基于转型期我国城市化视阈下的政府改革

社会转型期我国城市化具有特殊性,即政府主导型城市化。我国在取得巨大经济建设成就的同时,城市化也取得了很大成就,但依然存在着诸多需要解决的问题,譬如城市化水平有待提高、城市化进程中出现了某些"城市病"、城市化进程中农民利益需要得到更充分的保障、"土地城市化"大于"人口城市化"等。我国城市化过程当中出现的一些问题对我国政府改革提出了新的要求。政府应该努力做好以下几个方面的工作:政府应该努力加快政府职能的转变;政府必须坚持对城市化的进程、城市人口的增长、城市区域布局、城市规模扩大等方面实施必要的宏观调控;政府要切实充分保障农民权益。     

政府目的刍论

政府，人们对它再熟悉不过了。历史上的许多思想家都试图揭示政府的确切含义。但众说纷纭、莫衷一是。不管怎么说，我们以为政府是依照一定传统并建立在人民主权的基础之上，实现社会秩序、正义和自由的机构或组织。而政府的目的主要有：（1）实现秩序，维护正常的社会秩序；（2）实现正义，维护社会正义；（3）实现自由，维护公民自由。     

对铁路爆炸案件的若干问题研究

铁路特殊的环境和地位决定了发生在铁路线车站上的爆炸案件具有以下特点:(一)案件构成专业性强,铁路特色突出;(二)破坏程度大,严重危害铁路运输;(三)铁路爆炸波及范围广,政治影响大;(四)铁路爆炸案件现场的处置与勘验专业性强;(五)不同铁路场所的爆炸案件现场构成上具有各自的特性。铁路爆炸案件的预防工作要形成公安与铁路职工相结合的防爆队伍,并实现人、物、技三防并举的防爆工作网络。铁路爆炸案件的侦查应该从爆炸现场紧急处置、现场勘查、犯罪动机分析、爆炸物证排查、查找犯罪情报信息等方面系统地进行。     

Government Alternation and Patterns of Competition in Europe: Comparative Data in Search of Explanations

Government alternation is a fundamental component of any efficient democracy and it could be seen both as an empirical proof (in democracy there is government alternation) or as an ideal pattern of competition (in democracy there should be government alternation). However, to what extent do democracies work according to such an ideal pattern? A Government Turnover Index (GTI) is provided to answer this question with respect to 524 governments in 22 European contemporary democracies since World War II. As suggested by the data and by the GTI, there is not necessarily a link between democratic competition and government alternation, although some democracies are more likely to experience it. It is therefore necessary to direct the analysis towards some systemic factors which may favour or hinder government alternation (such as the party system structure and the institutional framework).     

Implementing Fiscal Decentralization: A Case Study of a Regional Tax Agency in Italy

As a measure to enhance the fiscal autonomy of the region, in 2006 the Regional Government of Sardinia in Italy decided to establish a tax agency for managing regional taxes on holiday houses and boat and aircraft transit. Based on interviews conducted with the tax agency director and staff, this article traces the trajectory and outcome of events included in the implementation of this part of the regional government's fiscal policy. Drawing from this case, this article theorizes the process of implementing fiscal decentralization by addressing the issue of how fiscal policy decisions affect the management of tax agencies in the start‐up stage. Social mechanisms of learning, brokerage, and actor certification provide important linkages between fiscal policy choices and organizational change. On the whole, the research argument made in this article further contributes to institutionalist and processualist research trends in current research on organization studies and public management.     

Implementing Joined‐Up Government: Lessons from the Australian Social Inclusion Agenda

‘Joined‐up government’ (JUG) approaches have emerged in many industrialized countries as a means to tackle persistent ‘wicked’ public and social policy problems (Pollit 2003 ). Despite this, limited evidence exists concerning their implementation or effectiveness. ‘JUG’ was popularized by the Blair Government (UK) with its focus on addressing social exclusion. Following in these footsteps, in 2007 the Australian Government launched the Social Inclusion Agenda: a joined‐up approach to improving the wellbeing of all Australians and addressing disadvantage. This paper focuses on findings from a study that examined the SIA as a natural experiment in JUG. Drawing on the implementation experiences of federal policy makers, our findings lend weight to emerging research into JUG that suggests that compatibility and consistency between goals, instruments, and processes is critical to success. We argue that closer attention needs to be given to developing ‘supportive architecture’ around joined‐up initiatives to facilitate implementation.     

Less Haste,More Speed: The Fit for the Future Reform Program in New South Wales Local Government

In August 2011 the New South Wales (NSW) Government established the Independent Local Government Review Panel to examine the options for improving the sustainability of the NSW local government sector. In October 2014 the NSW Government set out its response in its Fit for the Future reform program. This paper provides a critical assessment of the Fit for the Future program. We show that it contains errors, relies on unreliable data, and neglects important factors, which may be ascribed to the haste with which it has been constructed. This could have serious consequences given the potential impact the Fit for the Future program will have on NSW local government. We thus conclude that it would be prudent to address these matters before proceeding further with the program.     

Opening up to OERs: Electronic Original Sourcebook Versus Traditional Textbook in the Introduction to American Government Course

Traditional American Government textbooks are expensive and often unpopular with students. New technologies and Open Educational Resources (OERs) open up the potential for change, but questions of quality are ever present: can OERs really help students learn better, or are they just cheaper? I developed an OER based on original sources and compared student learning outcomes with the OER section to those in a free digital textbook section. While the OER I created did not work as well as I had hoped, I nonetheless developed a redesign of my course and my approach to teaching, which is the true benefit of adopting OERs.     

Should Love Conquer Evidence in Policy‐Making? Challenges in Implementing Random Drug‐Testing of Welfare Recipients in Australia

The Australian Government announced in its 2017 budget that it would trial random drug‐testing of recipients of the Newstart Allowance and Youth Allowance in three locations from January 2018. The Prime Minister described it as a policy ‘based on love’, but that sentiment is hard to find in the policy rhetoric, which situates it in a suite of measures designed to ‘ensure taxpayers’ money is not being used to fund drug addictions which are creating significant barriers to employment'. The policy may make it harder for people to buy drugs with their welfare payments, through income management, but research suggests it will not help them overcome addiction and its costs will exceed any savings it generates in income support. Furthermore, the policy perpetuates ‘medicalisation’ of the problem of long‐term unemployment by suggesting it stems from deficiencies in individuals that can be ‘treated’, despite evidence to the contrary. Finally, the policy claims to close loopholes in enforcement of mutual obligation requirements without addressing structural weaknesses in the welfare‐to‐work model. Each of these issues will pose challenges for those charged with implementing the policy.     

Decentralization,provincial policy making and the law in Papua New Guinea

Shortly after independence in 1975 Papua New Guinea decided to decentralize political power by creating nineteen provincial governments, complete with legislatures and executives. The division of powers between the two levels of government was set down in the Organic Law on Provincial Government and subsequent delegations of power by the National Executive Council (cabinet). The ability of provincial governments to fulfil the role in policy making set out for them depends on a number of political, financial and legal factors at both the national and provincial levels. A close examination of the legal base of provincial policy making reveals a number of shortcomings and incoherencies in the legal arrangements which pose obstacles to the realization of effective decentralized policy making. There are several possible approaches to resolving these problems, but the most appropriate one requires co-ordination between the National Government and provincial governments in replacing delegated powers with provincial legislation.     

MI1(b) and the origins of British diplomatic cryptanalysis

The War Office's First World War cryptanalytic bureau MI1(b) has been severely overshadowed by its more glamorous equivalent in the Admiralty, ‘Room 40’. In particular its diplomatic decryption work has gone completely unnoticed; yet this was its main activity, and it contributed more than did Room 40 to their common successor, the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). This article, drawing on the past decade's releases of GC&CS archives, traces the development of MI1(b)'s diplomatic work, disentangles its achievements from those of its better-known naval colleague, describes how the two organizations were merged to become GC&CS, and suggests why MI1(b)'s achievements were so quickly forgotten.     

Trends and Opportunities in the Public Sector: A Critical Assessment

The public sector should be designed to work on behalf of government. Government, in turn, should be designed to work on behalf of a citizen community both to pursue its collective interests and to defend the citizen community against harmful effects of private market activities. At this time, the integrity of the public sector/government has been eroded because the established forms of regulation of the market are outmoded. This has permitted transnational corporations to argue that government should respond more to their agendas often at the expense of citizen needs and claims. At the same time, citizen movements have become more diverse and sophisticated. They represent an opportunity for revisioning the work of government and the public sector.     

Local Government and decentralization in the Sudan

The establishment of an effective local government system has been imperative in the Sudan both on account of the vast scale of the country and the decentralization policies of successive governments. District councils were initially established in 1951 following the Marshall Report, but were by stages superseded as budgetary authorities, and reduced to unimportance by the People's Local Government System in 1971, which vested responsibility in Councils at the Provincial level. The subsequent difficulties experienced by this system indicate the value of the District, now renamed Area, as a level for a multipurpose local authority in the Sudan, and explain the reemphasis of this level in the 1981 Local Government Act. This article summarizes the experience leading up to the 1981 Act, and examines the extent to which the new legislation offers an effective structure. The finance of local government, a recurrent problem in the Sudan, emerges as a critical issue, together with the future role of the Provincial Commissioner.     

Reducing Government Involvement in a Market: Lessons from the Privatization of Sallie Mae

Government intervention shapes institutions and markets; even when government seeks to reduce its involvement, it must protect against resulting market distortions. Government provided substantial benefits to Sallie Mae as a government‐sponsored enterprise (GSE). Giving up GSE status allowed Sallie Mae to expand the scope of its financial services beyond restrictions of its GSE charter. Benefits of GSE status led to scale economies and low cost structure that now propel the company's dominance and growth as a non‐GSE. Lessons from Sallie Mae apply to removal of GSE status from other GSEs and to restructuring and deregulation in other economic sectors.     

Who Will Pay for Better Care?

In launching its review of adult social care in May 2008, the Government acknowledged that this is one of the biggest challenges for the 21^st century. With our ageing population and the increasing expectations of baby boomers, the current system simply isn't fit for the future. But what kind of care system do we want for this and future generations and critically how are we going to pay for it? There are no easy answers but what is certain is that we will all have to pay more for better care. In this article Stephen Burke examines the care crunch     

The UN system's contribution to Asia-Pacific security architecture

Although it has been the major states of China, the former Soviet Union and especially the United States that have made the major contributions to shaping the security architecture of the Asia-Pacific region since 1945, the UN system has played a useful, adjunct role. This is especially the case in the post-Cold War era when its principal bodies, together with its various specialized agencies, have provided vital support in moving warring societies into a period of relative peace and stability. The UN peace-building operations in Cambodia and East Timor were some of the most demanding ever undertaken by this universal institution. But beyond these particular examples, the United Nations has been influential in the region in other, more indirect, ways. It has set standards, its charter has been a powerful source of ideas when it comes to composing parallel documents at the state or regional levels, and it has helped with the negotiation of global arms control treaties, making up to some degree for the absence of such arrangements at the regional level. The UN has also had a legitimating function, providing an arena where Asia-Pacific states can publicize their grievances, and receive approval or reprimand for their behaviour. It has played a valuable role, too, as third-party mediator. However, the UN's political structure constrains the contribution it can make to the security order since it is reliant on major state agreement before it can act. Veto power - not its actual use but simply its anticipated use - gives China, Russia and the United States a controlling function with respect to a potential UN role in the management of conflict. Beijing and Washington would work, and have worked, to exclude the United Nations from major involvement in conflicts in which they have direct security interests: the Taiwan and Korean issues being the two most obvious in this regard. Thus, the United Nations is a useful buttress but not a central pillar of the region's security architecture.     

Government Incentives when Pollution Permits are Durable Goods

This paper analyzes the incentive effects of pollution taxesversus pollution permits for a budget oriented Government.Pollution permits are analyzed as durable goods, and apollution tax is seen as being equivalent to leasing outpollution permits. First, a general model is developed, andthen four stylized types of Government are discussed (abenevolent dictator, a pure Leviathan, a green and a business-friendly Government). We show that all types of Governmentprefer a pollution tax system, but this regime is notnecessarily the best in social welfare terms. The intuition isthat a tax or leasing system makes it easier for theGovernment to credibly commit to the budget maximizing levelof pollution permits which is good for Government revenues,but not necessarily for social welfare.     

Participatory environmental management: Contradiction of process,project and bureaucracy in the Himalayan foothills

Using comparative Asian experience of organizational change, this article analyses the experience of an Indian organization responsible for environmental management in the Himalayan foothills of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in moving from a standard Indian public sector approach to rural development and environmental management, to a new participatory approach. Successive World Bank funded watershed management projects in the Himalayan foothills were widely held not to have achieved and sustained their full potential in the past, largely due to an absence of effective local management of assets after the projects' end. On the other hand communities and groups have shown on a small scale a capacity to manage resources in a sustainable way. The Government of Uttar Pradesh's (UP) European Union (EU) funded Doon Valley Project has been through a first phase in which a participatory method of village level planning has been initiated. The article addresses the required changes and constraints involved in this first step of transformation. These include issues to do with organizational structure and procedures, training, gender and other social issues, and the dynamics of organizational change. The implications of a participatory approach are far reaching. The ‘off the shelf’ schemes that Government has offered to individuals, groups and communities in all watershed management as well as other rural development programmes are challenged both by the specificities of the Himalayan environment, and by the adoption of a genuinely participatory approach. Allowing people to decide how they will manage their hillsides requires an ability to facilitate that process. Facilitators need to have the flexibility and creativity to offer a variety of technical and managerial possibilities such that individuals, groups and communities can choose what suits them best. Constraints derive partly from the Government's set procedures and schemes in rural development, and from its advocacy of particular well worn technology packages. Constraints also derive from the way in which the whole project has been handled by Government and the Commission of the European Union from the beginning, and from the way in which technical assistance has been organized. It is important that governments and donors learn from such experiences so that future participatory environmental management work can have a greater chance of success.     

Contrast and Foundation of the Public Oversight Roles of the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.K. National Audit Office

This paper examines and compares, according to the New Public Management approach, the U.S. watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, in its ability to oversee and call to account the executive branch of government, and its U.K. counterpart, the National Audit Office. Results of this examination indicate that the Government Accountability Office is more effective than its U.K. counterpart. Its greater effectiveness is attributable to the fact that it derives its powers and legitimacy from a written constitution; in contrast, in the United Kingdom there is no equivalent document defining the relationship between the state and the citizenry. As a consequence, the powers, duties, and self-perception of the National Audit Office are significantly weaker and more mutable than those of the Government Accountability Office.