Uneven institutional configurations and sectoral variation in China's socialist market economy: a comparative study of three pillar industries

By comparing three Chinese pillar industries, automobile, petroleum, and machinery, this paper analyzes how the development of uneven institutional configurations bred sectoral variation in transitional China. In 1994, at the dawn of the Chinese socialist market economy, the State Council issued guidelines for national industrial policy and proposed the enactment of similar growth-promoting policies for all pillar industries. The level of policy enactment and the resulting outcomes, however, vary significantly across the industries. Previous literature on China's rapid industrialization has sought to build a single model encompassing China as a whole, and has emphasized either the state's institutional capacity or China's unique governance mechanisms. This study investigates China's industrialization by taking account of the uneven development of institutional capacity amid macro institutional reforms. Every idea and institution evolved at a different pace in these reforms, and the incremental nature of the reforms further deepened the gaps between sectors. This paper argues that, due to this uneven development, the Chinese state was not strong enough to be considered a developmental state until at least the early 2000s.     

Climate change policy discontinuity and its effects on Australia's national electricity market

Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM) became unstable in 2016/2017 after 20 years of consistent performance. The South Australian grid collapsed on 28 September 2016 – Australia's first black system event since 1964. Wholesale prices in the region trebled to $120+/MWh; soon after Hazelwood power station announced its exit with just 5 months’ notice. The problem spread as prices elsewhere doubled to $89/MWh from a long‐run average of $42.50. The NEM is experiencing a supply‐side crisis. Consistent with the requirement to decarbonise the system, aged coal‐fired generators are exiting but decades of climate change policy discontinuity has frustrated the entry of new plant. Long‐dated capital‐intensive asset industries like electricity supply anticipate a conventional policy cycle. What they have experienced instead is consistent with garbage can theory. Policy clarity may be emerging for only the second time in two decades. As with the NEM, its durability will depend on cooperative federalism.     

International advocacy for contract-based public private partnerships through case studies: a re-interpretation of Southern Cross Station,Melbourne

In response to urban infrastructure deficits, international organisations, such as the United Nations, encourage governments to harness private finance. Contract-based Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) represent one policy option enabling infrastructure to be privately financed and constructed, and for service provision to occur. With PPPs also a contested policy option, private sector policy intermediaries advocate for their adoption, including through the selective promotion of case studies. In recognition that favourable case study narratives may leach out local context, a multi-dimensional analytical framework is introduced distinguishing between de-institutionalised, aspatial, non-historical, uncritical and non-futuristic perspectives. Recently the private sector-led World Economic Forum published ‘Harnessing Public-Private Cooperation to Deliver the New Urban Agenda’, which reported upon the PPP-led development of Spencer Street (or Southern Cross) Station in Melbourne, Australia. In deploying the framework, this paper concludes that case study narratives can be reductionist and locally detached in various ways. The role of policy intermediaries in the transfer of policy information therefore requires carefully interpretation, not least because of the malleable use of case studies to reveal desired conclusions.     

Political Sociology of International Interventions: Peacebuilders and the Ground

ABSTRACT

This special issue, instead of questioning what effect peacebuilding interventions have on post-conflict societies, analyses what the ground of intervention does to peacebuilders. It demonstrates that everyday interactions on the ground shape the interveners and even the scope of their missions. We delineate how a political sociology approach might break away from binaries (‘internationals/locals’) and, instead, illuminate processes (of internationalization and localization). We intend to offer a political sociology of the ‘intervention encounter’, that is, to scrutinize the everyday interactions among peacebuilders and between peacebuilders and domestic actors, and to investigate effects of the ground on peacebuilding organizations, doctrines and decision-making processes, as well as on peacebuilders’ trajectories, positions, professional practices and representations. In fine, we explore how peacebuilders’ relations to the ground structure the socio-professional field of peacebuilding.     

Population Generations and Economic Growth: An Analysis on Population Policy Choices under the New Normal

When the generation of post-80s entered the labor market during 2003—2013, the China economic growth presented an inverted U type track. When the generations of post-90s and post-00s enter the labor market, growth will have dramatically declined. With post-90s and post-00s entering into the labor market, population bonus begins to disappear after 2016. To prevent Chinese economic fastly falling into demographic cliff, the paper evaluate the delay retirement and fertility policy, and we found that, when post- 90s and post-00s are entering into the labor market, delaying retirement is better than not, maintaining fertility policy unchanged is better than a relaxed fertility policy, while adjusting the retirement system brings about great effect. Delayed retirement policies need to be performed immediately, fertility policy is important, but not urgent.     

Comparative Implementation Research: Directions and Dualities

Abstract

The study of policy implementation developed steadily and considerably in the 1970s and 1980s through two generations of research. Since then progress towards a more rigorous scientific “third generation research paradigm”, assumed to be crucial for further theoretical development, has been much slower and more uneven. Comparative studies figure prominently in this respect. On one hand they are strongly encouraged but on the other they are difficult to conduct according to best practice advice in the textbooks. Comparative implementation research is the theme of this special issue. In this Introduction the articles included are presented, focusing on how they deal with some of the issues posed by the norms of a rigorous “third generation” approach. Reasons for the state of affairs in implementation research are discussed. Some inherent dualities and tensions in contemporary comparative implementation research are identified as particular challenges.     

Crucial Factors in Implementing Radical Policy Change: A Comparative Longitudinal Study of Nordic Central Agency Relocation Programs

Abstract

Why do public policies succeed or fail? The aim of this article is to contribute to answering this enduring research question in policy research through a comparative study of the variable efforts by Nordic governments to relocate their central agencies from the capital regions over a period of several decades. This was a radical redistributive policy program premised on a policy instrument – coercion – which was very alien to political systems characterized as consensual democracies. Hence, it is no surprise that only two out of seven relocation programs of any substance were successful. The really intriguing research question here is how any relocation program was achievable at all in a policy context where this was very unlikely. A broadly based multi-theoretical analytical framework linking interest groups, institutions, human agency in the form of policy entrepreneurship/design and situational factors is employed to solve this research puzzle. Findings from this study offer important contributions to the following research fields: comparative public policy, radical policy change and most specifically the so-called third generation of public policy implementation research.     

Lived citizenship as the locus of political agency in participatory policy

Participatory policies seeking to foster active citizenship continue to be dominated by a territorial imagination. Yet, the world where people identify and perform as citizens is spatially multifarious. This article engages with the tension between territorially grounded perceptions and relational modes of practicing political agency. Studying empirically the Finnish child and youth policies, we address jointly the participatory obligations that municipalities strive to fulfill, and the spatial attachments that children and young people establish in their lived worlds. To this end, we introduce the concept of lived citizenship as an interface where the territorially-bound public administration and the plurality of spatial attachments characteristic to transnational living may meet. We conclude by proposing a re-grounding of lived citizenship in both topological and topographical terms as an improvement in theoretical understanding of mundane political agency and as a step towards more proficient participatory policies.     

新南非与津巴布韦的民族问题及民族政策的比较

内容提要南非和津巴布韦两国的民族问题和民族政策既有相同点,也存在较大差异。两国除历史条件等相同外,其民族问题与民族政策的不同点主要表现在以下方面:由于外部势力的干预程度不同导致政策制定过程不同;内部势力的分化与整合差异表明政策制定的国内政治环境差异;两国对白人种族主义政权遗产处理方式不同;族际分野与政治分化的敏感性使两国面临的政局和政策导致的政治后果差异。概言之,民族问题处理得当与否对政治稳定起着极重要的作用。虽然民族问题的重要性在下降,但激进的民族政策可能带来意想不到的后果,津巴布韦的教训为其他国家提出了警示。     

俄罗斯及其他国家的反贫困政策

贫困是一种经济社会现象。不同国家贫困现象产生的原因和贫困人口的构成存在差异。降低贫困水平的政策很大程度上取决于国家的经济社会发展。要解决贫困问题,必须制定和完善宏观经济政策,保持经济稳步持续增长,建立平等的社会保障和社会救助体系,形成有效的监测机制,同时国家须积极参与反贫困过程。