Multi-Agency Protocols as a Mechanism to Improve Partnerships in Public Services

This paper discusses and tries to explain the paradoxical observation that a local government reform aimed at reducing or even removing bureaucracy actually leads to more formalisation, not less. During the last 10–15 years more than 40 per cent of Norwegian municipalities have adopted an organisational model that makes the administration more disaggregated, decentralised and flat. The reform has been promoted by strong post- or even anti-bureaucratic rhetoric, arguing for increased managerial autonomy at the operational level. The basic idea is that greater autonomy will create better performance. The paradox of increased formalisation is discussed on the basis of rhetoric, unintended consequences, diagnostic problems and linguistic problems. The paper concludes by pointing out the need for a more nuanced conception of bureaucracy than the dichotomous approach of post-bureaucracy can offer. It also outlines a couple of supplementing explanations for increased formalisation.     

发展和规范社会组织——以广东省为例

2000年以来,广东省社会组织发展迅速,社会作用不断增强,逐步成为促进经济社会发展的一支重要力量,但仍处于初级发展阶段,在思想观念、体制机制、配套政策、法制建设以及人员素质等方面还存在许多亟待解决的问题。本文通过深入调研,全面回顾了近年来广东省社会组织发展情况,客观分析了其存在问题,在此基础上对发展和规范广东省社会组织的目标模式进行了探索。     

Mobility among Pentecostal pastors and migratory “miracles”

Taking into account space and identity in the movements of transnational religious actors, this article is engaged in reframing and reinterpreting experience by investigating the articulation of migratory and religious experiences as expressed by the pastors of four different Brussels-based Pentecostal congregations. The analysis of pastors' narratives, as they reassess the circumstances that brought them from Sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America to Belgium, reveals an interwoven process of geographical shifts and “divine” actions: this offers us an opportunity to consider an implied double process of mobility and religion. On the one hand, we can see how Pentecostalism transforms and subverts their immigrant experience by allowing for an alternate narrative of this experience. On the other hand, we can analyse the effect of the migratory experience on the discourse and religious practices in the new social context, more particularly through the identification of such “Children of God” with missionary duties towards their fellow immigrants. An analysis of the pastors' narratives also offers a particularly relevant opportunity to question the tensions between processes of endogenous identification (missionaries elected by God and working towards the extension of his “kingdom”) and exogenous assignment, repeated associations of otherness and strangeness, and the stigma coupled with pejorative characterizations of the “migrant”.     

电信管制的司法介入研究

目前我国电信管制领域的案件少有进入司法程序的,明显存在排斥司法介入的情形,主要原因在于电信管制机构非中立的管制者有意扩大管制范围,电信代理问题广泛存在,法院有意缩小司法管辖范围等。境外电信管制领域的司法介入早己存在,借助司法介入机制是各国电信管制机构维护、保证和提升管制能力的一种趋势。今后我国关键要建立真正独立的电信管制机构,并通过电信立法明确其法律地位和职权范围,破除电信代理问题,引入司法介入机制,提高法院在电信管制中的影响力,促使电信管制机构依法行政,维护电信市场公平竞争和电信消费者的合法权益。     

Beyond opportunism: Intermediary loyalty in regulation and governance

Regulators and other governors rely on intermediaries to set and implement policies and to regulate targets. Existing literatures focus heavily on intermediaries of a single type – Opportunists, motivated solely by self-interest. But intermediaries can also be motivated by different types of loyalty: to leaders (Vassals), to policies (Zealots), or to institutions (Mandarins). While all three types of loyalists are resistant to the traditional problems of opportunism (slacking and capture), each brings pathologies of its own. We explain the behavioral logic of each type of loyalty and analyze the risks and rewards of different intermediary loyalties – both for governors and for the public interest. We illustrate our claims with examples drawn from many different realms of regulation and governance.     

Opting Out: The Role of Identity,Capital, and Agency in Prison Visitation

An emerging body of research suggests that prison visitation has implications for better understanding inmate institutional and post-release behavior, but not all inmates receive visits. The goal of the current study is to document barriers to visitation from the inmate perspective and describe the perspectives of those who receive very few or no visits. We also describe how inmate perceptions of visits impacts the way one does time and negotiates subsequent visitation. Using data from qualitative interviews, we find evidence that inmates make willful decisions when negotiating prison visits that are guided by one’s sense of self and further colored by the perceived social and economic strain on families. Our results challenge the perception of a universally positive visitation experience, and introduce the role of inmate choice in selecting into and out of prison visits.     

Arts Entrepreneurship in China: Exploring the Professional Career Development Model for Chinese Emerging Western Classical Musicians

Artists’ career management has become an urgent topic in the scholarship of arts administration and the creative economy in many Western countries. Although Chinese creative and cultural industries have also experienced significant attention and growth, the worklife experiences of Chinese cultural workers are rarely discussed in the international academic literature. Addressing that gap, this study investigates artistic careers and professional development of a small sample of emerging Western classical musicians in a Chinese second-tier city. We found similar patterns in career portfolios and strategies of career entrepreneurship between Western and Chinese musicians, although differing career opportunities and explicit career strategies seem related to local context.     

Violence as a part of the drug scene

Our study explores the violence that occurs in the drug scene from the perspective of those who use illicit drugs in Finland. We conducted 56 theme interviews with people with experience using multiple substances and studied how they produced agency related to violent acts. We were interested in the kinds of meanings they gave to violence and how these meanings varied according to different positions: (1) experiencing violence (victim), (2) committing violence and (3) witnessing violence. We found that in the drug scene, these positions were not fixed but overlapping and intertwined. Violence was usually projected onto the psychopharmacological properties of the substances or rationalized as being necessary for survival. The relations to and positions of violence differed considerably between men and women. Whereas in men’s interviews violence was often anchored to masculine power and questions of honour, in women’s accounts it was often related to intimate partner violence. However, irrespective of the individual’s position and gender, violence appeared to be a damaging experience that weakened his or her self-esteem. This vulnerability is encountered when people wish to quit the drug scene and its internal normative rules.     

Democratic agency in the local political sphere. Reflections on inclusion in Bolivia

Numerous arguments have been advanced in the academic and policy literature as concerns the democratizing potential of decentralization reforms in third-wave developing and transition countries; numerous also have been the case studies signalling the short-comings of these reforms. In addition, analysis of local political participation has become an important dimension of studies of democratization. Taking the case of Bolivia as an example, this article addresses an issue which has been generally overlooked in this literature, that is the process of constitution of local political agents. Where do political agents come from in the context of democratization of local politics? Additionally, this article raises questions regarding the relationship between greater inclusion and deepening democracy in the local political sphere.     

创建中国—东盟银行思路研究

中国—东盟银行的定位类似于一个新型的亚洲开发银行,主要参与者为中国与东盟10国,将由中国主导牵头成立,对于加快人民币国际化进程、提升中国在中国—东盟自由贸易区的主导权和国际话语权等都具有重大意义。本文研究提出创建中国—东盟银行的总体构想,包括:中国—东盟银行的性质与宗旨、机构设置、主要职能、资金来源、主要业务、合作方式等,并对在广西南宁市创建中国—东盟银行的必要性、可行性进行分析,提出了相关对策建议,供决策参考。