Competition and switching in public service markets: Can they reduce inequalities?

Regulatory reforms to public infrastructure services across European Union (EU) countries were aimed at increasing consumer welfare by introducing competition and choice into service markets. However, empirical evaluations have questioned whether these reforms have benefitted all consumers, suggesting that vulnerable groups of service users (especially those with lower levels of formal education), might be locked into poorly performing services. We assess the relationship between the level of competition in electricity and fixed telephony markets in EU countries and evaluate the affordability of these services for different socio‐educational layers. Our findings show that – although in countries where there is a relatively high frequency of switching, inequalities between socio‐educational groups are smaller and eventually disappear – competition as such does not play a part. These results suggest that demand‐side regulation that successfully enables consumer switching has the potential to equalize social welfare, thereby reflecting a possible convergence of regulatory instruments and the central aims of the welfare state in this context.     

探索征地制度改革 确保农民合法权益

征地工作事关国家经济建设和农民切身利益。随着工业化和城市化进程的加快,大量土地被征用。目前土地还是农民生存保障之本,征地过程中如何确保农民合法权益已成为迫在眉睫的问题题。该文通过分析中国征地制度存住的问题,从保护失地农民权益的角度,提出了要严格规范土地征用、完善补偿机制及规范土地交易市场等建议。     

突出主题 全面部署 实现国民经济的快速发展——学习《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十个五年计划的建议》的体会

党的十五届五中全会通过的《建议》的突出特点是明确提出。十五”期间把发展作为主题,为此,必须着重抓好经济结构调整、改革开放、科技进步和推进国民经济与社会信息化等几个重点环节。同时,还应当大力发展教育事业,努力扩大就业,保持社会稳定,这是加快经济发展的基础与保证。     

Globalisation, Peasant Agriculture and Reconversion

Abstract — The agrarian issue in Chile is largely defined by the problematic impact, particularly on the peasantry, of the country's continuing integration into the world market. This paper focuses on the shift from a market-led to a state-mediated process of 'reconversion' of agriculture's pattern of production and land use. Although the 'Concertación' governments have designed specific and novel policies aimed at enhancing the productive and transformative capacity of peasant farmers these have not yet been able to reduce the widening technological and economic disparity between capitalist and peasant farming. Thus the future of the peasant economy is far from being assured in an increasingly globalised and competitive environment.     

Small farms,smaller plots: land size,fragmentation, and productivity in Ethiopia

African agriculture is often dominated by smallholder farms composed of multiple plots. In policy circles it is often assumed that fragmentation coupled with small farm size is an impediment to increasing yields and thus decreasing poverty and food insecurity. There also exists an influential literature that explores the inverse relationship between farm size and yield. While there are many studies internationally, few have been conducted in Africa. Using an Ethiopian national survey, we explore the relationship between yield, farm size and fragmentation. We find an inverse relationship between farm size and yield, and a positive association between yield and land fragmentation.     

The Formal Delegation of Regulatory Decisions in the Telecommunication Sector: An Explanation Using Classification Trees

Research on regulation has traditionally focused on studying the delegation of regulatory competencies from political principals to an independent regulatory agency. In this article, we argue that this delegation is nuanced by different factors that affect whether a specific regulatory decision is formally delegated. We examine and explain formal delegation patterns at the level of individual regulatory decisions in twelve countries located in Europe, Latin America, and South Asia. The data were gathered by coding the twelve countries' telecommunications legislation. The data analysis was undertaken using a classification tree model—a nonparametric model. We found that the maturity of the market has the greatest effect on the formal delegation of regulatory decisions, but this effect is also influenced by the other theoretical factors considered, particularly the level of political constraints and the type of regulation.     

Limits of regulatory responsiveness: Democratic credentials of responsive regulation

Responsiveness and accountability constitute the process of democratic representation, reinforcing each other. Responsiveness asks elected representatives to adopt policies ex ante preferred by citizens, while accountability consists of the people's ex post sanctioning of the representatives based on policy outcomes. However, the regulatory literature tends to interpret responsiveness narrowly between a regulator and regulatees: the regulator is responsive to regulatees’ compliance without considering broader public needs and preferences. Democratic regulatory responsiveness requires that the regulator should be responsive to the people, not just regulatees. We address this theoretical gap by pointing out the perils of regulatory capture and advancing John Braithwaite's idea of tripartism as a remedy. We draw out two conditions of democratic regulatory responsiveness from Philip Selznick – comprehensiveness and proactiveness. We then propose overlapping networked responsiveness based on indirect reciprocity among various stakeholders. This mechanism is the key to connecting regulatory responsiveness with accountability.     

Freedom of information in local government: rhetoric or reality?

The aim of this paper is to analyse the level of implementation by Spanish local authorities of the Transparency Act (19/2013), and their voluntary information disclosure in areas where such disclosure is obligatory in other EU countries. We identify the main factors that may influence the implementation of this Act and the self-regulation policies adopted. Our analysis highlights the existence of delays among some local authorities, with notable differences between municipalities with larger and smaller populations, in implementing the Act, and also the fact that many municipalities are committed to achieving transparency, often going beyond minimum legal requirements. Factors such as population size, the political ideology of the governing party and the education level and economic capacity of the population are related to the level of implementation of transparency and self-regulatory policies in this respect by local authorities. We acknowledge that the 2013 Act was still being implemented during the period analysed.     

The Freedom Charter: the contested South African land issue

The Freedom Charter represents a desire to create a society that is based on common citizenship and democracy in a society divided in all aspects of its life. This paper problematises and interrogates the Charter’s theoretical and philosophical claim on land. It uses the methodology of Afrocentricity and Africana critical theory to dispute the theoretical and philosophical basis of the Freedom Charter. The paper argues that the understanding, desire and vision of the Freedom Charter are irreconcilable. It concludes that the Charter reconciles the dispossessed with their dispossession, reflecting coloniality and white domination in South Africa.     

Indigenous land claims or green grabs? Inclusions and exclusions within forest carbon politics in Indonesia

In this paper we outline the new political conjuncture in forest governance emerging in Indonesia and trace how it is influencing the land claim strategies of an Indigenous community in Central Kalimantan. The new political conjuncture is comprised on three inter-related elements: a Constitutional Court decision to recognise Indigenous land claims; the development of the Reducing Emissions from Forest Degradation and Deforestation Plus (REDD+) forest carbon programme; and a national initiative known as One-map. Drawing on concepts of governmentality, assemblage and territoriality we trace how the Indigenous People’s Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) are using this moment to assemble a land claim in Bahanei. We find that the conjuncture is providing opportunities for Indigenous communities to engage with a new assemblage of interests normally associated with green grabs to claim land back from state and private interests. However, the romantic green Indigenous subjectivities the new political conjuncture requires to attract carbon investment rarely fit the heterogeneous make up of village life. This is leading to intimate exclusions based on ethnicity and class, raising troubling questions about the extent of overlap between land claims and green grabs.