How the City of London lost at Brexit: a historical perspective

The nature of the City of London as an offshore financial centre has long made London dependent on the British state providing protection from external political regulation, even as London’s foreign currency business separated its interests from British governments’ economic policy preoccupations. Since the 2008 crash and the onset of the eurozone crisis, London has faced threats to both its autonomy from external regulatory demands and to its offshore business interests at the same time as the long-standing external statecraft of British governments around EU membership has broken down. The Cameron governments’ efforts to protect the City within the European Union under political conditions that were transformed by the eurozone crisis exposed the limits of Britain’s position as a member of the European Union. When David Cameron then tried to resolve the problem of EU membership through a referendum he made it extremely difficult to defend the City’s broader commercial interests in the Single European Market because freedom of movement issues weighed significantly more in British domestic politics than financial services.     

Understanding contested women’s rights in development: the Latin American campaign for the humanisation of birth and the challenge of midwifery in Mexico

This article builds on the recent debates on human rights and development to discuss the case of reproductive rights and midwifery activism as part of the broader mobilisation for the humanisation of birth and against obstetric violence in Latin America and Mexico. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the analysis shows how human rights continue to form a significant contentious and constructed terrain among women in the global South. The mobilisation for the humanisation of birth and against obstetric violence indicates how the clinical developmental view of reproductive rights is challenged by these activists as not necessarily safeguarding the rights of women during birth. In Mexico this campaign is essentially linked to the struggle to bring back and strengthen midwifery as a way of ensuring improved human rights in birth. The article concludes, however, that this campaign might be challenged by Indigenous rights in the near future.     

La cooperación internacional para el desarrollo de México Un análisis de sus acciones,institucionalización y percepciones

The Mexican Law of International Development Cooperation (lidc) was published in 2011 with the purpose of reinforcing the institutional framework and developing a State policy as an activity that is inherent to foreign policy. From an institutional perspective, this paper examines some key aspects of Mexican cooperation that were developed in 2011–2014, with an emphasis on the current status of the lidc implementation. It is argued that during Felipe Calderon's administration the utter applicability of the Mexican lidc was not politically supported, thus frustrating the expectations concerning the development of a State policy on this matter. President Enrique Peña Nieto's current administration has made some progress in this direction, but it is also far from fully complying with the lidc and this has slowed down the institutionalization process of international development cooperation.     

Campañas negativas en las elecciones 2000 y 2006 en México

This article explores the nature of negative campaigns that were held in both 2000 and 2006 Mexican presidential elections. The purpose is to establish that the generalized use of negative campaigning concurs with the development of two unusual electoral processes: the transition of the State party into an opposition party (2000), and its consolidation as government (2006). Based on the theoretical claims of Shiv (1997), Lau (1999), and Finkel (1998), the author describes the development of negative campaigns in those elections that represented the starting point and the presumed consummation of the use of this kind of campaigns. With journals’ documented records and the monitoring of tv spots of both elections it is established that the 2000 presidential election used negative campaigns based on decrying the official party, while the 2006 election resorted to negative tv spots.     

Putting Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects First: The COVID-19 Pandemic in Indigenous Mexico

This article argues that whilst indigenous people are central to the Mexican president's official developmentalist discourse of bringing prosperity to the country's marginalised and poor, their needs during the COVID-19 pandemic have not been met and their interests have been sidelined. Whilst experiencing serious loss of trading revenue, negative impacts of misinformation, and lack of access to appropriate healthcare, indigenous Mexicans also faced the aggressive advance on their territories of large-scale infrastructure projects, which have become the backbone of the president's strategy for countering the economic recession caused by the pandemic. The discontinuation of relevant legal means to challenge the advance of the megaprojects during the pandemic effectively threatened indigenous people's democratic rights to protect their land, identities and way of life.     

省会城市预算过程中党政首长的作用与影响——基于三个省会城市的研究

以我国三个省会城市为例来试图回答这样一个问题:在省会城市预算过程中,党政首长究竟发挥着怎样的作用,他们是如何影响着预算过程和预算改革的?研究发现,这三个省会城市预算改革后,预算权力结构并未从根本上改变.其核心仍然是市委书记和市长,他们仍然是地方预算过程中实际的财政资源申请的审批者或最终资源配置者.这主要体现在,预算改革后,市委领导下的"行政预算"体制的继续,市政府领导高层预算分配权力的相对集中,和市长对部门关系以及部门利益的决定性影响.研究还指出,要准确地表达地方党政首长在预算过程中的权力,需要将其放在一种"关系"的维度来具体化.此外,对预算环境的讨论也是必要的,尤其是政治环境,对于党政首长而言,预算过程中的不确定性通常都是和政治环境相联系的.     

提高长春市城市管理水平的对策研究

加强长春市的城市管理，提高城市管理的效率和水平，是摆在我们面前的重要课题。提高长春市城市管理水平，应根据长春市城市管理的指导思想和城市管理的实际，采取以下五大措施；一是进一步提高对城市管理重要性和紧迫性的认识；二是加强城市管理必须解放思想，更新观念；与时俱进，三是提高城管队伍素质，规范执法队伍的行政行为，四是深化城市内部管理体制改革，建立科学，合理的城市管理体制，五是进一步拓展城市管理的范围，调整城市管理的重点。     

抓住机遇毫不动摇 推动佛山民营经济发展再上新台阶

佛山的民营经济经过二十多年的发展目前已成为支撑当地经济发展的重要支柱。面对新的发展机遇 ,要推动佛山民营经济发展再上新台阶 ,各级党委和政府要进一步创新对民营经济的再认识 ,为民营经济的发展创造良好的社会环境。要采取各种措施加快优势资源的整合 ,推动企业技术品牌和管理体制的创新 ,全面提高佛山民营经济的发展水平。     

"市管县"的悖论与"省管县"的可行性研究

随着经济和社会的发展,"市管县"体制已越来越明显地呈现出其各种弊端,与此同时,一种全新的"省管县"模式已越来越受到社会各界的关注,并在不少地方开始试行。本文在对"市管县"体制的悖论进行分析的基础上,论证了"省管县"的现实和理论可行性以及可能衍生的问题,从而为我国地方行政体制改革理清思路。     

府际管理理论与长株潭城市群政府合作机制

城市群政府间合作困境是困扰城市群一体化的主要问题.长株潭(长沙、株洲、湘潭)城市群在一体化过程中,政府间合作受到政治绩效竞争、政府"经济人"部门、经济社会发展差距、府际协调与合作落后等诸多因素制约.但是,经济一体化、上级战略和惠民效应等因素又将继续形成动力,客观上要求政府间形成可行的合作机制,破解当前困境以带来城市一体化的共惠共利.运用府际管理的基本理论,结合中国政治行政体制的特点,提出以构建政务环境、经济环境、生态环境和信息环境为基础平台的网状政府合作模式,其中特别强调从制度设计的角度来制约政府的毁约和不合作行为,要求政府间合作项目必须由以"法规、监督、激励"思想为核心的制约制度来保证实施.这种合作机制是解决当前省域内城市群政府间合作问题的一种新思路,在不实行政治和行政一体化的前提下,可以有效地实现城市群公共事务的合作,并且降低不履行契约和不合作的风险.