Governmental policy preferences and foreign capital allocation: The case of China

This paper compares the determination of foreign direct investment and World Bank loans in China, with a focus on the role of its government. The statistical analysis reveals that World Bank loans responded sensitively to the major regional policy changes since the mid-1990s, but foreign direct investment did not. These findings pose an analytic challenge to the “strong” version of the state-centered approaches to the politics of economic development represented by the developmental state literature. However, they lend support for a “weak” version of the state-centered approaches developed by American political scientists Stephen Krasner and Theda Skocpol. He has taught comparative and international politics in Nankai University, China, Kent State University, and Walsh University. He is currently working on his dissertation about the political economy of foreign aid in China. The author wishes to thank Dr. Dennis Hart and Dr. Steven Hook and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on early versions of this paper. The author also wishes to thank Brian Juliao for his linguistic help.     

Public policy and privatisation: the case of the Qatari experience

This article uses a qualitative methodology employing the elite model to describe and analyse the complex interplay of political and economic factors in the privatization experience of the state of Qatar. The article begins by providing a theoretical framework for privatisation in the context of public policy and classifying policies of privatisation into two categories: macro‐ and micro‐privatisation. The second part uses this framework to discuss the factors that gives the Qatari experience its distinguished flavour. These factors include: elite legitimacy and social culture, bureaucratic power, international pressure and patron–client networks. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contextual variation in interdependent policy making: The case of tax competition

Many studies show that policy makers react to the policy choices made in other jurisdictions, but we still know relatively little about the factors driving interdependent policy making, especially about how context shapes interdependence. Theoretical arguments suggest that contextual factors, such as stable institutions and geographic location, explain variation in interdependence. However, there is a lack of empirical research investigating contextual heterogeneity in interdependent policy making, mainly because it cannot be analysed with standard spatial econometric methods. This article introduces multilevel modeling that allows the study of contextual variation in interdependence and illustrates the method with the analysis of uneven tax competition in Switzerland. The findings of fine‐grained data show that cantonal governments compete more strongly with their competitors the closer a unit is located to a metropolis with comprehensive public good provision. The analysis demonstrates that we can better understand the mechanisms of interdependent policy making by studying its contextual drivers.     

Citizen participation and judgment in policy analysis: A case study of urban air quality policy

The emphasis currently placed on citizen participation in planning results in part from the recognition that planning requires judgments that have both value and technical components. This article describes a case study of a citizen participation process in which planners' judgments, rather than the judgments of the members of a citizens' task force, seemed to dictate the outcome. Although citizens were supposed to be influential in the policy analysis, they were, in effect, excluded from a meaningful role in the process. The analysis was actually guided by planners' supposedly technical judgments. Those judgments had important value implications, however, and those implications were not made clear to the citizens' task force. Examples are given of judgments made by planners at each stage of the analysis and the value components of those judgments are discussed. In each example, the judgments resulted in elimination of alternatives, selection of information, or integration of information. Two examples of methods of citizen participation which can increase the influence of citizens' judgments are also described.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.     

Research,politics, and the dynamics of policy development: A case study of Motor Carrier regulatory reform

This article presents a case study of the role of research in securing passage of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-296). It highlights the role of research in shaping policymakers' views on the benefits of reduced federal economic regulation of the industry, assesses how political considerations influenced the Department of Transportation's research program, and explores the deficiencies and limitations of the Department's research program.The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the U.S. Senate or the Department of Transportation. We wish to express our appreciation to Leslie Baldwin and Dennis Marvich for their perceptive comments on an earlier draft of this article.     

Recent trends in the European Union trade and investment policy towards China

The last decades＇ trend towards the creation of a world market of goods and services and the upsurge of China as a global competitor ought to be considered as an important challenge for the European Union. In contrast to this interpretation, the European Union policy towards China has suffered from an absence from a long run view. European institutional behaviour has been based on applying measures that were solely reactions to the policies launched by the United States. Finally, the difficulty of finding common interests among all member countries has been a constant in the relationship with China. The European Union has recently shown a clear concern about the unavoidable need of improving European firms＇ competitiveness, especially in order to overcome the Chinese access to the internationalised division of labour. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to observe a thorough treatment for the economic challenge of emergent economies as a whole in many European policy measures.     

Flying high: A case study of Japanese industrial policy

Japan's policies with respect to industry promotion consist of much more than picking winners and subsidizing them to ensure their success. The highly flexible and adaptive character of Japan's policies is illustrated by the country's efforts to enter the world aerospace industry, an industry in which Japan is handicapped by the absence of a substantial domestic market. To meet the challenge, Japan has concentrated its efforts on altering the very structure of the world market in which it hopes to compete. Japan has participated systematically in international consortia, hoping to use such consortia as a conduit for acquiring access for foreign technology and foreign markets.     

Political culture, alternative politics and foreign policy: The case of Israel

This article analyzes how sociopolitical dynamics within a state can help explaining foreign policy. We show that under certain conditions, the public can be involved in ways that extend beyond expressing opinions that act as constraints on policy makers, and also takes active initiatives that eventually shape foreign policies. The article explains how sociopolitical processes in Israeli society, which transformed the nature of citizen–politician relations from a top-down to a bottom-up orientation, gradually led to shifts in foreign policy regarding the conflict with the Palestinians. The Israeli public has adopted an approach to solving social problems by unilateral initiatives, as part of its attempts to shape foreign policy from the bottom up, due to continuous government failure to provide public services, combined with blocked influence channels. As long as Israeli politicians ignored these changes, they failed to mobilize support for policies imposed from the top down and lost their positions of power.     

Public choice and public policy: The vulnerability of economic advice to the interpretation of politicians

The confidence with which politicians defend their policies is in marked contrast to the qualifications which academic researchers attach to their results. The difference is indicative of a failure of the political market, whereby politicians have an incentive to select policies for electoral and ideological reasons and to minimise any uncertainty associated with policy effectiveness. In this scenario dissension between economists is of value if it alerts individuals to the sensitivity of policy answers to the framework in which they are derived. Moreover, with government failure, public choice analysts are faced with the problem of how best to amend policy advice in order to allow for potential distortion at the hands of politicians.The authors are Senior Lecturers in Economics and Members of the Centre for Fiscal Studies, University of Bath. They wish to acknowledge the very helpful comments of Professors Gordon Tullock, Harry Collins and an anonymous referee. Any errors that might remain are, of course, the sole responsibility of the authors.     

Chinese and Japanese investment in Southeast and South Asia: case studies of the electronics and automobile industries

Abstract

This article uses extensive fieldwork data to focus on the question of how Chinese and Japanese companies are competing in neighboring countries of Asia, and what economic forces will shape their future growth in the region. It begins by briefly discussing the history of Chinese and Japanese investment in the South and Southeast Asian regions. It traces the development of Japanese overseas investment policies, as well as China's more recent ‘Going Out’ government program to encourage overseas flows of capital. It then builds on prior political economy work as it uses case study focuses, with primary data based on the author's fieldwork research in several nations of Southeast Asia and in India, of the two key sectors of automobiles and electronics. It compares and contrasts the investment strategies of companies from each country, as well as the successes and failures of investments in the industries. It finds that Japanese companies’ advantages lie in industries utilizing advanced technology and management skills. Though the Japanese continue to lead in many areas, including automobiles, they have begun to face competition and potentially reduced profits in vital manufacturing areas. Meanwhile, Chinese overseas companies have made significant advances in the consumer electronics sector, using low prices and good quality, though overseas automobile investments have gained little traction. The article concludes that, if the Chinese can improve their product quality, capitalize on improving managerial skills and a deeper level of experience in the region, and establish brands they can sell with reliable distribution networks, Japanese companies could face losses to their Asian neighbor in these important parts of the continent they have dominated for decades.     

The quiet revolution in the scientific study of international politics and foreign policy

The application of quantitative international political and foreign policy research to real decision-making and forecasting problems has been quietly progressing over the past ten years. However, this quest for relevance has not been targeted at the highest policy-making levels; rather the applications have occurred at the middle- and low-level policy support and analysis levels. Specifically, applied analysts have profiled crisis management problem areas, developed a computer-based early warning and monitoring system, developed and applied several Bayesian forecasting techniques, and developed a computer-based crisis management decision aid which have all been used to solve specific analytical problems within the U.S. Department of Defense. Nearly all of the applied research is interdisciplinary. All is problem-oriented, and a great deal is computer-based. In all likelihood the number of applications will increase as the complexity of international and foreign affairs increases. The national security decision- and policy-making analytical process will thus become more pluralized and, because of the computer-based nature of much of the research, more accelerated and concentrated. Thusfar the impact can be said to be positive; the future will enlarge or shrink the role of applied quantitative analysis in response to how beneficial such analyses actually are to real national security problems.     

Institutional development in the era of economic policy reform: Concerns,contradictions and illustrations from Malawi

The article argues that the essence of economic policy reform programmes—both their substance and their pace—runs counter to the central notions of sound institutional development. Attention is first given to some fundamental concerns about the relationship between the two processes, in particular focusing on questions of culture, speed of change and the political environment. The article then provides some illustrations from Malawi, looking in turn at collateral institutional damage, the new generation of semiautonomous organizations, confusing incentives systems in the areas of salaries, housing and training, and lack of serious concern for the sustainability of the reforms. The conclusion calls for returning ‘part-ownership’ of the reform programme to the local officials, and trying to reduce some of the institutional unreality, which seems to adhere to the implementation of the reforms.     

Contextual meanings in policy discourse: A case study of language use concerning resource policy in the New Zealand high country

Variation in the meaning and use of the term landscape by different decision makers and decision influencers in the New Zealand high country is analysed in relation to the way they describe a resource policy issue. The case study is based upon documentary sources and oral accounts of the role that trees might play in high country land use. Links between language use and interest are identified and explored, and some consequential implications discussed.     

Public Policy and Legitimacy: A historical policy analysis of the interplay of public policy and legitimacy

This article explores the interplay of local government policy and legitimacy from a broad postpositivist perspective where historical accounts and narratives are used in a complementary fashion. The basic assumption is that legitimacy is the product of satisfying felt needs and solving perceived problems. Health and social malaise problems and related policies of the past 120 years are analyzed in 50 Swedish municipalities. The analysis indicates that municipality policies respond to local problems only partly. Generally, local government policies responded dynamically to 'objective’ and perceived problems before the 1970s, but did not resolve the problems. Today’s legitimacy crisis could, to some extent, be explained by the discrepancy between high expectations created in the policy discourse and the central and local government’s incapacity to offer sustainable solutions to ongoing problems. It is suggested that if history is considered more seriously in public policy making it could help policy makers and citizens readjust expectations, illuminate the limits and prospects for public policy, and identify ways to restore legitimacy. Moreover, legitimacy could be restored if more realistic policies are worked out and if a new division of power between the levels of government is introduced.     

Localizing the South China Sea problem: the case of China's Hainan

This paper adopts the local government as a unit of inquiry for understanding the South China Sea problem. It examines the case of Hainan Province, which was designated by the central government of China to administer its claims to ownership of natural resources in the disputed waters. It investigates the political economy of the interactions between the national government of China and the provincial government of Hainan in pursuing China's agenda of exploiting resources, fisheries in particular, in the South China Sea waters. It then considers the implications of such findings for considering the international political economy of the South China Sea problem.     

International sources of environmental policy change in China: the case of genetically modified food

Abstract

China's agricultural biotechnology policy has undergone a profound transformation over the last decade, from a strongly promotional to a more precautionary approach. From the 1980s onwards, China invested heavily in biotechnology development and in the early 1990s emerged as the leading biotech country in the developing world. In the late 1990s, however, it halted the authorization of new genetically modified crops and introduced stringent safety regulations. This paper investigates this policy shift and argues that international factors have played a central role. Two trends, in particular, are identified as key sources of the move towards greater precaution: China's ongoing international socialization, particularly in the context of the international scientific debate on biosafety and the negotiations on a biosafety treaty; and the growing globalization of agriculture and trade, which has exposed China to international competitive forces and trade restrictions in food trade. As the case of genetically modified food in China shows, political integration and economic globalization can work together to promote a strengthening of the domestic environmental policy agenda.