Collective Action for Smallholder Market Access: Evidence and Implications for Africa

It is widely acknowledged that the involvement of small farmers into markets can contribute to higher productivity and income growth, which in turn can enhance food security, poverty reduction efforts, and overall economic growth. In Africa, as in other parts of the developing world, agricultural production systems and their participants face significant challenges as a result of changing economic, environmental, and sociopolitical context. New dynamics in the global agricultural economy, such as the growth of supermarkets, are providing smallholders with both the new opportunities and new constraints to participate in and benefit from market exchanges. Collective action in the form of producer groups can enable African smallholders to take advantage of the new value chains and deal with existing market imperfections. However, certain conditions must be in place to create and sustain incentives for farmers to organize around marketing. Experiences from collective action in natural resource management (NRM) have shown that the types of markets and products, characteristics of user groups, institutional arrangements, and external environment need to be considered in order to determine the effectiveness and sustainability of collective marketing for smallholders. This paper applies the lessons from collective action in NRM to marketing, using existing case studies of producer groups in Africa, and offers policy recommendations on the factors that contribute to the success of collective marketing efforts.     

我国涉网约工类新就业形态劳动争议问题研究

随着数字经济的飞速发展,网约用工模式越来越普遍,我国涉网约工劳动争议日益凸显,已成为影响劳动关系和谐的突出新问题之一。网约用工因其保留了一定的劳动关系特征,又与劳务关系、承揽关系等民事法律关系具有一定的相似性,加上相关法律法规滞后和电子证据适用较难,以及网约工群体的规模性和劳动方式的相似性等原因,使涉网约工劳动争议与传统劳动争议相比,具有争议焦点新、涉案主体多、争议解决难、社会影响大等典型特征。为促进劳动关系和谐稳定和数字经济的持续健康发展,本研究建议:各级党政、互联网平台及关联用工企业、相关行业协会、网约工及工会组织共同参与,科学合理化解矛盾,形成共建共享共治、高效化解相关劳动争议的新格局。     

新形势下的两个市场两种资源分析

利用好两个市场两种资源是当代马克思主义政治经济学的重要内容,是保证我国社会主义市场经济建设顺利推进的关键.在需求方面,国际和国内市场的协同互补式扩张是保证经济可持续发展的关键因素;在供给方面,利用好国内和国际两种资源对我国经济发展来说不可或缺.在当前阶段,国内经济发展阶段的转变、国际经济形势的变化、新冠肺炎疫情的冲击等...     

从《联合国反腐败公约》看我国境外追缴腐败犯罪所得国际合作制度的完善

中国已成为腐败犯罪资金的重大流出国,大量腐败犯罪资金流出国外,直接威胁着国家的金融秩序和经济安全.2003年签署的《联合国反腐败公约》(以下简称《公约》)在境外追缴腐败犯罪所得(以下腐败犯罪所得简称犯罪所得)国际合作制度方面提出了比较完善的针对性的措施,跟《公约》相比,我国境外追缴腐败犯罪所得国际合作制度方面还存在很多问题,本文试从我国境外追缴犯罪所得制度国际合作存在的主要问题、我国境外追缴腐败犯罪所得国际合作制度的完善展开论述.     

网络诽谤行为的法律规制及其完善

利用互联网全新媒体实施诽谤与传统诽谤相比较具有新的特点,寻求网络言论自由与保护名誉权、隐私权的平衡成为了网络时代更为突出的问题．网络诽谤责任主体具有多元性。网络诽谤法律规制应从适度区分公众人物与非公众人物,赋予新闻媒体的合理报道权,适度规定网络服务提供者的相应责任,实际损害赔偿、精神损害赔偿与惩罚性赔偿相结合等角度加以完善．     

Going Nordic—Can the Nordic model tackle grand challenges and be a beacon to follow?

Nordic countries are known for having extensive welfare services, a highly compressed wage structure owing to strong social partners, as well as effective regulation and governance in public administration. Various typologies capture aspects of the institutional features of families of nations across various policy areas, showing that there is a specific Nordic variant of political economy. While there is an extensive literature focusing on socio-economic outcomes in the Nordic countries, there is less scholarly focus on the linkages between the regulatory processes, and their policy output, in response to various challenges. This volume examines how exogenous challenges (market liberalization promoted by EU integration and the gig economy, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic) and endogenous challenges in the welfare state (regulation of child-care quality and retirement ages) are tackled in a selection of Nordic countries. After a bibliometric analysis on the state of the literature, features of the Nordic model are presented. Then, the contributions of the articles to the special issue are summarized, after which lessons for other models of political economy are pinpointed. We find that although there is high variation within the Nordics in the studies of the special issue, there is a trend whereby, over time, a broader range of actors involved in the policy and regulatory process. Although not perfect, challenges are solved incrementally and often at an early stage. In other words, the Nordic regulatory model is highly adaptable to different challenges. Thus, the Nordic model does present crucial lessons for other types of political economy.     

数字中国背景下加强工会干部网络教育培训模式的探索与思考

工会干部教育培训中利用好政府数字化转型的成果,打造网络教育平台是大势所趋。网络教育培训具有传统教育培训形式所不具备的优势,本文从开展工会干部网络教育培训的理论依据入手,探索培训实施中建立功能完善的学习平台、建立健全的课程资源、建设有效运转的学习服务和管理机制等,尤其对工会干部网络教育培训主题设置科学化、培训制度规范化、培训课程精品化等方面进行了一定程度的研究。     

Going online. Does ICT enabled-participation engage the young in local governance?

Local governments increasingly use online strategies to strengthen political participation of citizens in policy and politics. Young people, however, are generally under-represented. This article studies age patterns of participation across offline and online forms of action to test whether online initiatives are able to overcome this age bias. We first report a case study of online and offline problem reporting to local authorities. We find that simply going from offline to online participation reinforces rather than mitigates age bias. We then report a case study of message posting on an online political forum. In this case, age bias disappears. In contrast to the traditional instrumental modes, a forum is an expressive form of online participation. The young seem to value the act of participating over the outcomes of participation. For practice, these findings suggest a need for participation policies that speak to these expressive needs of young. In recent years, social media have reinforced the potential for expressive participation.     

Online Mobilization in Comparative Perspective: Digital Appeals and Political Engagement in Germany,Italy, and the United Kingdom

This study analyzes the relationship between online voter mobilization and political engagement in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom during the 2014 European election campaign. Internet surveys of samples representatives of these countries’ populations with Internet access show that respondents who received an invitation to vote for a party or candidate via e-mail or social media engaged in a significantly higher number of political activities than those who did not. Moreover, the relationship between mobilization and engagement was stronger among those who followed the campaign less attentively, as well as in countries where overall levels of engagement with the campaign were lower (Germany and the United Kingdom) than where they were higher (Italy). These findings indicate that online mobilization may contribute to closing gaps in political engagement at both individual and aggregate levels, and thus suggest that digital media may contribute to reviving democratic citizenship.