Participation in the Budgetary Process in Local Government

Direct democracy is seen as a means of reengaging citizens in the political process. However, it is a contested concept that requires further development by being grounded in a specific context. This article reports on research undertaken in Victorian local government where the New Public Management (NPM) has been in evidence for a number of decades which according to the literature has impacted on accountability to the broader community. The possibility of consultation and citizen participation in the local government budgetary process was examined. The results reported suggest that participation in the budgetary decisions in local government is possible.     

Policy Diffusion and Performance-based Budgeting

This article applied the policy diffusion model as a theoretical framework for interpreting the international spread of performance-based budgeting, based upon 33 OECD case studies of countries that have implemented this reform. The data show that the historical development of performance-based budgeting was fairly consistent with the diffusion model. In particular, the adoption of performance budgeting took off during 1985–1995 and then accelerated over the following 15 years, and the primary innovators were a group of four English-speaking countries with comparatively laissez-faire economies (the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). The case studies indicated that performance-based budgeting was generally part of a broader program of governmental reform, that executive agencies were more important than parliaments in managing it, that it became quite important in budget- and policy-making, and that implementing it faced a significant number of challenges.     

以输出能力培养为导向的大学英语泛读课教学原则

英语教学正由语言知识传授转向能力的培养。就大学英语泛读课而言,基于以输出能力培养为导向,本文提出了高校英语泛读课教学的六个教学原则。     

参与式预算与政治生态环境的重构——新河公共预算改革的过程和逻辑

新河的参与式预算为我们提供了一份从体制外自发生长到体制内有机融洽为过程,以民主理财,完善委托代理机制为主要内容,以公众参与为基础,以激活人大机制为目的,以重构政治生态环境为指归的独特的文本.通过对其的解读,试图回答公共预算改革为什么会发生在新河;如何使政府的目标函数与公众的偏好相符合;通过什么样的路径缩短委托代理链;新河预算改革的实际意义和应用价值何在;今后的指归是什么.新河的参与式预算是一个基于公众与政府之间和谐理念而设计出来的制度创新,是对传统公众与政府之间关系的一种变革.通过这样的创新和变革,树立了凡是与公众有关的事情都应让公众知道的思想,提高了预算编制的透明度和参与度,践行了治国的根本.这是一次人大与政府互动关系的良好发端,通过激活人大而对政府实行真正的制衡,是政治生态环境的重构过程,是新河参与式预算的实际意义所在.新河的阳光试验,正在为我国的公共预算改革探路,并为之积累经验,它将成为我国民主政治建设的一个新的起点.     

Sustainability as a Measure of Success: Externally Promoted Participatory Budgeting in El Salvador 10 Years Later

This article examines the sustainability of externally promoted participatory budgeting (PB) over more than a decade and, given the results, considers the implications for participatory practice in international development. In 2009, I investigated the continued utilization of PB as introduced through a US‐financed local government development project in post‐war El Salvador. I examined all 28 project municipalities 5 years after the project ended and found limited but important PB sustainability. In 2015, I replicated the study, using the same parameters in the same 28 municipalities, more than 10 years after completion of the project. This article presents the findings of the latter study and compares them with 2009 results. PB continues to be utilized in more than half of the 28 municipalities examined—a striking example of long‐term sustainability—although there is also little continuity of use among individual municipal governments. I conclude that PB is becoming institutionalized, in part because of the initial project. This case of sustainability and institutionalization of PB may allow us to be more optimistic about the potential effects of participation in international development. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中、日、韩潜在产出的估计与比较分析

利用生产函数方法对中、日、韩三国的潜在产出进行估计,并以潜在产出为基础对三国的经济进行比较分析,其研究结果表明,从人均实际产出和潜在产出水平看,中国与日本和韩国的差距较大,并且日本整体水平最高,韩国增长最快;三国的产出缺口变动与景气波动基本一致,中国的一致效果相对较差,韩国的一致效果相对较好;从三国各要素对潜在经济增长的贡献来看,三国资本和劳动的贡献率均呈下降趋势,中国和韩国的TFP贡献率呈上升趋势,而日本的TFP贡献率呈下降趋势。     

Russian Central Government Budgeting and Public Sector Reform Discourses: Paradigms,Hybrids, and a “Third Way”

ABSTRACT

This study explores how public sector reform discourses are reflected in Russian central government budgeting. Through the lenses of institutional logics, Russian central government budgeting is considered to be a social institution that is influenced by rivaling reform paradigms: Public Administration, New Public Management (NPM), the Neo-Weberian State, and New Public Governance. Although NPM has dominated the agenda during the last decade, all four have been presented in “talks” and “decisions” regarding government budgeting. The empirical evidence illustrates that the implementation of management accounting techniques in the Russian public sector has coincided with and contradicted the construction of the Russian version of bureaucratic governance, which is referred to as the vertical of power. Having been accompanied by participatory mechanisms and a re-evaluation of the Soviet legacy, the reforms have created prerequisites for various outcomes at the level of budgeting practices: conflicts, as in the UK, and hybridization, as in Finland.     

Veto player theory and reform making in Western Europe

Veto player theory generates predictions about governments’ capacity for policy change. Due to the difficulty of identifying significant laws needed to change the policy status quo, evidence about governments’ ability to change policy has been mostly provided for a limited number of reforms and single‐country studies. To evaluate the predictive power of veto player theory for policy making across time, policy areas and countries, a dataset was gathered that incorporates about 5,600 important government reform measures in the areas of social, labour, economic and taxation policy undertaken in 13 Western European countries from the mid‐1980s until the mid‐2000s. Veto player theory is applied in a combined model with other central theoretical expectations on policy change derived from political economy (crisis‐driven policy change) and partisan theory (ideology‐driven policy change). Robust support is found that governments introduce more reform measures when economic conditions are poor and when the government is positioned further away from the policy status quo. No empirical support is found for predictions of veto player theory in its pure form, where no differentiation between government types is made. However, the findings provide support for the veto player theory in the special case of minimal winning cabinets, where the support of all government parties is sufficient (in contrast to minority cabinets) and necessary (in contrast to oversized cabinets) for policy change. In particular, it is found that in minimal winning cabinets the ideological distance between the extreme government parties significantly decreases the government's ability to introduce reforms. These findings improve our understanding of reform making in parliamentary democracies and highlight important issues and open questions for future applications and tests of the veto player theory.     

群众路线的一般政治系统分析

群众路线是中国共产党的根本政治路线和组织路线,它的理论和实践价值已经为党领导的革命、建设和改革所证实。经过几十年的丰富和发展,群众路线的内涵和外延有一定的改变,但其主体部分仍然是"一切为了群众,一切依靠群众,从群众中来,到群众中去",群众路线的这一核心内容构成一个完整的政治系统。从政治系统视角分析党的群众路线,有利于实现执政党和人民群众之间的互动,确保党的政策制定和执行的科学性和人民性。     

辽宁沿海经济带经济增长动力分析——基于相关分析的实证研究

辽宁沿海经济带因其明显的区位优势和优良的资源禀赋加之区域内雄厚的工业实力和发达的交通条件,在经济全球化和区域经济一体化深入发展的大背景下,发展前景广阔。该文就提供辽宁沿海经济带经济增长动力的相关因素,即各方面投入与产出之间的相关关系进行了深入研究。分析显示：辽宁沿海经济带相关地方政府应适当增加地方项目投资;中央项目的投资应向第二、第三产业引导;外商直接投资应向第三产业倾斜,这样才能够使经济增长动力得到最大发挥。