Defense Business Operations Fund (DBOF): Problems and Promise

In 1991, the United States Department of Defense established the Defense Business Operations Fund (DBOF). The DBOF includes support activities with a business volume well in excess of $80 billion annually, and it provides activities and services that are essential to the operation of the military forces. The necessity to reduce the defense budget and to find innovative ways of producing more defense than would be possible under prior operating and management arrangements caused the Department of Defense (DoD) to look to alternative economic and business models. The changes made are dramatic. The implementation has not gone as smoothly as some observers expected, and Congress and former Secretary of Defense Aspin each considered reversing the innovation. This article addresses the problems and the promised improvements in the context of the economic and management concepts undergirding the DBOF, concepts that are dramatically different than those previously applied in the DoD     

The European Community and South Africa: Economic Reality or Political Rhetoric?

This article examines the economic and political relationship between the European Community (EC) and the Republic of South Africa (RSA). From the economic perspective, the Community's objective of securing economic independence for the region, trends in EC-RSA trade and the arguments pertaining to mineral dependency are discussed. From the political perspective, Community statements on apartheid are compared with its foreign policy record. In particular, the Code of Conduct for European firms operating in the Republic is analysed within the framework of European Political Cooperation (EPC). The achievements, failures, future role and alternatives to the Code are considered and the limitations imposed by EPC in realizing a collective foreign policy are recognized.     

The European Court of Justice and its political impact

This article reviews recent advances in the study of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and its political impact at the European and member state levels. New quantitative as well as qualitative analyses show with great empirical precision that member state preferences guide the Court. The article summarises these findings, but argues that greater attention needs to be given to the (over-)constitutionalisation of EU law in order to fully capture the political impact of ECJ jurisprudence. Even if European judges are less activist than is often assumed and individual decisions are more restrained in the face of member state opposition, incrementally, case law evolves in a highly expansive fashion. And, exercising caution regarding unrealistic expectations about quasi-deterministic judicial law-making, it is found that the Court’s constitutionalised jurisprudence impacts heavily on European and member state policy-making.     

试论我国开放式基金的发展

最近 ,中国证监会已明确将发展开放式基金作为超常规发展机构投资者的重要举措 ,开放式基金将成为我国基金市场发展的主流品种。从根本上讲 ,设立开放式基金的目的是优化资源配置。巨大的社会闲散资金需要适宜的投资渠道 ,经营良好的基金需要不断的自我发展 ,国内的基金只有形成一定规模 ,才能迎接加入ＷＴＯ后外资基金的挑战 ,这是只有开放式基金才能承担的历史史命。针对国内证券市场和基金行业的基本状况 ,本文认为目前推出开放式基金的主要难点在于投资对象较少、法规与监管难以跟上、管理人面临赎回压力与风险 ,但这些并不阻碍开放式基…     

Space Research and Development in Africa

Africa is advancing in research and development (R&D) in space with a growing investment in satellites for communications and Earth observations, astronomical observatories, space launch vehicles, and ballistic missiles. These efforts are designed to develop capacity in space science and to advance human development and security in Africa. Nevertheless, there are emerging concerns within and outside the continent on the cost of R&D in space and the public priority it is receiving, given developmental priorities in Africa. This article examines the state of space-related R&D in Africa, its cost and benefits, and the imperative for a balanced policy priority and investment. Leading African states are encouraged to intensify international partnerships, internalize relevant know-how, improve their competitiveness, and support regional initiatives to minimize the domestic cost of spreading benefits of space technology across the continent.     

The Alaska Permanent Fund: Politics and Trust

Trust funds are a particular way of governing resource flows. Governments use trust funds to bind policy decisions of future actors and remove resource flows from budget competition. The state of Alaska removed a portion of its oil revenues from political competition through the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund. A unique feature of the Fund is that it pays annual dividends to Alaskan citizens, thus creating a citizen stake in the management of the Fund. Through this framework Alaskans have successfully protected a significant stream of revenue ($21 billion) from political demands.     

Debt,Development and Intervention in Africa: The Contours of a Sovereign Frontier

Abstract

This paper argues that the concept of the sovereign frontier can help us think about sovereignty and intervention in a way that moves beyond some of the limitations usually associated with the former concept. Focused on a zone of practice, embedded in a broader ‘movement’ of Western expansion, the sovereign frontier highlights political practices of subordination and incorporation that characterize the sway of intervention in contemporary African states. These concepts are sketched out with reference to more concrete practices of intervention in African states – especially ‘governance states’ – and critical commentary is drawn therefrom. The main argument here is that a series of ostensibly less intrusive forms of aid policy-making are enabled by a constitutive inequality within the sovereign frontier and work towards a more profound and effective projection of external power within it. The paper concludes by suggesting that the intrinsic expansiveness of the sovereign frontier offers few possibilities for the attainment of alternative sovereignties to those shaped by Western institutions.     

The European Council and The Council of the European Union: Shapers of a European Confederation

The European Council and the Council of the European Union playkey roles in the European Union. The European Council is largelyconcerned with system-steering, while the Council of the EUundertakes sectoral policymaking. What is common to these rolesis the balancing act carried out by both institutions. Bothhave to mediate the centripetal dynamics of integration, termedcooperative confederalism here, and the centrifugal dynamicswhich are found in the strongly entrenched territorial natureof power, centered on the member states. Using new institutionalistanalysis, the article illuminates different facets of the twoinstitutions1 functioning in mediating the two dynamics.     

The Model of Europe and Other Contributions to the Study of European Political Development

Flora, P., Kuhnle, S. and Urwin D. (1999) State Formation, Nation-Building, and Mass Politics in Europe: The Theory of Stein Rokkan . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bartolini, S. (2000) The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 1860–1980: The Class Cleavage . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Caramani, D. (2004) The Nationalization of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems in Western Europe . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bartolini, S. (2005) Restructuring Europe: Centre Formation, System Building, and Political Structuring between the Nation State and the European Union . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ferrera, M. (2005) The Boundaries of Welfare: European Integration and the New Spatial Politics of Social Protection . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bozo, F. (2001) Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and the Atlantic Alliance . Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield.     

Legislative Organisation and its Determinants in European Parliamentary Democracies

Questions regarding the origin and evolution of legislative institutions are at the heart of comparative legislative studies. Much research in this area focuses on the US Congress; in contrast, comparative studies of European democracies have been more limited. Addressing this imbalance, this special issue showcases newly emerging research on legislative organisation in Europe. In doing so, it brings together contributions that explore the rationales behind the emergence of, and variation in, national European voting practices, investiture rules, minority rights, committee power, agenda control, debating rules and individual MPs’ rights.     

The Airport and Airway Trust Fund: A Continuing Controversy

Despite calls for increased outlays from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund to help finance improvements in the nation's air transportation system, the fund's surplus continued to grow during the Reagan years. It becomes readily apparent, when the issues surrounding the trust fund and its surplus are analyzed, that placing the blame solely on deficit considerations is too simplistic. Instead, partisan politics, the congressional budget process, delays in technology development, and budget pressures are responsible for the growing surplus.     

The Pork Barrel Politics of the Towns Fund

The article reviews the selection of towns in England under the Town Deals scheme, a funding scheme set up in the summer of 2019. Under the scheme, 101 towns in England were selected from a long‐list of 541 towns to bid for funding to improve local infrastructure. The findings show that Conservative‐held areas (and in particular marginal Conservative‐held areas) were much more likely to be selected for the scheme, and that this association remains—even when controlling for the ranks that civil servants awarded towns on the basis of qualitative and quantitative criteria. The findings call into question ministers’ commitment, under to the Nolan principle, to take decisions ‘impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias’.