Strategy of Chinese policy entrepreneurs in the third sector: challenges of “Technical Infeasibility”

Studies of policy entrepreneurs have become a staple of public policy research. Very few such studies deal with the circumstances of China. This paper aims to remedy this oversight by exploring the mechanisms of policy change in China. Using John Kingdon’s Multiple Streams (MS) Model, the author develops the “Technical Infeasibility Model.” The paper tests the MS model’s applicability to China by examining strategies put forth by Chinese policy entrepreneurs in the third sector. It considers how they may successfully promote change by using a strategy of proposing a relatively radical policy concept that is politically acceptable and technically infeasible to policy makers. To illustrate such a strategy, this paper considers a case of policy change involving Chinese urban vagrants. The policy on “Detention and Repatriation,” which was first implemented in 1982, was challenged following the Sun Zhigang Incident in March 2003. Shortly thereafter law scholars filed two suggestion letters to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee calling for a constitutionality review of the Detention and Repatriation System. Though it was “technically infeasible” to air such a proposal in China at that time, the State Council initiated action to abolish certain provisions of the Detention and Repatriation System. However, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee did not conduct a constitutionality review.

Did Jamie Oliver Really Put School Dinners on the Agenda? An Examination of the Role of the Media in Policy Making

Healthy eating is high on the government's agenda in current times and to all intents and purposes the media appears to have played a crucial role in putting it there. While media focus is no doubt intense and playing a vital role in public education (take Jamie Oliver's 2005 Channel 4 documentary, ‘School dinners’, for example), the question that lies at the heart of this article, is whether the media has led the government agenda on healthy eating and school dinners as appears to be the case. A close examination of the evidence suggests otherwise: government policy was already well set before the media began to show a concerted interest and hence its influence on policy‐making is more limited than might be expected. Rather than setting agendas per se, the media's role has been to refine and energise existing policy areas and to facilitate implementation.     

Ordering Disorder – On the Perplexities of the Partnership Literature

The literature on public‐private partnerships (PPP) has proliferated in recent years. However, confusion about the actual meaning of PPP still abounds. As a consequence, contradicting findings and statements about PPP flourish in the literature. This article reviews the literature, and argues that there are different streams of PPP research which operate with qualitatively different notions of the PPP concept. Accordingly the literature is divided into four different PPP ‘approaches’. By doing so the article offers some clarification concerning an increasingly complex concept. The article concludes that an authoritative definition of PPP – one that can encompass all the different variations of the concept currently in use – is not logically possible.     

The Values Shaping Australian Asylum Policy: The Views of Policy Insiders

Drawing on interviews with former political leaders and senior public servants, this article maps the values that have guided asylum policy decisions over the past three decades. The findings support the view that a culture of control permeates policy decisions, but pushing deeper, that policy‐maker perceptions of asylum issues are shaped by two primary values: nation building and good governance. Values that tend to preoccupy policy critics, for example human rights, compassion, international legal obligations and national character, are by no means absent, but are subsumed within and harnessed to the desire to be a good engineer and responsible governor. The study adds to the insights required for constructive dialogue between governments and refugee advocates, and affords a comprehensive framework within which asylum policy can be understood and analysed.     

欧盟东扩与俄罗斯的对外经济贸易取向

在 90年代 ,通过东西欧经济一体化和对俄共同战略 ,欧盟已成功地把中东欧候选国和俄罗斯纳入欧盟的国际分工体系 ,并将最终把它们融入欧洲的政治和法律体系。欧盟东扩不仅使俄罗斯的对外贸易地理方向明显偏向西欧 ,而且使俄罗斯成为欧盟原材料和燃料的主要提供者。东扩后的欧盟将与俄罗斯拥有漫长的共同边界 ,从而使双方经贸关系更加密切 ,这无疑会成为 2 1世纪制约中俄贸易发展的一个重要因素。只有早日形成以产业内贸易为主体的贸易格局 ,中俄贸易才有可能取得较快的发展。     

试析美国对华政策的利益集团因素

在美国的外交决策中,利益集团有着不可忽视的影响力.冷战后,利益集团更是公开走到了前台,通过游说等手段间接地影响着美国对外政策的制定.为此,中国在处理中美关系时,必须把美国各利益集团因素考虑进去,大力开展第二渠道外交.     

关于我国证券市场中政府行为的分析

本文从我国经济改革与我国证券市场的特点出发 ,分析了我国证券市场中政府行为的合理性 ,政府行为产生的原因、以及政府行为对我国证券市场运行机制的扭曲 ,并对规范我国证券市场中的政府行为提出了相关的建议。     

Mortgaging Security for Economic Gain: U.S. Arms Policy in an Insecure World

Similar to other consumer sectors of the global economy, the transfer of advanced conventional weapons and military technologies has entered the globalization process, a process that has qualitatively and quantitatively altered the composition and structure of U.S. national security policymaking. By injecting the decisionmaking process governing arms transfers into the global market place, U.S. policy makers must now reconcile maintaining economic competitiveness within the global system without jeopardizing U.S. national security interests. By subordinating national security interests to global economic imperatives, U.S. decisionmakers are at risk of mortgaging the political, societal, and security welfare of its citizenry for profit.     

Bush: The Sequel

This article examines the likely foreign policy initiatives of the U.S. under the leadership of George W. Bush. The new president has outlined a fairly thorough critique of America's international behavior in the 1990s. Because a leader's public statements arguably serve to persuade various audiences and to build support for policy change, the article takes Bush's words quite seriously—along with those spoken or written by his closest foreign affairs advisors. Bush intends to abandon the so-called Clinton Doctrine and deploy national missile defenses. He is critical of American policies toward China and Russia, but has not presented bold new initiatives toward those powers. Under the rubric of "compassionate conservatism," Bush may alter U.S. relations toward the Global South in some interesting ways. The president and his advisors often purport to be realists, but the article demonstrates that their own words belie this claim as they often justify policies based on ideals rather than the pursuit of power.