Social Impact Bonds: Blockbuster or Flash in a Pan?

Despite the general hype, Social Impact Bonds’ (SIB) rate of adoption is still modest. The mismatch between widespread interest and actual adoption raises interesting questions as to whether we are still in the early adoption phase of SIBs and massive diffusion is yet to come, or we are observing a marginal phenomenon. In order to shed some light on this issue, the paper provides a review of the cases in which the SIB model has been already applied, exploring the specific configuration employed, with the purpose to identify regular configuration patterns and their deviation from a prototypical structure.     

谈凯恩斯与凯恩斯主义

约翰.梅纳德.凯恩斯是西方近代宏观经济学的开创者,是公认的20世纪最具创造性和最有影响力的著名经济学家、在经济学领域引发革命的学术泰斗、凯恩斯主义的创始人。凯恩斯经济理论的基础是有效需求理论,国家干预理论是其经济理论最核心的内容。凯恩斯以其天才的智慧提出的经济理论和政策主张,无论是对当代世界资本主义国家还是对我国都产生了重大的影响。     

Sorting out smart surveillance

Surveillance is becoming ubiquitous in our society. We can also see the emergence of “smart” surveillance technologies and the assemblages (or combinations) of such technologies, supposedly to combat crime and terrorism, but in fact used for a variety of purposes, many of which are intrusive upon the privacy of law-abiding citizens. Following the dark days of 9/11, security and surveillance became paramount. More recently, in Europe, there has been a policy commitment to restore privacy to centre stage. This paper examines the legal tools available to ensure that privacy and personal data protection are respected in attempts to ensure the security of our society, and finds that improvements are needed in our legal and regulatory framework if privacy is indeed to be respected by law enforcement authorities and intelligence agencies. It then goes on to argue that privacy impact assessments should be used to sort out the necessity and proportionality of security and surveillance programmes and policies vis-à-vis privacy.     

Victim impact statements and the role of the South African criminologist

This article explores the developments in the plight of victims as well as the professional role of the South African criminologists in offering assistance to victims of crime by compiling victim impact statements on behalf of victims. The VIS has a significant contribution to make in a stage of the judicial process where acknowledgement of a victim takes place after a judgment or a guilty conviction. During the trial process a victim in legal terms does not exist. It is only at this final stage before sentencing that the court will view the complainant as a victim. It is imperative that the complainant＇s voice is heard as a victim-one who has suffered loss regardless of its shape and form. The all encompassing contribution of the VIS lies in its empowering nature due to the fact that it also can contribute to crime prevention by lowering the crime rate and reducing the cyclical nature of violence and crime.     

析《规划环境影响评价条例》

《规划环境影响评价条例》的颁布是我国环境立法的重大进展。它对进一步规范和促进规划环境影响评价工作,切实保障在规划源头预防环境污染和生态破坏,健全环境影响评价制度具有重要意义。与环境影响评价法相比,该务例有很多亮点,但仍存在一些缺陷。针对其存在的问题,如何强化公众参与、完善规划审查、强化法律责任、增加替代方案等,将是今后条例完善应重点探讨的问题。     

Is it really performance that is measured？ A reflection of the South African Government＇s performance management system

The institutionalisation of performance management in the South African public service is a post-1994 intervention necessitated by the need to counteract the legacy of poor performance in public service institutions. Performance management as an integrated system is not a standalone intervention, but has direct links with other organisational processes. At both the micro- and macro-levels, PMS （performance management system） recognises institutional performance relationships between individuals＇, teams＇ and departments＇ performance contributions for attaining government performance targets. These institutional performance relationships in the South African public service have attracted excessive attention, whilst their performance impact in communities has been overlooked. In addition, the interdependence between the dichotomies of PMS： institutional performance relationships and performance impact have also been overlooked. In the South African context, this condition creates a disparity in terms of which government employees are rewarded for outstanding performance, whilst targeted beneficiaries express dissatisfaction, often with violent protests, over government＇s performance in the delivery of basic services. The protestors cite poor service delivery in prioritised key performance areas of the South African Government. The granting of performance rewards to government employees is an expression of performance excellence, which should translate into quality service delivery. Such delivery should not only meet the levels of service delivery expectations of targeted communities, but should also result in their total satisfaction. The article is founded on the basis that any disparity between targeted beneficiaries＇ service expectations and level of satisfaction can be linked directly to government progress in PMS implementation.     

Student Protest and the Nueva Mayoría Reforms in Chile

Chile's Nueva Mayoría government (2014–2018) responded more forcefully to student demands for a more assertive public role in education than any of its post‐authoritarian predecessors. Existing scholarship suggests that this change reflected the success of the 2011 student protests in tapping into latent public discontent with neoliberalism and the politics of consensus. This article argues that it is also crucial to understand how the wave of protest interacted with the dynamics of party politics at the elite level. Public support translated into substantive policy and institutional changes because it contributed to a coalition and platform shift that favoured more extensive reform.     

作为政府工具的隐私影响评估:缘起、价值、实施与启示

隐私影响评估作为政府保护公民隐私的重要工具,已在西方发达国家隐私管理实践中有着二十多年的应用与发展历程。西方隐私影响评估缘起于公众隐私保护诉求和政府隐私管理需要,在特定的政府信息数据管理项目中通过识别隐私风险因素、评估隐私风险影响和制定隐私风险应对方案发挥着一系列积极作用。隐私影响评估的实施分为准备阶段、分析阶段和落实阶段。准备阶段的任务是描述评估锚定项目、选择评估执行时机、确定评估执行主体和明确评估协商对象,分析阶段的任务是描述项目信息流动、识别项目隐私风险和制定风险应对方案,落实阶段的任务是发布隐私评估报告、实施风险应对方案和持续更新评估结果。西方隐私影响评估的丰富实践给我国制定隐私影响评估指南、设置隐私影响评估机构、构建多元主体协商机制和建立隐私风险管理体系提供了重要启示。     

A New Era for Think Tanks in Public Policy? International Trends,Australian Realities

Although the powerful have always sought advice from the knowledgeable, it took the appeal of the policy sciences movement of the late 1940s and onward to build and consolidate a veritable industry of policy analysis and advice. ¹ One of the hallmarks of this development was the advent of institutes that were exclusively devoted to produce research‐based policy arguments and to inject these into the policy‐making process. These organisations were referred to as ‘think tanks’. Half a century later, the project of the policy sciences movement has been amply criticised, and has mutated into various philosophies of policy analysis, each harbouring distinct and often conflicting perspectives on the nature and role of (scientific) knowledge in the battle of arguments that is public policy‐making. The first wave of the policy sciences movement's privileging of science‐based policy has not disappeared. In fact it is currently experiencing a revival under the banner of ‘evidence‐based policy’. But it has to compete with other views of public policy‐making which deconstruct the authority claim of scientific knowledge, emphasising instead its contestability. Yet there are now more organisations that refer to themselves, or can be labelled, as ‘think tanks’ than ever before. Why? And what does it mean to be a ‘think tank’ in the post‐positivist era and in the increasingly boundary‐less, highly networked societies of today? This article first surveys recent developments in the world of think tanks as reported by the international literature on the subject, and then examines the implications for understanding the nature and role of Australian think tanks.     

Political Bias and Methodological Failure in Assessing Environmental Impacts of Development Projects: Comparative Analysis of the High Aswan Dam and Calaca Thermal Power Plant Development Projects

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) by various sectors for development activities still needs operational guidelines to avoid failures. The High Aswan Dam in Egypt and the Calaca Thermal Power Plant in the Philippines were examined to delineate lessons. Three sorts of methodological failures were identified in these cases, although they differ in many aspects. They are (1) preoccupation with the previous case, (2) oversimplified assumptions about cause and effect, and (3) lack of a holistic viewpoint. These cases were also influenced by political biases, which led to inappropriate assessment methodologies and, subsequently, to erroneous conclusions. Care should be taken to avoid these universal failures in carrying out an assessment.