The meanings of production(s): showbiz and deep plays in finance and DIYbiology

Drawing on anthropological theories of play, deep play and games, as well as sociological interaction theories of risk, this paper develops a theory of consequential games. This paper suggests that in the United States much expert or entrepreneurial activity can be seen as a competition over creating the rules of games that others must play. In turn, whatever peril lies in these consequential games is the province of the saps that have to play, and whatever reward or prize comes from the game is captured by the expert or entrepreneur. The perspective that this paper advances, in turn, renders domains of life often seen as discrete (say private equity investing and biotechnological tinkering) comparable and in fact similar types of phenomena, all caught up in the crazy apocalyptic vitality that is contemporary capitalism.     

Democratic legitimacy in regional economic organizations: the European Union in comparative perspective

Regional organizations have been widely criticized for lacking democratic legitimacy, but these criticisms have been rather ad hoc, concerned with single case studies and reliant on unclear standards or metrics. Are all organizations similarly deficient? And how does the European Union (EU), the target par excellence of the criticisms, fare in comparative perspective? In this paper, we take a first step towards answering these questions by leveraging the rich debate on the EU to identify several institutional dimensions of democratic legitimacy and operationalizing them for comparative analysis. We then investigate the most important regional economic organizations (REOs) in the world. Our findings are three-fold: (i) there is systematic variation across REOs, with a group doing rather well, one mixed, and one poorly; (ii) procedural dimensions fare better than those related to representation or local self-determination; (iii) no organization exhibits or lacks legitimacy in all dimensions. These results qualify the perception that democratic legitimacy deficits are indiscriminately pervasive and indicate that the EU belongs to the most democratically legitimate group.     

欧盟环境指令的合法性分析--以WEEE和ROHs为对象

欧盟环境两指令属于单边环境措施,虽然根据GATT第20条"一般例外"授权,欧盟享有采取"为保护人类、动植物的生命或健康所必需"的单边环境措施自主权力,但这种权力的行使应受到相应的约制.对于两指令的合法性,应当基于"合法目标"、"必需标准" 、"成比例原则"进行分析,就目前状况看,欧盟对两指令所采取的环境措施并没有完成全面的风险分析,两指令的实施亦可能导致"手段"与"合法目标"之间的比例关系失衡.     

Explaining the European Parliament’s gains in the EU Constitution

The Constitutional Treaty, like each set of reforms since the Single European Act, would constitute another incremental increase in the European Parliament’s powers. But the Parliament did not get everything it wanted. What we do in this paper is investigate why the European Parliament tends to ‘win’ in some areas but not in others. We consider five possible explanations and test these theories by looking at the issues the Parliament promoted in the constitutional negotiations and the factors that determined whether the Parliament was successful or not in a particular area. We find that the Parliament gains power in areas where the governments delegate new powers to the EU and are uncertain about the consequences of this delegation. We also find that public support for the Parliament played a role in the extension of the Parliament’s powers in the Constitution.

农村合作金融立法有关问题研究

我国农村信用社法律属性模糊,法律地位不明晰,关键原因就在于农村合作金融立法的滞后。农村合作金融立法应当选择直接制定法律的模式,所包含的主要内容要符合我国当前的实际情况。     

Ten years of transition: a review article

Ten years after the launching of the transition process, many books and reports are offering a balance sheet of the transformation that occurred in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union area. The review article looks at some of them, particularly at Grzegorz W. Kolodko's book published in 2000, “From Shock to Therapy. The Political Economy of Postsocialist Transformation”. On the basis of this book and of some recent contributions, three major issues are discussed. First, why has there been such a recession in the beginning of the transition process in all countries, and was the recession inevitable? Second, due to the dire criticisms of the standard policy applied in these countries, dubbed the “Washington consensus”, has a “post-Washington consensus” emerged? Third, as we are already engaged in the second decade of the transition process, can we state when it is bound to be over, and what role is played by the European Union enlargement in accelerating the end of transition?     

The EU's Role in the Fight Against Racism and Xenophobia: Evaluation and Prospects After Amsterdam and Tampere

The Treaty of Amsterdam has strengthened thepossibility of the European Union (EU) adoptingmeasures in the fight against racism and xenophobia.These can be based both on the extendednon-discrimination clause of Article 13 TEC and newArticle 29 TEU relating to common action in thecontext of the area of freedom security and justice.So far EU action has concentrated on public awarenessmeasures, increasing the exchange and the analysis ofinformation on racism and xenophobia, and improvingjudicial cooperation and cross-border training in thisarea. The scope of EU action continues to be limited,however, because of the absence of a `mainstreamingclause', very limited funding and structural deficitsin the decision-making system. Both the new AmsterdamTreaty provisions and the renewed emphasis placed onthe fight against racism and xenophobia by the TampereEuropean Council of October 1999 should be used forextending the EU's role in this area which is ofcrucial importance to its credibility as a politicalcommunity.     

虚拟资本与泡沫经济问题研究

虚拟资本和泡沫经济是当今世界发展中出现的重大经济现象 ,它对于经济发展产生的影响是深远的。但是虚拟资本的过分膨胀 ,导致泡沫经济泛滥 ,会给经济运行带来严重危害。鉴于东南亚金融危机中泡沫经济所起的直接作用 ,必须采取各种切实有效措施 ,防止中国出现泡沫经济 ,从而保证经济的健康稳定发展。     

The fabric of irregular labor migration in twentieth-century Western Europe and North America: a comparative approach*

Abstract

This paper investigates the role government policies and non-state actors have played in determining irregular migration in both Western Europe and North America. While immigration restriction is admitted to have generated illegality throughout the twentieth century, receiving-oriented regulatory policies have also produced flows of irregular migrants. Though differences in migration regimes should not be minimized, our primary intent is to highlight similarities in the way irregular migration was legally and politically produced in the post-World War II years. By focusing on the management of labor migration at that time, it is possible to understand how both the US and the main European receiving countries secured legal migrants rights at the same time as they created unintended irregularity by entering into international agreements. With a view to analyzing the determinants of labor migrant illegality in a comparative perspective, our paper examines the guestworker programs implemented throughout the Eastern and Western hemispheres in the labor shortage post-war years.     

公共财政理念与中国预算法完善

我国要建立和市场经济相适应的公共财政模式,预算法作为财政法的重要组成部分,从公共财政理念角度看我国预算法还有诸多需要完善的地方.文章从公共财政决策的民主性、支出的公共性、社会监督的公开性探讨了现行预算法的缺陷并提出相应的修改建议.