A Comparative Approach to Performance Management: Contrasting the Experience of Australia,New Zealand,and the United States

Abstract

Despite the use of the same vocabulary and seemingly similar agendas, the experience of these three countries cannot be comprehended without attention to the different contexts in which the countries operate. This paper focuses on the experience in these three English speaking countries dealing with the structure or context of the institutional arrangements, the process of defining outcomes, issues related to timing, availability and investment in data systems, predominant values that are at play, experience with gaming, and accountability arrangements. It provides thumbnail sketches of the framework and experience of these three countries and compares their experience in performance management. While there are significant differences that emerge from contextual variety, there are some shared dynamics in the three systems. I call these “normal tensions” in the system. Yet these tensions have been largely ignored in the performance management movement.     

治理类型的多样性演化与比较——求索国家治理逻辑

作为学术讨论和实践理念中的时髦词汇,"治理"是广大研究者关注焦点,而在此过程中其基本内涵却变得愈加模糊,这构成研究进一步深化的潜在障碍。本文基于对实践中差异明显的治理类型的理论推演和比较,避免陷入不同知识背景和研究视角下概念界定的纷争,借力类型学分析作为理论探索的切入点进而呈现治理的学术脉络及治理知识的内在秩序。展现善治、全球治理、多层次治理、互动治理、元治理与智性治理等主要治理类型的形成传播过程、理论假设、实践特点与现实影响,并通过分析各类型所隐现的"治理失灵",从而客观认识治理的适应性局限,指出每一种治理类型不意味着要对其他治理模式的吞噬,其本质和共性均在包容共存的态势下求索国家治理能力和效能提升的路径,并在此基础上为定位中国国家治理战略选择的着力点提供理论依据,最后通过政治学所具有的解释的、反思的特征对各国差异化治理模式的未来研究图景做出展望。     

No ‘return to the state’: dependency and developmentalism against neo-liberalism

In the emerging ‘post-Washington Consensus’ era, neo-liberalism is searching for alternatives that once again emphasise the state. Yet neither Latin American dependencia nor East Asian developmentalism – two development models actually practised ‘on the ground’ – shares the basic assumptions of the liberal, rationalist state. First, there persists a significant ontological divide over the purpose of the state. Developmentalists and dependentists advocate deep, dynamic state agency rather than the hands-off, liberal, ‘night-watchman’ state. Second, development theory has unfolded within a modern liberal framework of science, democracy, the interests of US foreign policy, and increasingly a commitment to poverty alleviation. Dependency and developmentalism reject these neo-liberal benchmarks in the interests of state consolidation and autonomy. The persistence of dependentist and developmentalist understandings of the state precludes a uniform, post-neoliberal reversal in development theory back to the state.     

‘Listening to the rice grow’: the local–expat interface in Lao-based international NGOs

Generally speaking, NGO studies have focused their attention on the organisational unit and its role in shaping development outcomes. With few exceptions, the analysis of development partnerships, in which NGOs play a crucial role, has largely been confined to examination of ‘donors’ and ‘receivers’ and not the dynamics within organisational settings. This article is concerned with the interface between local and international staff operating within Lao-based international NGOs. The research relied on interviews with local and international staff and sought to examine how staff themselves interpreted the process of ‘localisation’ in the context of their own professional experience.     

多中心治理视角下的社区戒毒

由于社区戒毒康复的长期性和复杂性。文章在对昆明市四个街区200名戒毒康复人员及其家庭调查的基础上，将“多中心治理”作为解决“社区戒毒”困境理论，加强政府、社区与家庭的通力协作，做好社区戒毒。     

Westminster constitutions in the South Pacific: A “policy transfer” approach

Constitutional crises in Fiji and Solomon Islands and donor concerns about “good governance” raise older questions about the appropriateness of introduced constitutions to local conditions. This article analyses the process of transfer of “Westminster” constitutions in island states of the Pacific. It considers the factors that facilitated or constrained transfer into and within the region. It also considers cases where alternatives to Westminster were considered but rejected by the local leaders. The article concludes that Westminster has been spread by replication, almost irrespective of underlying social and political conditions.     

„Nord“ und „Süd“ im globalen Regieren

The debate on global governance has been focused primarily on the highly industrialized countries of the OECD world. However, domestic preconditions for cooperative and effective global governance tend to be precarious in many non-OECD countries. The consideration of such factors allows to identify different types of global governance strategies employed by developing countries, which have severe implications for the concept of global governance. Such a perspective from liberal foreign policy analysis also enables a differentiated analysis of normative challenges of global governance.     

我国农地管理的主体行为与博弈分析

我国现行的农地管理未能达到预期的效果,其核心原因在于宏观政策缺乏微观执行基础.基于此,分析了农地管理主体(包括中央政府、地方政府和村集体)的行为,并探讨了农地管理中不同主体之间的利益博弈、不同管理主体的行为变化对各主体利益的影响以及由此引发的农民的利益变化.利用博弈论分析方法建立了三个主体的博弈分析模型.首先从子博弈分析出发,分析中央政府与地方政府在农地管理中的博弈过程,其次分析地方政府与农民集体利益的代表——村集体的博弈分析,最后建立三个主体的主博弈模型.研究发现:在农地管理过程中,地方政府间联合与中央政府博弈的可能性不大,因而通过自上而下的政府规制,白下而上做实农地管理的微观主体——包括明确农民的使用权益、提高农民的市场地位,有利于消除农地管理中的寻租行为,提高农地管理的效率.     

Some Talk,No Action (Yet): Interdependence,Domestic Interests and Hierarchical EU Governance in Climate Policy

This article analyses why Switzerland has so far remained outside the European Union's emissions trading system (EU ETS), the centerpiece of the EU's efforts to combat climate change. In doing so, it contributes three insights to the literature on the EU's external governance. First, it shows that interdependence is of limited explanatory power in predicting EU–Swiss interactions. Secondly, it identifies domestic interests in the non‐member state, Switzerland, as the key factor in explaining the EU's external governance structures concerning emissions trading. Thirdly, it highlights the EU's limited flexibility in dealing with third countries in areas where its internal governance mode is hierarchical. The article presents a hypothesis about the future development of emissions trading in Switzerland and discusses implications for both the external governance literature and the development of global carbon markets.