South Korea: Searching for a New Direction of Administrative Reform

Government has never been under greater stress all around the world. Fundamental change is occurring at all levels of government. The need to cope with the rapid globalisation of the economy, the so-called borderless economy, and to maintain international competitiveness drives public management reforms. Governments must perform at higher levels of quality and productivity than ever before. The Gore Report, for example, constitutes a major attack on the bureaucratic management paradigm in the United States and its values of entrepreneurial managerialism dominate administrative practices around the world for the time being. This article first identifies a new management paradigm. Then it explores some international experiences with administrative reform in a comparative perspective to suggest a new direction of administrative reform for the future in South Korea.     

Bureaucrats in the Social Policy Process: Administrative Policy Entrepreneurs and the Case of Working Nation

Much of the contemporary literature on Australian social policy tends to focus on broad environmental and institutional variables and to downplay the importance of the social policy decision-making process and its participants. Yet the study of specific cases in social policy-making reveals that senior administrators often have a significant impact on the direction of social policy reform. The income support reforms adopted as part of the fomer Federal Labor government's Working Nation package illustrate the potential for bureaucrats to influence the direction of change. Senior administrative officers within the former Commonwealth Department of Social Security played a crucial role in promoting reforms which increased the generosity of the means test on unemployment payments. These bureaucrats behaved as policy entrepreneurs and worked in a strategic manner to garner support for and reduce opposition to their proposals within the decision-making process.     

Budgeting in Slovenia During the Democratic Transition

Slovenia represents an interesting and important case in the study of comparative budgeting in post-socialist countries during democratization and economic reform. Compared to Hungary and other nations in the region, Slovenia has had more budget stability and has maintained fiscal balances through shared political norms and strong ministerial guardianship. Political culture, institutional capacity, and the nature of governing coalitions all affected budget outcomes. In general, Slovenia has moved more quickly to reform its budgetary institutions and processes but still faces a range of difficult budget issues and choices.     

西方国家治理变革及对我国行政改革的启示

当代西方国家行政改革的基本趋势是治理型的公共行政,与传统的行政模式相比较,治理不仅具有全新的内涵,而且正在成为指导行政改革的一种新理念。在治理理论指导下,西方国家掀起了公共行政改革的浪潮。中国有必要借鉴西方发达国家行政改革的实践和经验,以先进的行政理念重塑政府,构建与现代社会相适应的政府行政模式。     

我国行政程序制度存在的问题及其对策

建立公正、科学的行政程序制度是完善行政程序、促进依法行政的重要保障之一,其本身也是现代文明的重要标志。我国现有的行政程序制度还不完善,我们要通过完善信息公开的程序制度,推进公开方式的现代化;完善行政听证的程序制度,保证听证的公正性;严格遵循期限制度,完善行政责任追究制度等建立公正、科学的行政程序制度。     

Public Sector Governance Reform and the Motivation of Street-Level Bureaucrats in Developing Countries

This article draws on health sector reform in Honduras to examine the mechanisms through which governance reforms shape the behavior of street-level bureaucrats. It combines insights from behavioral public administration with original data from lab-in-the-field workshops conducted with more than 200 bureaucrats to assess the relationship between decentralization and motivation. Findings show strong evidence that motivation, measured as self-sacrifice, is higher among bureaucrats in decentralized municipalities compared with bureaucrats in comparable centrally administered municipalities. Increased motivation is most pronounced in decentralized systems led by nongovernmental organizations compared with those led by municipal governments or associations. Additionally, the evidence suggests that higher motivation is related to changes in the composition of staff rather than socialization or changes among existing staff. Overall, this research helps move beyond indiscriminate calls for decentralization by highlighting the interplay between reform design and bureaucratic behavior, as well as the limitations of governance reforms in motivating more experienced bureaucrats.     

Prospects for Democratic Transition in China

The core tenet of modernization theory is that as nation-states develop both economically and socially, they will inevitably transition to democracy. Yet, despite 30-years of robust economic development and growth, including increases in civil society, democracy remains elusive in China. In this article, we conduct a critical and empirical analysis to understand the challenges and possibilities of democratization in China. Should China transition to democracy, it will most likely occur through a top-down process that transforms the state and its institutions of government or through a cooperative pact by joint forces of top-down and bottom-up processes. Under either a converted or cooperative transition, the modeling in this study strongly suggests that China is likely to be successful should it undertake the process of democratization.     

我国行政程序法问题浅探

行政程序立法是发展社会主义民主法治,消除传统文化不良因素影响和保持行政程序规范统一的需要。我国行政程序立法已具备可行性。我国行政程序法的基本原则应为程序法定原则、公开原则和公平公正原则。我国行政程序法的主要内容应包括行政主体及利害人关系、行政立法、行政活动和法律救济。     

我国行政立法的民主保障和监督控制

行政立法的存在和发展有其合理性和必然性,但行政立法实践中也暴露出种种弊端.为了发挥行政立法的优势而防止其对党政民主、公民的权利和自由的危害,我国一方面基于行政立法的本质,加强了其民主性,使其在民主与效率的价值追求上保持大致的动态平衡,另一方面还建立健全了行政立法监督控制的制度体系,发挥预防和救济的作用.     

日本的行政改革及启示

日本的行政改革是在经济低迷与政局混乱中启动并完成的.其改革内容是全面的,体现了市场化、分权化与绩效化的趋向,在行政机构重新设置的过程中,完成了对传统官僚制的根本性改造,同时还实现了政府职能的重新清理与定位.改革过程中突出政治领导,充分利用内生动力,并尽力遏制部门利益,以及最终强化了政府首脑及内阁府的行政权力和综合协调功能等做法与结果为各国的行政改革提供了一定的借鉴与参考.     

行政审批制度改革中存在的问题与对策

前期的行政审批制度改革已经取得了阶段性成果,但仍存在着清理标准不明确、单纯削减审批项目比例数、形式主义盛行、监管不力等问题。今后还要进一步清理并减少行政审批事项;积极改进审批方式;推行政务公开制度,加强社会监督;切实加强公务员队伍建设,提高公务人员的整体素质;强化对审批行为的监督和事后监管。     

Bureaucrats and Politicians in Britain

The distinctive relationship between bureaucrats and politicians in Britain has been much noted around the world and often used a model by reformers. However, both Conservative and Labour governments have displayed dissatisfaction with the bureaucracy and have made important changes in the "Whitehall model." Some of these changes have reduced the degree to which British politicians have been unusually dependent on a career bureaucracy that is insulated from partisan politics.     

Reshaping the State: Administrative Reform and New Public Management in France

This essay examines the administrative reform process in France since the late 1980s. The key reforms undertaken during this period have sought to delegate greater managerial autonomy to the ministerial field-service level. We undertook semistructured interviews with officials in the field services of three French ministries (Education, Agriculture, and Infrastructure) in the Champagne-Ardennes region, as well as with members of the wider policy communities. The capacity of the field services to adopt a proactive approach to management reform depended on five key variables: internal organizational dynamics; the attitude of the central services to mesolevel autonomy; the degree of institutional receptivity to change; the type of service delivery, and the extent of penetration in local networks. The Infrastructure Ministry was more receptive to management change than either Education or (especially) Agriculture, a receptivity that reflects the institutional diversity of the French administrative system, and that supports new institutionalist arguments. The essay rejects straightforward convergence to the New Policy Management norm. Changes in public management norms require either endogenous discursive shifts or else need to be interpreted in terms of domestic registers that are acceptable or understandable to those charged with implementing reform.     

行政诉权与行政诉讼受案范围

目前,我国行政诉讼法对受案范围的规定过于狭窄,严重阻碍了公民诉权的正常行使,弱化了国家司法权对行政权的有效制约,不利于我国的法治化进程,在未来完善立法时应扩大受案范围,以充分保障公民诉权的行使,推进我国行政法治建设的进程。     

新型治理:韩国民主进程中的市民组织

近些年来,在以发展型国家著称的韩国,公民参与政策过程的影响不断增强.本文分析了韩国民主巩固进程中市民组织的政治化问题.论文通过分析市民组织在政策过程中的三个政治活动案例,揭示了韩国市民组织的组织特征和政治功能,最后还对韩国市民组织的特征与日本市民组织的特征进行了比较,并对韩国政治中市民组织在新型治理中的作用及其前景进行了评价.     

Unprincipled Principals: Co-opted Bureaucrats and Corruption in Ghana

In theory, granting politicians tools to oversee bureaucrats can reduce administrative malfeasance. In contrast, I argue that the political control of bureaucrats can increase corruption when politicians need money to fund election campaigns and face limited institutional constraints. In such contexts, politicians can leverage their discretionary powers to incentivize bureaucrats to extract rents from the state on politicians' behalf. Using data from an original survey of bureaucrats (N = 864) across 80 randomly sampled local governments in Ghana, I show that bureaucrats are more likely to facilitate politicians' corrupt behavior when politicians are perceived to be empowered with higher levels of discretionary control. Using qualitative data and a list experiment to demonstrate the mechanism, I show that politicians enact corruption by threatening to transfer noncompliant officers. My findings provide new evidence on the sources of public administrative deficiencies in developing countries and qualify the presumption that greater political oversight improves governance.