Legal obstacles to alternative work-force designs

GIven the changing industrial realities we now face, more and more employers and their employees are becoming involved in cooperative work ventures such as work teams, quality circles, and joint employer-employee committees. Successful ventures of ths sort minimize the adversary nature of the relationship between management and labor and enhance employees' sense of responsibility and authority. The result is better working relationships and increased productivity. In both union and nonunion settings, however, employers face legal obstacles to work-force redesign. In the following article, the author discusses these obstacles and offers some suggestions on how they may be avoided.     

Dealing with a changed regulatory climate: OSHA under the Auchter administration

Traditionally, the relationship between OSHA and the employer faced with an OSHA inspection has been an adversarial one. Employers have tended to perceive OSHA inspectors as nitpicking and antagonistic rather than helpful in performing their functions as agents monitoring occupational safety and health in the work place. With the appointment of Thorne Auchter as assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, however, the climate for cooperation between employers and OSHA has substantially improved. Auchter has taken steps to improve the image of the Agency and its inspectors while at the same time correcting federal overregulation of the work place. In the following article, the author outlines the changes Auchter has brought to OSHA in his efforts at redirecting the Agency's operations. He also provides a step-by-step guide for employers to follow during an OSHA inspection.     

公共政策制定中的公民参与

我国是社会主义国家,广大公民的利益诉求、政治态度始终是党和政府制定公共政策的重要依据.公民参与公共政策制定既是社会主义民主的重要体现,也是社会主义的本质要求.改革开放以来,随着社会主义市场经济的发展,我国公民的主体意识逐渐觉醒,其政治参与意识和要求也随之增强.如何回应公民的政治参与诉求,提高公民参与公共政策制定的水平,以避免参与危机,是党和政府面临的重要课题.     

Reluctant policy innovation through profit concession and informality tolerance: A strategic relational view of policy entrepreneurship in China's urban redevelopment

This paper engages with the theoretical perspective of policy entrepreneurship to examine the pattern and process of policy change in the context of China's urban redevelopment. Drawing upon a strategic-relational reinterpretation of policy entrepreneurship, this paper identifies a distinctive form of reluctant policy innovation in the “three old renewals” scheme initiated in Guangzhou where profit concession and informality tolerance were practiced to create a small window of opportunity for the project of urban redevelopment to break ground. The motivation of policy entrepreneurship in the successful urban renewal projects in Guangzhou was heavily contingent upon the geographically important location of the project site and the historically incidence of hosting the 2010 Asian Games, which forced municipal government to become entrepreneurial and innovative in decision making and income redistribution in order to get things done as quickly as possible. The distinct fashion of policy innovation identified in the case of Guangzhou points to the polymorphous and dynamic nature of policy entrepreneurship and advocates a relational treatment of the strategies and motives of policy entrepreneurs embedded in concrete geographical and historical context.     

Defending the Realm: The Appointment of Female Defense Ministers Worldwide

Though the defense ministry has been a bastion of male power, a growing number of states have appointed women to this portfolio. What explains men's dominance over these positions? Which factors predict women's appointments? With comprehensive cross‐national data from the post–Cold War era, we develop and test three sets of hypotheses concerning women's access to the defense ministry. We show that women remain excluded when the portfolio's remit reinforces traditional beliefs about the masculinity of the position, particularly in states that are engaged in fatal disputes, governed by military dictators, and large military spenders. By contrast, female defense ministers emerge when expectations about women's role in politics have changed—that is, in states with female chief executives and parliamentarians. Women are also first appointed to the post when its meaning diverges from traditional conceptions of the portfolio, particularly in countries concerned with peacekeeping and in former military states with left‐wing governments.     

Crafting consensus

The paper analyzes the problem of a committee chair using favors at her disposal to maximize the likelihood that her proposal gains committee support. The favors increase the probability of a given member approving the chair’s proposal via a smooth voting function. The decision-making protocol is any quota voting rule. The paper characterizes the optimal allocation of any given level of favors and the optimal expenditure-minimizing level of favors. The optimal allocation divides favors uniformly among a coalition of the committee members. At a low level of favors, the coalition comprises all committee members. At a high level, it is the minimum winning coalition. The optimal expenditure level guarantees the chair certain support of the minimum winning coalition if favors are abundant and uncertain support of all committee members if favors are scarce; elitist or egalitarian committees are compatible with a strategic chair. The results are robust to changing the chair’s objectives and to alternative voting functions, and reconcile theoretical predictions with empirical observations about legislative bargaining experiments, lobby vote buying and executive lawmaking.     

新制度经济学视野中的政府间国际制度与国际非政府组织

在国际关系中,政府间国际制度与国际非政府组织始终是一起成长与发展的;两者在同一时期产生,又在同一时期壮大。今天,政府间国际制度面临着许多新的压力与挑战,国际非政府组织也被赋予一些新的使命。从表象看,两者之间的关系似乎已经不再像过去那样简单,而是变得复杂起来。从新制度经济学的视角看,两者的互动关系却并不复杂,它们实际上一直表现为一种互补关系。政府间国际制度作为正式制度,对国际非政府组织的发展方向起着塑造性作用,而国际非政府组织作为非正式制度,则对政府间国际制度起到了补充性作用。     

商业银行服务收费法律问题浅析

自2003年<商业银行服务价格管理暂行办法>颁布以采,商业银行服务收费行为虽仍众说纷纭,但已经被大多数人所接受.本文从商业银行收费的法律依据、合理性等角度出发,分析了商业银行服务收费中存在的法律问题,以期对商业银行服务收费的维权提供一定的合理化建议及对策.