Club theory: Thirty years later

This paper presents a self-contained survey of club theory with an emphasis on the contributions of the last fifteen years. Club goods are contrasted with pure public goods, and equilibrium and optimality notions are contrasted. After presenting three basic representations of club theory, we focus on recent advances and generalizations that include heterogeneous memberships, transaction costs, uncertain utilization, asymmetric information, and noncompetitive influences. An agenda for research is indicated that includes further analysis of asymmetric information, institutional structure, and applications.     

China's rural reform: the state and peasantry in constructing a macro-rationality

As a critique of the popular perspective on China's rural reform centered on microinstitutional problems of collective farming such as work incentive and monitoring, this paper places an alternative emphasis on the distinct organizational characteristics of the peasant family in production, distribution, and welfare. What the Chinese state saw in family-based peasantry was not a typical market-oriented private economy operating mainly in pursuit of short term profits, but a multipurpose, morally governed unit in which the rural population maintains stable work relations, pursues diverse entrepreneurial activities, and satisfies basic subsistence needs; i.e., a organizational unit which could take over most of the social and economic functions of the pre-reform collective. In a sense, China's rural decollectivization has been a process of deceptively transferring the burden of absorbing and supporting the huge rural surplus labor to individual peasant families for whose economic activities the state is not directly responsible.     

Assessing swings in multi-party systems: The Indian experience

India has a single member, first-past-the-post system. Owing to the importance of wasted votes in a multi-party system, the relation between votes and seats cannot be explained by traditional swing analysis. In this paper a measure of vote-splitting¹ is developed and used to decompose changes in margins into the ‘swing’ and the ‘split’. This method of analysis is applied to the study of electoral change in India and its usefulness for prediction is examined.     

Administration in a small capitalist state: The Hong Kong experience

This article is primarily concerned with the functions of bureaucracy in a minimal state and with how those functions might change in response to economic growth. It is predicated on the assumption that bureaucracy is necessary for economic growth even in those countries which seek to achieve such growth through the relatively free operation of the economy within the rubric of a capitalist state. Hong Kong is a case in point. Although it has often been taken as the epitome of the benefits which can be derived from keeping government out of the economy, the bureaucracy has in fact played a critical role in support of economic development. Aside from the functions which must be performed by any state, such as the maintenance of law and order, the administration of justice, and the provision of public works, three features of Hong Kong bureaucratic practice appear to have been important in the definition of the bureaucracy's tasks in the economic growth process. These are ‘value for money’ and the constant need to justify government expenditure; effective line implementation; and the ability to manage crises. If these constitute minimal essential requirements for such governments, they may provide useful criteria which small or micro-states, following capital growth models but not yet experiencing rapid economic development, can apply in assessing the capabilities of their own bureaucracies.     

The disadvantaged incumbents: estimating incumbency effects in Indian state legislatures

This paper estimates the incumbency effects using a large dataset on state legislative elections in India during 1975–2003. I use a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) that estimates the causal effect of incumbency by comparing candidates in closely fought elections. I find that there is a significant disadvantage to incumbency in Indian State legislative elections, and the adverse effect of incumbency has increased after 1991. Also, the incumbency disadvantage is higher in states that have lower availability of public goods such as health centers, and lower employment, poverty and per capita income.     

Symbolic reform in France: Egalite professionnelle during the Mitterrand years

This article examines the 1983 égalité professionnelle law adopted under the Socialist government. Using a policy process approach, the analysis shows how the 1983 law failed to go beyond symbolic reform in policy formulation and implementation. In symbolic policy the outcome fails both to effectively reallocate resources and to generate policy feedback. The article concludes that while symbolic policy in the case of égalité professionnelle brought public attention to problems of gender discrimination in employment it failed to generate a permanent policy community, inside and outside of government, interested in the enforcement of programmes from the 1983 law.     

Controlling money during socialist economic reform: the Chinese experience

Contrary to the easy job that some conservative economists imagine, the task faced by the socialist monetary authority in controlling the money supply during economic reform is a daunting one, as recent experience in China indicates. It is difficult to estimate the demand for money in the mixed system that has emerged from the reform process, with all its structural disequilibria. Given prevailing economic and political interferences, keeping the money supply within targets is also beset with problems. Monetary issues have not received much attention in the conventional discourse about socialist economics, before or during reform. Hence the Chinese central bank often has to take uninformed action on events that it cannot effectively control. The results could be very serious, even tragic. In any case, it seems that the bank should not shoulder the main blame.     

The budgetary implications of welfare reform: Lessons from four state initiatives

Required work and training, a major component of recent “welfare reform” proposals, is intended to increase the self-sufficiency of welfare recipients and thereby produce savings for government treasuries as well as more income for the recipients themselves. This analysis focuses explicitly on the budgetary effects of such activities, estimating the cost savings and new revenues generated by welfare employment programs started in four states since 1981. It suggests that when a broad range of effects are taken into account over a sufficiently long period, the overall budgetary implications of the programs are usually positive at the federal, state, and local levels of government. The costs and gains, however, are shared unevenly by the three levels, which encourages disparities in the programs states and localities choose to implement.     

实验主义治理：公共治理的一个新路径

实验主义治理秉持以现实问题为导向和以经验证据为支撑的实证理念和循证品格,在纵向放权的基础上通过目标设置、差异探索、治理评估、政策迭代和政策扩散等机制探寻政策改进和治理优化的可行路径。作为一种新的治理模式,它的兴起是为了应对治理复杂性的挑战、弥补科层式治理的不足和探寻治理现代化的路径等。实验主义治理模式注重纵向放权、公众参与和多元协作,改善了公共治理主体间的关系,提升了治理的参与性、科学性和有效性,是科层式治理模式的重要补充。但在实践中,实验主义治理也面临着法治困境、创新困境和合作困境等现实难题。在我国推进治理体系与治理能力现代化的背景下,应当协调好实验主义治理中创新与法治的内在张力,完善治理体制与机制,提升实验主义治理的实践效能,从而使其在全面深化改革进程中发挥更大的作用。     

Developing new measures of welfare state change and reform

Abstract. Since the publication of Gøsta Esping–Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Esping–Andersen 1990), which built its typologies on a rich database of detailed programme characteristics, it has been generally accepted that measures of social expenditure are an inferior, and even a misleading, source of information concerning the character of welfare state development. The problem is, however, that the kinds of detailed programme data Esping–Andersen used are not routinely available, while the quality of social expenditure data has been improving rapidly, culminating in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) now regularly updated and highly disaggregated Social Expenditure Database (SOCX). This article explores the possibility of using SOCX to devise measures of the extent, structure and trajectory of welfare state change and reform in 21 OECD countries over the period 1984 to 1997. On the basis of these measures, it suggests that there has been almost no sign of systematic welfare retrenchment in recent years and only limited evidence of major structural transformation or programmatic reorientation.     

Reforming the state: The policy of administrative reform in Italy under the Ciampi government

Since 1992, administrative reform has become a major theme on the Italian political agenda. This article examines the pressures leading to reform under the Ciampi government (April 1993‐May 1994). It focuses, first, on the directions to be taken by reform that were identified and, second, on their implementation. Also considered are the obstacles to reform found in the political and administrative systems. The limits to the reform and its legacy illustrate the more general problems of the Italian legal and constitutional order.     

Governance in Crisis and withering of the welfare state: the legacy of the policy sciences

The introductory essay to this special issue on Governance in Crisis has three objectives. Firstly, it tries to show that current dilemmas of governance in advanced industrial Western nations can be analysed within the common framework of the thesis of the withering of the modern welfare state. Secondly, it argues that the policy sciences have a legacy of problem-oriented and value-conscious scholarship, bestowed by Lasswell and others, which can and should be taken up in the analysis of the comprehensive problems of governance confronting advanced industrial nations. Thirdly, it considers the requirement that the policy sciences go significantly beyond a managerial perspective and take up the timely but challenging task of linking up problem-orientation to contextuality. Contributions to this issue are seen to constitute a promising step in this direction.     

Local Governance Versus Centralization: Connecticut Wetlands Governance as a Model

Scholars disagree whether local decision making is inherently more democratic and sustainable than centralized governance structures. While some maintain it is, due to the incorporation of local knowledge, citizen decision makers' closeness to the issues, and the benefits of participatory democracy, others find it as susceptible to issues of corruption and poor implementation as any other scale. We argue that with wetlands, a natural resource with critical local benefits, it is imperative to incorporate local governance, using the U.S. state of Connecticut as an example. Despite the American policy of No Net Loss, the local benefits of wetland resources cannot be aggregated on a national scale. Each local ecosystem needs wetland resources to ensure local ecological benefits such as flood control and pollution remission, as well as the substantial economic benefits of recreation. We illustrate the benefits of local control of wetlands with data from the American state of Connecticut, which consistently surpasses the federal wetland goal of No Net Loss due, we argue, to the governance structure of town‐level wetlands commissions. A national policy such as No Net Loss, where wetlands are saved or created in designated areas and destroyed in others, is insufficient when it ignores critical benefits for localities. The Connecticut system using local volunteers and unpaid appointees is a successful method for governing common‐pool wetland systems. In the case of Connecticut, we find that local decision making is not a “trap,” but instead an effective model of sustainable, democratic local governance.     

The role of the state in voluntary environmental reform: A case study of public land

Conventional environmental reform is characterized by the compliance of firms with direct regulatory pressure from the state. Scholars are now turning their attention to alternative modes of reform where firms proactively improve their operations through the implementation of voluntary environmental strategies (VES). While previous research on VES has typically focused on the manufacturing sector, this study explores challenges to corporate greening in the natural resource extractive sector when strategies are undertaken on public land. Findings from two case study regions in the Canadian province of Alberta suggest that VES undertaken on public land are significantly constrained by certain features of the system of environmental governance and the regulatory regime, particularly the reluctance of the state to be involved as a co-regulator of public land. The importance of solid leadership from the state in environmental reform – including cases of voluntary corporate initiatives – is discussed.     

The challenge ahead: the state agenda for the coming years

The mid-1990s promise to be extremely challenging years as state leaders and institutions struggle to bring accountability and predictability back into their political systems. Faced with continuing budgets troubles, increasing demands for services and a shift of responsibility from the federal to the state level, the American states will be hard pressed to satisfy constituent needs or improve state services. However, the tough times may result in long-term improvement in state government, as administrators streamline agencies, legislators trim inefficient or redundant programs and state leaders generally seek new and cost effective solutions to social and economic problems.     

Population and economics in Quintana Roo state: some considerations from recent experience

"This article focuses on the explosive population growth in Quintana Roo [Mexico] during the last few years and its...implications [for] the local economy. First, the article briefly describes population structure, emphasizing some migratory and socioeconomic aspects. Next it considers the status sectoral and regional production structure, which [emphasize] the strong dependence on tourism and its concentration in Cancun. In the conclusions population and economic aspects entwine, providing a more comprehensive developmental perspective." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

The role of the state in financing recurrent education: Lessons from European experience

This paper first considers what recurrent education is and what economic case might be made out for the State finance of adult education. The traditional arguments on grounds of efficiency and equity are difficult to sustain but a case can be made out that the imperfections in the present State finance and provision of higher education in Britain discourages a free choice amongst individuals between work, education, leisure and retirement. The second part of the article reviews European development in the finance of recurrent education. The third section draws some policy conclusions for Britain and the United states.