The 1999 Knesset and prime ministerial elections in Israel

This election note delineates the outcome of the 1999 elections in Israel, in which the Prime Minister was directly elected — for only the second time — concurrently with the parliamentary election. It then analyzes the election results produced by Israel's unique electoral system, and assesses their immediate ramifications.     

Improvisation in Public Administration and Policy Making in Israel

Although improvisation stands outside of conventional models for rational policy making and Weberian administration, it is nonetheless prevalent in public life. This article argues that improvisation is both a natural consequence of bounded rationality as well as a product of cultural and personal predilections and environmental circumstances. Drawing on a number of instances of improvisation in public administration and policy making in Israel, it attempts to shed light on its uses, motives, and implications, as well as on the issues involved in considering its utility.     

Public Policy and Social Science Training in Israel: The Impact of Structural Change on the Constitution of Knowledge

Recent reforms instituted in the network of higher education in Israel have focused on two elements: adjusting the managerial structure of the universities to make it more amenable to market criteria of efficiency and reducing the proportional weight of state funding to the universities compared to that allotted to the technical and professional colleges. The main elements of this process—increasing power of managers in academic institutions, shifting universities toward entrepreneurialism, the idea of the service university, and the massification of the system of higher education—are characteristic of similar changes in higher education in the U.K., the U.S.A., Canada, and Australia.This article examines the impact of organizational and structural changes on the categories of knowledge produced, and by extension on the production of knowledge itself. By examining changes in the organization of higher education in Israel and in particular in the social sciences, the article suggests that institutional and academic diversification have influenced the categorization of legitimate knowledge pertaining to society, the economy, and the political arena—the traditional terrain of the social sciences—and hence what is considered knowledge worth knowing about these subjects. Finally, the article points to certain political interests that have motivated this change, and examines their larger impact upon Israeli society.     

Jiwei Qian,The Political Economy of Making and Implementing Social Policy in China

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

State Government Influence in the National Policy Process: Lessons from the 104th Congress

During the last several decades, state officials increasinglyconcluded that their interests are not adequately representedin national policymaking and sought to increase their influencethrough the constitutional amendment process, the federal judiciary,and the political process. This article evaluates the extentto which these institutional mechanisms were effective in advancingstate interests during the 104th Congress. United States Constitutionalamendments were improbable and ineffective devices. Litigationwas slightly more successful, though it provided an uncertainsource of long-term security for state interests. Efforts towork through the political process, either through securingthe passage of legislation that increases congressional responsivenessor by engaging in direct lobbying, were moderately effectiveunder certain conditions.     

Lessons for the Study of Policy Implementation: Project Renewal in Israel

This article attempts to clarify some of the issues in the debate over the study of policy implementation, in particular the disagreements between proponents of the top-down versus bottom-up approaches. It proposes use of a modified top-down perspective which bridges the assumed dichotomy between policy formulation, enactment, and an implementation process and addresses many of the concerns of the bottom-up research strategy. This new perspective portrays implementation as part of a single ongoing process in which policy is formulated, enacted and continually readjusted and adapted before and after implementation at the local level. The article is based on an analysis of the findings of a case study of the implementation of Israel's Project Renewal, a comprehensive community renewal and development program – a hybrid resembling the American Urban Renewal, Model Cities and the War on Poverty programs. Rather than evaluate the success of this Israeli program, the intent here is to ask what the research findings teach about the study of policy implementation.     

论政策问题构建的逻辑与程序

政策问题的构建是政策分析的第一步,政策问题的构建应当以社会问题为其逻辑起点。作为一个科学研究过程,政策问题的构建是一个由多阶段、多环节组成的连续动态过程,这一过程是由潜在政策问题的搜索、政策问题的描述、解释、预测以及对策研究等五个阶段组成的。只有严格遵循科学化、规范化的程序和步骤,才能减少政策问题构建过程中的失误,才能使真正的政策问题尽快进入政府议程,政策分析的科学地位也才能因此得以提升。     

我国农村反贫困战略中的社会政策转型研究——发展型社会政策的视角

我国农村反贫困战略的基本框架是一种亲市场的经济政策与具有"剩余"特征的选择性社会救助,体现在生产性的开发式经济扶贫和处于"激活"程序中的农村五保与医疗救助政策.长期以来,旨在救助贫困者的社会政策成为经济政策的附属者角色,然而贫困者所面临的生计风险需要传统社会政策在扶贫框架中的转型.本文通过分析经济政策与社会政策在诸多方面的联系和差异比较,结合我国农村贫困的现实,以嵌入性要素来理解我国农村社会政策转型的方向.在这方面,发展型社会政策的视角在反贫困战略中提供了可让我们选择的嵌入性要素.它们是:减少风险管理成本的社会资本、反社会排斥的劳动力政策、农村生计的保护与发展、健康与医疗政策的整合以及资产为本的个人账户建设等五个方面.     

Making the Harder Yards: Environmental Policy Integration in Australia

Solutions to environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and land and water resource degradation require long term integration of economic, social and environmental policies. This poses challenges to specialised, hierarchical public administration systems. The study reported here examined strategies, structures and processes to enable environmental policy integration in six Australian states and territories, and some federal arrangements. The study found that the most prominent success factors, barriers and gaps that affect environmental policy integration relate to leadership, long term embedding of environmental policy integration and implementation capacity. Factors deserving further research and policy attention include leadership, cultural change and capacity building; embedding sustainability in structures and processes; development of a long term evidence based approach; strengthening decentralised implementation arrangements; and evaluation of policy integration initiatives.     

The Transformation of Higher Education in Israel since the 1990s: The Role of Ideas and Policy Paradigms

This article examines the transformation of Israel's higher education system since the 1990s. During that period, the system underwent expansion, diversification, privatization, and internationalization in a series of pathbreaking reforms. The main argument is that while external factors—such as demographic trends—exerted pressure for change, the trajectory and policy options preferred were shaped by ideational factors. Policy entrepreneurs played a crucial role in advancing pathbreaking institutional change when they reframed policies through linking cognitive ideas of “what has to be done” with the normative ideas that granted legitimacy to the proposals for reform.     

Making the Social Work: toward a Functionalist View of Social Governance

Journal of Chinese Political Science - This paper is situated in the normative discourse on the society building in China, seeks to go beyond the various ideological discourses, such as the...     

对公共政策制定的政治哲学思考

公共政策制定是社会政治生活中公共决策系统的经常性活动。在现代社会,由于公共政策的巨大作用和影响,公共政策制定问题引起了广泛的关注。从政治哲学的角度审视,以公意为价值取向、以政治权力为基本依托,以政治秩序为最终归宿,才能建立起人民期待的合理、公正、有效的公共政策,从而进一步推进决策的科学化、民主化。