Institutional Arrangements and Logrolling: Evidence from the European Union

This article illustrates how voting rules used to pass a piece of legislation and the structure of the legislation, in terms of whether or not it has single or multiple issue dimensions, influence the frequency and the purpose of position changes in legislative negotiations. Through analysis of data on a set of legislative proposals negotiated in the European Union, I show that position changes are less common under unanimity rule than under majority rule. More importantly, I argue and show that when the negotiated legislation is multidimensional (i.e., contains multiple issues) and the voting rule is unanimity, position changing is a lucrative strategy for legislators. Multidimensional legislation creates opportunities for logrolling, and legislators’ veto power under the unanimity rule enables them to exploit these opportunities. Accordingly, under this scenario, legislators often engage in what I call a within‐legislation logroll and secure favorable legislative outcomes.     

Economic calculation in the Soviet Union

The article seeks to analyse the relationship between different forms of economic calculation in the Soviet Union, concentrating on monetary calculations used by the State Bank and on the use of ‘material balances’ and of input‐output analysis in planning the Soviet economy. It provides a critique of Bettelheim's analysis of the role of monetary calculation in the Soviet Union and, using the work of Lavigne, attempts to provide a foundation for a specific analysis of economic calculation (and hence, relations of production) in the Soviet Union. The article concludes by arguing that the variety of methods of calculating used in the Soviet Union, and the generation of ‘needs’ by organisational exigencies which may not be fully taken into account in the main methods of calculation, undermine the common conception of planning as the rational pursuit of certain ideal ends, a conception which is unfortunately still influential in many socialist conceptions of planning. Finally, in rejecting the view that one can conceive of socialism as a certain ideal state of affairs, the article argues that political critiques of the Soviet Union do not entail the rejection of the view that it is a socialist society.     

执政党与政治参与

政治体制改革的重要内容之一 ,即扩大人民民主。强化政治参与是扩大人民民主的重要方面。在我国目前情况下 ,正确认识执政党与政治参与的关系 ,具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。一方面 ,政治参与为执政党建设提供了丰富的政治资源 ;另一方面 ,执政党的建设又为扩大政治参与提供了有力的政治保证。     

苏联解体的戈尔巴乔夫因素

苏联社会主义模式是人类发展道路上的奇葩,它使落后国家短期内走上工业化道路。面对苏联社会中的严重矛盾,戈尔巴乔夫上台后试图开辟新局面。他在苏联尚未作好改革准备的情况下,短期内进行全面改革,最终无力控制局势,导致苏联解体。     

缺乏理论创新是阻碍苏联改革的一个重要原因

本文考察三个问题:一是缺乏理论创新对苏联经济体制改革的阻碍作用;二是苏联长期坚持产品经济观和批判“市场社会主义”而导致历次改革失败所造成的严重经济后果;三是对中国今后在推进理论创新方面提出的几点思考。     

苏联共产党认识共产主义的教训

在如何认识共产主义问题上，苏联共产党在国际共产主义运动中留下了两个方面的教训：一是脱离实际、教条主义地看待共产主义，主观地对遥远的未来作具体的设想和细致的描绘，从而陷入空想；二是放弃共产主义理想，从而改变了前进的方向。     

苏联为何、如何亡党亡国--苏联社会矛盾和叶利钦搞垮苏联的步骤

苏联灭亡的一条根本原因是苏联自 １９３６年宣布建成社会主义时起就存在三大矛盾并且日益发展，而苏共领导一直未能正确认识和解决这些矛盾。叶利钦分三步当上了俄罗斯总统，利用苏联社会的三大矛盾，先后逼死了苏共，搞垮了苏联。     

Rhetoric and rationality: A study of democratization in the Soviet Union

Can political actors use rational strategies for political conflict when established institutions are unavailable to structure political choices because the institutions are themselves among the contested issues? In Soviet politics from 1985 to 1991, cross-cutting cleavages placed in question the possibility of any stable outcome. We argue that a multi-dimensional issue space was reduced to a single dimension, along which Mikhail Gorbachev could temporarily occupy a median, by the interaction between Gorbachev's own rhetoric and rhetorical tactics used by leaders of his nomenklatura opposition, by Boris Yeltsin as the leader of the democratic opposition, and by single-issue groups called neformaly. The match between these four players' rhetorics and the four strategic options identified by a simple spatial model offers empirical evidence that rational strategies were available despite institutional flux.     

The Soviet Union and population: theory,problems, and population policy

Until the important public dialog on 3rd World population issues began in the Soviet Uuion in 1965, ideological limitations and bureaucratic interests prevented policy makers from recognizing the existence of a world of national "population problem." Since then, freer discussions of the Soviet Union's surprising decline in birthrate and labor shortages have led to serious policy questions. Conflicting policy goals, however, have resulted in only modest pronatalist policies. The Soviet population problem is a result of interregional disparities in population growth rates between the highly urbanized Soviet European populations with low birth rates and the least urbanized Central Asians with dramatically higher birth rates. As a result, these essentially Muslim people will provide the only major increases in labor resources and an increasing percentage of Soviet armed forces recruits. Policy planners are thus faced with difficult options. Current policies stressing technological transfers from the west and greater labor productivity, however, are unlikely to solve further labor shortages and regional imbalances. Ultimately, nonEuropana regions will be in an improved bargaining position for more favorable nationwide economic policies and for a greater role in policy planning.     

Government-introduced price distortions and growth: Evidence from twenty-nine developing countries

The author expresses appreciation to G.S. Gupta and Andy K.M. Li for their valuable assistance in data processing and computer programming, and to Professor Tullock for his so thoughtful and constructive comments and suggestions which were extremely helpful in revising the original paper. The usual caveat applies.     

Consultations with Interest Groups and the Empowerment of Executives: Evidence from the European Union

We examine how an executive's consultations with interest groups during the formative stage of the policy process affect its bargaining success during the decision‐making stage after it has proposed new policies to legislative actors. Our theory sets out how consultations with interest groups strengthen the executive by bolstering its formal and informal agenda‐setting power. The empirical testing ground for our theory is the European Union (EU), and in particular the consultations held by the European Commission. The analysis assesses the effects of these consultations on the congruence between the Commission's legislative proposals on controversial issues and EU laws. Our analysis incorporates detailed information on the type and scope of each consultation. In line with our theory, we find that the Commission had more success during the decision‐making stage after conducting open consultations with large numbers of interest groups during the policy formation stage.     

如何探究苏联剧变的根源

苏联剧变的根源,需要从人类社会发展的长过程中去探究,从社会主义发展的历史进程中去探究,从苏联改革进程中去探究,从苏联剧变的过程中去探究。     

Reforming Budget Systems in Countries of the Former Soviet Union

The countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) required considerable revision to their budget processes and procedures to establish systems consistent with transformation from controlled dependencies within a larger planned economy to independent governments of fledgling market-oriented democracies. This article considers the degree to which preexisting, reforming, and reformed budget systems in FSU countries deliver the basic expectations of a public sector resource allocation system. Evidence indicates failures to realign budgeting and finance systems designed for command and control environments to the demands of more market based economic systems, with effects often magnified by the hybrid economies of these transitional states. Significant difficulties and shortcomings in the ability of existing systems to perform basic public sector allocation, management, and control functions are the result, but some countries are ahead of others and their experience can guide reforms across the FSU.     

Territorial Representation and the Opinion–Policy Linkage: Evidence from the European Union

A key feature of federal systems is the representation of subnational units by “territorial representatives” in policymaking at the federal level. How do such arrangements influence the linkage between public opinion and policy outputs? I argue that policymaking under territorial representation should be systematically skewed toward opinion in those states where citizens care about a policy issue and have a uniform view on it. This claim is tested using a novel data set of policy change in the European Union (EU), covering 211 policy issues and 6,506 observations of opinion–policy dyads. Results show that measures weighting opinion across member states by how much national citizens care about an issue are better predictors of policy change than EU‐wide mean opinion. Moreover, congruence between state‐level opinion and EU‐level policy becomes more likely, the more salient and clear‐cut opinion in a member state is. These findings refine our understanding of the opinion–policy linkage under territorial representation.     

The Soviet Union,the Middle East,and the evolving world energy situation

Surveying and summarizing the basic issues confronting Soviet decisionmakers in the next ten years as reflected in energy and international political terms, this analysis treats the capacity and constraints mediating Soviet influence in the resolution of the future world energy balance. A scenario highlighting a “Soviet-Preferred Future World” is developed that focuses on three classes of likely energy outcomes: (1) a gradual erosion of the Western commercial position in Middle East oil, (2) repeated shortages in oil-consumer states leading to a diversion of attention away from international matters and increased preoccupation with “domestic” energy woes, and (3) a deterioration of the terms of trade for energy importers vis à vis Soviet and noncommunist trading partners. The discussion concludes with an assessment of several of the key choices confronting the major oil-importing nations and requiring resolution.