囚在富士康——富士康准军事化工厂体制调查报告

富士康准军事化的工厂管理体制其本质是劳动的严重异化,本文以马克思主义的劳动价值观为理论视角,根据第一手实证资料调查研究了富士康的生产管理体制,发现它与马克思对早期资本主义原始积累的观察是一致的,其绝对剩余价值的生产同样是通过延长劳动时间、克扣工人工资以及制造各种形态的血汗劳动来实现的。富士康工人感觉工厂像监狱,其原因在于富士康着力打造了一个以绝对服从和惩罚性的制度为特征的法家式兵营社会。     

关于站车交接案件的调研报告

站车交接案件是铁路公安机关最具特色的案件类别,抓好站车交接案件办理工作,是发挥铁路公安机关整体作战优势,实现“以地保车”,及时有效打击违法犯罪的重要勤务模式.在修改后的《刑事诉讼法》颁布实施,特别是在当前铁路公安改制转型、公安职能理性回归的大背景下,更应采取各项行之有效的工作措施,进一步规范办理站车交接案件,切实提高办案质量,更好地为铁路的持续安全稳定发展大局服务.     

Teacher Skill Development: Evidence from Performance Ratings by Principals

We examine the dynamic nature of teacher skill development using panel data on principals’ subjective performance ratings of teachers. Past research on teacher productivity improvement has focused primarily on one important but narrow measure of performance: teachers’ value-added to student achievement on standardized tests. Unlike value-added, subjective performance ratings provide detailed information about specific skill dimensions and are available for teachers in non-tested grades and subjects. Using a within-teacher returns-to-experience framework, we find, on average, large and rapid improvements in teachers’ instructional practices throughout their first 10 years on the job as well as substantial differences in improvement rates across individual teachers. We also document that subjective performance ratings contain important information about teacher effectiveness. In the district we study, principals appear to differentiate teacher performance throughout the full distribution instead of just in the tails. Furthermore, prior performance ratings and gains in these ratings provide additional information about teachers’ ability to improve test scores that is not captured by prior value-added scores. Taken together, our study provides new insights on teacher performance improvement and variation in teacher development across instructional skills and individual teachers.     

Beyond 5 Percent: Optimal Municipal Slack Resources and Credit Ratings

Local governments tend to keep large amounts of slack financial resources to hedge against risk and uncertainty. To date, there has been little empirical research on whether those slack holdings are inadequate, adequate, or perhaps excessive relative to those risks and uncertainties. I address this gap in current research by using credit quality as a criterion to consider “optimal” slack resource levels. I find that for a national sample of local governments, slack resources’ effect on credit quality is statistically but not substantively significant. Having some rather than no slack increases, the likelihood of receiving a more desirable rating by 5–9 percent, but large slack holdings have little if any additional effect. These findings have implications for future work on slack resources, and for debt management broadly.     

Lists as Social Grid: Ratings and Rankings in Everyday Life

It is argued that the inundation of lists in our everyday lives has become part of the social grid, which tells us who and what we are and how we relate to the world. Using Baudrillard's three mutations of the sign, this paper examines the relationship between lists (rankings and ratings) and social life. This updated grid, which is increasingly defined by market capitalism, makes for not only a greater commodified self but a simulated self based on the external statistical world.     

State Debt Management Policy: A National Survey

The amount of outstanding, long-term, tax-exempt state debt has grown precipitously over the last decade, from $87 billion in 1977 to $264 billion in 1987. But there have been few attempts to carry out broad studies of basic state debt management policies, using comparative state data. As a result, policy-makers lack guidance as they attempt to adjust policies and procedures to meet the rapidly evolving requirements associated with public borrowing. This paper reports on a national survey of state debt manage ment policies - policies devoted to the planning, preparation, sale, and repayment of debt for which states consider themselves responsible.     

The Variety of State Capital Budgets: A Survey

In 1986 the staff of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget reviewed issues concerning the possible development of a federal capital budget. As part of this study, a survey of all 50 states was conducted concerning state capital budgets. This paper summarizes the results of the survey. According to the survey responses, 42 states have capital budgets. Of these 42, 37 generally borrow to finance some public capital and 5 generally do not. Of the 8 states that said they do not have a capital budget, 4 generally borrow to finance some public capital and 4 generally do not. The survey also found that the form of a governor's capital budget, the way legislatures enact capital spending, the coverage of the capital budget, and the method of financing capital vary widely among states, making it virtually impossible to define a state capital budget in a precise way. Large amounts of state capital spending, especially for transportation, are generally not included in state capital budgets.     

A Report On Reporting: Why Peers Report Integrity and Law Violations in Public Organizations

The archives of three bureaus of integrity are analyzed in order to study the reasons for reporting integrity and law violations within public organizations. Peer reporting accounts for only a small percentage of cases; most investigations originate from routine and continuous institutional controls. What are the reasons peers choose to report or not report? A sense of justice is most important, followed by self‐protection and protection of the wrongdoer. The most important reason against coming forward is the reporter’s fear of negative consequences. One surprising rationale for not reporting is that an individual feels responsible for the wrongdoer’s punishment. Six propositions are elicited from this research as well as specific pragmatic recommendations for management procedures to improve reporting of integrity and/or law violations.     

Citizenship Tests: A Comparative, Communitarian Perspective

The history, nature and scope of citizen naturalisation tests are briefly examined in this article, as well as their political and social applications. A comparison of tests from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany highlights the ways in which these tests are used as immigration controls rather than as a way to establish preparation for citizenship. The difference in the content of the tests also reveal alternative conceptions of citizenship including authoritarian, liberal and neo-communitarian.     

Chinese Foreign Policy Making: A Comparative Perspective

As one of the fastest growing economies in the world, many wonder what kind of international behavior an increasingly powerful China will demonstrate in the future. Will it be a responsible state on the world stage? The article aims to understand Chinese foreign policy making from a comparative perspective. By using the neoclassical realist approach, key features of Chinese foreign policy as well as possible future alternatives for its implementation are outlined. The essay concludes that significant changes in Chinese foreign policy in recent years are remarkably similar to those of other major powers.     

The Timeline of Elections: A Comparative Perspective

How do voter preferences come into focus over the electoral cycle in different countries? Do they evolve in patterned ways? Does the evolution vary across countries? This article addresses these issues. We consider differences in political institutions and how they might impact voter preferences over the course of the election cycle. We then outline an empirical analysis relating support for parties or candidates in pre‐election polls to their final vote. The analysis relies on over 26,000 vote intention polls in 45 countries since 1942, covering 312 discrete electoral cycles. Our results indicate that early polls contain substantial information about the final result but that they become increasingly informative over the election cycle. Although the degree to which this is true varies across countries in important and understandable ways given differences in political institutions, the pattern is strikingly general.