The Mechanism of State Charter School Policy Adoption: The Case of American States

This article concentrates on charter school policy that is regarded as the fastest growing innovative policy in America. Its adoption is more impressive than other innovative policies in the public educational area. By 2008, 40 states among 50 American states have passed charter school law since Minnesota became the first pathfinder to create charter school law about two decades ago. However, 10 states have not adopted charter school law. Based on this dichotomous policy phenomenon, the primary research question of the study focuses on clarifying what factors drive American states to adopt charter school policy. To obtain answers for this research question, the study dedicates to analyzing main hypotheses from the regional diffusion model and state characteristics, using event history analysis. The results demonstrate that the three predictor variables—regional diffusion, similar innovation, and gubernatorial political tendency—positively have significant effects in explaining the adoption of American state charter school policy.     

全球区域经济一体化新趋势与中国的FTA策略选择

进入21世纪以来,以自由贸易协定(FTA)为主要形式的区域经济一体化浪潮在全球风起云涌并呈现出新的发展趋势。在此背景下,中国应当进一步顺应区域经济一体化发展的潮流,采取多维灵活的FTA战略,积极稳妥渐进地开展自由贸易区工作,逐步形成全球自由贸易区合作网络,在地区双边和多边贸易自由化进程中发挥更积极作用。     

Louder than words: Tacit communication in international crises

Clear communication is generally viewed as requisite to the peaceful resolution of international crises. The success of bargaining, deterrent, and compellent strategies hinges on the credibility afforded by unambiguous signals exchanged between opponents. Despite the acknowledged importance of this ‘communication factor,’ little effort has been made to evaluate the relative effectiveness of the various modes of communication that may be employed in crisis. By means of theoretical and comparative case analysis, this study finds a substantial difference between the efficacy of traditional diplomatic negotiation and tacit measures, such as the deployment and/or exercise of military forces near the scene of crisis. Where negotiation alone often fails, backing, preceding, or, at times, replacing diplomacy with tacit measures affords the greatest chances for success. The policy implications of this finding are explored, particularly as they apply to U.S. regional ‘extended deterrent’ strategies for protecting geographically distant friends and interests.     

推进首都经济圈公共服务领域合作发展的重点

首都经济圈建设已经上升为国家战略,当前,首都经济圈内经济发展差距还较大,特别是基本医疗、社会保障等基本公共服务水平方面差距明显.首都经济圈建设是区域经济社会全面一体化发展的过程,推进公共服务领域的合作,是首都经济圈一体化发展的重要内容.该文在详细分析首都经济圈内公共服务差距的基础上,提出推动首都经济圈公共服务合作的基本思路和重点任务.     

论民主与效率的协调兼顾——现代行政程序的双重价值辨析

行政管理活动中,效率与民主的冲突是确实存在的,但并非不可调和。一个理想的行政程序应是民主与效率的完美统一。正确理解民主和效率对行政程序的意义及它们之间的关系,必须建立在给定的民主、效率含义基础上。本文通过语义分析、价值分析等方法,深入挖掘行政程序尤其行政执法程序中民主价值与效率价值的内在一致性,两者的协调兼顾,是提高政府执政能力的基本路径。     

State sovereignty,political legitimacy and regional institutionalism in the Asia-Pacific

Abstract

Regional institutions in the Asia-Pacific have been of limited efficacy. Asian members of organizations such as ASEAN and APEC have insisted that these institutions not infringe upon their sovereign rights. The basic norms, rules, structures and practices supporting these organizations have, to varying degrees, reflected this concern. A number of factors contribute to explaining this regional reluctance to create effective multilateral institutions. This paper argues that the single most important factor is the concern of most East Asian states with domestic political legitimacy. Drawing on the work of Muthiah Alagappa and Mohammed Ayoob, the paper demonstrates that a significant majority of the states of East Asia see themselves as actively engaged in the process of creating coherent nations out of the disparate ethnic, religious and political groups within the state. As a result, these states are reluctant to compromise their sovereignty to any outside actors. Indeed, the regional attitude towards multilateral institutions is that they should assist in the state-building process by enhancing the sovereignty of their members. As an exceptional case, Japan has encouraged regional institutionalism, but it has also been sensitive to the weaknesses of its neighbours, and has found non-institutional ways to promote its regional interests. The incentives to create effective regional structures increased after the Asian economic crisis, but Asian attempts to reform existing institutions or create new ones have been undermined by the issues connected to sovereignty. East Asian states recognize that they can best manage globalization and protect their sovereignty by creating and cooperating within effective regional institutions. However, their ability to create such structures is compromised by their collective uncertainty about their domestic political legitimacy. In the emerging international environment, being a legitimate sovereign state may be a necessary prerequisite to participating in successful regional organizations.     

Japan’s approach toward Asian regional security: from ‘hub-and-spoke’ bilateralism to ‘multi-tiered’

This article argues that Japan’s growing activism in promoting multilateral regional security arrangements since the early 1990s stems from the country’s adoption of the ‘multi-tiered approach’; a new policy perspective that packages different types of coordination among region states, including bilateral, multilateral, and minilateral or subregional, in a layered, hierarchical manner. The significance of the approach explains why Japan has retained its enthusiasm for promoting multilateral arrangements, despite continuous criticism of their effectiveness and significance, as well as the marked decline in Japan’s economic power to support financially the country’s activism in regional institution-building. Meanwhile, the multi-tiered approach also explains Japan’s effort to maintain and strengthen its bilateral security relationship with the United States during the last decade. Four factors – a perceived change in the regional security order, growing self-recognition of major-power status, the legacy of history, and constitutional constraints – worked essentially to lead Japanese policy-makers to settle on a multi-tiered approach as a desirable policy choice in shaping the country’s security policy in post-Cold WarAsia.     

Reconciling China with international order

Abstract

The debate about Western policies towards China ('containment’ versus ‘engagement') is intellectually and politically misleading. At issue is not so much the policy blueprint but the ability of Western countries to design and implement coherent and consistent policies towards China, and to coordinate those policies between themselves. This ability has been affected by a trend towards the ‘domestication’ of foreign policies — a trend which is particularly marked in the case of the United States, but clearly visible in France, the UK and Germany as well. If the capacity to design, implement and coordinate effective China policies is to be regained, the problems will have to be recognized and addressed.     

Local Governance Versus Centralization: Connecticut Wetlands Governance as a Model

Scholars disagree whether local decision making is inherently more democratic and sustainable than centralized governance structures. While some maintain it is, due to the incorporation of local knowledge, citizen decision makers' closeness to the issues, and the benefits of participatory democracy, others find it as susceptible to issues of corruption and poor implementation as any other scale. We argue that with wetlands, a natural resource with critical local benefits, it is imperative to incorporate local governance, using the U.S. state of Connecticut as an example. Despite the American policy of No Net Loss, the local benefits of wetland resources cannot be aggregated on a national scale. Each local ecosystem needs wetland resources to ensure local ecological benefits such as flood control and pollution remission, as well as the substantial economic benefits of recreation. We illustrate the benefits of local control of wetlands with data from the American state of Connecticut, which consistently surpasses the federal wetland goal of No Net Loss due, we argue, to the governance structure of town‐level wetlands commissions. A national policy such as No Net Loss, where wetlands are saved or created in designated areas and destroyed in others, is insufficient when it ignores critical benefits for localities. The Connecticut system using local volunteers and unpaid appointees is a successful method for governing common‐pool wetland systems. In the case of Connecticut, we find that local decision making is not a “trap,” but instead an effective model of sustainable, democratic local governance.     

在国际格局变动中成长起来的东南亚

东南亚这一区域概念是在国际格局的变动中形成的 ,东南亚区域体系的形成也经历了一个漫长的过程。东南亚区域体系不只是被动受制于国际体系 ,它对国际体系也有一定的反弹。