Justice Without Transition: Truth Commissions in the Context of Repressive Rule

While the study of transitional justice, and especially truth commissions, has gained in popularity over the past two decades, the literature is overwhelmingly focused on activities in democratizing states. This introduces a selection bias that interferes with proper analysis of causes and consequences of transitional justice on a global scale. In this paper, I discuss conditions under which new repressive elites, and even old repressive elites who survive to rule and repress in nominally new systems, may choose to launch broad investigations of the past. I argue that such a decision is based on two primary considerations, the presence of internally or externally based incentives (e.g., foreign aid) and the level of political control enjoyed by old elites in the new system. I apply this argument to post-Soviet Central Asia, including a detailed case study of Uzbekistan’s 1999 truth commission based on domestic media analysis and local elite interviews.

New Thinking in Financial Market Regulation: Dismantling the “Split Share Structure” of Chinese Listed Companies

China’s distinctive set of stock market institutions was introduced in 1990. Among the characteristics of China’s stock markets was a strict separation between different categories of investors. Listed companies issued different categories of shares to state shareholders, domestic corporate investors, domestic individual investors, and foreign investors. By 2005, the barriers segmenting China’s stock market had been significantly relaxed. Domestic investors were allowed to purchase shares previously reserved for foreign investors, and approved foreign investors were allowed to purchase shares previously earmarked for domestic individuals. Nevertheless, a crucial barrier remained. An ongoing debate among Chinese academics, investors, and policy makers focused on how to resolve the “split share structure” (guquan fen zhi) in which a minority of shares were tradable while the majority of shares (namely those reserved for domestic corporate and state shareholders) were excluded from the market. The split share structure was blamed for distorting prices and inhibiting development of the stock market. This paper analyzes the policy adopted to address the split share structure. To what extent does this policy change reflect new thinking on the part of China’s market regulators? This paper argues that analysis of policy making in China’s capital markets can help to distinguish between two competing assessments of China’s political economy. One account sees China pursuing a gradualist strategy, slowly but steadily expanding the role of markets. Another account sees China trapped in a semi-marketized and increasingly corrupt development pattern. The implementation of the split share structure reform program provides evidence to support the gradualist account of incremental, but persistent, reform. Mary Comerford Cooper is an assistant professor in political science at the Ohio State University. Her recent research focuses on the politics of financial markets in China and Taiwan. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Comparative Politics Research Workshop/ Globalization, Institutions and Economic Security Workshop at Ohio State University in May 2007, and at the annual meeting of the Association for Chinese Political Studies in July 2007. I benefited greatly from the constructive and insightful comments of Bj?rn Alpermann, Melanie Barr, Jean-Marc Blanchard, Sarah Brooks, Joseph Fewsmith, Sujian Guo, Dane Imerman, Ryan Kennedy, Marcus Kurtz, Xiaoyu Pu, James Reilly, Alex Thompson, Daniel Verdier, Jianwei Wang, Alan Wiseman, Bin Yu, and an anonymous reviewer. I am also grateful for Lan Hu’s exceptional research assistance. All remaining flaws are purely my own.     

我国行政许可范围设定制度的检讨与完善

我国的行政许可范围设定制度的立法模式、具体内容等方面还并非尽善尽美,检讨我国的行政许可范围设定制度,对于我国的行政许可范围设定制度的完善,具有重要意义。从制度完善的视角来思考,建立违宪的司法审查机制、制定统一行政程序法或许应该是我国行政许可法最后的归宿。     

Methods for fusing uncertain results obtained from different models in accident reconstruction

Considering that almost all existing solutions of fusing different reconstructed results require experts’ opinions and the issue of how to fuse probabilistic results and mixed results has not been discussed. Two solutions are proposed. The first is based on the Monte Carlo Method (FMCM), while the second is based on the Sub-Interval Technique (FSIT). The method based on FMCM generates sample points according to the distribution of each uncertain result firstly, and then gives out the cumulative distribution function of the final fused result by statistical analysis. The method based on FSIT gets the result fusion interval set according to lower and upper bounds of all interval results and a given length d of each sub-interval firstly, and then calculate the weighted matrix of the result fusion interval. As a result, the cumulative distribution function of the final fused result can also be given out by statistical analysis. Finally, three real accidents are given to demonstrate the methods of FMCM and FSIT, the results of which show that both work well in practice.     

证券投资者保护基金运作模式研究

本文简要勾画了海外证券投资者保护基金运作模式,介绍和评析了中国证券监督管理委员会、财政部和中国人民银行拟订的《证券投资者保护基金管理办法》(草稿)设计的运作模式,在此基础上提出了我国证券投资者保护基金运作模式。     

建立我国未成年犯罪人社区矫正制度的设想

2004年起中共中央社会治安综合治理委员会启动“为了未来预防青少年违法犯罪工程”,其中对未成年犯罪人实行社区矫治是一项重要的对策,但是我国目前还没有真正形成专门的未成年犯罪人的社区矫正制度。研究我国已实行未成年犯罪人社区矫正地区的先进经验以及国外一些实行未成年犯罪人社区矫正制度的成功经验,拟从未成年犯罪人社区矫正的立法、组织领导、队伍建设、人员素质、矫正方案和措施、基金保障、监督考评机制等几方面来探讨我国未成年犯罪人社区矫正制度的建立。     

Mobilizing from the Margins: Domestic Citizen Politics and Yasukuni Shrine

Prime Minister Koizumi’s six consecutive annual visits to Yasukuni shrine played a key role in initiating a new phase of domestic citizen political mobilization not seen since the early 1970s. This paper is based on field research during the Koizumi years (2001–2006) centering on domestic groups that conduct activities in “protection” of or “opposition” to Yasukuni shrine. As a study of street-based politics, this paper seeks to uncover the processes, strategies, and outcomes of citizen responses to elite political action at Yasukuni Shrine as well as explore meaning of their actions within the context of Japan’s democratic polity.