REFORMS TO THE FEDERALLY ADMINISTERED AREA OF PAKISTAN (FATA) – AN UNRESOLVED PROBLEM

In March 2017, Pakistan formally took the decision to begin a process of incorporating the Federally Administered Tribal Territories into the framework of regular Pakistani law. This article offers an overview of the historical system of governance of the Tribal territories, along with a discussion of the development of the recent reforms and their prospects for success.     

经济全球化背景下的中国自由贸易区之路

在经济全球化背景下，除世界贸易组织外，区域经济一体化已产生越来越重要的影响。文章介绍、分析了具有代表性的世界主要自由贸易区和中国发展自由贸易区的现状和特点，提出了中国发展自由贸易区的具体建议。     

行政规范性文件绩效评估的价值取向

行政规范性文件绩效评估是政府绩效评估中的重要内容,其对行政规范性文件能够起到有力的监控作用。明确行政规范性文件绩效评估的价值取向是开展评估活动的基础,既能使评估活动有一个正确方向,也能对评估活动起到指导作用。但在近年来的评估实践中,对其价值取向往往存在着许多错误的认识,如认为其仅限于促进社会经济发展、加强行政管理等方面,也有将其定位于普适性的价值,不切合行政规范性文件绩效评估的具体实践。行政规范性文件绩效评估作为一种专项评估活动,其价值取向应当体现在法治行政、人本法律观和服务行政三个方面。     

Of Distributive Politics and Pork Barrel System: Why Not Epistemic Governance Approach?

The paper attempts to situate distributive politics in the context of epistemic governance. The paper also seeks to analyze the various structures and systems, actors, agents and stakeholders, and norms and behaviors involved within the realm of theory and praxis in distributive politics. It borrows from the epistemic work targets espoused by Alasuutari and Qadir (2014), namely the environment, actors and virtues. Finally, the paper proposes an epistemic governance as policy approach in distributive politics as it tries to argue the shift of power from the hands of the political elites to the hands of the politically astute epistemes.     

中国地方治理中的政府与社会协商困境分析——基于民主化宏观策略的思考

一个国家民主化的宏观策略体现了该国民主化的根本方向与核心原则。中国民主化的宏观策略是一种可管理导向的积极民主化策略,这种策略给中国地方治理中的政府与社会协商实践造成了种种主客观困境,使得地方政府不能很好地举办协商活动,社会力量也不能有效地参与。为走出困境,就必须在坚持审慎而务实策略的同时,不断克服怀疑主义,建立和健全保证协商有效性的管理机制。     

稳中求进是促进今年经济稳定健康发展的正确决策

为贯彻中央提出的今年经济社会发展要突出把握好稳中求进的工作总基调，2012年中国经济的首要任务是稳定经济并保持经济平稳增长。为此，要继续稳定物价，在经济稳定条件下加大转方式调结构力度，提供更多的公共产品和服务，进一步改善民生。同时，经济改革要有新突破：要对一些难度较大改革，比如垄断行业改革、居民收入分配制度改革、政府职能转换改革、中央和地方财政管理体制改革等做好顶层设计总体规划；要积极推进有利于稳中求进的改革，包括稳步推进利率市场化改革，推进资源产品价格改革；继续调整和优化财政支出结构，更好地为稳增长稳物价转方式惠民生服务。     

Books received

Since the early 2000s, the governments in ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) countries have developed ‘good agricultural practices’ (GAP) as public approaches to field-level quality assurance. Besides the primary goals of consumer food safety and quality assurance, these public GAP programs aim to support small-scale farmer inclusion in mainstream markets. This goal represents the antithesis of the prevailing trend that private GAP approaches have tightened integration with resourceful, large-scale producers in global value chains. This paper examines the compatibility of the goals of safety assurance and social justice in a public GAP approach through comparative analysis of Thailand's Q-GAP between two local contexts of fruit production and marketing. The research findings suggest that while the public GAP scheme could draw the participation of a broad cohort of local small-scale producers and serve to certify their production, its impact on changing producers' on-field practices and catalyzing their access to the global market through food safety assurance is limited. The binding factors include the lack of producers' understanding of the principles of the programme, limited additional economic merits for them, and the influence of extra-local market forces that stress economies of size and food quality rather than food safety.     

The dilemmas of pursuing ‘throughput legitimacy’ through participatory mechanisms

Under pressure to open up the ‘black box’ of governance, technocratic bodies are increasingly seeking to include civil society participation in the policy process. This article draws on empirical cases from the European Commission and NHS England to assess the extent to which the participatory mechanisms pursued by these institutions have been successful in eliciting ‘throughput legitimacy’. It is shown that though these mechanisms have taken very different forms – the former a classic instance of ‘window dressing’ participation, the latter closer to ‘best practice’ in this field – they nevertheless share a number of ongoing vulnerabilities. The article outlines the shared organisational, operational and existential dilemmas that technocratic bodies face when eliciting civil society participation, and highlight their reliance on backstage negotiation to sustain stakeholder buy-in. It concludes by highlighting the prospect that the pursuit of throughput legitimacy for technocratic bodies entails inherent limitations and contradictions.     

建国初期国家管理和治理政策司法化探析

建国初期,新中国面临复杂形势和严峻局面,中国共产党率领中国人民在废除国民党《六法全书》以后,在法律不完备的情况下,创造性通过"运动治国""社论治国"的方式,用指示、规定和命令等政策、媒体和法治的方法,管理和治理国家,形成独特的管理国家的规律,为当下推进国家治理体系和治理能力的现代化,提供有益的借鉴。     

The Changing Spaces of Local Governance in Nicaragua

This article considers the new spaces for the participation of civil society organisations (CSOs) in local governance that have emerged in Nicaragua between 2000 and 2009, and how government and CSOs interact in these spaces. It discusses the significant changes that have taken place in Nicaraguan local governance during this period, and highlights the challenges for CSOs to engage with these spaces at different points in time. It finds that grassroots CSOs in Managua that based their engagement with the Bolaños government through these spaces on citizenship have been drawn into a more clientelist relationship with Ortega's government.