The Kuomintang's secret service in action in South China: operational and political aspects of the arrest of Liao Chengzhi (1942)

The arrest in May 1942 of Liao Chengzhi – a CCP spy chief as well as the son of a celebrated KMT elder assassinated in 1925 – is considered a Big Case in China. Using the original KMT case file on Liao Chengzhi, van de Ven describes how the KMT's secret service turned the Jiangxi Provincial Committee and then arrested leading members of the CCP in south China and thereby eliminated its organization there. The article further uses letters by prominent CCP and KMT personalities involved in the case to suggest the existence of a revolutionary aristocracy bound by personal relations and with an elite code of conduct. When the political will was present, members of this elite deployed their personal connections in the search for solutions to complex political problems.     

基础设施网络整合与跨区域治理——“哈大齐”工业走廊与松花江水污染案例分析

在全球化和信息化背景下,区域管理正在从传统的都市区(Metropolitan)管理过渡到巨型都市区(Megapolitan)或者城市走廊(City Corridor)的管理.从社会技术系统(Societal-techno System)视角,将区域管理作为一个涉众系统(Multi-actor System)考虑,研究物理系统与社会网络之间的交互作用,通过研究基础设施网络和跨区域治理关系,探索涉众系统情境下的政策制定模型.采用理论分析和案例研究相结合的方法,利用哈大齐工业走廊案例和松花江水污染案例进行了研究.结果发现,基础设施整合具有嵌入性特征;基础设施整合和专业化分工网络的形成,是跨区域治理的基础,所形成的城市网络,其核心功能体现在"分散的集中化"上,以保证有效的基础设施整合、分工网络的形成和提供高级生产者服务;在跨区域治理政策制定中,应该采用自上而下和自下而上组合的基于规则和过程的涉众情境下的政策制定过程,以实现社会、政府和市场之间的均衡.     

Coal and nuclear technologies: creating a false dichotomy for American energy policy

The American electric utility industry is entering a moment of transition. Once viewed as a stable and secure consortium of publicly regulated monopolies that produce and distribute electricity, the industry has weathered market restructuring only to face the ever-present risk of natural disasters, price fluctuations, terrorist attacks, and blackouts. This paper uses five criteria—technical feasibility, cost, negative externalities, reliability, and security—to evaluate the broad portfolio of energy technologies available to American electricity policymakers. Upon close inspection, energy efficiency practices, renewable energy systems, and small-scale distributed generation technologies appear to offer many advantages over large and centralized nuclear and fossil fueled generators. Contrary to the mimetic commentary produced by the media, these three approaches would present policymakers a superior alternative for curbing electricity demand, minimizing the risk of fuel interruptions and shortages, helping improve the fragile transmission network, and reducing environmental harm     

Freedom and growth: Do constitutions matter?

This paper uses an augmented Solow model, with cross section data, to measure the effect on per-capita income of a) the entrenchment of various rights in a country's constitution and b) the level of economic freedom in a country, broadly construed. The results suggest that entrenchment,per se, of any single right seldom has a significant general economic effect, while the effect of economic freedom is significant and substantial. The paper then considers whether such evidence could support the proposition that “constitutions do not matter.” While it concludes otherwise, it does caution against incurring excessive negotiation costs to obtain entrenchment of a comprehensive “wish list” of rights.     

Explaining differences in productive efficiency: An application to Belgian municipalities

The purpose of this paper is to measure and explain variations in productive efficiency of municipal governments in Belgium. Technical efficiency is evaluated using a non-parametric method based on the Free Disposal Hull (FDH) reference technology. We first calculate input, output, and graph Farrell efficiency measures for a cross-section of all 589 Belgian municipalities. In a second stage of the analysis we explain the calculated differences in efficiency in terms of variables related to the structural characteristics of municipalities and to the institutional environment.     

Medicaid's Role in Moves Toward Universal Health Care

This paper considers the problems currently facing the Medical Assistance (Medicaid) program in light of the major problems confronting the American health care system. Actual and proposed Medicaid reforms are reviewed, their merits noted and their shortcomings detailed. It is argued that substantial Medicaid reform can take place only in the context of radical reform of the entire U.S. health care system. Similarly, Medicaid should be incorporated into any plan aimed at providing universal health care coverage.     

Variation in central bank independence across countries: Some provisional empirical evidence

In this paper seven hypotheses to explain variation in central bank independence across countries are tested. The predictions based upon the theory that delegation of authority by politicians to the central bank is used as a commitment device are not supported: central bank independence is not higher the larger the employment motivated inflationary bias, the higher political instability or the larger the government debt. Central bank independence is positively related to historical inflation experience and negatively with political instability. We do only find limited support for the view that countries with a universal banking system and countries whose central banks do not regulate financial institutions have more independent central banks.     

POLICY AS A MOVING TARGET: A CALL FOR CONCEPTUAL REALISM

Since the early 1970s, policy scholars have paid great attention to issues of policy implementation, treating it as the "missing link" between policy formulation and results. Most often, policy problems have been seen as static phenomena that can be corrected by carefully specified programs. This paper, drawing upon examples from Swedish energy policy, argues that this is not the case, that political and social conditions are so prone to change that implementation must be a dynamic process if it is to be effective. This has distinct conceptual and practical implications for the study and design of policy implementation.