Migrant life stories and the Web: the experience of having your life story made public

The life stories of migrants are increasingly being told, as part of the work of cultural organizations, and websites are well suited to making such life story projects accessible to the public. However, by using the lives of real people as raw material in a public forum, Web projects raise important questions about the terms on which participants are given a voice. This article focuses on a Danish website which depicts the life stories of migrant men through written texts, audio clips, and photographs. It presents a detailed analysis of the life story of one young man from a Muslim background who has openly declared himself an atheist. The article examines his experience of having this somewhat sensitive story made public. The religious aspect inevitably positioned his story in relation to broader political debates about Muslims in Denmark. Since migrants' stories often touch on highly politicized issues, it is crucial that their stories are not co-opted by societal discourses which they do not themselves support.     

我国公共政策发展中的民生价值取向

公共政策的价值取向以政策制定者的价值偏好、政策的强制性、公共性为基础,贯穿政策全过程.当前,以民生为价值取向的公共政策已成为我国和谐社会建设的自觉选择,日益深化的体制改革、不断完善的法律政策和科学发展路径,推动着政治资源配置、财产权利和发展机会走向公平正义,彰显出我国公共政策维护民生的价值追求.     

The life satisfaction approach to valuing public goods: The case of terrorism

Terrorism has large social costs that are difficult to quantify for the well-known problems of eliciting people’s preferences for public goods. We use the LSA to assess these costs in utility and monetary terms. Based on combined cross-section time-series data, we estimate the costs of terrorism for France and the British Isles. We find large negative effects of terrorism on life satisfaction that translate into considerable compensating surpluses for a hypothetical reduction in terrorism, in particular for the serious conflict in Northern Ireland. The effects of terrorism are robust and differ across groups in accordance with prior expectations.     

Intersectoral differences in public affairs: the duty of public reporting in public administration

Public reporting is a requirement for public affairs practitioners in public administration because of the democratic context in which government operates. By reporting to the public‐at‐large on agency activities, government agencies contributed to an informed citizenry, the essential foundation of a democracy. For public affairs in business administration and non‐profit administration, public reporting is desirable rather than mandatory. Public reporting was traditionally accomplished indirectly, through news media coverage of government. However, recent research suggests a diminution of interest by the media in fulfilling its role as an instrument of democracy. This means that the public reporting obligation of public affairs professionals in public administration needs to shift to direct reporting, through such products as annual reports, newsletters, TV programmes, Internet websites etc. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Demand for masters of public policy in public service

This piece was written to assist those who lead schools of public policy and administration in evaluating their pedagogies and examining their curricula. The perspectives contained in this piece reflect those of the author, who has spent the last 35 years practicing and leading public policy research and analysis in the Congressional Research Service (CRS)—the public policy agency created by the U.S. Congress for its exclusive use. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CRS or the Congress.     

The public issue life cycle and corporate political actions in China's transitional environment: a case of real estate industry

• Based on the ‘structured content analysis’ of the longitudinal data from a journal of Chinese real estate industry during last 11 years, this paper studies the nature of public issue life cycle and corresponding corporate political actions (CPAs) in a transitional economy. This paper finds out that in a transitional economy like China: (1) a new stage called ‘policy trial’ and double steps of policy introduction were found in the public issue life cycle; (2) the possible outcomes of Chinese public issues are partially consistent with Tombari's arguments; (3) the evolution of CPAs takes a more complex and different path compared with that in the West. In general, this paper provides an available research perspective (the public issue life cycle model) for firms to manage and monitor their external political environment by effectively developing CPAs in a transitional economy.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inefficiency in public organizations

Theories of market and government failure provide resources for diagnosing intra-organizational inefficiency in public organizations and for identifying possible solutions. Public goods, externalities, information asymmetries, monopolies, uncertainty, inappropriate reward systems, and interest group behavior create inefficiencies within organizations just as they do in the larger economy. Associated with many of these problems are generic solutions that can usefully inform leaders in their efforts to improve efficiency within their public organizations.     

论公共危机事件管理中的公众参与

近年来,我国公共危机事件频发,对我国政府应对危机的能力提出了严峻的挑战。危机事件的有效解决不仅需要提高政府自身的管理能力,还必须注重社会公众的有效参与。本文针对当前我国危机管理中公众参与的现实困境,从政府、制度和社会公众三方面寻求改善的途径,并提出相应的对策建议。     

Analysis on the major obstacles of public participation in public policy-making

Participation in public policy-making is one of the important approaches for citizens to affect public policy, and also the guarantee of the scientific and democratic paths of the public policy. To enhance the cognitive level and ability of the citizen who participate in public policy-making, ensure the institutionalization and procedures of the public policy-making, make the information about the public policy-making open and transparent, this paper points out the main obstacles of citizens＇ participation in public policy-making mostly at present and enhance the quality of public policy.     

Graduate education in public policy

Contemporary social transformation and accelerated politicization are inducing and requiring changes in the epistemological structure and the substantive content of the social and political sciences. To accommodate to and to facilitate these changes there is here proposed an interdisciplinary program of graduate education in Public Policy which is designed (1) to aggregate the most relevant materials and usable generalizations of the sociopolitical sciences and (2) to strike a balance between viable theory and tested experience. Although the curriculum is intended to be primarily contemporaneous and futuristic, it incorporates comparative and historical as well as normative and positivistic materials and methods. A variegated and qualified body of students is expected to be recruited for the proposed program as its principal intellectual and creative component.