政治文化与政治体制改革的关系

政治文化是在长期的社会历史文化传统的影响下形成的某种特定的政治价值观念、政治心理和政治行为模式。它主要包括政治主体对政治体系、政治过程等政治现象以及自身在政治过程中所处的地位和作用的一种态度和价值倾向。政治文化对一个社会的政治有重要影响 ,政治系统也影响政治文化的形成 ,本文试图从两个方面分析政治文化和中国政治体制改革的互动影响。     

The Political Economy of Development

The approach focuses principally on economic linkages between developed and developing countries. It owes much to studies of Latin America and may be more difficult to apply to other parts of the third world where economic development is not necessarily seen as a primary objective of policy. Studies within the field have not generally succeeded at a global level. They have often been too deterministic to describe a world which is both complex and unpredictable. In any case it is more important to influence policy than to discuss the formation of historical structures. Dependency theory in particular has proved a poor guide to policy-makers. The New Right and public choice theory have been better tailored towards influencing policymakers, although this approach (like much dependency writing) divorces the content of public policy from the political system in which it is made. However, political economy of development studies have worked well at a lower level of abstraction and have contributed to a better understanding of public policy in some developing countries.     

The Political Economy of the Enhanced HIPC-Initiative

Only three years after its endorsement bythe World Bank and the IMF, the HeavilyIndebted Poor Country (HIPC) – Initiativewas considerably altered and enhanced. Thispolicy shift can be explained as a resultof utility maximization behavior bynational and international politicians,international bureaucrats and NGO. Apolitico-economic model suggests that theoverall rise of HIPC default risk and thesymbolic value of the year 2000 have beenthe two major determinants of changes involume, eligibility, and conditionalityrequirements.     

US–China Relations in the Contemporary Era: An International Political Economy Perspective

The subject of US–China relations has been examined from a number of perspectives but has rarely been exposed to a critical theory approach. This article argues that US–China relations must be understood at the structural/global level as well as in terms of the interaction of political actors. In this way a broader understanding of US hegemonic power and its relation to China can be developed. This also requires moving beyond viewing the relationship in bilateral terms and taking into account the role of ideas and institutions in the international political economy (IPE).     

The Political Economy of Acid Rain

Over the past decade, acid rain has been transformed from arelatively unnoticed area of scientific inquiry into a majorenvironmental issue of regional, national, and internationalconcern. What is acid rain, why has it acquired such relativelysudden political prominence, and what are the prospects forthe adoption of policies addressing this issue? These questionsillustrate how the regional cleavages inherent in transboundaryair pollution problems have fractured the political coalitionswhich supported earlier environmental legislation. Understandingthe basis for that transformation, which requires informationfrom the natural and physical sciences as well as insights intothe economics and politics of the acid rain issue, is centralto developing an appreciation of the constraints on policymakingfor air quality management in the United States.     

The Public Purpose of Political Economy

ABSTRACT

For too long the discipline of political science has ceded research on the dynamics of the national political economy to the field of economics. In this article, we explore the cost of this cession in the context of the public purpose. Following John Kenneth Galbraith, we define the public purpose in terms of its independence from the market economy and the planning system. Political scientists, and especially political theorists, are uniquely qualified to theorize power relations relative to a host of challenges that have emerged in today’s rapidly transforming national economies. Galbraith’s critique of mainstream economics, coupled with his understanding of power as an inescapable and perpetual dialectical process, provide guidance for theorizations that should attend to rather than deny the contested domain of the public interest and collective good.     

The Political Economy: Political Attitudes and Economic Behavior

It has long been recognized that voters bring their political behaviors in line with economic assessments. Recent work, however, suggests that citizens also engage in economic behaviors that align with their confidence—or lack thereof—in the political system. This alignment can happen consciously or, as we suggest, unconsciously, in the same way that positivity carries over to other behaviors on a micro-level. Using monthly time series data from 1978 to 2008, we contribute further evidence of this relationship by demonstrating that political confidence affects consumer behavior at the aggregate level over time. Our analyses employ measures more closely tied to the theoretical concepts of interest while simultaneously accounting for the complex relationships between subjective and objective economic indicators, economic behavior, political attitudes, and the media. Our results suggest that approval of the president not only increases the electorate’s willingness to spend money, but also affects the volatility of this spending. These findings suggest that the economy is influenced by politics beyond elections, and gives the “Chief Economist” another avenue by which they can affect the behavior of the electorate.     

The Political Economy of Automobile Safety Inspections

Studies of traffic safety typically assumethat policies are adopted to further thepublic interest, thereby ignoring thepolitical motives for policy. Sincepolitical motives can influence the designor enforcement of policies, accounting forpolitical motives has relevance forevaluating policy effectiveness. Weexamine the political motives concerning afrequently-studied traffic safety policy: state-mandated vehicle safety inspection. We distinguish between public interest andspecial interest explanations for safetyinspection. Our econometric models examinethe incidence of inspection across states,and determinants of regulated inspectionfees. The evidence strongly rejects apublic interest explanation, but specialinterest hypotheses also do not proveentirely satisfactory. Since recentstudies find that inspections fail toimprove highway safety, we attribute thecontinued existence of inspection programsto political transaction costs rather thanto the demands of interest groups.     

The Political Economy of a Planetary Sunshade

Geoengineering proposals are increasingly acknowledged as possible responses to climate change because of the repeated failure of national decision makers to solve the collective action problem of allocating carbon emission reductions at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Geoengineering is attractive, the possible moral hazard notwithstanding, because of differences in the economic effects of climate change across countries, which are organized as factions seeking to shift the burden of carbon reductions or to delay response. This article outlines the political economic advantages of a planetary sunshade to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth. Rather than adopt the more common game theoretic model to describe the relevant international relations, construction of the planetary sunshade is characterized as an auction in which a single spacefaring power completes construction of the megaproject as a global good, comparable to the willingness of the United States to provide the dollar as a global reserve currency, and then determines the average global temperature based upon financial or material contributions from other countries. The willingness to contribute is based upon calculations of preferred average global temperatures.     

Chicago Political Economy

I am indebted to James Buchanan, William Dougan, David Fand, William Mitchell, and George Stigler for helpful discussions and comments. The usual caveat applied.