Aid and state-building,Part II: Afghanistan and Iraq

Part I of this article found that, in South Korea and Taiwan, institutional legacy and continuity as well as the politics of aid did matter for post-war state-building. The inheritance and continuity of Weberian states and the receipt of aid either as budget support or increasingly aligned with local priorities helped to foster state-building. Part II of the study in this article explores a different dynamic of post-war aid to Afghanistan and Iraq which had a legacy of neopatrimonial and weak states. It argues that under more adverse initial conditions – for a neopatrimonial state – the role of aid regime and state-building strategies become even more important. Under these conditions, aid and state-building strategies may undermine state-building if they induce discontinuity in the existing state capacity and create parallel institutions to those of the state. Depending on the policies, state weakness may be reinforced if leaders are preoccupied with the politics of patronage.     

论仲裁规则的性质及其与仲裁法之间的关系

仲裁规则是规定如何通过仲裁的方法解决当事人之间争议的程序性规则。仲裁适用的规则既可以由当事人约定,也可以由仲裁机构或者相关的国际经济贸易组织制定。仲裁规则的本质是契约性,仅在当事人选择适用的情况下对相关当事人或者仲裁机构(庭)具有法律上的拘束力。当事人也可在不违反相关国家有关强制性法律规则的情况下对他们选择适用的仲裁规则进行修订。国家的仲裁法所规范的是在该国境内进行的一切仲裁活动,无须当事人对此做出选择。仲裁法还是仲裁规则的重要补充。如果当事人或者仲裁规则未能对争议事项作出规定或规定不明确的,可以通过相关国家的国内仲裁立法加以补充与完善。由于仲裁规则与仲裁法在本质上的不同,决定了它们在适应范围和法律效力上的不同。     

略论仲裁机构民间性的法律保障

仲裁机构的民间性不仅深得广大有识之士的认同,亦得到社会系统功能分化论的强大支持。但在当前我国仲裁实践中,无论是仲裁界的思想观念,还是目前仲裁机构的运作实际,都存在针对仲裁机构民间性的异动倾向。因此,在修改《仲裁法》时,有必要从仲裁机构的设立区域、仲裁机构的设立机关、仲裁机构成员的任职条件、仲裁协会与仲裁机构间的关系等方面对仲裁机构的民间性原则提供法律保障。     

权力人腐败的机会主义动因及其矫治

人类经验表明,权力腐败实质上是权力人的违法腐败。机会主义人性行为分析证明,权力人的腐败本源于权力人的机会主义人性,是人性利己与利他矛盾内耗的外在表现。通过对"左"右倾机会主义、代理人机会主义和权术机会主义的观察也发现,如果没有有效的制度规则约束,权力人从本性上必然会利用机会甚至创造机会滥用权力,作出谋求私利最大化的机会主义"败德"行为。因此,为了防止权力人的腐败,就需要以多重制度设计抑制权力人的机会主义心理,约束权力人的败德行为,矫治权力人的权力滥用。不过,值得注意的是,人类对权力人机会主义腐败的治理将是一场需要战胜自我本性的持久战,要打赢这场反腐持久战,必须坚持不懈地推进国家反腐治理体系和治理能力的系统化、协同化与现代化。     

北京市某区社会资本举办医疗机构现状及管理对策

本文首先对社会资本举办医疗机构的设置现状进行描述,进而分析其存在的问题,提出针对性的管理对策,为加强卫生法制建设,依法管理社会资本举办医疗机构提供建议。     

The innovative personality? Policy making and experimentation in an authoritarian bureaucracy

Why do local officials in an authoritarian bureaucracy experiment with policy, even when directed not to do so by central‐level officials? This study suggests that policy experimentation in this institutional environment can best be understood as an interaction between the structure in which local officials are embedded and individual‐level personality attributes. Leveraging a new data set from a series of original surveys with local policy makers in mainland China, conducted between 2016 and 2018, we discern three baseline personality types: authoritarian, consultative, and entrepreneurial. We thereafter examine the individual‐level characteristics of local officials who will innovate irrespective of a centralization of bureaucratic power and interests, as currently experienced under Chinese President Xi Jinping. We find that local policy makers engage in policy innovation when they are more focused on resolving governance problems and that increased risk reduces but does not eliminate their willingness to innovate. Based on these findings, we contend that future studies of policy innovation should use an evolutionary framework to examine the interaction between preferences and selection pressures.     

Electoral Institutions,Social Diversity and Fragmentation of Party Systems: A Reassessment

The article examines the determinants of party fragmentation based on electoral district data from the Swiss cantons (2010‐2015). In contrast to previous studies, three different dependent variables are taken into account: firstly, the raw number of parties, secondly, the effective number of parties based on vote shares and, thirdly, the effective number of legislative parties. On all three levels, the exclusion magnitude proves to be the most important factor. Compared to this, other institutional variables contribute little explanatory power. However, apparentments are relevant in the first stage of our analysis as they increase the raw number of parties standing for election. In terms of sociological factors, we only find limited relevance. Denominational and linguistic heterogeneity do not have any impact. This can be explained by the fact that linguistic heterogeneity is only weakly pronounced at district level. The finding emphasises the importance of district‐based data for the analysis of party system fragmentation in general.     

Designing institutions to improve well-being: Participation,deliberation and institutionalisation

Social accountability institutions are at the forefront of democratic reformers’ efforts to improve well-being by harnessing the power of citizen participation. This article builds on recent research identifying a positive relationship between participatory budgeting (PB) and well-being. The article is the first large-N study to identify relationships between specific rules of PB programme design and well-being. A unique dataset of 114 Brazilian municipalities with PB programmes from 2009 to 2016 is constructed to evaluate whether internal mechanisms within PB explain variation in local infant mortality rates – an outcome associated with wellbeing. Hypotheses are tested that correspond to citizen participation, the scope of deliberation and embeddedness within local institutions. It is found that PB programmes are associated with lower infant mortality rates when they broaden participation, expand deliberation and embed the new institutions in ongoing policy-making venues. The results offer a framework for designing PB programmes and other social accountability institutions to maximise impact.     

Asia's competing multilateral initiatives: quality versus quantity

East Asia has many distinctive features that set it apart from other comparable regions, not least attitudes to regional development and cooperation. Despite a growing number of regional initiatives in East Asia, however, they are generally distinguished by their ineffectiveness. It is entirely possible that ‘institutional balancing’, like its more well-known power balancing counterpart, is designed not to facilitate but to prevent something from happening. The sort of ‘multilateralism 1.0’ developed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has a lot to answer for in this regard: having established its own pattern of institutional effectiveness ASEAN's ‘leadership’ has caused it to be replicated under the new wave of ‘multilateralism 2.0’. Consequently, I suggest that not only is China very comfortable with the idea of a rather feeble and ineffective institutional architecture, but the USA is also unlikely to do anything to change this picture, especially under a Trump administration that is highly skeptical about the efficacy of multilateral institutions at the best of times.