Discount Rates for the Evaluation of Public Private Partnerships,by David F. Burgess and Glenn P. Jenkins (Eds.)

This article provides a critical overview of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Russia and Kazakhstan and examines the rationale underpinning such partnerships. The analysis discusses the reasons why governments in Russia and Kazakhstan focus principally on concessions as a form of PPP and goes on to provide a critical assessment of the key approaches and situational factors relating to concessions in these two countries.

The article finds that external globalization impulses pressed Russia and Kazakhstan to align their policies and institutions with western orthodoxy and perceived international best practice. An ever-increasing emphasis on use of PPPs has been a key feature of this alignment. However, the governments of Russia and Kazakhstan have increasingly resorted to concessions as progress with the development and implementation of Western style PPP models has stalled. This article concludes that the governments of Russia and Kazakhstan have demonstrated an overly optimistic approach to PPP and as a result may have substantially understated their overall concessional risks and costs. Features of Russian and Kazakhstani PPP arrangements such as ambiguity in output specification and extensive reliance on government subsidies, combined with lack of expertise of private partners, may significantly decrease concession benefits.     

Self-Initiated Expatriates in the Private vs. the Public Sector: Creativity and Work Outcomes

Although research on private-sector expatriates is abundant, not much is known about their public-sector counterparts, especially self-initiated expatriates, who themselves initiate the move to live and work abroad. Comparing work outcomes and creativity of self-initiated expatriates in the private vs. the public sector, the results of a survey including 329 respondents indicated that performance and effectiveness were higher in the private sector. However, only in the public sector was there a positive association between creativity and the two work outcomes. These findings are discussed in detail.     

Developments in Policy Analysis and Evaluation in Public Administration

Established in 1948, Israel can be considered a new developing state in transition; on the other hand, it can be viewed as a modern western society and the only strong democracy in a rather unstable region. While the former implies lack of public administration tradition and the need to invest in basic infrastructures, the latter requires, among other responsibilities, the adoption of norms of systematic policy planning and accountability. In Israel, security problems, limited (and loss of) resources, lack of stability and huge waves of immigration have displaced more mundane issues such as administrative reforms and systematic policy planning approaches. From its inception, there was constant criticism of the state's lack of established norms, functions, and skilled practitioners, particularly in policy analysis and evaluation. At first the criticism came from academia (especially Dror 1968, 1971), but in time it crossed lines and was raised by parties and Members of Parliament (the Knesset), and constituted a major issue in the work of different committees concerned with reforms in the public service and in government reorganization. This paper (1) will discuss the main reasons for the shortcomings of Israeli public policy analysis, evaluation and planning, and (2) will present shifts in conceptualization during recent years, with regard to systematic policy making.     

Colonialism,Landlords, and Public Goods Provision in India: A Controlled Comparative Analysis

What is the impact of colonialism on public goods provision? This article examines India, once the world’s largest colony. While recent studies of the Indian case are divided, they overwhelmingly rely on econometric approaches. This article uses qualitative evidence to provide an important complementary perspective. Using controlled comparisons of the princely state of Travancore with the neighbouring provinces of Malabar and Tirunelveli, I find that colonialism generated less social welfare because British officials empowered landlords. Notably, this occurred despite Malabar and Tirunelveli instituting ryotwari (cultivator-based) land tenure. British rule in India may have promoted landlordism irrespective of land tenure policy.     

“和谐社会语境下检察机关预防未成年人犯罪理论与实践”研讨会会议综述

2009年10月31日至11月1日,武汉市江岸区人民检察院、武汉大学刑事法研究中心、中国犯罪学会犯罪社会学专业委员会联合举办的“和谐社会语境下检察机关预防未成年人犯罪理论与实践”研讨会在江城武汉隆重举行。本次会议聚焦于检察机关在未成年人犯罪预防中的作用机制这一具有重大实践意义的问题,邀请到了著名刑法学家马克昌教授、     

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.     

Evaluating the Impact of Public Student Subsidies on Low-Cost Private Schools in Pakistan

This paper examines the impacts of accountability-based public per-student subsidies provided to low-cost private schools in Punjab, Pakistan on student enrolment and school inputs. Programme entry is contingent on achieving a minimum pass rate on a specially-designed academic test. We use regression discontinuity to estimate impacts on schools that joined the programme in the last entry round (phase 4) before follow-up survey data collection. We find large positive impacts on school enrolment, number of teachers, and other inputs for programme schools near the minimum pass rate.     

Organizing Civil Society in Russia and China: A Comparative Approach

Despite their authoritarian tendencies, the current regimes in Russia and China have both actively promoted stronger civil societies. This article explores this apparent paradox for insights both into the meaning of civil society and into the nature of governance in these two regimes. It argues that the social organizations that make up civil society both inhabit and construct a public sphere where individuals assist in their own governance. Recognizing that administered societies cannot compete in a globalizing economy, these regimes look to social organizations to perform functions previously left to the state, but at the same time use similar repertoires of regulation, revenue control, and repression to ensure such organizations do not transgress acceptable boundaries. Still, different notions of state–society relations in the two countries have led to different patterns of social organizations in the two countries. In Russia, a sharp distinction between state and society has contributed to a government strategy that seeks to dominate the public sphere leaving little room for autonomous civic action. In China, by contrast, deeply embedded institutionalized accounts see state and society as overlapping spheres of activity, creating pyramid-like structures encompassing both state-based and more autonomous organizations, and allowing more room for negotiation between the two.     

Customer Satisfaction Theory in Public Administration Education: Revisiting Student Evaluation of Teaching

How has the current austerity changed the public welfare organizations’ performance landscape in modern welfare states? Can public managers make their organizations adapt to the new performance landscape shaped by the austerity? These questions are answered on the basis of the Danish case of the provision of the services to the citizens with disabilities and/or social disadvantages. The result has implications, especially for public management in praxis. The case study shows that the managers’ most important managerial tool to make their organizations adapt to the new landscape is the challenging and decision-oriented dialogue.     

A Comparative Analysis of SME Friendly Public Procurement: Results from Canada,Hungary and Italy

This paper studies SMEs’ participation in public procurement in light of perceived barriers and expected benefits of accessing the public marketplace. It presents a comparative analysis of SMEs’ participation in three countries that share similar approaches to SME-friendly public procurement. A common survey protocol was developed to be administered to SMEs in the three countries. Data collected were then analysed using regression methods. Findings suggest that some issues that are typically considered critical barriers, namely administrative requirements and award based on lowest price do not hinder participation. However, findings also suggest that firms’ characteristics associated with size are still relevant hindrances, and that SMEs’ involvement are affected by a shortage of tangible (human and financial) and intangible resources (experience). These findings provide guidance to fine-tune public procurement policies directed to SMEs.     

公众环境政治参与:公民社会的视角

依据对公众环境政治参与的社区环境管理、政府环境政策和环境非政府组织参与的三维理论设定,本文以对山东省济南、青岛、威海和聊城4城市的调研为基础,对我国公众环境政治参与和公民社会发展的关系进行了理论分析.作者的基本结论是:就城市比较而言,青岛的环境政治参与水平最高,济南和聊城次之,威海最低,而对性别、年龄、文化程度、职业和收入等主要影响因素的分析表明,年轻、高学历和非生产性职业群体具有较高的环境政治参与水平,但总体来说,环境公民社会在我国的发展尚处在一个起步阶段.     

The New Public Management Theory and the Reform of European Health Care Systems: An International Comparative Perspective

The New Public Management (NPM) Theory is a rhetorical construction with diverse intellectual roots. That diversity means that it is open to reinterpretation and shifts in implementation across countries (Sahlin-Andersson, 2001 Sahlin-Andersson, K. 2001. “National, international and transnational constructions of New Public Management”. In New Public Management—The transformation of ideas and practice, Edited by: Christensen, T. and ægreid, P. L. 43–72. Aldershot, , UK: Ashgate.  [Google Scholar]; Smullen, 2007 Smullen, A. 2007. Translating agency reform: Rhetoric and culture in comparative perspective, Rotterdam, , The Netherlands: PhD Dissertation, Erasmus University.  [Google Scholar]). This overview article critically investigates NPM application in various EU health care systems. NPM led to a greater focus on market forces and competition and improved information sharing and cooperation among health care networks, and changed the way care is delivered. This article also identifies significant misfits between policy announcements and NPM implementation. NPM has taken root much more substantially in the United Kingdom (UK) than in France and Germany. The variety of capitalism and institutional systems provides an explanation for divergences in NPM implementation.     

A Public Administration Headache: An Evaluation Analysis of Prison Policy and Recidivism Toward Social Reintegration

We focus on discovering, describing, and understanding prison recidivism; secondly, we intend to know if the prison policy contributes to deterrence of crime; thirdly, we want to know if prison labor and vocational education and training influence the rate of prison recidivism by increasing social reintegration or decreasing prison recidivism. We use a sample of n = 1643 prisoners, multivariate clustering methods, focusing on latent class models, to trace the profile of prisoners, and we use the chi-square test to test dependence/independence of some variable pairs. Data support the heterogeneity of inmates, resulting in two clusters, recidivists (50%), and nonrecidivists.     

Understanding Diversity Management in the Public Sector: A Case for Contingency Theory

Recent diversification in Western populations has led to the implementation of diversity policies like diversity management (DM), a human resource management concept that promotes the hiring, retention, and active participation of a diverse workforce in order to improve organizational performance. This paper seeks to develop contingency theory as a theoretical framework for examining and explaining different DM practices across governments. In contingency theory, there is no one best way to manage all organizations; rather the internal and external environments of each organization create unique situations that require programs tailored to their distinctiveness in order to achieve optimal functionality.     

规范分析视角下的社会自治——以德国技术标准化为例

本文以德国的技术标准化为例,从规范分析视角探讨社会自治的民主合法性.在分析中,本文突出了社会自治与国家规制之间的交织关系,并指出,利益集团若要通过承担公共任务实现为国家减负的功能但又不至于陷入民主缺失的指责,需要国家通过"过程调控"来为社会自治创造结构性框架条件.