Migration and Healthcare Reforms in Spain: Symbolic Politics,Converging Outputs,Oppositions from the Field

ABSTRACT

Migrants’ healthcare entitlement represents a conflictive issue in the political battlefield, with research pointing towards the determinant role of party politics in determining policy outputs. Addressing the 2012 healthcare reform and 2018 counter-reform adopted in Spain by a right-wing and left-wing government respectively and drawing on qualitative analysis of parties’ discourses and policy measures, we argue that ideological differences along the healthcare-migration nexus were overemphasised to play symbolic politics. Partisan competition had less impact on actual outputs, while clashes between the central and regional governments, path-dependent practices and opposition from multiple venues played a central role in the policymaking process.     

Indispensable,yet Invisible: Drinking water management as a local political issue in Swedish municipalities

ABSTRACT

Local policy-makers’ incentives to address an issue is conditioned by how they perceive public attention. Our study focuses on drinking water management at the municipal level in Sweden. Provisioning and management of drinking water is a responsibility of the local governments. Interviews with local politicians and public administrators in seven municipalities reveal that local policy-makers think that citizens view provisioning of drinking water as a taken for granted service, and also lack knowledge of and interest in drinking water issues. Public attention is further seen as a double-edged sword since engagement in water issues often is a result of problems with water provision. The findings are discussed from a theoretical perspective of the role of agenda-setting in public policy. It is argued that the view of policy-makers of citizens as unengaged negatively affects the incentives to bring drinking water to a prominent place on the local policy agenda.     

Can non-democracies support international democracy? Turkey as a case study

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a rise of interest in the concept of autocracy promotion, with scholars questioning whether the efforts by authoritarian governments to influence political transitions beyond their borders are necessarily pro-authoritarian. An extension of this question is whether some authoritarian governments may at times find it in their interest to support democracy abroad. This article aims to answer this question by focusing on the case of Turkey. It argues that, despite its rapidly deteriorating democracy since the late 2000s, Turkey has undertaken democracy support policies with the explicit goal of democratic transition in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region during the Arab Spring and, while not bearing the intention of democratic transition, has employed democracy support instruments in the form of state-building in sub-Saharan Africa since 2005 to the present day. Based on original fieldwork, the article finds that non-democracies can turn out as democracy supporters, if and when opportunities for strategic gains from democratisation abroad arise. The article further suggests that even in those cases where strategic interests do not necessitate regime change, a non-democracy may still deploy democracy support instruments to pursue its narrow interests, without adhering to an agenda for democratic transition.     

Is it Population or Personnel? The Effects of Diversity on Immigration Policy Implementation by Sheriff Offices

Abstract

The federal-local cooperative immigration removal program Secure Communities (S-Comm) has resulted in wide variation into how aggressively national interior immigration policy has been implemented locally. Some communities have removed thousands, but others have removed few if any. Community composition explains much of the variation, but representative bureaucracy tells us agency diversity also influences implementation. Focusing on county sheriff offices, a vital local partner in S-Comm, this study finds that agency personnel diversity (specifically, offices with larger percentages of Hispanics and African Americans) produce fewer removals and submissions to ICE for immigration background checks. Other agency-specific factors are also important. Both the agency’s total budget and whether it has a 287(g) agreement with federal immigration authorities increase removals. Despite recent efforts to blur the distinction between immigration and criminal justice policy, this study finds no relationship between local removals and local crime.     

监护人责任规范问题研究——由民法典侵权责任编(草案三次审议稿)切入

民法典侵权责任编(草案三次审议稿)第九百六十四条规定的监护人责任存在归责原则不明、被监护人是否承担责任不明确、缺乏侵权之因果关系、忽视监护人职责履行之条件等问题。其原因在于监护人责任承担的理论基础不明、过度保护受害人、未兼顾对被监护人的保护和教育等。监护人责任的应然内涵应是:无民事行为能力人、限制民事行为人不法侵害他人造成损害的,由与其共同生活的监护人承担侵权责任。限制民事行为能力人在辨识能力范围内与监护人承担连带责任。监护人能够证明自己尽了监护义务或者即使尽了监护义务仍无法阻止损害发生的,不承担责任。     

Collective Action,Civil Society,and Public Policy in Turkey

Abstract

Understanding policy change mechanisms has been a key question for scholars of public policy and collective action. However, policy scholarship mostly ignores civil society-based explanations of policy processes. In order to address this gap, this study combines the Advocacy Coalition Framework with networked collective action perspectives and analyzes a successful case of mobilization of women’s rights organizations in Turkey to reverse a bill on child marriage. Study findings suggest that advocacy coalitions are not static entities. When different issues in a policy subsystem are invoked, the structure of inter-coalition networks can change substantially and these variations in inter-coalition interactions may have consequences for influencing policy change. Moreover, this paper argues that extensive street protests and online campaigns by civil society organizations have the capacity to boost the bargaining power of minority coalitions, especially in contexts that lack multiple formal venues for making policy claims.     

农村公共政策供给:时代特征、逻辑进路与批判性建构

农村公共政策供给呈现出典型的功能双重性、价值多重性和技术非均衡性时代特征并呈现出体系化趋向。民生政治、制度创新、解构并重构固化的社会结构,是农村公共政策供给的价值导向、技术导向和目标导向,三者共同构成了农村公共政策供给的逻辑进路。体制性传递与“泛政策化”、选择性供给与失真性执行、政策供给与制度创新的弱耦合性,是当前农村公共政策供给面临的现实挑战。农村公共政策供给带来的政策泡沫和信任危机降低了农民的政治效能感,引发潜在的政治认同危机;涉农政策“打架”现象根源于农村公共政策供给机制失调,导致制度性成本增加;制度创新热衷于制造概念并引致制度空转现象背离农村公共政策供给的逻辑要求。推动农村公共政策供给侧改革,健全完善农村公共政策社会监督体系,优化农村公共政策内部考核评估体系,是新时代优化农村公共政策供给的基本策略。     

技术权力、技术生命周期与大国的技术政策选择

大国技术竞争是指国家行为体综合运用各类政策手段争夺技术权力的过程。技术权力可分为强制性权力、网络性权力和制度性权力。技术竞争往往是一个长时段的互动过程,可能涵盖一个或多个技术生命周期。各类技术权力在一个技术生命周期内出现的时间有所不同,技术权力的积累在两个技术生命周期的交替期也可能呈现延续或中断的不同走向。这意味着在技术发展的不同阶段,竞争主体的政策选择将依据技术权力的变化而相应发生改变。美、俄、中、欧在全球卫星导航领域的博弈以及美、欧、日、中在移动通信领域的竞争,均鲜明体现了驱动国际政治行为体开展技术竞争的意愿因素(获取权力)以及它们在技术发展相应阶段的政策选择。前者仅涉及单个技术生命周期,后者则包含多个时间上紧密衔接的技术生命周期。中国是当前大国技术竞争的主要参与者。为了在竞争中立于不败之地,应注意把握技术发展的阶段性特征,因时制宜,选择与技术发展阶段匹配的技术政策,并针对下一阶段技术发展的重点方面提前进行布局,以坚持自主创新和扩大对外开放为基本原则,通过科技创新掌握技术权力,推进构建新发展格局。     

Trump and the End of an Era? The Liberal International Order in Perspective

ABSTRACT

The liberal international economic and political order which the United States created from the ashes of World War II and has since led is in trouble. To United States President Donald Trump, the order which provided the framework under which sovereign states agreed to follow a rules-based system of economic and political cooperation and shared multilateral governance, has not only allowed other nations (in particular, China) to take advantage of US ‘magnanimity’, but also weakened the United States economically, while asymmetric alliances compromised its military advantages. Given the sustained assault this cosmopolitan order is facing, many fear that it may not survive if Trump is re-elected in November 2020. Indeed, if the United States response to the COVID-19 pandemic is any guide, an ‘America First’ agenda, especially a hard-line approach to China, will shape US policy if Trump wins a second term.