Changes in U.S. hospitalization and mortality rates following smoking bans

U.S. state and local governments have increasingly adopted restrictions on smoking in public places. This paper analyzes nationally representative databases, including the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, to compare short‐term changes in mortality and hospitalization rates in smoking‐restricted regions with control regions. In contrast with smaller regional studies, we find that smoking bans are not associated with statistically significant short‐term declines in mortality or hospital admissions for myocardial infarction or other diseases. An analysis simulating smaller studies using subsamples reveals that large short‐term increases in myocardial infarction incidence following a smoking ban are as common as the large decreases reported in the published literature. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

“八零前”与“八零后”流动人口家庭迁移行为比较研究

本文使用"2010年下半年全国流动人口动态监测"数据,按照出生年份划分流动人口代际群体,在经典迁移理论和新迁移经济学的框架下比较分析"八零前"与"八零后"流动人口家庭迁移行为。研究发现,流动人口在受教育程度、职业身份等方面存在显著代际差异,并对家庭迁移产生显著影响。而在居住时间、迁入地家庭总收入、移民汇款等方面不存在代际显著差异,对家庭迁移的影响存在代际一致性。     

Public policy and the initiative and referendum: a survey with some new evidence

Many scholars have argued that primary elections are an important factor in the polarization of the American Congress. Yet little research measures change in the policy preferences of primary electorates to evaluate the connection directly. We create the first explicit measures of the preferences of primary voters over the last 60 years using a Bayesian item-response theory model. Although the overall distribution of population preferences has changed little, the preferences of primary voters are now much more related to the party of the primary that they attend. We show that liberals are much more likely to turn out in Democratic primaries and conservatives are much more likely to turn out in Republican primaries. We estimate that the divergence of primary from general electorates is six times larger in 2012 than in 1958 owing to this “primary sorting”. This trend began with the emergence of the Southern Republicans. As the Republican party became viable, conservative Southerners switched to Republican primaries leading to a leftward shift in Democratic primary electorates. Nationwide, primary sorting began sometime after it began in the South. We speculate that Southern realignment played a clarifying role that contributed to subsequent sorting of primary electorates nationwide.     

Nonprofit housing development: Status,trends, and prospects

Abstract

This article relies on a national survey of community‐based housing development organizations to profile production levels, spatial coverage, funding sources, and nondevelopmental roles of the nonprofit housing development sector. It also uses Urban Institute case study results and secondary data sources to examine continuing barriers to increased production in the sector and the evolution of institutional responses to those barriers.

Nationwide, about 13 percent of all recent federally supported housing units (excluding public housing) have been sponsored by nonprofit developers. This production is distributed very unevenly; relatively few developers produce the bulk of units, and regional disparities are marked. Long‐standing barriers to efficient production at higher volumes continue: Undercapitalization, high‐risk developments, patchwork systems of finance, and the difficulty of demonstrating the social payoff of community development investments constrain even the most sophisticated portions of the sector. However, the creation of national intermediary institutions over the past decade and the proliferation of similar organizations locally have established the preconditions for sector expansion. And in view of recent local initiatives in participatory, comprehensive neighborhood revitalization, and hints of federal support for like efforts, increased capacity in the sector has taken on new national importance.     

论新世纪行政体制改革的目标与路径

进入新世纪，在全面建设小康社会的新形势下，我国行政体制改革的目标是建立和完善公共行政体制。公共行政体制下的政府是公共型政府、公正型政府、民主型政府、法治型政府、有限型政府、分权型政府、透明型政府、服务型政府、效能型政府和责任制政府。建立和完善公共行政体制。必须切实解决传统行政体制中的一系列深层次问题，实现政府体制转型。     

美好社会:接续与超越小康社会的新发展目标

2020年是全面建成小康社会的收官之年。随着全面建成小康社会目标的实现,建设新的美好社会,实现由小康社会到美好社会的跨越,已然成为中国经济社会持续发展的新目标指向。小康社会与美好社会是中国经济社会发展中的两个不同但又相互连接的社会形态。从一定意义上讲,小康社会是美好社会的必要准备,美好社会是小康社会的必然趋势。美好社会的具体蓝图需要在实践中逐步展开,但基本轮廓还是清晰可见的。美好社会是富裕的社会、民主的社会、文明的社会、公正的社会、发展的社会。美好社会建设将与全面建设社会主义现代化国家统一起来,实现美好生活、美好社会、美好世界的协同发展。美好社会虽然不是完美的社会,但必定是不断发展进步的社会。“苟日新,日日新,又日新”是美好社会的常态。经由美好社会,中国社会和人类社会发展将进入一种全新的境界。     

中国特色大国外交的传承与创新:命运共同体的视角

新中国成立70年来,中国外交经历了革命外交、经济外交、和谐世界外交到命运共同体外交等不同时期,这一过程同时也显示了从道义共同体、利益共同体、区域发展共同体到人类命运共同体的逻辑发展。党的十八大以来,中国特色大国外交全面铺开,构建人类命运共同体成为新时代中国外交的新旗帜、新任务和新目标。构建人类命运共同体既是对前几任领导人外交思想的传承和延续,更是新一代领导人奋发有为的开拓与创新:开启了大国外交新时代,开垦了全域外交新空间,开发了主场外交新形式,开辟了“一带一路”外交新平台,标志着中国外交的跨越性升华,彰显了新时代大国外交的中国特色、中国风格和中国气派。     

Enhancing Delivery and Assessment: A Case Study in Module Redesign for Improved Transition Into Higher Education

Understanding student transition into higher education is an important aspect of module design, linking content, delivery, and assessment with a student’s prior educational experience and knowledge bases. However, reflections on how modules designed choices are, generally, not widely disseminated. Here, we document the reflections of a junior lecturer responsible for redesigning a Level-4 Political Systems module and analyze the intentions of change via a transition pedagogy perspective, presenting a program renewal that establishes connected curriculum as an enabling infrastructure for students to actively engage with learning. First-year experience is considered as a major impacting factor of a student’s subsequent success on a program of higher education and the diversification of student cohorts requires teaching staff to consider a wider number of intersectional factors that may impact on a student’s opportunity to succeed in their studies. With a focus on simulations and active-learning, by providing examples of the thinking behind the resultant activities and assessment realignment we hope to provide an example of how a transition approach to a first-year module can be explored.     

简·奥斯丁在《傲慢与偏见》中的婚姻观

英国女作家简.奥斯丁在《傲慢与偏见》中,用富有戏剧色彩的笔墨轻松幽默地讲述了几对青年男女的爱情故事并从中表达了自己对婚姻的看法。但这种婚姻观是对婚姻的误解,无论在什么时代,都是很难行得通的。     

系统哲学视野下的"和谐社会"理念

"社会和谐"表征的是社会生态系统各不同要素之间的友好相处和良性互动的状态,这种具体状态既是在人类社会系统的"和合"运动中创生的,又是人类社会系统"和合"关系的表征.人类社会系统构成要素之间的"和合",既反映了人类社会发展的价值本质,也反映着"和谐社会"的价值本质.因此,人只有在理性的价值关怀的观照下,在理想尺度与现实尺度、整体尺度与个体尺度、目的尺度与工具尺度相统一的价值实践基础之上,才能不断趋近"和谐社会"的理想诉求.     

Nomenklatura,state monopoly,and private enterprise

Using a behavioral model of political decisionmaking, it is argued that an increasing population size and/or an increasing efficiency of production in a private enterprise economy relative to a centrally planned economy may create the conditions for a self-interested nomenklatura in a Soviet-type economy to consider a transition to a market economy. This transition may be thwarted, however, by the threat for prospective private enterpreneurs of exploitation after the change of regime. Some form of political pluralism guaranteeing sufficient political influence to private entrepreneurs appears to be required for a successful transition. The analysis shows that such a combined political and economic reform can be in the interest of the nomenklatura, thereby providing an endogenous behavioral explanation for a change of regime.     

Are bureaucrats efficient? An application to the provision of AFDC

The question on how bureaucrats behave in the provision of a public service has been the subject of a considerable amount of research, most of which has been largely theoretical and inconclusive, especially on the issue of efficiency. This paper builds a bureaucratic theoretical model and provides empirical evidence by examining the workings of a government bureau, supplying a public service, namely Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), at the state level. It builds and estimates a generalized short run cost function that allows for systematic relative price inefficiency and does not require cost minimization subject to market prices as a maintained hypothesis. The model tests cost minimization as a testable special case. The estimating procedure allows us to test for a number of other features of the technology that are of interest such as productivity growth, marginal costs, returns to scale, technical change, and factor demands.     

创建高绩效政府是行政体制改革的必然要求

创建高绩效政府是世界性的政府改革趋势,是当前行政体制改革深化发展的必然要求。高绩效政府具有较高的政府绩效,体现了政府的强大能力,能够服务于当前和未来的社会需求,是政府形象建设的一个重要方面。在此过程中,需要以公众满意度作为衡量高绩效政府的最重要指标,进一步完善政府绩效管理,共同参与高绩效政府的创建,把创建高绩效政府作为行政体制改革的切入点。     

Should Britain Have a Written Constitution?

The question - ought Britain to have a written, more properly, a codified constitution - is perhaps wrongly put. The real question ought to be - why should Britain not have such a constitution… She is, after all, one of just three democracies without one.
There are two reasons why Britain has lacked a constitution. The first is that, historically, Britain never had a constitutional moment; the second is the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Today, however, Britain finds herself engaged in the process of gradually converting an uncodified constitution into a codified one. There is undoubtedly a case in principle for enacting a constitution, but perhaps it ought to wait until the process is completed.
There is, moreover, a tension between two types of codified constitution - a lawyer's constitution which would be long and highly detailed, and a people's constitution which would be short, but, inevitably, broadly-worded, and therefore open to interpretation by the courts.     

寻找浪漫的玫瑰

福克纳的《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》讲述了艾米丽从一个对爱情渴望的淑女最终成了杀人的魔鬼的故事。虽然艾米丽的一生经历了痛楚，同时也形成了不少性格缺陷，她是一朵顽固的、受压迫的、冷酷凋零的玫瑰，但本文还是不断寻找艾米丽生活中的闪光点，最终寻找到了艾米丽那朵原本应该娇艳浪漫的玫瑰。     

China's Hybrid Adaptive Bureaucracy: The Case of the 863 Program for Science and Technology

Portrayals of China's bureaucratic behavior tend to emphasize either streamlined central control via top‐down directives emanating from a Leninist system, or a highly fragmented organization characterized by continuous horizontal bargaining. While both views have merit, they miss important but little‐recognized dynamics of Chinese bureaucratic behavior. Examination of the 30‐year evolution of a single organization, China's 863 Program, allows us a unique look inside the “black box” of decision making. First, we highlight a largely unrecognized mechanism of top‐down control: a signal‐response process that fosters substantial uncertainty for officials in the system. Second, our case highlights a circumstance in which reformers made radical moves—deployed as a “band‐aid” layer of rational‐instrumentalism—to meet a perceived external security threat. These moves demonstrate efforts to incorporate Weberian norms, and suggest sources of dynamism and learning in a “hybrid adaptive” bureaucracy.     

Risk,politics, and development: Lessons from the UK's democracy aid

Political risks are inescapable in development. Donors keep them in check with a range of tools, but existing options provide little guidance about how political forms of risk can—or should—shape programme design. This paper presents a novel framework that offers practical guidance on how to think about and manage some of these risks. This is based on a review of programmes delivered by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which provides a specific type of aid: democracy assistance. Political forms of risk have a strong influence on that aid, so it provides a valuable example. Our framework centres on two trade‐offs inherent in the provision of aid for democracy support. The first relates to the type of approach employed in a programme; should it focus on a thematic issue or a specific event, or should it focus primarily on an institution and its processes? The second concerns the scope of a programme in terms of who it includes. Understanding the costs and benefits of these trade‐offs will help development practitioners to make decisions about political risks in a more rigorous and transparent way and, potentially, to shift from a culture of risk aversion, to one of informed risk‐taking.     

An economic model of regime change: Freedom as a public good

This paper analyses regime change via a peaceful revolution. Under these circumstances, peaceful manifestations of unrest reach a point at which the prevailing political system collapses and is replaced by a system which provides more freedom. Such regime change occurred in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria. It is shown that the successful quest for freedom may be explained as a dynamic game. The game has a unique strong equilibrium — that is, a Nash equilibrium robust against mass defections — which arises in consequence of a trigger strategy which is similar to the Tit-For-Tat strategy in a repeated Prisoners' Dilemma.     

The Nigerian Federation in the Nigerian Novel

The Nigerian federation, as a national entity having a commonhistory, was not prominent in Nigerian novels before the civilwar. To the extent that novelists wrote of the national experience,they did so through characters belonging to a single ethnicnationality group. There were novels that depicted geographicand other links among Nigerians before and after independence,but not in the sense of the peoples being a part of a singlenation. The civil war, however, had a profound effect on thenational consciousness of Nigerians. As a result, there is moreinterest in novels having themes that treat the federal republicas a nation with shared historic experiences. At the same time,there is also interest in novels that depict common, nationwideproblems, such as urban poverty and political corruption.     

Japan's military research and development: A high technology deterrent

Abstract

This article examines the increased linkage between domestic and foreign policy that has been a consequence of democratization and globalization in Korea. It argues that while prior to 1987 foreign policy-making saw very little public input, and while democratization did not lead to a weakening of domestic political institutions nor a rise in nationalism, it did open up domestic political space where foreign policy-making increasingly became part of the contentious electoral competition. The globalization policy, initiated with the purpose of raising Korea's international status, which has remained a goal of succeeding administrations, created a complex interdependency which led to a breakdown in the separation between the domestic and international, and that often brought with it a domestic backlash. As a consequence foreign policy-making, in the absence of a tradition of political compromise, increasingly runs the risk of either inconsistency, or even deadlock.