政府购买服务的美国经验及其对中国的借鉴意义——基于对一个公共服务个案的观察

目前中国正在快速推进政府购买公共服务的政策与实践。服务提供模式的转变绝非简单地将公共服务移交专业的社会组织,而是要在能力建设、政府角色转换、潜在风险防范、服务传输质量保障以及政府与社会组织间的关系构建等方面,做出系统性的制度安排。美国早在1960年代就开始通过政府购买方式拓展公共服务的供给渠道,现已发展为公共服务提供的主导模式。论文根据对中国一项政府购买服务个案运行全过程的观察,以美国政府购买服务的理论和实践作为参照,对中国政府购买服务亟需解决的问题、理念构建和制度安排进行了深入探讨。     

Winning the infringement war but losing the battle for damages--a case study for trade mark litigants

The Federal Court of Australia has awarded nominal damages onlyto five major American film studios which commenced proceedingsfor, and succeeded in establishing, infringement of their trademarks.     

Ideation and Appropriation: Wittgenstein on Intellectual Property

This paper provides a critique of the contemporary notion of intellectual property based on the consequences of Wittgenstein's “private language argument”. The reticence commonly felt toward recent applications of patent law, e.g., sports moves, is held to expose erroneous metaphysical assumptions inherent in the spirit of current IP legislation. It is argued that the modern conception of intellectual property as a kind of natural right, stems from the mistaken internalist or Augustinian picture of language that Wittgenstein attempted to diffuse. This view becomes persuasive once it is shown that a complete understanding of the argument against private language must include Wittgenstein's investigation of the role of the will in the creative process. It is argued that original thought is not born by decree of the will, but engendered by a public context of meaning and value. What marks a person as a genius is, therefore, according to Wittgenstein, not some sovereign capacity of conceptual world-making, but merely a propitious dose of intellectual courage. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Power Sharing: Institutions,Behavior, and Peace

Grievances that derive from the unequal treatment of ethnic groups are a key motivation for civil war. Ethnic power sharing should therefore reduce the risk of internal conflict. Yet conflict researchers disagree on whether formal power‐sharing institutions effectively prevent large‐scale violence. We can improve our understanding of the effect of power‐sharing institutions by analyzing the mechanisms under which they operate. To this effect, we compare the direct effect of formal power‐sharing institutions on peace with their indirect effect through power‐sharing behavior. Combining data on inclusive and territorially dispersive institutions with information on power‐sharing behavior, we empirically assess this relationship on a global scale. Our causal mediation analysis reveals that formal power‐sharing institutions affect the probability of ethnic conflict onset mostly through power‐sharing behavior that these institutions induce.