Making a Crisis out of a Drama: The Political Analysis of BSE Policy-Making in the UK

Political analysis presents the episode of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) as a crisis, a policy failure and a policy disaster, revealing fundamental problems with the political and administrative system in the UK. Associated with this finding is the view that trust in government has been damaged by the failure to communicate fully the potential risks to the public of eating beef. These conventional judgements are challenged here, on the basis of an exploration of the episode, the findings of the official inquiry into BSE, and the relationship between risk and trust. I conclude that the drama over BSE and variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease does not amount to a crisis, a failure or a disaster, and cannot serve as a critique of the UK political system. Instead, the complexity of the case suggests that it is an intractable policy problem.     

建构主义认识论与政治现代性的兴起——从霍布斯到康德

在近代哲学史上,霍布斯首次以认识论的建构主义瓦解了古典的超验实在论真理观,其后果在实践哲学中导致了对古典自然(法)的破坏性解释.继之,康德又在先验论层面深化了建构主义,并以“自由”概念对抗霍布斯的“自然”原则,但由于先验论的非历史性,“自然”(权利)和“自由”(道德)处于分裂和对抗的状态.康德晚期在目的论的框架内弥合这一分裂的失败表明,先验哲学并不能提供行之有效的制度保障克服现代性的危机.     

阿尔都塞认识论的特点

众所周知,阿尔都塞是法国著名的结构主义马克思主义者,他提出了著名的认识论的断裂说,认为青年马克思的著作是意识形态性质的,而成长时期的《资本论》和成熟时期的《评瓦格纳<政治经济学教科书>》、《哥达纲领批判》中的思想是科学,这两者泾渭分明,它们之间存在一个明显的断裂。阿尔都塞的断裂论体现出其相应的认识论特点,这就是认识过程的反经验主义倾向与实践观上的唯理论倾向。     

The ``Power of the Purse' and its Implications for Bureaucratic Policy-Making

A dilemma of the ``Power of the Purse'' is thatcutting an agency's budget may make a desired policyinfeasible. I examine the implications of thisdilemma with a repeated game in which a bureau choosesunobservable policies after a legislature sets itsbudget. The bureau is work-averse and has its ownpolicy preferences and therefore may cheat, but thelegislature may perform an audit to recover ``slack''funds. A main result is that if the legislaturedesires a higher policy level than the agency, then itfaces a trade-off between ``good'' but wasteful policiesand ``bad'' but efficient ones.     

英国政治的欧洲化:以欧洲政策制定为例

英国自加入欧共体伊始,其国内的政治体系就不可避免地受到欧洲一体化进程的影响.以英国欧洲政策制定过程为例,白厅、内阁、议会在机构设置上出现的变化以及政策制定者偏好的变化都说明英国政治欧洲化的趋势不可逆转,但其进程取决于有关各方利益的平衡,取决于政策制定者身份认同的转变,取决于英国能否变被动为主动,积极参与并影响欧盟政治进程.     

Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making

In recent years there has been a growing body of literature within political science and international studies that directly and indirectly uses, discusses and analyzes the processes involved in lesson-drawing, policy convergence, policy diffusion and policy transfer. While the terminology and focus often vary, all of these studies are concerned with a similar process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political setting (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political setting.
Given that this is a growing phenomenon, it is something that anyone studying public policy needs to consider. As such, this article is divided into four major sections. The first section briefly considers the extent of, and reasons for, the growth of policy transfer. The second section then outlines a framework for the analysis of transfer. From here a third section presents a continuum for distinguishing between different types of policy transfer. Finally, the last section addresses the relationship between policy transfer and policy "failure."     

The Biopolitics of Policy-Making: Medical Activism in the Century of the Brain

This article argues that advances in biotechnology and the life sciences, particularly the ongoing neuro-revolution, have changed the relationship between science and politics. Since the “Decade of the Brain” project of the 1990s, new neuroscientific terms and biological understandings of the self have given rise to what Paul Rabinow refers to as “biosociality,” that is, groups that organize around, and identify with, a specific disease or disability to lobby for recognition, better treatment options, access to resources, and, in some cases, equal rights. This biopolitical relationship between citizens and scientific experts in the policy-making process can be seen in the current debate between the neurodiversity movement and anti-autism groups over the needs of autistic people. However, this article shows that within policy discussions, both groups have been (re)constructed by competing medical discourses and illness narratives in a way that has limited their ability to voice their needs and effectively evoke policy change.     

The Problematics of Policy-Making: Foreign and Security Issues in Israel's 1988 Election

Based on the assumption that foreign and defence policy grows out of the domestic political arena, this paper examines the 1988 elections in Israel with a particular focus on the territorial issue of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The two major parties, Likud and Labour, share certain fundamental views, and this fact contributed to the formation of a National Unity Government during 1984–88. Yet they also differ markedly in terms of ideological outlook and more specifically in policy towards peace-making with the Arabs and the future of the territories. The election campaign reflected the differences and incompatibilities between the two major parties, while the results indicated a political stalemate. The domestic party arena in Israel has not produced any clear long-term strategy regarding peace and the territories. This deadlock suggests incoherence in the Cabinet, the impotence of the legislature and the likelihood that external events alone can alter the political status quo.     

How Policy-Making Affects Implementation: The Decentralization of the Danish Disablement Pension Administration*

‘Presidents are more likely to be punished for not making promises of administrative reform than for not implementing them.’ (March & Olsen 1983, 291) Policy-making and implementation have usually been treated as two distinct disciplines. In this article it is argued that implementation is affected by the prior policy-making process. Hypotheses regarding such impacts are derived from the policy-making theories resting on a) the rational decision-making model. b) the conflict-bargaining model, and c) the garbage-can model: Implementation failures are more likely 1) if goals are absent or vague and if alternatives and their consequences have not been considered; 2) if the policy-making process involves participants with conflicting interests and compromising; 3) if there are many and changing participants with limited attention and if symbols are important in the poky-making process. These hypotheses are tested and discussed in relation to a reorganization case, the decentralization of the disablement pension administration in Denmark in 1976.     

论教育行政决策与教育的可持续发展

教育的可持续发展是指满足现代社会和当代人的教育需要和愿望,培养有平等公正意识的、能与自然协调的、可持续发展的新人,又不致于违反教育规律、影响后一代人的发展.要促进教育的可持续发展,在宏观上,要发挥中央政府及其教育行政职能部门的决策、规划、协调作用;在中观上要加强地方政府及教育行政部门的领导、管理、协调的职能;在微观上,要发挥学校和教育本身(特别是高等教育)的功能,加大教育改革的力度和深度.     

Epistemology of the human sciences

The entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley and Route 128 - America’s leading centers of technological innovation - organized politically in the late 1970s. This paper seeks to explain why high tech business associations in these two regions have adopted widely divergent political stances and behavior. It argues that business interests are defined through the process of organization, and that the attitudes of these groups of industrialists were shaped by distinctive political environments, in turn a result of the different industrial and social histories of the two regions. While much scholarly interest has been devoted to the ways in which business affects political outcomes, the paper suggests that the reciprocal causation is equally important: the political environment is an important determinant of business interests.     

政治文化与政治文明

政治文明是人类运用国家权力配置自身利益的进步状态,主要包括思想认识、心理意识、价值取向、行为方式等的提升和制度、机制、程序、规则等的完善两大部分。其中,政治文化是政治文明的灵魂,也是判定政治文明由低级向高级演进的重要尺度。忽视甚至离开了政治文化的政治文明,必将在实践中萎缩、退化,直至被人类社会政治发展进程所淘汰。     

A Pragmatist Critique of Liberal Epistemology

Abstract

This paper wrestles with the issue of the place of comprehensive beliefs within the public space. It tries to strike a middle path between the liberal ban on comprehensive beliefs and the anti-liberal claim that comprehensive beliefs should be given full pride of place in public deliberations. The article relies on arguments that are inspired by the pragmatist tradition. It starts locating the main cause of failures at articulating comprehensive beliefs and public reason in a central feature of liberal epistemology, namely the way it conceives public reason via a preliminary distinction between public and non-public beliefs. After criticizing this distinction, the article introduces a distinction between the normative practice of justification and the normative practice of adjudication as a more perspicuous way to establish the place that comprehensive beliefs should play within political forums. It then concludes showing that this approach provides a satisfying answer to the issue of the public role of comprehensive beliefs in a liberal democratic regime that is respectful of citizens’ thick identities while at the same time complying with the requirements of respect set by the liberal tradition.