Effect of China’s rise on East Asian economic integration

This article discusses the effect of China’s economic rise on East Asian economic integration and concludes that the emergence of China as an increasingly important economic power has made a great contribution to Asian economic integration mainly through four channels: being a main importer and FDI destination country for most Asian countries under the processing export pattern; the renminbi’s more active image in the regional currency cooperation and its potential role as one of the core regional currencies in the future; playing a more important role in the regional political affairs and having an increasing potential to be part of the political core power (together with Japan); the demonstration and stimulative effects made by the motion of the FTA between China and ASEAN.

Myths and numbers on whistleblower rewards

Whistleblower rewards have been used extensively in the United States to limit procurement fraud and tax evasion, and since the financial crisis their use has been extended to fight financial fraud. There is currently debate over their introduction in Europe, but authorities there appear considerably less enthusiastic than their American counterparts. While it is important that these tools are scrutinized in a lively democratic debate, much has been written – even by important institutional players – that has no empirical backing or openly contrasts the available evidence from independent research. In this paper we review some of the most debated issues regarding the potential benefits and costs of financial incentives for whistleblowers, while trying to separate existing evidence from conjectures with no empirical support, and myths in contrast to available evidence.     

Regulatory enforcement against organizational insiders: Interactions in the pursuit of individual accountability

The UK Financial Conduct Authority has developed and implemented policies targeting individuals for regulatory non-compliance in the post-2008 crisis period. This article develops a tripartite framework that differentiates between individual–firm, regulator–individual, and regulator–firm interactions to capture the complexity of these enforcement proceedings. Drawing on interviews with stakeholders, administrative decisionmaking observations, and documentary analysis, it outlines the process of individualizing responsibility for non-compliance and finds that this approach poses evidential and investigative challenges for the regulator as a result of individual and corporate responses. The evidence shows that individuals are more likely than firms to engage in an adversarial response to an investigation rather than to settle. At the same time, through an inverse process of “corporatization” of the enforcement proceedings, firms may employ resources and strategies aimed at obscuring individual responsibility or binding together more closely the corporate and the individual case. The article concludes that the prospects of a successful outcome in investigating individuals depend not only on regulators' activities but also on corporate responses and on which managers are considered assets to the firm and which may be thrown to the wolves.     

我国未来应当设立统一的准司法性质的反垄断主管机构

我国《反垄断法》已经施行七年有余,反垄断主管机构基本上沿袭旧制,即仍然由国家工商局、商务部和发改委下设的三个反垄断主管机构进行反垄断执法,只是在其上设置了主要发挥协调、指导作用的国务院反垄断委员会。这种"双层"和"三机构各司其职"的反垄断主管机构的设置有诸多的缺陷,不能很好地履行反垄断的神圣使命。我国未来应当改革现有的反垄断主管机构,设立一个统一的、独立的、高度权威的和准司法性质的反垄断主管机构。     

The Effect of Age Structure on the Abrogation of Military Alliances

Scholars of alliance politics have ignored a potentially important factor that shapes foreign policy: the age structure of a state. In this article, we argue that an alliance member is more likely to terminate the alliance in violation of the terms when the state’s youth ratio is high. The demographic pressure of a high youth ratio raises potential for political instability domestically, which in turn increases the risk of radical foreign policy changes. We demonstrate the effects of a state’s age structure on its alliance policy by examining alliance termination by violation from 1950 to 2000. Through quantitative analysis, we find that youth ratio is a strong and significant predictor of alliance abrogation. A brief examination of several examples illustrates two paths by which the pressure created by a high youth ratio contributes to political instability and results in alliance abrogation—leadership change that brings about a new foreign policy and appeasement of the population through abrogation of an unpopular alliance.     

非传统安全与南海地区国家的策略性互动

南海非传统安全威胁是南海地区人与社会经济、自然发展关系扭曲的结果。它与南海传统安全交织出现,给地区国家安全与海上航行安全带来了巨大冲击。但相比之下,南海非传统安全问题却并没有得到学界太多的关注。南海非传统安全威胁由来已久,20世纪60年代以来先后经历了两个阶段,且在九一一事件后主导南海地区安全形态。其后,南海非传统安全问题引起了地区国家的重视,虽在地区国家加强合作下有所好转,但并未得到根本性解决。由于地区国家政治、经济发展和社会进步间存在的不平衡问题及现有的民族、宗教矛盾,未得到实质性改善,未来南海非传统安全形势仍不容乐观。南海地区国家在非传统安全领域的策略性互动还存在着一系列不足与问题,而这些不足和问题使地区国家在南海非传统安全领域的互动与合作效果不彰。不仅如此,针对地区内存在的发展不平衡问题,中国需要和东盟国家找准方向,为解决南海非传统安全问题探索有效途径,进而实现共同维护南海稳定与和平的目标。     

Inter-Municipal Cooperation and Satisfaction with Services: Evidence from the Norwegian Citizen Study

We investigate the effects of inter-municipal cooperation on citizen satisfaction with fire services and refuse handling. While there is a growing interest in cooperation as a way of providing municipal services, little is known of the effect on citizen satisfaction. Through a multilevel analysis combining individual and municipal data, we find that inter-municipal cooperation has a negative effect on satisfaction with fire services, no effect on refuse collection but a positive effect on satisfaction with source separation. The results, we argue, show how the organizational form may affect satisfaction in different ways depending on service characteristics.     

Intermunicipal cooperation,municipal amalgamation and the price of credit

In many countries, local government size is increasingly thought to be insufficient to operate efficiently. Two possible solutions to this problem are amalgamation and intermunicipal cooperation. This paper applies a novel methodology to shed light on the efficiency implications of this choice. Using a unique and rich micro-level dataset, we find that intermunicipal organisations (IOs) in the Netherlands consistently pay higher interest rates than municipalities, while there is no economic reason to do so. We interpret this as a form of inefficiency. Municipal amalgamation, on the other hand, does not result in higher interest rates. Our analysis eliminates one possible explanation, dispersed ownership of IOs, as the number of partners cooperating in an IO does not affect interest rates (no ‘law of 1/n’). This leaves the introduction of extra hierarchical layers as a result of cooperation, and the ensuing reduction in monitoring, as the most probable explanation.     

The challenge of the creative Third World

This article is a contribution to recent literature on the shape of the polycentric world order. It argues that the Third World remains a valid concept for describing the interests and ideas that shape the foreign policies of many key non-Western states. However, the Third World has changed in a fundamental way. The article describes the historical emergence and contemporary manifestations of a ‘creative’ Third World in contrast to the ‘protest’ Third World of the past. It describes the nature of this shift and how it is reshaping Western leadership. It argues that the main challenge for the West is to create a coherent pluralism in international order that embraces this creative Third World.     

The UN at war: examining the consequences of peace-enforcement mandates for the UN peacekeeping operations in the CAR,the DRC and Mali

The UN peacekeeping operations in the Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mali were in 2013 given peace enforcement mandates, ordering them to use all necessary measures to ‘neutralise’ and ‘disarm’ identified groups in the eastern DRC and to ‘stabilise’ CAR and northern Mali. It is not new that UN missions have mandates authorising the use of force, but these have normally not specified enemies and have been of short duration. This article investigates these missions to better understand the short- and long-term consequences, in terms of the willingness of traditional as well as Western troop contributors to provide troops, and of the perception of the missions by host states, neighbouring states, rebel groups, and humanitarian and human rights actors. The paper explores normative, security and legitimacy implications of the expanded will of the UN to use force in peacekeeping operations. It argues that the urge to equip UN peacekeeping operations with enforcement mandates that target particular groups has significant long-term implications for the UN and its role as an impartial arbitrator in post-conflict countries.