The "common sense" of the nonprofit hospital tax exemption: a policy analysis.

Although rarely discussed prior to the 1985 Utah Supreme Court ruling against Intermountain Health Care Inc., the question of whether to grant tax exemptions to nonprofit hospitals is currently being debated by federal, state, and local legislators, and by the courts. Changes to current policy seem likely. This policy analysis: (1) presents the historical and legal background; (2) examines the economic, political, and organizational implications of current tax-exemption policy; and (3) offers three alternatives to this current policy. The analysis indicates that the current policy provides little incentive for nonprofit hospitals to make contributions of charity care. Of the alternatives, eliminating the exemption is not politically feasible at this time; regulating hospital operations and outputs portends an implementation nightmare; and tying tax subsidy levels to output levels of charity care--perhaps the strongest and most efficient incentive--would require an unlikely political consensus on what constitute valid and reliable measures of charity care. If there is a movement toward subsidies, then linking subsidy amounts to levels of charity care will depend on whether policy analysts can design satisfactory empirical measures. With the advent of universal health coverage, the demand for charity care will decrease. The problem for tax-exempt hospitals will then become justifying the exemption by demonstrating the extent to which they generate community benefits at no or reduced cost to society.     

Memes as speech acts

Memes are a common way for individuals to communicate online. Internet users often use memes to reply to each other on social networking sites or other online forums. This research argues that memes are successfully used for communication purposes because certain memes (specifically image macros) are essentially speech acts and are also understood as being speech acts by internet users. When creating a meme, choices are made concerning the specific semiotic resources to be used and the internet community then interprets these resources to facilitate communication between the meme creator and the internet community. Memes can be recreated for different purposes and therefore it is possible to group memes under already existing speech acts and speculate about the ways in which these might correspond to speech acts in the future. To accomplish this, a limited amount of specific meme types are analysed and discussed.     

大学生逃课的性质、原因与班级治理机制——道理、事理、理事分析

大学生逃课的性质,一违反学校纪律,二破坏理论学习的课堂基础,三降低学生评教的科学性。因此,任何逃课的原因都不能成为逃课的理由,但是要区别对待积极逃课与消极逃课而采取不同的治理办法。根据管理幅度与管理层次之间呈反比关系的管理学原理,作为大学生活的最基本组织单位,班级对大学生的管理幅度最小,任课教师与学生接触最直接,因此是治理大学生逃课的最直接主体。基于大学生逃课的性质,班级治理的取向是以激励为基础而以约束为主;基于班级的地位,班级治理以针对学生自身原因与行为为主,主要包括谈话—约定机制、学生—老师直接交流机制、预告性考试—促进听课机制、直接向任课教师请假机制。     

Freedom of information acts and public sector corruption

Various countries have recently implemented Freedom of Information acts believing that greater transparency can reduce public sector corruption. To test this, we analyze annual data on 128 countries between 1984 and 2003 using a variety of propensity score matching techniques and overall find no significant relationship with one exception: In the developing world, FOI acts are significantly associated with rising levels of corruption. Further investigation suggests this may be due to the fact that the effectiveness of FOI acts appears to be conditioned by a country’s institutional arrangements.     

Making sense of European anti-semitism

In the last five years Europe experienced a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic incidents. Discourse once reputed unacceptable is now routinely voiced in mainstream circles, the press, and the corridors of power. This article sets out to explain the nature of this phenomenon, the reasons for its recurrence, and its severity.     

The sense and the nonsense of school effectiveness

Hanushek misinterprets the data on which he bases his conclusion and draws inappropriate policy implications from them. The goals of a school system affect how its resources are used. Educational goals are highly diverse. Accordingly, the measures of output used in Hanushek's studies are inappropriate. To develop more effective measures, the nature of the teaching and learning process must be much better understood. Fortunately, a solid beginning has already been made among specialists in education on that critical task; but more work is needed.     

对大学生理性爱国的思考

青年大学生具有满腔的爱国主义热情,真正的爱国主义热情需要有理性的表达方式,我们应积极引导大学生在社会实践和人生道路上树立科学理性的爱国主义精神。     

夏洛克性格及其象征意义初探

本文摘引了国外学者对于《威尼斯商人》中夏洛克这一角色多重性格的研究,并探讨了莎士比亚描写夏洛克的目的是否为宣传反犹太主义。笔者认为,实际上莎翁意在使观众反思犹太民族在历史上遭遇的不公平,并对他们生存状况表示怜悯。     

The accidental citizen: acts of sovereignty and (un)making citizenship

In previous issues of Economy and Society, Somerville and Durham debated the moralization of neo-liberal family policy. The conservative politics of the family has been moralized not only in Anglo-American societies but also in South Korea. From a neo-Confucian perspective, many conservative politicians and even scholars have found a convenient scapegoat in the nuclear family as the main cause of many recent social problems, in particular, widespread poverty and psychological difficulties among the elderly and children. In a situation where public services and social security programmes have been neglected for decades of growth-oriented developmentalism, conservative elites seem to derive a convenient excuse in the functionalist proposition that family nucleation nourishes individualism at the cost of traditional familial solidarity, and thus causes the alienation and abandonment of many dependent people. This paper refutes the neo-Confucian/liberal claim by showing that the thesis of family nucleation is untenable not only from a demographic but also from a sociocultural and economic perspective. This neo-Confucian society will be no exception to the need for a comprehensive package of public services and social security programmes if its industrial capitalism is to remain socially sustainable.     

Introduction: making sense of Korean discourses and the East Asian regional order

This opening article presents rationales for the Special Section which analyses South Korea's debates and discourses on crucial issues related to East Asian regional politics. The article opens with a consideration of why attention is drawn to South Korea and particularly to its discourses. Expanding upon constructivist theoretical insights, this article shows how they matter in foreign policy-making and state behaviour. In addition, the article clarifies the scope of analysis of this Special Section. While recognising that many different actors and issues shape the regional order in East Asia to varying degrees, we hold that the most direct impact on changes and/or continuity in that order comes from state actors in the realm of security (or the security–economy nexus). The article ends on a cautiously optimistic note: although the perspectives and discourses analysed in this Special Section are not exhaustive, the analysis can serve as a useful reference point for discussion that seeks to advance our understandings of how South Korea is likely to behave toward its neighbours and what the future of the East Asian regional order will look like.     

Making sense of the legal and judicial architectures of regional trade agreements worldwide

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) constitute one of the most important elements of the international economic order. Researchers have accordingly embarked on comparative analyses of their design. Yet one fundamental question remains unanswered: how have officials in different RTAs responded to the challenge of regulatory misalignments among the member states? In this article, I turn to 10 of the most established RTAs in the world and document three types of responses. Some RTAs rely on the principle of mutual recognition or references to existing international standards; the same agreements also rely on technical dispute resolution mechanisms. Other RTAs, by contrast, make use of extensive harmonization and permanent courts charged with interpreting law. Yet a third group exhibits a hybrid design. This heterogeneity in legislative and judicial design invites explanation. I show that there is a remarkable correspondence between the legal traditions of the member states (common vs. civil law) and the design of RTAs. This correspondence undermines the claims of world polity theorists about the nature of the international order, but is consistent with other strands of sociological institutionalism and certain elements of rationalist and neoliberal institutionalism. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of different RTA designs for the regulation of everyday life in the member states, the World Trade Organization as an international regulatory body, and national sovereignty and democracy.