Assessing China's Public Price Hearings: Symbolic Aspects

Abstract

The effectiveness of the public hearing as a participatory instrument has been debated. This paper argues that evaluation of the public hearing could be improved by an interpretive and institutional analysis. Introducing four major recent public hearings, this comparative study assesses the development and use of public hearing in China's governmental price making. It concludes that the public hearing should be viewed as a type of participatory institution. Its effectiveness relies on other institutional factors and on whether it can evoke values of citizenship, due process and deliberation. Constrained by China's political and social institutions, current Chinese price hearings are framed on the basis of consumer rights rather than citizen rights. The public hearing is perhaps the oldest and most widely used technique for citizens to participate in governmental decision making in western countries (Checkoway, B. The politics of public hearing. J. Appl. Behav. Sci. 1981, 17(4), 566–583), but it is not a popular topic theme at present. While the public hearing originally emerged for the purpose of due process in trial‐type or quasi‐judicial rule making, it has become an important citizen participation instrument since the 1960s and 1970s (Ibid. and Cole, R.L.; Caputo, D.A. The public hearing as an effective citizen participation mechanism: a case study of the general revenue sharing program. Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 1984, 78(2), 404–416), especially to make public policy responsive to those disadvantaged. In contrast, the public hearing was not in place until the late 1990s in China, but it has become a top issue theme since 2000. This paper aims to assess the development and use of public hearings in China from a comparative perspective: is it effective for citizens to participate? If not, will it work in the future? How does the institutional context affect the operation, effectiveness and symbolism of public hearings in China? The paper also sheds lights on how to use interpretive and institutional analysis for the evaluation of public hearings in general.     

Citizen participation and the redistribution of public goods

This study investigates whether citizen participation in public budgeting resulted in increased redistributive outcomes when compared with bureaucratic decision‐making. We focused on a specific budget item (i.e., the installation of surveillance cameras for crime prevention) and examined whether participatory budgeting yielded larger budget allocations to low‐income neighbourhoods. Results indicate that such participatory budgeting results in larger budget allocations for low‐income neighbourhoods when compared with allocations produced by bureaucratic budgeting practices. The results also indicate that budgets allocated through citizen participation may be no more or even less effective for advancing public goals. These findings suggest a potential trade‐off between equity and public service effectiveness. Citizen participation improves budget equity, but may be less effective for achieving public goals than bureaucratic decision‐making. To explain this, we offer the ‘social pressure hypothesis’, which posits that social pressure during public‐forum discussions can influence participating citizens to make redistributive decisions.     

The performance of state-owned enterprises in taiwan

This study reviewed the performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Taiwan. Focusing on the relationship between SOEs and national economic activities and private enterprises, the study revealed some mixed findings regarding the SOEs’ performance. On the one hand, Taiwan's SOEs have contributed to the state's management of economic activities, including assisting in the continuous economic growth, in the transformation and upgrading of the economic structure, and in the stabilization of the economy during the hard economic times. On the other hand, Taiwan's SOEs are found to be less efficient and less profitable than the similar private enterprises. The Taiwan experience, both positive and negative, provides information to SOEs’ researchers and practitioners to understand the overall phenomenon of SOEs and to consider the future development of them.     

Managing financial resources in the states: the role of computerized information systems

One of the principal and most visible functions of public managers is the allocation of public funds across multiple, many times competing services and constituencies. This vital process must be as efficient and effective as managerial skills and the application of technology permits. Yet, as the effects of technology escalate, little is known about the application of computerized information systems (CIS) to important strategic and operational, financial management decision-making. This study examines the use of information technology in financial decision-making in state governments. The findings suggest that computerized information systems play central but diverse functions in various financial decisions, but that public managers will continue to play a key role in ensuring that CIS use enhances decision-making capabilities.     

Privatization in developing countries: ideal and reality

In both developed and developing countries, governments finance, produce, and distribute various goods and services. In recent years, the range of goods provided by government has extended widely, covering many goods which do not meet the purist's definition of “public” goods. As the size of the public sector has increased steadily there has been a growing concern about the effectiveness of the public sector's performance as producer. Critics of this rapid growth argue that the public provision of certain goods is inefficient and have proposed that the private sector replace many current public sector activities, that is, that services be privatized. Since Ronald Reagan took office greater privatization efforts have been pursued in the United States. Paralleling this trend has been a strong endorsement by international and bilateral donor agencies for heavier reliance on the private sector in developing countries.

However, the political, institutional, and economic environments of developing nations are markedly different from those of developed countries. It is not clear that the theories and empirical evidence purported to justify privatization in developed countries are applicable to developing countries.

In this paper we present a study of privatization using the case of Honduras. We examine the policy shift from “direct administration” to “contracting out” for three construction activities: urban upgrading for housing projects, rural primary schools, and rural roads. The purpose of our study is threefold. First, we test key hypotheses pertaining to the effectiveness of privatization, focusing on three aspects: cost, time, and quality. Second, we identify major factors which affect the performance of this privatization approach. Third, we document the impact of privatization as it influences the political and institutional settings of Honduras. Our main finding is that contracting out in Honduras has not led to the common expectations of its proponents because of institutional barriers and limited competitiveness in the market. These findings suggest that privatization can not produce goods and services efficiently without substantial reform in the market and regulatory procedures. Policy makers also need to consider carefully multiple objectives at the national level in making decisions about privatization.     

LOCAL POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: THE IMPACT OF RULES‐IN‐USE

This article argues that political participation is shaped by locally distinctive ‘rules‐in‐use’, notwithstanding the socio‐economic status or level of social capital in an area. It recognizes that the resources available to people, as well as the presence of social capital within communities, are potential key determinants of the different levels of local participation in localities. However, the article focuses on a third factor – the institutional rules that frame participation. Levels of participation are found to be related to the openness of the political system, the presence of a ‘public value’ orientation among local government managers, and the effectiveness of umbrella civic organizations. Whereas resources and social capital are not factors that can be changed with any great ease, the institutional determinants of participation are more malleable. Through case study analysis, the article shows how actors have shaped the environment within which citizens make their decisions about engagement, resulting in demonstrable effects upon levels of participation.     

Political power in Puerto Rico: bankers,pharmaceuticals and the state

Puerto Rico is characterized by a high degree of structural economic interdependence between state, corporate, and financial actors. This article argues that the structural interdependence was engineered by United States and Puerto Rico government officials to bolster the island’s economy and the government’s creditworthiness, using U.S. corporate investments, both fixed and financial. Following a critique of the relevance of the literature on structural analyses of state, corporate and financial alliances to the Puerto Rican case, the article defines, identifies, and quantifies the major components of this structural economic interdependence in Puerto Rico. The article concludes that the depth of structural economic interdependence of state, corporate and financial actors has seriously constrained the possibilities of economic and political pluralism. The local government has become bound to a relatively limited range of policy options and, thus, a particular development path is forged. In this case, the policies have resulted in the marginalization of local industry, and the privileging of the financial sector to the detriment of domestic capital formation. Sara L. Grusky has taught at Howard University and Catholic University in Washington, D.C. She has recently contributed to21st Century Policy Review andThe Caribbean in the Global Political Economy (Lynne Rienner Publishers). Professor Grusky is currently undertaking two research projects in El Salvador. The first is focused on rural health policy and the second examines the Salvadoran political discourse onel estado de derecho.     

From democratic socialism to neoliberalism: the metamorphoses of the people's national party in Jamaica

Why are leftist parties in government abandoning their state-led, redistributive economic development models in favor of market-determined neoliberal ones? Conventional explanations emphasize conditionality of international financial institutiosn. This argument, though, fails to account for differences in economic policy choices across countries or within a country over time. Analyzing the social democratic People's National Party of Jamaica during two periods when it accepted IMF-mandated neoliberal economic reform measures (1977–80 and 1989-present), an alternative approach is presented to illuminate why and how leftist governments switch economic policy programs. The two time periods show that IMF conditionality might be a necessary motivation for the adoption of neoliberal economic measures, but it is not sufficient motivation. I argue that the actual policies the PNP governments employed reflect changes in the relative influence of competing factions within the party. This approach, focusing on domestic actors rather than international ones to account for economic policy shifts, highlights the ways in which politicians can manipulate institutional rules to change the relative weight of different factions within the party to gain support for policy decisions that contradict the party's traditional social democratic ideology.     

Institutional and management building in sub-saharan africa: the role of training

In this essay, I intend to argue that in Mexico public administration as a discipline has not achieved the necessary theoretical cohesion, because rather than understanding and explaining the state, the government and the administrative structure, it has devoted itself to justifying the proposals made from the heights of power. The challenge facing public administration in countries such as Mexico is that of seeking a more specific space for study and creation. I believe this space should result from a deep analysis of the institutional capabilities that must be generated, and from the design and implementation of public, non-governmental policies, with the participation of different, so to make real the transit to democracy. From a brief review of some decisions derived from the political project of the Salinas Administration, I argue that public administration's concerns are absorbed by the issues that are set over them from the summit of power, thereby impeding the necessary distance that scientific proposals should take. This paper includes, therefore, a brief analysis of the issues that, since the governmental relay in December of 1988, have hold the attention of Mexican scholars in this field. The aim is to show that public administration's theoretic-methodological development cannot be solid and long-term as long as public administration studies are forced to justify or do justify the governmental proposals. Finding in public administration a true social science, with the complete theoretic structure social sciences must have, is a concern shared in many academic fields around the world. However, the problem facing the discipline in Mexico might be set forth as that of the “object” of public administration, which makes the concern for the requirement of a scientific character secondary. This does not hide public administration's limitations and conditioning factors, even as a not “heavily” scientific discipline.     

History and Institutions in the Rebuilding of Social Capital after Forced Resettlement in the Philippines and Indonesia

Resettlement results in the loss of social capital from which poor households can draw resources for sustenance, survival and wellbeing. While Putnam deems social capital formation as pre-determined by a community’s history of civic engagement, the institutional view argues that social capital is generated through the institutions’ interventions. Utilising a comparative approach involving two resettlement sites, one in the Philippines and one in Indonesia, this article presents findings on the explanatory power of these two perspectives. The Philippine case is greatly influenced by the institutional interventions while the Indonesian case testifies to the validity of the theoretical perspective of Putnam.     

Control versus consent in long-term care case management programs: implications for public policy

Case management programs for long-term care include the dual public policy goals of providing access to services and ensuring the efficient and effective application of public funds. We will use a paradigm for social policy development that proposes a conflict between control and consent motives of social policy makers. Illustrations of the limitations and positive elements of control versus consent as applied to case management will be presented.

We will discuss how the tension between these approaches can be used to develop policy that balances the goals of access and cost-effectiveness.     

The International Finance Corporation and the emerging market funds industry

Linking the world’s core equity markets with semi-peripheral and peripheral equity markets has been a fundamentally different process from linking core markets with each other. International financial institutions have played a larger role in core‐periphery equity market integration, and issues of corporate governance assume greater importance in the core‐periphery cases. Illustrating these differences, this article considers the creation of the Korea fund, one of the early country funds in an emerging market promoted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The case shows that increasingly sophisticated financial instruments, like country funds, alter the structure of the international financial system in such a way as to reposition governments in developing market economies with respect to their domestic financial systems; allow for some international capital inflows without loss of corporate control; and make diversification possible for a transnational class of investors. Moreover, the article proposes that international financial institutions like the IFC can alter the structural context of a particular market within which various financial actors later strike deals. In the light of the process of coalition building elaborated here, the article reserves a role for considerations of both multilateralism and a state’s position in the world system in a body of literature heavily concentrated on state-level political activity.     

Public Perceptions of Privatization in Ethiopia: A Case for Public Good or Private Gain?

Ethiopia is one of the many countries in sub-Saharan Africa attempting to privatize various state-owned enterprises since 1994. This study examined public perceptions about Ethiopia's privatization policy and procedures. Results support the concerns over the public's inability to know about, be involved in and comment upon public policies affecting Ethiopia's future. Findings also support the literature that a privatization policy is effective only when institutional and technical capacities for proper implementation are in place. Further, findings raise questions about the efficacy of privatization in a national context where interests may be misrepresented.     

Municipalities’ Contracting Out Decisions: An Empirical Study on Motives

Municipalities have various motives behind their decisions about the modes of their task execution. Empirical studies have not yet provided a fully satisfying explanation for municipalities’ contracting out decisions. Therefore, we interviewed several Dutch principal municipal managers to evaluate the causes and motives for the choices of the current structures for the delivery of their services. This study investigates the relevance of common public choice and transaction cost motives on contracting out and explores the relevance of additional institutional and pragmatic motives. We found that municipalities do not regularly evaluate the service provision of their activities and the potential benefits of outsourcing. In fact, if the activity has an adequate performance level and complaints from municipal employees, local politicians or inhabitants do not occur, a catalyst for a discussion on the contracting out of this activity is, in general, lacking. Principally in the case of structural underperformance municipalities consider a change of service provider, and then the efficiency motive is most relevant. Thereby, institutional motives – such as the stability of service provision – and pragmatic motives are also relevant. Institutional pressures in particular initiate the evaluation of organisational performance, whereas both economic motives as institutional and pragmatic motives are used to compare alternative service providers.     

An Assessment of Collaborative Governance in a Network for Sustainable Tourism: The Case of RedeTuris

This article presents a case study of a cross-sectoral organizational network created to promote sustainable tourism in Rio de Janeiro. We briefly introduce the topics of collaborative governance and sustainable tourism, and then describe the focal network and the methods used for the research. Findings are discussed in terms of three themes: 1) key elements of collaborative governance; 2) aspects of the network formation and development process; and 3) features of the Brazilian context that may influence the network's likelihood of success. We conclude with a comment on the role of public managers in a network such as this.     

Shared services in Brazilian local government: Urban development in small counties

In this article we break new ground by investigating cooperative agreements in urban development services, which include urban development, housing and sanitation for small local governments in Brazil (i.e., those with fewer than 20,000 residents in 2013–15). We find that public expenditure on urban development can be explained by both horizontal (intermunicipal cooperation) and vertical (public–public partnerships) cooperation. Regarding the impact of public sector cooperation on public expenditure, our results show that housing and sanitation services are less costly under intermunicipal cooperation. By contrast, urban development services are less costly when local authorities do not cooperate with other public entities. For public–public partnerships (with the state or federal government) cooperation leads to an increase in public funding, which implies that cooperative agreements might not lead to lower public expenditure. The findings in this article provide useful empirical insights into the administrative reorganization of Brazilian local government.     

Steering and Monitoring Model of State-Owned Enterprises

The aim of this study is to systematize the heterogeneous field of stated-owned enterprises (SOEs) especially for steering and monitoring purposes. Based on the existent literature and the heterogeneous field of the Finnish state’s share portfolio, we create a model for steering and monitoring purposes. In our model, the SOEs are grouped into categories according to how much the state as an owner is concerned with the social service assignment principle, strategic interests, or purely shareholder value interests. Consistency in the basis, extent, and listing status of SOEs for steering and reporting creates good preconditions for ownership policy decision-making and ultimately improves the outcomes of ownership policy and steering.     

Surviving in Rondônia: The dynamics of colonist farming strategies in Brazil’s Northwest frontier

The modernization of Brazilian agriculture beginning in the mid-1960s led to the massive out-migration of family farmers from Brazil’s traditional “farm-belt” in the subtropical South. The tropical forestlands of the Northwest frontier (Rondônia) were opened through a government program, POLONOROESTE, to absorb this displaced agrarian population. The results of this land settlement program have been disappointing. Agricultural production in Rondônia, emphasizing low-yield annual cropping and casual cattle ranching, has been accompanied by high rates of deforestation. Colonists migrating to Brazil’s Northwest frontier confront numerous obstacles to establishing and maintaining a viable farm. This article explores how colonists adapt to the changing factors of farm production. These factors occur at three levels: environmental, institutional/structural, and household level. Based on colonist household surveys, three principal and overlapping farming strategies were observed and their financial performance evaluated: annual cropping-only, coffee production, and cattle ranching. Three case studies are presented that illustrate how these strategies change over the short-term in ways that tend to favor temporary land uses.     

The development and diffusion of financial reporting practices in the public sector

A prevailing economic crisis in the State of New York contributed to an erosion of previous institutional patterns, instigating a problem and political process of finding a mechanism wherein economic order could be produced. One strategic response to this economic crisis which is the focal point of this paper is the development and diffusion of financial reporting practices which guide the manner with which this state reports to its important constituencies including the citizenry, the media, and the capital markets. The main findings of this paper reflect the manner in which the relative power of organized interests and actors are mobilized through the use of rules such as financial reporting practices that establish meaning in public administration.     

Tackling society's “detritus”: Stakeholder partnerships and Urban service delivery in India

In view of the emerging debate on a coordinated‐management perspective for resolving development improvidence, there is now a broadening of the scope of decentralization, emphasising not only vertical restructuring of powers and resources but also analogous horizontal restructuring at the local level to include collaborators outside the government arena. Grounded on this perspective, the present paper examines the process of stakeholder partnerships in urban service delivery, especially on urban environment maintenance service through refuse collection and disposal. The paper is reflective in nature, drawing on a case study of solid waste management processes in Bangalore, India. It examines the characteristic of stakeholder partnership in the delivery of public services, draws insights into the enabling environment and thereupon attempts to identify future interventions to strengthen the delivery of public municipal services. The paper argues that much more needs to be understood if institutional pluralism in local government is to become an effective development strategy.