Environmental dispute resolution and hazardous waste cleanups: A cautionary tale of policy implementation

New York State experimented with replacing their litigation-oriented system for achieving toxic dump site cleanup with one promising to lower transaction costs through alternative dispute resolution. Our analysis of outcomes is informed by three generations of implementation work focusing on (1) the motivations and incentives shaping individual behavior, (2) the larger organizational and political factors associated with variation across cases, and (3) the generic properties of policy implements. This mosaic approach to explanation produces, we believe, a more lifelike picture of use to policy makers for understanding the dynamic and interrelated nature of their choices.     

The impact of a gasoline tax on auto exhaust emissions

The EPA implements its policy of exhaust emission control by setting standards specified in terms of grams of pollutants per mile traveled. As a result, the tax must first restrain the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) if it is to have an impact on emission at all. EPA's choice of miles traveled as the medium through which its policy of pollution control must run is unfortunate, because travel is an activity that people resist giving up. This is reflected in a low long-run price elasticity of travel demand. Consequently, it takes substantial increases in the gasoline tax to make an impact on long-run travel demand. Simulation results show that under an alternative policy option, where EPA's standards are specified in terms of grams of pollutant per gallon of fuel burned, the same long-run reduction in exhaust emissions achievable today can be achieved (at an even higher level of confidence) with less than one-tenth of the increase in gasoline price required under the existing policy regime.     

科威特的社会保险

*科威特的社会保险制度在西亚、北非的阿拉伯国家中具有典型意义。本文对这一制度的主要方面作一介绍,以期为我国进行养老保险制度改革提供参考。发展历史科威特从1955年1月1日开始建立社会保险,起初受益面仅适用于公共部门的公务员。第一部独立的社会保险法律于1960年颁布,覆盖政府雇员,既包括文职人员,也包括军事人员。继而在1961年出台了一个关于军事人员保险金和赔偿金的独立的法律。以上法律都未确立统一的社会保险制度,它们仅涉及有限的方面,覆盖部分人群。第一部统一的社会保险法律于1976年10月1日颁布。根据这部法律,建立了公共社会…     

试论社会主义政治文明建设的基本价值取向

政治是一个价值系统,是现实社会的具体价值领域.人们在政治领域里追求和实现着各种不同的价值.政治文明的价值取向是政治文明的灵魂,价值取向决定了政治文明的历史高度.本文探讨了政治的价值特征、政治的三个基本价值取向原则、政治文明的基本价值取向,在此基础上,阐述了社会主义政治文明独特的价值取向.     

Newspaper juries

This article reports on a field experiment on the effect of media information on people’s attitudes towards the justice system. For the duration of a year a Dutch local newspaper took small groups of readers, called ‘newspaper jurors’, to court sessions of criminal cases and subsequently reported on their experiences and perceptions. Using a quasi-experimental design, we examined whether an attitude change in the general reader population of this particular local newspaper occurred as a result of the jury’s newspaper reports. Findings show that, after the treatment interval of 1 year, no attitude change in the general reader population could be identified that was absent in the control group.     

The evolution of European legal integration

This article contributes to the development of theories on European integration by testing and exploring statistical models on the long-term development of legislative activity of the European Commission. Drawing on legal information gained from the European Union’s PreLex database and analyzing it with the help of statistical analyses, we map out growth patterns of EU law between 1976 and 2003. We construct time-series models and models based on non-linear regression. While the performance of models based on the traditional theoretical approaches, intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism, is rather poor, the analysis suggests that nonlinear dynamic models might be an interesting avenue for future conceptualizations of the EU integration process. This article is based on a paper presented at the ECPR Standing Group on the European Union Second Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, “Implications of a Wider Europe: Politics, Institutions and Diversity”, 24–26 June 2004, Bologna, Italy. We would like to thank the seminar participants for useful comments.     

论性的私法调整

私法对性保护的缺失导致对性权利保护的不足,性权利本质上是私权,私法应该对性权利加以调整并创设性人格权.性人格权由性自主权、生育权构成.创设了性人格权后,可以解决实践中许多问题如:婚内强奸问题、强奸后精神损害赔偿问题等.     

Making Sense of COMPSTAT: A Theory-Based Analysis of Organizational Change in Three Police Departments

COMPSTAT, the latest innovation in American policing, has been widely heralded as a management and technological system whose elements work together to transform police organizations radically. Skeptical observers suggest that COMPSTAT merely reinforces existing structures and practices. However, in trying to assess how much COMPSTAT has altered police organizations, research has failed to provide a broader theoretical basis for explaining how COMPSTAT operates and for understanding the implications of this reform. This article compares two different perspectives on organizations—technical/rational and institutional—to COMPSTAT's adoption and operation in three municipal police departments. Based on fieldwork, our analysis suggests that relative to technical considerations for changing each organization to improve its effectiveness, all three sites adopted COMPSTAT in response to strong institutional pressures to appear progressive and successful. Furthermore, institutional theory better explained the nature of the changes we observed under COMPSTAT than the technical/rational model. The greatest collective emphasis was on those COMPSTAT elements that were most likely to confer legitimacy, and on implementing them in ways that would minimize disruption to existing organizational routines. COMPSTAT was less successful when trying to provide a basis for rigorously assessing organizational performance, and when trying to change those structures and routines widely accepted as being "appropriate." We posit that it will take profound changes in the technical and institutional environments of American police agencies for police departments to restructure in the ways anticipated by a technically efficient COMPSTAT.