the demand for government services. In this paper, we argue that in fact this growth may have occurred because of changes in supply. Changes in technology leading to increased specialization and thus increased opportunity costs of self-production have led to increased market production and increased record keeping. Also, female labor force participation has increased. Both of these factors serve to reduce the (efficiency) cost of collecting taxes; if the demand for government spending has not changed, this increase in supply would lead to a larger public sector. We estimate a system of simultaneous equations for the period 1929–1970 incorporating this hypothesis, and the results are consistent with the theory. We are able to explain virtually all of the growth of government; increases in female labor force participation seems to be a very important variable in this explanation.     

Urban local government finance in Nigeria: The case of Onitsha local government

Onitsha, located along the route that connects south-western and south-eastern Nigeria, has a very financially dynamic local government. Over one-quarter of the total revenues of this local government come from its market and motor parks. This is an unusual source for a local government that has perhaps the largest per capita revenue in Nigeria—almost N40, compared with the national average of N4.9. The procedure for collecting this revenue is regarded as highly successful since there is greater reliance on the citizens than tax officials. The volume of revenues collected has allowed the council maintain a large surplus revenue over a long period of time, which enables it to carry out important programmes of primary and adult education. It is also beginning to develop its property revenue collection system in collaboration with the Anambra State government.     

试论中国古代的官僚制度及其精神

中国古代的官僚制度是中国古代社会政治制度体系中的轴心性的制度。对于中国古代官僚制度的研究是近来学术界的一个热点。本文从讨论中国古代官僚制度的含义范围出发先后分析了中国古代官僚制度的两种不同的形态,解释了这一制度背后隐藏的精神,及其转化问题。指出了汉代以后的中国古代官僚制度的特性。