Challenges and dilemmas of international development volunteering: a case study from Vanuatu

This article looks at the key challenges and dilemmas of international development volunteering (IDV) as experienced within a community project in Vanuatu. By focusing on the nature and significance of IDV engagements at the local community level, it offers critical insights into roles and relationships among international development volunteers and local host communities, together with the complex global–local interface in which projects are negotiated and constructed. The article concludes by offering some ways in which IDV can be more effective in assisting community projects address the needs of contemporary village life.     

提升新农村警务效能的思考

随着新农村建设的推进,农村警务工作空间不断扩展,内容不断增多,难度不断加大,迫切需要提升农村警务效能。而当前农村警务存在保障乏力、引导功能发挥不够充分、部分驻村民警服务意识不强等问题。为提升新农村警务效能,应建立健全以公安派出所为主体的警务运行机制、适应新农村建设要求的公共安全服务机制、情报信息采集研判机制和以驻村民警为主导、社区民众为基础的治安综合防控机制。     

The mechanics of democracy promotion tools: bridging the knowledge-to-practice gap

By drawing upon the literature that diagnoses the gap between academics and practitioners, this article categorises and describes the traditional democracy promotion tools developed by international governmental and non-governmental organisations to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice. Further, it examines the utility of ICTs in promoting and upholding democratic change. The findings inform considerations and specific recommendations offered to the tool developers on how to converge traditional and new democracy promotion tools. These are intended to assist in focusing tool design and development efforts, and promoting standardisation and innovation.     

Boosting or Hindering Aid Effectiveness? An Assessment of Systems for Measuring Donor Agency Results

Amid rising criticism of aid effectiveness coupled with tight budgets in many donor countries at a time of economic crisis, donor agencies are under pressure to deliver value for money and to demonstrate development results. In response to these pressures, more and more donor agencies are adopting standard indicators, which allow for results to be aggregated across interventions and countries, in order to report agency‐wide results. This article analyses the reporting practices of eleven bilateral and multilateral donor agencies and assesses the implications of agency‐wide results measurement systems for aid effectiveness. The analysis shows that the data on aggregate results provided by donor agencies is only of limited informational value and does not provide an adequate basis for holding donor agencies to account. Moreover, reporting on agency‐wide results may have a number of adverse effects. Given the various limitations and risks identified in this article, I suggest that donor agencies should explore complementary options or alternatives to standard indicators in order to meet their reporting requirements. Donor agencies are advised to invest more in rigorous impact evaluations and to raise the transparency of individual interventions. © 2016 The Authors. Public Administration and Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Can't Get No Satisfaction? The Association Between Community Satisfaction and Population Size for Victoria

Traditionally, the problem of determining the optimal size in local government has been empirically assessed by estimating the relationship between population size and the costs of services (usually measured in terms of per capita expenditure). These studies, however, have proved largely inconclusive. In comparison, an empirical analysis based on the relationship between the size of government and community satisfaction offers a potentially fruitful contribution to the debate regarding the optimal size of local government. However, to date, few studies have followed this approach. We therefore contribute to this literature by exploring the relationship between population size and community satisfaction for Victorian councils. Our findings provide evidence of an inverted ‘U‐shaped’ relationship, which predicts low community satisfaction at very large and very small population sizes.     

资产最优组合的动态调整——并购动因效率假说的一个框架

根据企业理论,企业可视为资产的组合体。为了达到利润最大化的目标,企业资产必须进行最优组合,而且等成本线变化和等产量线变化会导致资产最优组合的动态调整。考察这一调整的并购途径的适用条件,可根据企业各项资产将各种并购效率理论纳入一个一般框架之中,提出实现企业最优组合动态调整的并购方法的并购动因效率假说。     

提升行政问责效能的路径探索

目前,我国的行政问责建设已取得不少成效,但仍存在一些问题和不足,严重制约了问责效能的正常发挥。提升行政问责效能的路径主要有：打造问责文化,以价值驱动树立行政问责风尚;完善责任体系,以权责关系框定行政问责标准;推行电子政务,以政务公开搭建行政问责平台;培育公民社会,以公民参与推动行政问责进程;加强制度建设,以制度伦理规范行政问责举措等。     

立法主导是税制改革的优选路径

长期以来,我国税制改革因循着行政主导的试点模式。从法治视角看,试点模式处于合法性缺失状态,存在内在弊端。与之相对应的是立法主导模式,坚持立法主导,对于提高税收立法水平、落实税收法定主义、全面推进各项改革具有重要意义,也是巩固政权合法性的客观需要。在未来的税制改革进程中,应当坚持立法主导的路径选择,自觉运用法治思维来解决改革难题。     

A new way of measuring behavioural compliance for prevention programme interventions using KAP Score

KAP Score is an evaluation tool developed to enable aid and donor organisations to monitor and evaluate the outcome of interventions, particularly those where the link between programme activities and outcomes constitutes an “unknown”. This article articulates KAP Score and demonstrates how it has been applied to two separate interventions related to risk avoidance (human trafficking) and demand reduction (wildlife consumption) to generate quantitative evidence for assessing how they contributed to increasing compliance. The examples presented demonstrate how KAP Score attributed the effectiveness of these interventions to a proxy indicator that can measure incremental behavioural compliance.     

Optimal Law Enforcement with Dissemination of Information

In this paper we discuss the implications of introducing imperfect information on the optimal law enforcement literature. We assume that individuals can be imperfectly informed about the probability of apprehension and about the sanction.Imperfect information about the probability and the sanction might pose a problem to criminal deterrence. If that is the case, there are clear incentives to disseminate information about law enforcement (probability and severity of sanction). However, note that individuals also have incentives to buy information about law enforcement: they may erroneously decide to become criminals (because they have underestimated the expected sanction) or they may erroneously decide not to become criminals (because they have overestimated the expected sanction).This paper proposed that it is optimal to complement criminal punishment with some disclosure of information.