Introduction to the Symposium on Exploring the Complexities of Performance Management

ABSTRACT

The editors of this symposium hope that this collection of articles can help advance the public administration literature stream across the multiple organizational and cultural settings in which these performance management studies were conducted. However, this symposium also focused on articles that can help advance the practice of performance management, where specific recommendations are needed to help public officials collect, analyze, and use meaningful outcome measures specifically for the benefits for making better management and policy decisions.     

Land rights issues in Africa: the contribution of agrarian systems research in Burkina Faso

The standard approach to land issues is to consider that private property rights are more efficient because they encourage investment. Therefore, it is imperative to institute modern land rights to meet agricultural challenges in sub-Saharan Africa. Other authors stress the importance of the social role of customary law in farming communities. Establishing modern property rights would have exclusive discriminatory effects, especially on the poorest. This contribution attempts to clarify the links between land rights, technological change and social disparity using the agrarian system approach. Both the above-mentioned theories are put to the test here. The emergence of private property appears to be not the cause but the consequence of technical changes that arose as a specific result of the maintenance of customary rights. However, these same customary rights also paved the way for growing social disparity within farming communities.     

Justice,Efficiency, and the New Public Management

In this article I aim to explore the link between two normative values, namely justice and efficiency, and the New Public Management approach. In pursuing this task I offer several critical arguments against some of the recent justice‐based objections levied against New Public Management by David Arellano‐Gault. I claim that Arellano‐Gault's account of the relation between justice and the New Public Management is seriously undermined by two conceptual flaws: (1) a conflation of right‐libertarianism, utilitarianism, and desert theories of justice and (2) a conflation of the technical/productive sense of efficiency with the social/distributive sense. Furthermore, I maintain that even when the different theories of justice and the different senses of efficiency are properly delineated, the case for necessarily linking NPM to a particular theory of justice is markedly unconvincing.     

The Multitude and the Machine: Productivism,Populism, Posthumanism

There has been a proliferating literature on postcapitalist and post-work futures in recent years, underpinned by policy proposals like the basic income and a reduction in working hours. It has gained increasing uptake within left electoral politics and policy making. The generational potency of these ideas require that we understand their theoretical roots. This article considers the interplay between the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri and the new postcapitalism exemplified by the likes of Paul Mason and Aaron Bastani, as well as its relationship with intellectual currents around Corbynism and the wider contemporary left. Through a discussion of their latest book, Assembly, it will be seen that Hardt and Negri both inform, and are increasingly informed by, the postcapitalist and post-work thinking popular on the left today—in particular at its ‘posthumanist’ fringes. However, this recent work is characterised by a series of tactical redirections that, rather than indicating renewal, reflect the potential collapse of this utopian framework for the future in the face of a rapidly unravelling global political context. Whilst the determinist understanding of social transformation cannot permit these setbacks, this shines a light on more general shifts in left strategy and analysis.     

对我国移植答辩交易制度的思考

美国答辩交易制度是其刑事诉讼民主化、法治化的体现,移植域外制度时我们需要保持高度的审慎态度．但是我们也决不应该面对有益的变化视而不见、安于现状。通过对答辩交易制度的分析,认为移植答辩交易制度将会有助于我国刑事诉讼的现代化进程,同时认为当今我国刑事立法及司法实践中的诸多制度也为答辩交易的移植提供了支持。     

论传闻证据规则的理论基础——基于法学和经济学的向度

发端于英美法系的传闻证据规则为解决我国证人出庭难问题提供了思路,应当予以借鉴。深刻剖析传闻证据规则所蕴涵的理论基础可以发现,诉讼公正和诉讼效益最大化分别是其赖以存在的法理基础和经济学基础。     

效率与公平:建立中国公司治理结构的基石

现代公司治理结构是处理公司内部利益相关者的一种机制,其演化动力根源于经济主体自身追求效率、公平及两者协调的固有趋势.我国应对英国—美国模式作适当的改进,使公司治理结构在基本目标、基本原则等方面满足公平与效率相结合的要求.     

液化天然气的开发应用

利用低温将天然气液化,便于运输、储存和冷能利用,是跨洲际、跨海洋运送天然气的主要方式,对调剂世界天然气供应起着重要作用,使供气来源多样化。     

欧盟公司资本制度的改革及其对我国的启示

第二号公司法指令关于法定资本制的各项规则繁琐、僵硬,不能完全适应公司低成本高效率以及激励创新的制度要求,也没有达到充分保护债权人的目的.欧盟2006/68号指令对第二号公司法指令作了相应的修改,其中的辩论、建议和修改的结果值得我们反思和研究.我国未来公司资本制度改革,应致力于完善对债权人的保护,建立资本与公司负债和资产规模相适应,以公司的偿付能力作为分配标准的资本制度.同时完善其他债权人保护制度,如股东债权衡平居次原则、刺破公司面纱原则、信息披露制度,建立阻止非法转移财产的制度和债权人对破产公司董事责任的追究等制度.在提高公司经营效率,节省公司设立和运营成本方面,欧盟此次公司法指令修改的内容,可以为我国借鉴和采纳.     

诉讼时效制度的二元价值——兼评我国诉讼时效制度的缺失

诉讼时效价值是法价值在民法领域的具体体现,对诉讼时效价值的认识与对民法的认识密切相关.目前,多数已发表文章缺乏对诉讼时效价值的全面认识,均集中于诉讼时效的公法价值.实际上,诉讼时效作为民法制度的组成部分之一,决定着对其价值的认识也应当从民法本身出发.诉讼时效的价值具有二元性:一方面,体现了国家对私权的干预;另一方面,也洋溢着对私权利的关怀.