乡村经济社会转型期农民政治思维变化的新趋势

乡村经济的市场化发展带来农村社会整体结构的深刻变革和全面变迁,这一社会背景和发展体制的根本性转换影响了乡村民主政治的体制结构和农民的日常政治生活。农村市场机制的运行和发展使农民的民主思维、政治理念、法治观念、权利意识等开始萌芽并逐步稳固化,对乡村社会具体事务管理和政治运行的参与意识越来越强烈。农民的政治思维逐步变化,呈现出政治态度由封闭僵化走向开放,政治人格由较强的人身依附性走向独立性,政治精神由保守落后走向积极进取,政治信念由视政治为特权转为民众享有的民权等趋势。     

我国地方政府创新的实践与评价

我国地方政府创新活动在学术界、媒体和公众的共同推动下,呈现出日益蓬勃的发展态势。地方政府创新的实质是公共治理创新,目的是提高公共服务质量和政府自身的管理能力。目前,地方政府创新存在的主要问题是创新动力不足、创新环境不佳和创新成本较高。文章从国家制度建设、地方政府的层级节制和社会评价机制建设方面对促进与规范地方政府的创新行为进行了思考。     

Colt Technology Services v Ofcom – [2013] CAT 29 – Appealing a telecoms regulatory decision

A recent and interesting case (Colt v Office of Communications [2013] CAT 29) has shed some light on when and in what circumstances the decisions of the UK's telecoms regulator can be appealed.     

城市环境治理投入的中央政府与地方政府博弈

文章分析了中央政府和地方政府在城市环境治理上的博弈,并提出地方政府应提高自身的政策执行意识和服务意识,中央政府应该加大对地方政府的物质激励,政治晋升方面的激励,循环经济的推广使用;环境治理问责制的实施有利于提高城市环境治理投入,实现社会经济的可持续发展。     

“两型社会”背景下地方政府组织规模优化研究——以“长株潭”为例

从建设"两型社会"的背景来考察,"长株潭"政府组织规模还没有达到与区域经济社会发展相匹配的理想程度。传统的区划经济观念、过高的公务员福利、尚未转变到位的政府职能、稍显滞后的区域合作、非合理性的权力增长以及强大的湖湘文化等都是影响"长株潭"地方政府规模的重要因素。要构建适度的政府组织规模,地方政府要坚持以发展区域经济为着力点,通过强化服务理念,合理定位政府角色,科学调整人员结构,严格规范公共权力,并通过构建电子政府、复合行政、生态政府等方式,不断探索政府组织规模优化的新路子。     

SUB‐NATIONAL GOVERNMENT CAPITAL SPENDING IN INDONESIA: LEVEL,STRUCTURE, AND FINANCING

Sub‐national government capital spending is important for both public service delivery and economic development. Currently, Indonesian sub‐national public capital spending appears barely sufficient to cover the annual depreciation of its fixed assets. A substantial proportion of local government investment spending goes to create relatively unproductive assets, such as administrative office buildings. Sub‐national governments finance their capital acquisitions out of gross operating budgets and have thus far not used, to any great extent, either borrowed funds or their significant cash reserves for such purposes. Indonesian sub‐nationals need to spend more on capital than they do now and also need to focus that spending on more useful types of infrastructure. The major constraints to increasing capital spending at the sub‐national level are not related to a dearth of finance, but regulatory rigidities in budget preparation and implementation and, most importantly, a lack of capacity to plan, design and implement investment projects. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

IMPACT OF DECENTRALIZATION REFORMS IN PAKISTAN ON SERVICE DELIVERY—AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

By bringing decision making closer to people, decentralization is expected to improve governance and service delivery outcomes. Yet, the empirical evidence on the impact of decentralization on macroeconomic performance and public sector size presents a mixed picture. However, the findings of cross‐country studies in the literature are sensitive to the way decentralization is defined, and how its extent and impact are measured. This article avoids the unwanted effects of incomparability and aggregation in cross‐country analysis. We use a unique panel data set from 183 villages in Pakistan to analyze the impact of decentralization reforms implemented in 2001 on the provision of services—street paving, construction of water canals, sanitation sewer lines, and school facilities. Our results show that the magnitude of provision of all services increased significantly following decentralization reforms. We further show that the four services are impacted differently and service delivery improvement is not uniform, but not in ways that conform to the hypotheses of patronage theory. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Temporary Staff,Contractors, and Volunteers: The Hidden Workforce in Victorian Local Government

Theories of strategic Human Resource Management (HRM) emphasise the need to understand and effectively manage the workforce, and to align HRM practices with organisational strategy. Local government in Victoria was radically revised in 1993–94 with forced amalgamations, and later the introduction of Best Value Principles. Alongside this have been changes to council workforces. This article explores the composition of these workforces, and seeks to understand if strategic HRM practices underpin their management. It reports that in addition to the ‘known’ and ‘managed’ internal workforce, many councils have an external workforce which includes temporary staff, independent contractors, those working for external contractors, volunteers, work placement students and trainees. There is little evidence that theories of strategic HRM have been used to produce workforce planning strategies and policies relating to these staff, or that their management has been strategically aligned and reviewed to align with council strategies and business plans.     

Bypassing public procurement regulation: A study of rationality in local decisionmaking

Using private contractors through procurement is common in most public sector areas. Despite the benefits of procurement, officials are sometimes tempted to circumvent procurement regulations. The aim of this article is to examine the strategies used by local governmental decisionmakers to bypass procurement regulations and to analyze the rationality underlying these officials' actions. Interviews, court documents, municipal documents, and newspaper articles describing the actions of Swedish municipal officials concerning special transport service (STS) procurements were collected and analyzed. In a case in which rural municipalities lost regular taxi services after STS procurement, we demonstrate how decisions were driven by pressure from the public and local interest groups, making municipal officials deviate from procurement regulations in striving to secure the existence of regular taxi services. One outcome was that local businesses were given preferential treatment, violating regulations and reducing economic efficiency.     

地方政府合作中的利益博弈和机制创新

中国区域经济的发展需要地方政府紧密合作,但地方政府间利益冲突使得合作过程产生了不确定性并导致一系列问题。本文在博弈理论的框架下对这些问题进行了系统分析并进而研究其解决机制。