China's Diplomacy Promotes a Human Community with a Shared Future

THIS year China celebrates the centenary anni-versary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC).Leading up to the commemora-tion,many international analysts have already started to debate Chinas new foreign policy and its impact on the international order.This debate has two motivating factors.The first and most important is the prediction that the Chinese economy will surpass the American economy before 2030.The other factor is the role of Chinese diplomacy in combating the pandemic,through which China has helped more than 100 coun-tries in COVID-19 prevention,control,and vaccination,in contrast to the U.S'.lackluster responses to the pan-demic.This is not a discussion about the world's lead-ership profiles but a global governance model for the     

Changing policy views at the local level: The effect of age, generations and policy-periods in five European countries

Abstract.  This article addresses the question of how far turnover among those who make policy is relevant for understanding changing policy views. Does age or generation determine changing attitudes about policy making, or does the period in which new policy makers get dominant positions determine changes in attitudes? The research is based on a survey conducted in 1989, and repeated in 1996 and 2000, among local politicians and senior administrators in Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Lithuania and Belarus. The conclusion is that period-effects account for a large portion of attitude change among local policy makers. This can be explained by their perceptions of the urgency of policy problems with which their municipalities are confronted.     

Robert Blake and the Barbary Company 1636--1641

This interesting contribution to European and African historyis made by a member of the Historical Section of the MoroccanArchives, and is extracted by permission from the review Hespéris.The translation is by Mary Hicks.     

WHAT’S VALUED MOST? SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR

In recent administrative and organizational literature much attention has been paid to values that guide organizational and managerial behaviour in the public and private domain. Comparative empirical research efforts, however, are sparse. This article reports the results of a comparative empirical survey of 382 managers from a variety of public and private sector organizations in The Netherlands. Contrary to much recent literature that presupposes the intermixing or convergence of value systems guiding governance in different kinds of organizations, the results of this study show two distinct and relatively classical value systems for government and business as well as a ‘common core’ of important organizational qualities. These are accountability, expertise, reliability, efficiency and effectiveness, all of which are considered crucial in both public and private sector organizations. Additional analysis shows that value preferences are primarily attached to sector rather than to age, gender, working experience, or previous employment in the other sector.     

External and Domestic Determinants of Education Expansion: How Germany, Japan, and Switzerland Have Varied

How do economically successful countries like Germany, Japan and Switzerland differ in their post-primary education policies? After identifying great variations in the structure and capacity of secondary and higher education sectors, explanations are sought in terms of domestic and inter-national factors. Switzerland and Japan emerge as polar cases in how political variables - such as centralism-federalism, parties and bureaucracies - affected choice of vehicles and extent of educational expansion. Party influence is most clearcut in Germany, but varies by sector. Whereas German and Japanese reform agendas changed in the aftermath of occupation experiences, Switzerland went its own way until prospects for European integration induced greater accommodation to the training and credential practices of its neighbors.