Brookings-Sadat Forum: Algeria

The following is the edited text of a discussion at the Sadat Forum held at the Brookings Institution on September 10, 1998. The cosponsors are the Brookings Foreign Policy Program and the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland.     

Contextualised Capital: Policy Reforms and Inward Flows in Germany

Policy-makers in Germany have implemented, from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s, an impressive set of reforms designed to provide greater legal protection to minority shareholders. These reforms are linked with circumscribed changes: medium and long-term UK/US-based institutional investors have become major shareholders of large German firms; the incursions of short-term institutional investors, in contrast, have been more limited. This outcome highlights the interaction between firm-level institutional arrangements of German companies and the characteristics of different categories of shareholder value oriented funds. Institutional arrangements act as constraints that reduce the range of the strategic options of German firms. However, institutions are not specific enough to translate into predictions about the investment behaviour of different categories of investors who are themselves governed by internally defined rules that affect how they operate within an institutional framework.     

苏联改革的两面性:从改革走向崩溃

在毫无征兆的情况下,苏联突然解体了。苏共领导人戈尔巴乔夫的改革把苏联带入了一场典型的革命性进程之中。苏联的政治经济体制改革的起步非常谨慎,随后逐步扩大到政治层面,并升级为激进的政治诉求和改革,进而持续升温成为一场革命性的大动荡。旨在恢复社会秩序、实现社会稳定的苏联版"热月政变"由此出现。实际上,前苏联的这场改革并不像当下一些政客抑或是戈尔巴乔夫本人所讲述的那样,是一场有计划的、有组织性的,旨在实现民主化、西方式的民主社会类型和市场经济的改革。苏联的解体也并非因为灾难性的经济危机,事实上,苏联的经济早已是一潭死水。苏联之所以会走向解体,主要在于其一系列旨在解决严重的社会经济问题的改革准备既不充分,信息也不全面。历史上不乏各种经意和不经意的结果,这场改革将苏联整个社会推入了政治经济不断沉沦的漩涡,引起权贵阶层尤其是苏联加盟共和国中执政者的不安。这反过来又催生了一股压力,要求迅速纠正这些意料之外的结果。从本质上说,苏联解体是这场自上而下改革的结果,这场改革的开始是由于部分苏联精英利用了苏联上层社会对激进改革以及加盟共和国的民族主义的诉求,然而却以整个社会体系的改变而告终。     

Postretrenchment Politics: Policy Feedback in Chile's Health and Pension Reforms

Through a comparison of three periods of health and pension reform in Chile, this article develops an explanation for the incremental form of social policy change that some Latin American nations have witnessed in recent years, despite the dramatic rise of left governments. It describes “postretrenchment politics,” which constitutes a realignment in the way politics plays out in countries that have undergone social policy retrenchment. In postretrenchment politics, the strengthened position of private business interests, combined with political learning legacies and lock‐in effects generated by reforms, results in incremental political change, despite renewed efforts by left parties to address inequality. Global capital also plays an important contextual role, and may influence postretrenchment politics. In postretrenchment politics, newly reformed systems may achieve greater equity, but they do so in fragmented form.     

Gorbachev at Two Years: Perspectives on Economic Reforms

This article examines how the Putin leadership, inspired by the example of Yuriy Andropov, has carried out a comprehensive "sovietization" of the Russian political system by systematically eliminating all alternative sources of power (governors, competitive elections, the media, and private business). Drawing on legislation, the press, and data about the backgrounds and career paths of the post-Soviet elite, the central institutions are compared with their Soviet predecessors and the implementation of this strategy is examined. The roles of military, security and other backgrounds are analyzed. The degree of influence likely to be wielded by the siloviki is also considered.     

Shifting the Status Quo: Constitutional Reforms in Chile

This article outlines the factors that explain changes in the rules of the game in Chile after the restoration of democracy in 1990. It looks particularly at the reasons why the right‐wing parties—strong defenders of the constitution imposed by General Augusto Pinochet in 1980—accepted reforms that eliminated many of what the literature has termed authoritarian enclaves. The article explains this shift by observing significant changes in the political context that, in turn, affected the priorities of veto players. In this context, short‐term strategic calculations by the right‐wing parties, aiming to achieve a new balance of power less detrimental to their interests, opened a window of opportunity that led to congressional approval of important reforms. Particular institutional features of the Chilean political system—party discipline and a balance of power in favor of the executive—also helped the political actors to reach agreement.     

Soviet Economic Reforms Since Stalin: Ideology,Politics, and Learning

An American political scientist reinterprets the politics of economic reform in the USSR from 1953 to 1991. The paper offers an integrated explanation for three features of reform policies: their reappearance during periods of political succession; their persistent partiality; and their radicalization over time. The explanation focuses on the interaction over time among political competition, ideology, and collective learning. Reasoning leads to conclusions that a consensus on the superiority of a market economy finally emerged within the Soviet leadership in 1990, but that the learning process has not resulted in a consensus on strategies and costs of transition, journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 040, 052.     

Politics,Economic Crises and Corporate Governance Reforms: Regulatory Capture in Malaysia

Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the regulatory system involving governance of the corporate sector was subjected to major legislative and institutional reforms, primarily in response to exposures of serious cases of corruption and abuse in the financial sector by well-connected businesspeople. However, the 2008 global financial crisis indicated continued occurrence of irresponsible forms of corporate development and practices, underscoring structural weaknesses within the regulatory system in spite of these reforms. This article argues that the reforms that had been introduced ignored how state-business nexuses shape the way firms operate, a core reason for the persistence of unproductive and speculative forms of corporate development, grand corruption and cronyism. Utilising Malaysia as a case study, this article indicates that institutional reforms involving devolution of power to regulatory institutions are imperative to provide them with the autonomy to objectively institute prudential controls and indict errant firms that violate legislation overseeing corporate activities.     

"对话与交流:中美合作论坛"综述

2007年11月15～18日,由中国社会科学院美国研究所和麦肯锡全球研究院联合举办的首届“对话与交流:中美合作论坛”在北京钓鱼台国宾馆举行。陈佳贵副院长代表中国社会科学院致欢迎辞。与会者来自中美两国政界、商界、学术界和媒体。近30名美方与会者来自24个机构,包括美国能源部助理部长亚历山大.卡斯勒(Alexander Karsner)、前北约总司令克拉克(Wesley Clark)将军、李敦白(Sidney Ritten-berg)等。中方与会者来自外交部、文化部、商务部、财政部、国务院新闻办、中国国际问题研究所、现代国际关系研究院、中国国际战略学会、国防大学、军…     

Baltic Local Governments’ Fiscal Situation: Two Decades Of Reforms

In January 1991 Soviet troops conducted several military operations in Vilnius and Riga aimed at subduing the renegade Baltic republics. In the aftermath of these events, nearly 20 civilians died and dozens were injured. To this day, Mikhail Gorbachev, president of the Soviet Union at that time, denies knowing or approving of these operations. This article reexamines his claims of innocence and finds convincing evidence to the contrary: most likely, he did not order the deaths of innocent people, but he embraced the solution that led to this outcome.     

亚洲论坛与亚洲区域经济合作

以中国海南省博鳌为永久会址的亚洲论坛,是第一个亚洲国家自己的区域对话和经济合作机构.亚洲论坛要不负众望,必须坚持亚洲的事务由亚洲国家自己解决的原则,把和平共处五项原则作为建立和发展合作关系的前提,采取循序渐进的区域经济合作方针,把改善亚洲发展中国家的交通和通讯基础设施作为经济合作的重要议题.     

"第二轨道外交"与东盟地区论坛

作为"东盟方式"的延伸,东盟地区论坛与"第二轨道外交"有着千丝万缕的联系.本文从东盟地区论坛的成立及运作两个层面分析了"第二轨道外交"与东盟地区论坛的相互联系,文章指出,"第二轨道外交"促成了东盟地区论坛的产生并成为论坛体系不可分割的一部分.     

Institutional Change in Swiss Cantons: A Contribution to Describing and Explaining Institutional Reforms

Most accounts of Swiss federal institutions are unable to explain institutional change. In this contribution the authors trace change in Cantonal reforms and then use multivariate explanation models to account for institutional reforms such as New Public Management reforms. The multivariate analyses used rely on an “event count model” to explain the frequency of institutional reforms and a “binary response model” to explain why Cantons adopt New Public Management reforms. This research demonstrates that policy research as well as innovation and diffusion theories can contribute to explaining institutional reform.     

Australia,New Zealand and the Pacific Islands Forum: a critical review

The relationship between the Pacific islands and the region’s ‘bigger brothers’ – Australia and New Zealand – is often seen in two-dimensional terms with the latter appearing to act in concert and in terms characterised by underlying neo-colonial attitudes and a determination to dominate the regional agenda. Given that both are former colonial powers with considerable political and economic resources and are the major aid donors in the region as well as being members of the powerful geopolitical entity known as ‘the West’, it is not difficult to sustain an image of neo-colonial dominance. But to do so also requires casting Pacific island countries in a certain role, not only lacking agency but also cohering around a common identity and set of interests. This article examines key aspects of regional relations as played out through the region’s premier organisation, the Pacific Islands Forum, and assesses the extent to which a simple political divide between Australia and New Zealand on the one hand, and the island states on the other, can be maintained.     

Budget Deficit,Market Disequilibrium and Soviet Economic Reforms

Problems within the present fiscal and monetary system of the USSR are examined (a) as a function of both past systemic shortcomings and of fiscal developments caused by economic reforms enacted to date and (b) as obstacles that must be overcome during the transition to a more market-oriented economy. Major sources of disequilibrium in the present economy are identified through analysis of Soviet budgets from both the reform and pre-reform periods, and a concluding section presents policy options for the period of transition to a more radical economic reform. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 027, 124, 300.     

World Bank, Governance Reforms and Democracy in Argentina

The World Bank's endorsement in the 1990s of institutional reforms as a constitutive dimension of economic development led to the adoption of a governance agenda. The paper analyses the role the Bank exercised in Argentina and explains its influence in the adoption of a new state model, of new state civil society relations and on particular key components of democracy. This paper argues that while the Bank has helped to set up an agenda of reform regarding governance problems, the push for particular policies and practices has also produced partial and contradictory results on the consolidation of democracy.