British corporatism

Politics in Industrial Society. By Keith Middlemas. London: Andre Deutsch, 1979. Pp.512. £14.95 (case). £5.95 (paper).

The Politics of the Corporate Economy. By Trevor Smith. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1979. £17.50.

Governing Under Pressure: The Policy Process in a Post‐Parliamentary Democracy. By J.J. Richardson and Grant Jordan. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1979. £16.50 (case). £5.90 (paper).     

Transnational delegation in global environmental governance: When do non‐state actors govern?

Non‐state actors – including firms, non‐governmental organizations, and networks – are now a permanent fixture in environmental politics. However, we know surprisingly little about when states choose to delegate to non‐state actors through multilateral treaties. This paper provides an historical picture, tracing patterns of delegation to non‐state agents in a random sample of multilateral environmental agreements from 1902 to 2002. I introduce a new unit of analysis – the policy function – to understand what non‐state actors actually do as agents. I find that analyses of delegation are sensitive to the unit of analysis; patterns of delegation at the treaty level are very different from those at the level of individual policy functions. While overall the decision to delegate to non‐state actors – what I term transnational delegation – is rare, it has grown over time. Complex treaties, those with secretariats, and those focused on the management of nature are more apt to delegate to non‐state actors. Non‐state agents fill a small, but growing role in multilateral environmental treaties.     

Domestic scrutiny of European Union politics: Between whistle blowing and opposition control

Some European law proposals are subject to scrutiny by national parliaments while others go unchecked. The analysis in this article indicates that the opposition scrutinises European Union law to gather information on the proceedings inside the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. Yet whereas strong opposition parties scrutinise highly politicised law proposals, weak opposition parties tend to scrutinise those proposals that are negotiated under the non‐transparent fast‐track procedure. In addition, there is ample evidence that the leading minister initiates scrutiny in order to strengthen his or her intergovernmental bargaining leverage. Yet, this Schelling Conjecture presumes that the party of the minister is located between the expected bargaining position in the Council and the coalition partner. Any other domestic interest constellation could lead to scrutiny motivated by whistle blowing. However, an issue's salience helps us to separate the whistle blowing from the Schelling Conjecture.     

Stakeholder governance of organ transplantation: A desirable model for inducing evidence-based medicine?

Medical governance should secure and apply appropriate expertise, accommodate stakeholder interests, and promote social values. The most common form of governance, public (agency) rulemaking by government agencies, usually involves supplementing in-house expertise through advisory committees. An alternative, private (stakeholder) rulemaking, involves delegating the authority for developing rules directly to stakeholders, who often command relevant expertise, including that arising out of tacit knowledge. The possible advantages and disadvantages of agency and stakeholder rulemaking in medical governance can be assessed both from what we know about these forms in general and from experience with a prominent example of stakeholder rulemaking; that is, governance of the US organ transplantation system. It appears that this governance has been exceptionally successful in promoting evidence-based medicine. The stakeholder role in the governance of transplantation could be replicated in other areas by creating meaningful stakes to engage stakeholders and by increasing isolation from legislative politics through an independent funding source and circumscribed oversight.     

Are regulatory agencies independent in practice? Evidence from board members in Spain

Are the board members of regulatory agencies (regulators), taken as a particular cluster within the public sphere, independent of elected politicians and tenured bureaucrats? How can we assess their independence in practice, beyond formal rules? To address these questions, this paper delves into two key dimensions: board members' social connections and their security of tenure in office. Firstly, we focus on regulators' identity as policy adjudicators and examine their political and administrative relations. In doing so, we expect to understand better how regulators' social and political situations may influence their behavior. Secondly, we assess their political vulnerability through political cycles in order to measure their de facto independence over time. Additionally, variations in these two dimensions are compared with respect to the effect of different de jure appointment rules. We contrast these expectations with the empirical evaluation of board members of regulatory agencies in Spain (1979–2010). Thus, we confirm that regulators who have an administrative profile are more vulnerable to political changes than those with political ties, while appointment rules have an influence on their political vulnerability.     

行业协会腐败治理及其刑事责任追究

行业协会有一定的行政管理和服务职能,也有经费来源,故有腐败的条件。行业协会腐败形式多样,对行业协会腐败的治理措施主要是政社分开、加强监管以及对腐败活动追究行政和刑事责任。其中,《刑法》对以个人名义进行的腐败活动有相应的罪名惩处,而很多腐败活动以协会名义进行,《刑法》缺乏对这类腐败的罪名规定。要提高对行业协会腐败治理的效果,应在《刑法》中增设相应的行业协会单位犯罪的罪名。     

中介组织与政府职能到位探析

适应入世后的形势 ,政府职能转变问题再一次成为人们关注的焦点。这一与政府改革密切相关的问题的解决 ,离不开中介组织这一强有力的支撑。我国目前有近 2 0种中介组织 ;中介组织的非独立运行危害很大 ;政府对中介组织的管理不应该是直接管理 ,而应是依法规范 ;行业协会等中介组织的健康发展是当前的重中之重     

Do parties matter in delegation? Partisan preferences and the creation of regulatory agencies in Europe

The ideological orientation of parties in government has not been prominently featured in explaining the rise of regulatory agencies. This paper argues that theories based on political uncertainty and credible commitment can yield meaningful predictions regarding the relationship between government preferences and the establishment of regulatory agencies, when ideological orientation is linked with notions of party competence and issue ownership. The empirical section tests three such hypotheses with data on the establishment of 110 regulatory agencies in 20 European democracies between 1980 and 2009, thus providing one of the most comprehensive cross‐national analyses of agency creation to date. The results show that ideologically extreme cabinets are more likely to establish regulatory agencies and that right‐wing governments create more agencies in the economic than in the social domain. These findings partly qualify the view on the scarce relevance of government preferences in explaining the rise of the agency model in regulation and that the emulation mechanism of the diffusion process is the dominant force behind agencification.     

我国中介服务业发展中的问题及对策研究

中介服务业作为市场经济的重要组成部分，在国民经济发展中发挥着重要的作用。本分析了我国中介服务业目前存在的主要问题，如官办中介大量存在、诚信度低、执业资格审查混乱、相关的法律不健全、规模小、业务品种单一、人员素质不高等，并就这些问题提出了一些建议性对策。