China's road to modernization

One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong under Reform, by Ezra E. Vogel. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, and London, 1989. x+510 pp. £23.95. ISBN 0–674–63910–3.

The Long March to the Fourth of June, by Li Xiao Jun, translated by E. J. Griffiths. Duckworth, London, 1989. xx+185 pp. £14.95. ISBN 0–7156–2332‐X.

China's Foreign Trade Reforms: Impact on Growth and Stability, by John C. Hsu. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990. xii+221 pp. £30.00 ($49.50). ISBN 0–521–37197‐X.

The Political Economy of China's Special Economic Zones, by George T. Crane. An East Gate Book. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, and London, 1990. x+205 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0–87332–514–1.

Chinese Intellectual Life Post‐Mao: Education, Ideology, Literature and the Arts, edited by Birthe Arendrup. Copenhagen papers in East and Southeast Asian Studies, 1:88. Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 1988. 106 pp. ISBN 87–7289–063–0.

China: The Land and the People (revised edition), by D. C. Money. Evans Brothers Ltd, London, 1990. xii+179 pp., colour illus., maps. £14.50 hardback, £7.95 paperback. ISBN 0–237–51164–9 and 0–237–51118–5.     

The party road to representation: Unequal responsiveness in party platforms

This paper explores a major road to substantive representation in democracies, by clarifying whether demands of rich and poor citizens are taken up in the electoral platforms of political parties. Doing so constitutes a substantial broadening and deepening of our understanding of substantive representation – broadening the countries, issue-areas and years that form the empirical basis for judging whether democracies manifest unequal representation; and deepening the process of representation by clarifying a key pathway connecting societal demands to policy outcomes. The paper hypothesises that party systems in general will respond more strongly to wealthy than to poor segments of a polity. It also hypothesises that left parties will more faithfully represent poorer and less significantly represent richer citizens than do right parties. We find substantial support for these expectations in a new dataset that combines multi-country, multi-issue-area, multi-wave survey data with data on party platforms for 39 democracies.     

Compromising liberty: Friedrich Hayek's The road to serfdom in practice

Abstract

This paper examines a rare and unstudied piece of consultancy work undertaken in 1944 by Friedrich Hayek for the British Colonial Office and for the Government of Gibraltar. Hayek's subsequent reports suggested the reorganization of the state-regulated Gibraltar housing market in line with free market principles designed to relocate the colony's working-class population into neighbouring Spain. However, rather than freeing Gibraltarians from the evils of state planning, as identified in The road to serfdom (also 1944), this proposal would have delivered them into the dictatorship of General Franco. Not only was Franco's regime brutal, but it also practised autarkic economic policies virtually identical to those which Hayek maligned in The road to serfdom. In sum, Hayek's proposals would have benefited Gibraltar's landlords at the expense of the liberty of the majority of the civilian population.     

Responsibilization: The case of road safety governance

Governments are increasingly turning to new modes of governance to induce nonstate actors to voluntarily take responsibility for societal problems. Using the concept of responsibilization as a theoretical lens, this article analyzes changes in road safety governance in Sweden. How, why, and to whom has the responsibility for road safety been attributed in Swedish policymaking, and how have state authorities engaged in processes of responsibilization during its implementation? The results show a shift in attribution of responsibility from individual road users to a broad set of so-called system designers, based on moral, causal, and preventive rationales. Responsibilization both occurs within the state apparatus and is imposed by state authorities on nonstate actors using soft governance measures. Responsibilization provides a fruitful theoretical lens for governance studies by identifying shifts in responsibility (including deresponsibilization), explicating normative/ethical underpinnings of new governance modes, and helping to open the “black box” of the state.     

The barely revealed preference behind road investment priorities

An attempt is made to reveal the preference of decision makers within the regional Norwegian public roads administration. The order of priority assigned to the respective, competing public road investment opportunities within the various counties (provinces) is studied by means of a rank order multinomial logit model. Explanatory variables used include cost, benefit, and a variety of attributes characterizing the individual investment projects. Although statistically significant, cost and benefit appear to be of only marginal importance for the priorities set. More weight is attached to cost than to benefit. Smaller projects are preferred to larger, given the benefit-cost ratio. In general, the models estimated are able to explain only a relatively small share of the priority setting made.     

实质解释法律:通往理想法治之路

在建设法治国家的进程中，既要反对法律教条主义，也要反对法律虚无主义。而在目前，反对教条主义地解释法律也许具有更重要的意义。要反对法律教条主义．就必须坚持实质的法律解释观．这是通往理想法治的必由之路。     

中国共产党关于道路的选择及启示

道路问题是关系党、国家和民族前途命运的关键问题。中国共产党能够从近代300多个政党中脱颖而出，在于中国共产党选择的道路契合了民族争取独立、人民谋求解放的需要。考察中国共产党成立以来近90年的五次选择及由此带来的启示。     

Lima climate accord: positive steps on the road to Paris

Pledges made at the United Nations climate-change negotiations in Lima suggested a higher degree of commitment to agreeing crucial emissions reductions than has been previously on display. There is a chance that a substantive deal may yet be reached in Paris.     

Halfway down the road to supervision of the Spanish intelligence services

For most of its history the United Nations was reluctant to deal with intelligence and major powers were reluctant to share intelligence with it. But as the UN's peacekeeping operations intensified in some of the world's hot spots in the early 1990s, the UN found it both necessary and wise to create an information analysis capability at UN headquarters in New York. To funnel selected intelligence to the headquarters, several countries (including the US, UK, France and Russia) loaned intelligence officers to the UN's Situation Centre on a secondment basis. This paper describes the activities of the SitCen's Information and Research (I&R) Unit that existed from 1993 to 1999 under the informal motto ‘Keeping an Eye on the World’. Using a case study of I&R reporting on the situation in Eastern Zaire (1996), where UN-run refugee camps were under attack, it is possible to examine the nature and utility of the intelligence provided by the intelligence officers to UN decision-makers and the planners of the Canadian-led multinational force in the region. It reveals that the Unit provided significant and useful intelligence about arms shipments, belligerent activities, and the status of refugees and made several prescient predictions and warnings. The Unit sought to minimize national bias and incomplete information, though both problems were still in evidence. Still, in many ways, the I&R Unit remains a useful model for the development of a future intelligence capability.     

The road to economic self‐sufficiency: Job quality and job transition patterns after welfare reform

This paper analyzes the relationships of schooling, the skill content of work experience, and different types of employment patterns with less‐skilled women's job quality outcomes. Survey data from employers and longitudinal data from former and current welfare recipients are used for the period 1997 to early 2002. The analysis of job quality is broadened beyond employment rates and wages measured at a point in time by including non‐wage attributes of compensation and aspects of jobs that affect future earnings potential. This study shows the extent to which lack of employment stability, job skills, and occupation‐specific experience impedes welfare recipients' abilities to obtain a “good job” or to transition into one from a “bad job.” The business cycle downturn has significantly negatively affected the job quality and job transition patterns of former and current recipients. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Civil service reform in post-communist Europe: the bumpy road to depoliticisation

This article seeks to explain why civil service reform trajectories have differed in post-communist Europe, and why reforms have so far not led to the de-politicisation of personnel policy. It argues that the communist legacy of over-politicised personnel policy, the mode of transition and the constellation of actors after the first free elections shaped the personnel policy and civil service reform dynamics in the period directly after the change of regime. However, in terms of reform outcomes, the road to de-politicisation of post-communist civil services posed too many obstacles to lead rapidly to successful reforms. Neither governments of the left and the right nor new generations of senior bureaucrats have an incentive to engage in efforts to de-politicise post-communist civil services. The context of post-communist transformation has tended to lock in a pattern of civil service governance that is characterised by high levels of political discretion.     

Israel and Palestine: the slow road to peace or the fast track to mutual annihilation?

This paper outlines the nature of the post World War II conflict between Israel and Palestine over land and borders. It demonstrates the weaknesses in the political systems of both countries that make it difficult to resolve outstanding differences. It examines the nature of bargaining costs, distinguishing clearly between the Coase and the Machiavelli theorem. It uses the hawk–dove game model to explain war and peace relationships between Israel and Palestine evident over the period 1948–2007. It evaluates the implications for the peace process of some future proliferation of nuclear arms that breaks Israeli nuclear hegemony in the Middle East.