Programmatic action in Chinese health policy—The making and design of “Healthy China 2030”

The Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) is a powerful analytical perspective to advance our understanding of policy change by stressing the role of programmatic groups and how they promote their preferred policy programs. While the PAF has been applied successfully to European countries and the US, a considerable research gap remains regarding its explanatory power in other regions and political settings. To step into this research gap, we apply the PAF to authoritarian China through a qualitative case study of the making of “Healthy China 2030”, a national health policy program. We explore two research questions: firstly, to what extent can the PAF be operationalized in a nondemocracy to identify programmatic groups and evaluate policy design, and second, what are the limitations and challenges facing the application of the PAF to nondemocracies? Our empirical analysis shows that the design of this policy program involves actors from different policy areas, despite the top-down political structure. With regards to the transfer of PAF hypotheses, we show that the framework is a helpful lens to identify programmatic groups and to evaluate policy programs' potential for success based on coherence, responsiveness, and program fit. Meanwhile, the research process of our study revealed the challenges of applying policy process theories to China, including hard-to-reach political actors for data collection, lack of transparency regarding collaboration processes between actors, and a lack of publicly available program-related information.     

From Exclusion to Resistance: Migrant Domestic Workers and the Evolution of Agency in Lebanon

In addition to hosting a large population of refugees and displaced persons, Lebanon is home to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 migrant domestic workers. Under Lebanese law, domestic workers fall under the kafala, or sponsorship, system. Existing literature has focused on the legality of the kafala system and the ensuing human rights violations resulting from workers' exclusion from Lebanese labor law. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2016, this article argues that migrant domestic workers in Lebanon have defied their spatial, social, and legal exclusion by organizing collective resistance, triggered in part by the July 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.     

Global equality of opportunity and self-determination in the context of immigration

David Miller’s political philosophy of immigration employs two complementary argumentative strategies to challenge open border theories. The first strategy is to defeat the principled case for open borders, such as the global equality of opportunity argument for more lax immigration control. The second strategy is to establish the democratic community’s prima facie right to determine the shape of its future, including membership and the right to exclude. First, I argue that Miller’s conception of global equality of opportunity is overly narrow and that his objections to the principle, to the metric and to what counts as feasible political action misfire against other, more plausible, accounts. Second, I argue that his democratic interpretation of collective self-determination does not solve the pressing question concerning the morally justified scope and content of self-determination and the moral limits of the right to exclude. I conclude by questioning Miller’s general strategy: whether theories of immigration should be engaged in an exercise of shifting the burden of proof between open and closed borders. By contrast, I argue that a more desirable task for the political philosophy of immigration is to find ways in which the joint requirement of global equality of opportunity and collective self-determination can be coherently upheld.     

Swiss banking secrecy and the problem of international cooperation in tax matters: A nut too hard to crack?

How was Swiss resistance to international cooperation in tax matters overcome? This article argues that while Swiss banks are structurally dependent on access to the United States (US) financial market, Switzerland is structurally dependent on the economic welfare of its largest banks. Taking advantage of a tax evasion scandal in the midst of the global financial crisis, this indirect dependence gave US law enforcement authorities the opportunity to exercise pressure on Switzerland by threatening to criminally indict Switzerland's largest bank. The tax evasion scandal and subsequent Swiss concessions to the US had two important consequences for international tax cooperation. First, the scandal provided a focal point for collective action that allowed other countries to coordinate their strategies and direct them against the country that had been identified as uncooperative. Second, the scandal undermined Switzerland's ability to impede collective action because the bank's public admission of wrongdoing demonstrated the necessity of international tax cooperation.     

推进非公中小企业劳动关系协调机制建设的思考 —— 对改善非公中小企业劳动关系现状的对策建议

劳动关系协调机制是推进企业和谐稳定以及企业长足发展的重要抓手。集体协商、职代会和劳动争议调解是企业协调劳动关系的重要机制。然而目前,各类企业尤其是非公中小企业的劳动关系需要完善和改过。为此,可采用两手抓的工作路径,即一方面应积极推动具备条件的企业依法建立健全劳动关系协调机制,另一方面大力推进区域性、行业性劳动关系协调机制建设,通过两方面工作路径的有效联动,推进区域劳动关系的整体和谐稳定,进而增进企业活力,推动企业发展。     

Drivers and barriers of inter-municipal cooperation in health services – the Norwegian case

Inter-municipal cooperation in service delivery is widespread, as is the notion that this type of cooperation is primarily driven by economies of scale. However, the empirical results appear to be inconclusive, suggesting that additional explanatory factors are needed to explain why municipalities cooperate. This study aimed to identify the factors and conditions that influence the level of inter-municipal cooperation in health services by exploring a broad set of explanatory factors that go beyond simple economic concerns. In addition to confirming that a small population-size and fiscal stress constitute important drivers of inter-municipal cooperation, the results from this study also demonstrates the need to consider geographical location and heterogeneity relative to neighbouring municipalities as potential barriers to such cooperation.     

对物诉讼与我国的船舶扣押法律制度

对物诉讼源于罗马法,却只在英国得到延续,并在其海事诉讼中得到巨大发展.随着英国殖民者将对物诉讼制度带到其殖民属地,移植法律与本地法律互相作用,逐渐发展出英美法系各国目前各具特色的扣船制度,其中最有代表性的莫过于英美两国的对物诉讼制度.我国的扣船制度既坚持了对人诉讼的传统,又大胆吸收了对物诉讼制度的合理内涵,反映了国际船舶扣押立法中对人诉讼与对物诉讼相互融合的良性发展态势.     

民事诉讼中的伪证研究

证据是能够证明案件真实情况的一切事实,是法院查明案件事实,依法作出正确判决的依据.伪证是伪造的虚假证据材料,它不仅不能证明案件的事实,而且严重扰乱了司法审判的秩序,造成了严重的危害后果,防范、制止和惩罚伪证行为成为法制进程的必然要求,这不仅是理论问题,同时也是司法实践问题,正确认识和防范会对民事审判工作产生良好的促进作用.