Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics

Important research programs within New Institutional Economics advance culturalist arguments to explain failures of economic development. Focusing on the work of Douglass C. North and Avner Greif, this article argues that such arguments rely on an essentialist conception of culture that is both historically inaccurate and analytically misleading. Greif’s work in particular rests on a selective use of empirical data that ultimately distorts the deductive models that are at the core of his work. As a result, both scholars use culture to account for outcomes that are more adequately explained as the product of social conflict and political struggles—struggles in which culture plays a far more contingent and destabilizing role than the one they attribute to it. What is needed, I argue, is to link arguments about the persistence of inefficient institutions with a sociologically informed conception of culture as an ensemble of resources that enhance rather than constrain the scope of individual agency. To come to terms with the effects of culture on institutional formation and change it is necessary to replace the essentialism articulated by North and Greif with a strategic-instrumentalist view in which culture is compatible with a wide spectrum of economic behaviors, individual actions, and thus institutional trajectories.

Institutions and Development in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis

We review the theoretical literature on the concept of institutions and its relationship to national development, propose a definition of the concept, and advance six hypotheses about institutional adequacy and contributions to national development. We then present results of a comparative empirical study of existing institutions in three Latin American countries and examine their organizational similarities and differences. Employing the qualitative comparative method (QCA) proposed by Ragin, we then test the six hypotheses. Results converge in showing the importance of meritocracy, immunity to corruption, absence of “islands of power,” and proactivity in producing effective institutions. Findings strongly support Peter Evans’ theory of developmental apparatuses.

东北振兴中地区文化产业的发展策略

东北振兴的过程,是计划经济体制向社会主义市场经济体制转换的过程,同时也是文化注入工业、文化经济的含量在社会生产结构中的比重逐步提高的过程。由于受历史传统、地理环境以及计划经济体制等因素的影响,东北存在着技术装备落后、产业结构"老化"等问题。与之相应,人的思维方式、行为方式、文化观念等也存在"老化"现象。因而,东北文化产业的深度拓展,既是东北振兴的重要内容,也是推动东北振兴的强大动力。     

恐怖主义的发展过程及思想渊源

作为国家政治斗争的特殊表现形式,冷战后国际恐怖主义对国际社会的安全构成了　极大的威胁。尽管世界各国都意识到恐怖主义的危害性,但对恐怖主义的认识还是千差万别　,造成国际反恐怖合作举步维艰,打击效果不显著。从历史角度分析,恐怖主义的发展经历　了四个不同的发展时期,各个时期表现出不同的特点。近现代恐怖主义的发展还与一些极端　思潮关系密切,这些思潮,如宗教极端思想、无政府主义、种族主义、新纳粹主义等等,对　恐怖主义的发展起到指导和推动的作用。     

论西部大开发战略和甘肃非公有制经济的发展

西部大开发战略为甘肃非公有制经济的发展提供了良好的机遇。甘肃非公有制经济的发展又会进一步促进西部大开发。通过对西部大开发与甘肃非公有制经济辨证关系的分析 ,认为非公有制经济在甘肃经济大开发中具有重要作用 ,藉此提出甘肃借西部大开发推动非公有制经济快速发展的对策建议     

合理开发利用配置水资源实施可持续发展的治水新思路

水资源短缺与浪费日益突出 ,影响水资源的可持续利用 ,制约经济社会发展。根据我国和茂名地区的实际 ,搞好治水规划 ,实施可持续发展水利 ;强化城市防洪工程建设 ,保障经济社会的可持续发展 ;完善水利灌区网络建设 ,实现水资源的合理配置 ;突出水源保护和水污染防治 ,实现水资源的可持续利用 ;加大水的管理体制改革力度 ,提高用水效率 ,是解决水资源短缺和浪费 ,实现水资源可持续利用和发展的治水新思路。     

Turkey – from tutelary to delegative democracy

Guillermo O’Donnell’s influential work ‘Delegative Democracy’ set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralised rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. While delegative democracies seem to arise out of presidential systems, Turkey, though a parliamentary system, has also displayed the distinctive features of delegative democracies. This paper identifies three characteristics of delegative democracy, which are responsible for the lack of democratic consolidation, if not the erosion of democracy itself: anti-institutionalism, an anti-political agenda and clientelism. Arguing that delegative democracy is the best concept with which to examine contemporary Turkey, the paper lays out how, post-2011, Turkey has demonstrated the three elements of delegative democracy. The final section discusses the implications of the Turkish case for scrutinising the very possibility of delegative democracy in parliamentary regimes.     

少数民族地区乡村旅游发展与和谐社会构建研究

乡村旅游已成为我国旅游业新的增长点和亮点。我国少数民族地区的绝大多数乡村有条件、有市场顺应国际国内旅游业发展的潮流发展乡村旅游。实践证明,少数民族地区开展乡村旅游对构建和谐社会起着多方面的积极作用。少数民族地区乡村应把握好乡村旅游的开发原则,探索其开发的有效途径,实现少数民族地区乡村的经济发展与全面和谐。     

Peaceful and Sustainable Development? Middle-Management Entrepreneurship and Transnational Competence in China

With deeper integration into the global economy and expanded penetration by multinational firms and other nonChinese actors following accession to the WTO, skills in bureaucratic entrepreneurship are not likely to be sufficient by themselves to bring about China’s sustainable development. In today’s interdependent and highly competitive trade, economic-cooperation, and resource-limited environment, sustainable development requires that subnational managers also possess transnational competence in collaborating with, negotiating with, and transforming foreign counterparts. However, survey research among Chinese executives based in Shanghai revealed that only a small proportion of the reporting current and future managers recognized the growing importance for China of an interculturally competent workforce. Without increased attention to enhancing the transnational competence of government and state-enterprise managers, peaceful and ecologically sound development will be difficult to sustain given the demands of multinational production chains, global resource constraints, and the challenges involved in managing transnational relations in the interest of China’s long-term economic progress.

Taxing Digital Economy: A Critical View around the GloBE (Pillar Two)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) proposal for taxation of digital economy constitutes one of the most ambitious projects in the field of taxation and may lead to the most significant reform to international tax rules in the 20th century. Based on a two-pillar approach, Pillar Two of the proposal suggests the adoption of Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) provisions that are aimed at introducing a worldwide minimum tax. In this article, a critical analysis is based that the GloBE proposal suggests that it represents a shift in the OECD policy. As compared to base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), it jeopardizes the tax sovereignty of jurisdictions and it raises fundamental challenges of implementation, both in terms of amendments to domestic law and conflicts with tax treaties.