韩国民主政治发展历程、特征及启示

二战后韩国的民主政治发展经历了两次重要政治转型,可相应划分为三个阶段。第一次转型是1961年威权体制取代脆弱的民主政治体制,第二次转型是1987年威权体制被新的民主政治体制所取代。其发展进程曲折多变、跌宕起伏,展现的诸多规律特征,对"后发现代化国家"政治发展和我国政治体制改革与现代化建设具有重要启示意义。     

百年变局视野下的大国竞争与中美关系

当今世界处于百年未有之大变局,中美两国在国际关系、经济、安全、文化、科技等不同层面的力量对比与关系互动都发生了变化。从当今世界所处的百年未有之大变局角度来看,中美经贸摩擦可能只不过是全球格局"东升西降"长期演变进程中的小片段,真正的风险未必在中美直接冲突本身,"东升西降"所产生的持续压力有可能对国家内部乃至地区造成巨大破坏。管控百年变局背景下大国竞争带来的国家安全风险可以从三个方面着手:缓释百年变局的"东升西降"压力;限制内外压力相互作用,避免对国家安全与发展产生负面影响;检查并修补国内经济社会发展与安全的脆弱面和薄弱环节,增强承受内外压力的国家安全韧性。     

关于社会主义国家阶级阶层关系的理论探析

国内外学者对社会主义国家阶层或阶级关系的讨论,涉及到对过去的苏联社会主义体制时期、中国计划经济体制时期以及市场经济转型时期阶级或阶层关系的观点与学说。对于社会主义社会是否是一个阶级社会,以及当前在中国市场经济转型时期又重构了怎样的阶级或阶层关系的问题,不同的学者提出了具有争议的观点与学说。究其争论的根源,在于这些学说引...     

海湾国家资源民族主义与中国能源安全

<正>近年来,随着国际油价的持续走高,"资源民族主义"现象在世界主要油气生产国,特别是海湾国家中悄然兴起,成为全球战略性能源投资中的首要风险。海湾国家作为世界主要油气生产国,其资源民族主义的发展会对中国脆弱的国际能源供给安全带来怎样的冲击?是否会引发国际能源安全领域的"蝴蝶效应"?作为世界第二大能源消费国,探寻一条与海湾国家能源合作的共赢道路,是维护中国在海湾地区能源利益的重要前提。     

得失意彷徨,成功未有时——前苏联国家转轨二十年综述

前苏联国家转轨至今,在体制建立过程中经历了从照搬西方到探索适合本国国情发展道路的历程,目前转型尚未结束,成效参差不齐,仍存在不确定性和不稳定因素。均宣称建立了"三权分立"的政体模式,权力"失衡但有序"成为前苏联国家普遍政治特色(一)多数国家经历由乱而治,形成了各具特色的政治体制模式。就其实质来讲,主要存在三种模式:波罗的海三国与欧盟接轨,实行民主;摩尔多瓦、吉尔吉斯斯坦、乌克兰等部分国家施行"议会制"抑或"议会—总统制"、"总统—议会制",但仍处摇     

美元体系下的危机裁决

美元目前的"恐怖平衡",实际上比冷战中"核威慑平衡"脆弱得多。谁都无法保证,某些国家不会出于政治或者财富保值目的而突然抛售美元。现在的问题不是美元会不会崩溃,而是美元何时崩溃。在次贷危机飞灰烟灭的财富灰烬中散发出的,是一股秋天的气息。因为,次贷危机可能并不是那种周期性爆发的金融灾难(比如1980年代的住房信贷危机,1990年代的长期资本管理公司危机,2000年的互联网泡沫),而是一个大时代行将结束的预兆。     

试析国家分离发生的路径和动力

分离促使国家和国际体系适时进行系统地自我更新。民族主权与族群冲突、国家建设与政权崩溃、民主化与政治失序、全球化与国际干预是国家发生分离的四种路径和表现。它们分别从社会原生要素间的政治关系、政治系统内外部权力的结构和关系、政治社会与垄断权力开放竞争和参与的关系、国际体系的结构和性质与国家独立自主发展的关系,说明国家发生分离的四种动力来源,即"主权"要素改变、"政权"建设遇阻、"政治社会"关系不对称以及"超国家"外部介入。这四种动力统一存在于国家主权的"同质性""专断性""对称性"和"正义性"四种属性内。它们是主权国家在全球持续裂变和扩散的原因,也是当下国家发生分离的路径和动力从单一走向复合的提示。     

读者

轨迹与落点(2008年第14期《奇迹》)在一个国家、一个社会的成长中,"奇迹"终究只是特殊阶段与非常态;是一个国家与社会成长轨迹的光弧,而非落点。而这落点应扎根于"四时之轮回"中习得的普适文明及其制度规范。中国经济在高增长的背后,不仅是高能耗、高污染.还有低收入、低福利和各资源要素的低价格。现在不只是经济基础面临着转型与升级,上层建筑同样面临着体制瓶颈的突破,碎片化、断裂化的社会也面临着弥合与认同的重建。是以,"奇迹"背后其实是一个脆弱的平衡,是一个各方面都"不可持续的持续"。     

共治威权与法治威权——中国政治发展的问题和出路

近三十年来,中国的政治经历了从"家长式威权体制"到"共治式威权体制"的转变.中国政治发展的现实选择是法治式威权体制.在发展的路径上,可以县级政权改革为突破口.建立自治性县政体制,改变目前的权力来源和责任体制;以强化国家的法制为基础,建立司法制衡制度,重构民众对国家权威的认同.     

少年司法语境下的“国家亲权”法则浅析

在我国少年司法重构过程中,对"国家亲权"法则的适时借鉴与引入有必要进行认真比较与全面分析。适用时,应严格把握"国家亲权"法则于少年司法的本土化运作,一方面需要要与"儿童最佳利益"原则合拍,为问题少年提供必要关爱;而另一方面,仍应通盘考量被害人与社区利益、未成年人特殊利益间的冲突与协调。在此基础上,"国家亲权"法则还应与"亲权"法则相互映衬,促进未成年人父母或法定监护人切实肩负和履行相应法定义务。     

INVOLVING STAKEHOLDERS IN ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES

Who should be included in efforts to develop accountability systems for public organizations? What is the impact of involving various internal and external stakeholders in a collaborative process to determine performance indicators? Involving a variety of participants can result in information that is perceived as being more useful; however, significant groups of stakeholders may be excluded from the collaborative process. The reasons for nonparticipation range from poor timing or oversight to deliberate decisions to forego involvement. This exploratory research suggests that the benefits from a collaborative process of identifying measures of program impact are minimal and the utility of including a large number of participants is questionable. Finding more effective methods to increase the impact and utility of stakeholder involvement may become increasingly important in meeting executive and legislative mandates to determine government performance. The implications for further study are discussed.     

Problem,Process and Product: Implementing Key Reforms in Local Government in Northern Ireland Since the Belfast Agreement

This article maps the key findings from empirical research on how local government mainstreamed new statutory duties to promote equality and good relations in a change implementation process emerging from reform introduced in 1998 to embed the Northern Ireland peace process. It departs from the elite political focus of much of the international literature on peace building and addresses organisational change developments in a context that was intensely politicised, highly contentious and required radical organisational change. Newry and Mourne District Council addressed their problem of perceived inequality in employment, by engaging in a lengthy process of change and development to achieve ‘product’ in the form of a more balanced workforce, power sharing in the Chamber and more participative democratic arrangements for decision-making, both inside the organisation and in external relations. The key factors that facilitated this change process included the availability of political will, change champions, appropriate resources and structural adaptation.     

Integrated written and oral assignments for the MPA curriculum

The article describes an integrated approach to written and oral assignments throughout the MPA curriculum. Beginning with the program orientation and the lead course in the MPA program, a series of written assignments that blend theory and practice are used as the basis for later advanced work and special projects such as internships, major papers, or theses. A three-part assignment in the first course, an assessment center for developing interviewing and other skills, and a conscious attempt to develop linkages across courses in the MPA curriculum are the keys to implementation of the model.

The integrated writing and speaking model introduces students to research through preparation of an article review essay on some aspect of public policy or management. Another paper requires field work to analyze a particular aspect of the policy or management process. The third assignment produces a “usable product” for a level of government or public agency, such as a policy or management options paper. Written assignments are coupled with a formal assessment center conducted outside of regular classroom time. The field work helps students begin a networking process for obtaining clients for other projects in other courses and for internships, field papers, and jobs. Presentations of the final course “product” are via a poster session format that includes written, graphic, and oral presentations open to faculty and students, as well as the public agencies and/or governmental units for whom products are prepared.     

Entrepreneurship and growth of entrepreneurial firms in cote d'Ivoire

This article analyses the determinants of individuals’ choice for self‐employment and entrepreneurial success in Cote d'Ivoire. Entrepreneurial activity is found to be undertaken by individuals who succeed in increasing their entrepreneurial abilities and reducing the risk of starting a business through a learning process that takes place through ageing, professional experience, and apprenticeship or, alternatively, formal education. The learning process takes place both before and after entry into the industry, as firms grow into a larger size. However, financial constraints continue to play a major restraining role for entrepreneurship and firm growth.     

Peace in Our Time? The Stresses and Strains on the Northern Ireland Peace Process

This article aims to critically evaluate the present state of the peace process in Northern Ireland after nearly two years. Particular attention is placed on the security analysis of the situation, which is a perspective that is rarely heard in public, perhaps because it is often highly critical of the entire process. From this background the article takes a pessimistic view of any hopes for long-term peace or stability in the Province, largely because the Good Friday Agreement, the core of the process, was ill-conceived. In fact, the entire process appears to have been built around anything other than addressing the real problems of the Province and has been heavily weighted in favor of appeasing IRA violence. In consequence Unionists are becoming increasingly disillusioned and alienated from the process and now find themselves on the verge of withdrawing their support from it.     

The policy adoption-implementation spiral

The “Policy Adoption-Implementation Spiral” is an exploration of the policy-making process that begins at the national level and proceeds through the labyrinth of administrative interpretations, court decisions, and judicial decrees before it is finally implemented at the state level. This analysis is based on the premise that policy adoption and policy implementation are not two separate steps in the policy-making process. The adoption/implementation process may be more clearly thought of as a continually narrowing spiral with each inward band of the spiral representing a further specification, refine- ment, clarification, or interpretation of a piece of public policy.

Equal Employment Opportunity policy is the content area used in this analysis. A case study is used which follows EEO policy from the National level down to its implementation in the area of employment opportunities for state jobs in the State of Alabama.     

Penalizing the reformers: Polish steel and European integration

This paper examines the effects of European integration on the Polish steel industry and finds that, contrary to expectations, the more successful firms are in fact being hurt by the process. As a result, productivity improvements are unlikely to be either as great or as efficiently distributed as proponents of integration suggest. This outcome is the product of a complicated and politically expedient bargaining process among steel-sector union confederations and central governments both in the EU and in Poland. The integration plan, which calls for government-controlled production quotas, enables politicians and union leaders on all sides to cover themselves politically with respect to their constituents. The main losers in the process are managers and employees of successful Polish firms.     

Enforcement Process Tracing: Forbearance and Dilution in Urban Colombia and Turkey

Cities are complex regulatory environments. Attempts to regulate urban behavior create opportunities for politicians to manipulate enforcement to win votes and reward supporters. While some politicians choose not to enforce regulations, or forbearance, others undercut their intent, or dilution. Empirical research on enforcement has lagged behind due to the identification challenges in distinguishing weak state capacity from political manipulations. We develop a structured approach to process tracing that follows enforcement decisions sequentially across bureaucracies and specifies statistical distributions as counterfactuals to identify the causes of limited enforcement. We illustrate these strategies through original data on enforcement against squatters in urban Colombia and the provision of building permits in urban Turkey. Enforcement process tracing helps to document a form of distributive politics that is common to cities in the developing world.     

Conceptualising and tracing the increased territorialisation of politics: insights from Argentina

The territorialisation of politics is a crucial transformation in state–society relations that has implications on how contemporary politics works. Defined here as the dispute for the physical control of space, be it a municipality, province or portion of land, within one or more politically constituted entities. It does not mean the emergence of a new regime type, but the process through which the territory re-emerges as a new cleavage after neoliberal reforms and authoritarian regimes have weakened/dissolved neo-corporatist arrangements for the resolution of socio-political conflicts in society. It is a cleavage because central political divisions are produced as a result of the physical encounter of or distance between political actors and of the dispute for the control of a territory for sociopolitical goals and causes that are not always territorially defined. Departing from this definition, I also raise potential explanatory hypotheses for the transformations that favoured this transformation in Argentina.     

BLAMING THE VICTIM; THE ROLE OF DECISION-MAKERS IN THE OCCURRENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE

ABSTRACT

Past research on environmental justice concerns has focused primarily on the siting of hazardous waste facilities. Less research has been done on other aspects of environmental policy in which concerns of racial or other injustices arise. This study shows that environmental injustice is not limited to the sitting of hazardous facilities or the occurrence of pollution, but occurs also at the policy formation and implementation stages in other areas such as solid waste management. To study this issue, this study focuses on the implementation of the Illinois Solid Waste Management Act of 1988, in two counties in north-eastern Illinois, Kankakee and Will. In neither of the two counties were minorities included in the planning process, and out of a total of 91 advisory committee members, minority interests were represented by only one black male. At the same time racial minorities made up about 15 percent of the total population in the two counties.

The study shows that the main reason for this lack of representation is not a lack of environmental concern among blacks. Nor can it be explained by a lack of interest in participation in environmental decision-making among blacks. Rather, the study shows that the process is led by misconceptions among planners and decision-makers who generally believe that blacks are not interested in environmental issues and therefore not interested in participating in environmental decision-making. The conclusion of this study is that it is the belief held by local planners and decision-makers that there is a lack of interest in environmental issues among blacks, that produced a planning process in which the interest of minorities were not represented.