Innovation and growth in traditional agriculture of the lower Volta,Ghana

This article addresses the important question of whether foreign direct investment enhances economic growth and labour productivity in Mexico, both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. After briefly reviewing the Mexican experience with net FDI inflows during the 1990s, the article presents a simple endogenous growth model which explicitly incorporates any positive (negative) externalities generated by additions to the foreign capital stock. Using cointegration analysis, the article estimates a dynamic labour productivity function for the 1960-95 period that includes the impact of the growth rate in the stocks of both private and foreign capital (as opposed to the flows) and the economically active population (EAP) (rather than the rate of population growth). The error correction model (ECM) estimates suggest that increases in both private ad (lagged) foreign investment spending, as well as the rate of growth in exports, have a positive and economically significant effect on the rate of labour productivity growth. In addition, the results show that increases in the EAP have a negative and statistically significant effect on the rate of labour productivity growth, while changes in the government consumption variable have a negative but marginally significant impact. The error correction terms of the estimated models are negative and statistically significant, thus suggesting that deviations of actual labour productivity growth from its long-run value are corrected in subsequent periods. Finally the article generates historical simulations from the estimated ECM's and offers some policy recommendations to enhance the positive externalities associated with FDI inflows.     

The Combined Effect of Advertising and News Coverage in the Mexican Presidential Campaign of 2000

In July 2000, the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) lost the presidency of Mexico after 71 years of continuous rule. Research based on individual data obtained with surveys shows that important media effects occurred. Using aggregate data, in this article the author explores the effects of political advertising and media coverage on preferences during the Mexican presidential campaign. Data on voter preferences are taken from results of a trial ballot question in public opinion polls. Data on advertising are measured in gross rating points. Data on media coverage are taken from the monitoring of newscasts on the two major networks. OLS regression models are developed, with preferences as the dependent variable and campaigning differentials as the independent variables. Based on aggregate data, this research shows that in Mexico's 2000 presidential campaign, exposure to political communication led to persuasion, and news appears to have been more important than ads. Political communication was a unified process where ads and news presence acted together in a very interesting fashion, “bounding” each other in periods of major changes in preferences but with news effects prevailing over ads. Qualified news differentials accounted for 20% of the variance in preferences, and ad differentials accounted for 8%. This media effect occurred through a cumulative process where ads and news coverage acted together.     

Everyday Fixers as Local Heroes: A Case Study of Vital Interaction in Urban Governance

This article exemplifies the importance of viable coalitions in processes of neighbourhood development and local governance. Elaborating on the notion of the ‘everyday maker’, discovered in Danish local politics by Bang and Sörensen, this article further explores the characteristics and conditions of organising capacity, using the case of the Neighbourhood Development Corporation in the Dutch city of The Hague as a paradigmatic case. This case shows that individual actors, ‘everyday fixers’ or ‘local heroes’, can make a real difference in local politics if they are well connected to a supportive structure and if they are sensitive to the logic of the situation at hand. Context matters, sometimes impedes, but smart individuals can also make it work.     

The Management of Citizen Participation in Taiwan: A Case Study of Taipei City Government's Citizen Complaints System

Abstract

Citizen participation is one of the core values of democracy. Democratization means an increase in citizen participation in public affairs. However, the issue of democratization is rarely studied in the field of public administration. In this article, we use the Taipei City Government (TCG) Citizen Complaints System to illustrate some tensions relating to citizen participation in a newly democratizing country. We interviewed the TCG officials to piece together the puzzle of how the citizen complaints system works. Furthermore, we conducted a survey on how each channel and media is used by citizens to file their complaints. Then, we focused on the development of the Taipei City Mayor's e‐mail box to see how the tension between participation and cost is handled by utilizing newly emerging information technology. We then evaluate these developments in terms of publicity, accessibility, and accountability suggested by Senevirante and Cracknell (Seneviratne, M.; Cracknell, S. Consumer complaints in public sector services. Public Admin. 1988, 66, 181–193). Accordingly, we propose suggestions for improvement from these three aspects for TCG and other governments as well to establish a citizen complaints system that substantiates democracy.     

转变观念 务实创新 践行社会治理新举措——永城市社会治安管理创新调研报告

河南省永城市积极探索社会治安管理创新的新举措:持续高度重视公安信息化建设与应用;深入推进"五小活动",走基层,联系群众;树立"以民意为导向"的工作理念,充分认识信访维稳工作新形势。永城市社会治安管理创新的对策建议包括:进一步推进全市高危人群的信息采集与管理工作;着力加强多发性侵财犯罪的防范与控制;密切关注新形势下农村宗教的发展动态。     

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。     

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。     

‘From objects to subjects: the museumification of Blackness in Mexico’*

ABSTRACT

The performative role of the museum as a ‘historical map’ has long served to construct strategic cartographies of identity and community. In addition, the nature of the relational experiences within museum spaces, places these histories and cartographies in a contact zone, in which structures of power and agency influence the locus of enunciation through which subjecthood and objecthood are derived. This essay examines the influential role of museums in Mexico in imaging, framing, and performing strategic configurations of mexicanidad. Particularly, I interrogate how museums have historically muted and made invisible the representation of Mexicans of African descent.Then, I analyze two important regional museums and theorize how they present a transition from objecthood to subjecthood, in which Afro-Mexican knowledge and consciousness is reified to configure an alternative mapping of African heritage within the space of museums and within constructions of racial formations and narratives of being and belonging in Mexico.