Participation and voting in committees: Evidence from the ILO

Although many international organisations are formally built on the principle of ‘one country–one vote’, the lack of representativeness in decision-making may give a subgroup of members disproportionate influence. Using data on participation and voting in 51 decision-making committees of the International Labour Organization (ILO), we do find a bias in voting outcomes due to committee composition. Recent theoretical research has argued that voters with extreme preferences may self-select into committees. A procedure is proposed to test for this prediction. There is no indication that governments with extreme preferences are drawn disproportionately into ILO committees.     

把握定位 明确任务 开创党校工作新局面——学习胡锦涛同志在全国党校工作会议上的重要讲话

认真学习胡锦涛同志在全国党校工作会议上的重要讲话,对于加强和改进党校工作,推进党的建设新的伟大工程和中国特色社会主义伟大事业,具有重要的意义.认真学习这一重要讲话,必须准确把握有关党校地位和作用的科学论断,深刻认识党校工作的新任务和新要求,以改革创新的精神开创党校工作新局面.     

Business associations in Kenya: the success factors

Governments create the political and economic environment in which their countries' businesses operate, usually described as the ‘enabling environment’ or ‘investment climate’. In response, business associations seek to influence public policy to make it easier for their members to “do business”. Scholars suggest that interest groups are able to form lasting relationships with governments based on a resource exchange mechanism. This paper suggests that, at least in developing countries, a more nuanced explanation is necessary. Business associations, in particular, need proactively to pursue a logic of ‘competence’ as well as a logic of ‘positive relationships’. This paper assesses the outcomes of advocacy projects undertaken by business associations in Kenya in the period 2008–2013, considers the degree to which the associations contributed to the decision to change policy and then analyses the factors perceived by business associations to have led to their success in influencing public policy. We find evidence to support the expectation that business associations must develop a wide range of competences whilst building relationships with multiple stakeholders. The findings will be relevant to practitioners as well as to researchers and donors. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Audit for Accountability in China: An Incomplete Mission

This article argues against the conventional wisdom that accountability is the raison d'être of auditing activities. Audit, admittedly, is a part of the accountability architecture as it contributes to the financial health of a government and the effective management of public money. This does not mean, however, that audit necessarily generates accountability. China's experience with establishing a power audit regime shows that without enabling goals, impartial structural arrangements, and effective procedures, auditing for accountability only remains an incomplete mission.     

新世纪深圳妇女的使命

沐浴着新世纪和煦的春风 ,我们迎来了“三八”国际劳动妇女节。风云变幻的 2 0世纪 ,世界妇女 ,特别是挣脱了千年封建枷锁的中国妇女 ,走过了一条艰辛、曲折、壮丽的发展道路 ,经历了血与火的洗礼 ,谱写了一曲凤凰涅盘的赞歌。置身改革开放前沿的深圳妇女经过 2 0年的摔打和磨练 ,也逐渐走向成熟。展望新世纪 ,深圳妇女在党的领导下 ,正以新的精神风貌迎接知识经济的新时代。一、成长中的深圳女性群体经过 2 0多年的发展 ,深圳形成了以移民为主体 ,由三大群体组成的人口结构 :本地人、户籍移民和外来劳务工。截止 1999年底 ,深圳人口约 40 5…     

Politicians and Civil Servants: Unfinished Business—The Next Steps Report,Fulton and the Future*

This article discusses the origins of the Efficiency Unit's ‘Next Steps’ Report, published 20 years ago which recommended the executive agency as an organisation for much of the British government. Within five years more than half the civil service had been transferred to work in agencies but the other major recommendation of the report – improving the management skills of the senior civil service received far less enthusiastic attention. From the Fulton Report, the Next Steps report to the Capability Reviews of current Whitehall the same problem is highlighted: there is still too little management competence within the public service despite the endorsement of the need for improvement by successive governments.     

Creating other options: negotiating the meanings of citizenships

In this article, I explore the ways in which citizenship is reinvented and reinterpreted through local understandings and experiences. I show how Israeli citizens who had applied for another citizenship create a distinction between their Israeli citizenship, which they conceptualize in terms of identity and belonging, and their ‘European passport’, which they depict as a technical non-obliging document, thus neutralizing the challenge it poses on questions of national loyalty. However, the other sought after citizenship, which represents a legally binding attachment to a nation-state, paradoxically becomes a powerful symbol of freedom, embodying other life possibilities and allowing for an active negotiation of belonging.     

Public Leadership in Times of Crisis: Mission Impossible?

Crisis management (prevention, preparedness, response, and reconstruction) is a tough task for political and bureaucratic leaders. This article documents the persistent tensions between the expectations and realities of crisis leadership. It explores the popular notion that crises provide key opportunities for reform. The very occurrence of a crisis is then thought to expose the status quo as problematic, making it easier to gain momentum for alternative policies and institutions. We argue that the opportunities for reform in the wake of crisis are smaller than often thought. The prime reason is that the requisites of crisis leadership are at odds with the requirements of effective reform.     

Computerizing Accounting Systems in Developing Bureaucracies: Lessons from Kenya

Kenya's agriculture ministries are reforming their accounting systems and the reform includes computerization. This article examines the impact of computers on accounts and the lessons that can be drawn from Kenya about building computerized accounting systems.
Four propositions emerge about the impact of computers on the accounting systems. First and surprisingly, the initial impact of computers is indirect. Their primary impact is to strengthen the manual accounts which the ministries continue to rely upon. Second, computers promote effectiveness reforms by changing procedures, rather than efficiency reforms by accelerating the throughput of data with existing procedures. Third, computers do not initially promote document processing but do improve data processing. Fourth, computers do promote rudimentary analysis.
One conclusion from the Kenya case is that modular implementation of computerized accounting is helpful. Implementing modules rather than an integrated system means that accounting reforms can begin without waiting for lengthy procedural reforms. Modular implementation also facilitates agency involvement in the design of the system.     

后金融危机时代我国的就业问题

一、后金融危机时代的特点 在经济全球化的背景下，世界各国市场的开放和贸易壁垒的降低，使得跨国生产要素流动和跨国贸易成为可能。发达国家通过产业转移调整本国的产业结构，实现全球战略目标；发展中国家则通过承接产业转移加快产业升级和经济发展。改革开放以来，我国正是在世界的产业分工中，通过承接发达国家转移的产业，大大加快了我国的工业化进程，促进了我国产业技术水平的提高和产业结构的升级。     

The Role of the Public Manager in Inclusion: Creating Communities of Participation

In this article, we focus on the role of the public manager in bringing about inclusion. While inclusion often implies public participation, we have observed that one of the challenges for public managers practicing inclusive management is the necessity of combining information and perspectives of three domains: the political, the technical, and the local or experiential. Inclusion, from this perspective, involves the creation of communities of participation in which representatives of these three domains can use their knowledge to address public problems. We examine the ways in which managers do informational and relational work to enact such communities of participation.     

From the Wagner Act to the Human Rights Watch Report: Labor and Freedom of Expression and Association, 1935-2000*

This paper examines the legal restrictions on the labor movement's right to picket and strike since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) or Wagner Act in 1935. The NLRA was seen as a statutory equivalent of the First Amendment for the labor movement, guaranteeing workers rights of association and expression they had been denied historically through the use of court injunctions, criminal conspiracy prosecutions, and extra-legal violence. Supreme Court decisions of the late 1930s, often arising out of labor conflicts, also significantly expanded rights of freedom of association and expression. Yet a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in 2000 concluded that US workers lacked the basic rights to organize, bargain, and strike required by international human rights standards. It found that US labor laws permitted employers to fire, harass, and intimidate workers with impunity. This paper examines the decline of these rights since the Wagner Act, seeing the roots of the legal decline in the ambivalent legacy of the Act itself. On the one hand, both the Act and the Court legally recognized unions as legitimate political organizations and extended to them many of the associative and expressive freedoms that had been available to other groups. On the other hand, the legal price for this recognition of legitimacy was the restriction of a range of expressive activities. Subsequently, labor's rights came to be treated more under the framework of industrial relations and economic policy than of civil liberties and constitutional freedoms. This gradual legal retrenchment, along with political and economic developments, left the labor movement severely weakened by the end of the century, with significantly less legal protection than its counterparts in other economically advanced countries. I explore these developments by relating them to the literatures on American exceptionalism and industrial relations. Theoretically, I rely on work which examines the relationship between institutional structure and human agency to understand the strategic choices made by corporations, state actors, and the labor movement. The paper concludes with an assessment of recent calls for labor law reform as a strategy for reviving the labor movement.     

Blurring Boundaries: The Integration of NGOs into Governance in Kenya

This article examines the impact of the proliferation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on governance in Kenya. Looking specifically at service provision, it analyzes how the growth of NGOs has begun to change the way decisions are made and policy is formulated. In so doing, the article explores shifting NGO–government relations over time. The governance of service provision has become a complex, intertwined affair in which NGOs sit on national policymaking committees, government integrates NGO plans and budgets into national policy, and government actors learn from and copy NGOs' participatory, accountable approach. Through (1) the integration of former NGO leaders in government, (2) increasing the variety of voices heard in government decision making, (3) lobbying by NGOs, and (4) mimicry of NGOs by government, governance of Kenyan service provision has begun to become more democratic. Through such changes, developing countries are witnessing a blurring of the line between public and private.