Beyond COVID-19: Five commentaries on expert knowledge,executive action,and accountability in governance and public administration

Several Canadian and international scholars offer commentaries on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for governments and public service institutions, and fruitful directions for public administration research and practice. This first suite of commentaries focuses on the executive branch, variously considering: the challenge for governments to balance demands for accountability and learning while rethinking policy mixes as social solidarity and expert knowledge increasingly get challenged; how the policy-advisory systems of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and United Kingdom were structured and performed in response to the COVID-19 crisis; whether there are better ways to suspend the accountability repertoires of Parliamentary systems than the multiparty agreement struck by the minority Liberal government with several opposition parties; comparing the Canadian government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Global Financial Crisis and how each has brought the challenge of inequality to the fore; and whether the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated or disrupted digital government initiatives, reinforced traditional public administration values or more open government.     

理解中美关系的裂痕

中美关系是当下亚太地区正在发生的政治和战略变化的决定性因素,中美之间的竞争并不奇怪,它是国际关系的一种形式,关键是中美的利益冲突是对抗性的还是非对抗性的。这一问题在中美两国的官员、思想者、媒体中都引发了激烈的争论。部分美国高级官员认为中国的一些行为是修正主义的,但其实它们是保护主义的。从东亚总体来看,东北亚存在修正主义国家,东南亚则没有。因此,南海发生重大危机的可能性不大,而东北亚将给东亚带来很大的不确定性。     

Where Do We Go from Here?

The left needs a fundamental rethinking of its politics for a new era. The first task is to understand the contemporary conjuncture: the dynamic combination of events and circumstances which structure a political settlement. Two such conjunctures have occurred in recent history. The first produced the postwar welfare settlement of 1945, which broke down in the economic crisis of the 1970s. The second took shape in the 1980s around the revival of liberal market economics and what became known as Thatcherism. It failed following the 2008 financial crash, and has begun to break apart with the vote to leave the EU. New political and cultural faultlines are confounding the orthodoxies of the governing class and cutting across the partisan loyalties of the main political parties. They herald the renewal of politics. But Labour is on the edge of an abyss. This article considers what the left can learn from Labour's previous periods of defeat and revisionism, and suggests where—if it survives—it should go next.     

Quadratic voting as an input to cost-benefit analysis

When agencies regulate, they must calculate the costs and benefits of their regulations. To do this, they must often price non-market goods—for instance, the value of protecting wildlife or the environment. Regulators have typically relied upon contingent valuation surveys to put prices on these types of goods. But contingent valuation surveys are fraught with error and often give rise to implausible valuations that cannot be trusted. Quadratic voting offers a better solution. Agencies should hold quadratic votes over nonmarket goods and use those votes to price the goods at issue.     

Brexit and the British Constitution: Reflections on the Last Three years and the Next Fifty

The decision to leave the EU provoked the biggest constitutional crisis of recent British history. The referendum—a device for circumventing the parliamentary process—was followed by conflict between a minority government and a majority of MPs unwilling to leave the EU without satisfactory alternative arrangements. The courts, drawn into this conflict, upheld conventions that sustain the authority of Parliament and restrain the despotic power of ministers. The reaction of members of the current government was to take disreputable and anti-democratic positions against both the Speaker of the House of Commons and the courts. They now have a sufficient majority in Parliament to resume adherence to constitutional conventions and restore a political culture of debate and tolerance, but they show little sign of doing so, and there is a risk that they will do irreparable damage to the political culture that underpins democracy.     

Censorship,the Media,and the Market in China

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Pervasive media censorship in China is often seen as a strictly political issue. Although in past years reporters have had leeway to report on economic...     

Does homeownership counseling affect the prepayment and default behavior of affordable mortgage borrowers?

The lack of industrywide data on homeownership education and counseling (HEC) programs has severely limited evaluation. In particular, very little evidence exists on the relationship between HEC completion and loan prepayment, an outcome of interest to both mortgage lenders and consumer advocates. Where mortgage prepayment directly influences the sustainability of affordable mortgage products, it also reflects the ability of underserved borrowers to access lower‐cost credit through refinancing. This study uses a uniquely rich data set to examine the impact of HEC completion on prepayment and defaultamongborrowers receivingHECfrom a variety of providers across 42 states. The loans, originated between 1999 and 2003, are observed through the first quarter of 2006, a period in which strong housing appreciation and decreasing interest rates generated substantial refinancing activity. Using a competing risks model of mortgage prepayment and default, we find that HEC programs based on classroom instruction and individual counseling improve a borrower's exercise of the mortgage prepayment option, but that programs based on home study or telephone counseling did not affect borrower behavior. Counseling shows no effect on default propensities. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Living Near Violence and Feeling Safe: What is the Role of Active Guardianship in the Home Territory?

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - Living in close proximity to recent, violent crime may undermine sense of safety in the home territory by increasing perceived crime risk. Yet it is also...     

Global uncertainty,economic governance institutions and foreign direct investment inflow in Africa

Economic Change and Restructuring - Based on the fact that Africa has not fared well in attracting foreign direct investments in the last decade compared to other regions of the world, especially...