Privatization and the Courts: How Judicial Structures Shaped German Privatization

This article examines how legal institutional structures shaped the process of East German privatization by the Treuhandanstalt. It argues that the courts, as an important venue for oversight and accountability, were central to achieving the rapid and narrowly defined privatization carried out by the agency. Moreover, the experience of privatization after 1989 suggests the courts played a far more important role in shaping economic policy than one would have expected from traditional scholarship on public agencies, the courts, or the German legal system.     

Gains in life expectancy by sex and age in Mexico

"This work estimates the gains in life expectancy, or average years a person lives, at a national level [in Mexico] during the 1950-1980 period by sex and age of the population structure, referring as well to the changes undergone in such gains. An exhaustive presentation of the Pollard method is made in order to enable us to appreciate the advantages and limitations of the methodology used to quantify the gains in life expectancy. It also shows, graphically, the differences by sex and age from which the gain distributions are derived." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

传统生命观的诠释与生命教育

生命是人类一切活动或尊严的基石和根本，是构建社会主义和谐社会的前提和基础。只有生命意识深入人心，只有每个人的生命得到珍爱、尊重、敬畏和保障，社会生活才能真正走上和谐。因此，在构建和谐社会的整个过程中，必须加强生命教育，形成珍爱生命、尊重生命、敬畏生命、善待生命的良好社会氛围。     

Don't Let It Put You Off Your Dinner: First Steps Towards Ethical Policies Shaped by Cultural Considerations

The Duke of Wellington's foreign policy was based on a simple ethical principle: essentially the assessment of options in terms of whether they would lessen or increase the likelihood of civil strife. This principle, being rooted in the culture of decency, is not compatible with the prevailing (but, it is argued, increasingly unattractive) realist approach. A major obstacle to the operationalization of Wellingtonian policy (which, incidentally, need not be foreign policy) is the lack of understanding of the causes of civil strife. This obstacle can, however, be side-stepped: first, by the increasingly well-established observation that civil strife, and related gross abuses of human rights, do not happen in stable democracies, and, second, by the more discriminating understanding of both democracy and nondemocracy that is provided by Cultural Theory. Together, these two developments offer a basis for option assessment that simply was not available to the Duke of Wellington. The article concludes with three tentative applications.     

Brief lives: economic life and political life in the history of economic thought

This paper considers the relationship between economic life and political life as it has been articulated in four contexts in the history of economics: the ancient, the mercantilist, the classical and the neoclassical. It examines the changing ways in which these aspects of behaviour have been seen to be related, and how that relationship has taken on different forms in different epochs of economic thought. The analysis seeks to reveal some of the remaining questions that arise in the question of the relationship between economic man and political man.     

Competition ruins the good life

Abstract. Leadership practices in political parties reflect the necessity of delegation as well as the desire by the rank-and-file to control their leaders. Norwegian political parties have traditionally divided their leadership functions between two or even three offices, whose powers have varied between as well as within parties. Non-socialist parties have vested more power in their parliamentary leaders, and socialist parties more in their organizational chairs. The electoral process is in principle open, but contested elections have traditionally been rare. In recent years, however, contested elections have become more common, parliamentary leaders have lost much of their autonomy, and leadership tenure, at least in some parties, has gone down. Heightened electoral competitiveness seems to be driving many of these changes.     

Democracy and State Capacity: Exploring a J‐Shaped Relationship

In this article we probe the effect of democratization on the state's administrative capacity. Using time‐series cross‐section data, we find a curvilinear (J‐shaped) relationship between the two traits. The effect of democracy on state capacity is negative at low values of democracy, nonexistent at median values, and strongly positive at high democracy levels. This is confirmed under demanding statistical tests. The curvilinear relationship is due, we argue, to the combined effect of two forms of steering and control; one exercised from above, the other from below. In strongly authoritarian states, a satisfactory measure of control from above can at times be accomplished. Control from below is best achieved when democratic institutions are fully installed and are accompanied by a broad array of societal resources. Looking at two resource measures, press circulation and electoral participation, we find that these, combined with democracy, enhance state administrative capacity.