Community policing in indigenous societies – Venezuela: a country profile

In this paper we examine how local citizens and community organizations together have helped shape policing in their neighborhoods, providing new insights into how community policing operates in Venezuela. We also emphasize the unique attributes of policing practice and the current challenges of communal policing.     

Why states have no right to privacy,but may be entitled to secrecy: a non-consequentialist defense of state secrecy

ABSTRACT

Despite an increase in initiatives aimed at enhancing political transparency, democratic states claim the right to withhold information from citizens: classified intelligence and military programs, diplomatic discretion, closed-door political bargaining, and bureaucratic opacity are examples. Can the state’s claim to restrict access to information be justified? In the first part of the essay, I focus on the arguments that defend the state’s claim to restrict access in terms of the state’s right to privacy where the state privacy is presented as a species of group privacy. While I concede that group privacy may be defended, I argue that governments and parliaments are not the kind of groups that may exercise privacy against citizens because of the relation of accountability in which they stand to citizens. In the second part of the essay, I propose an alternative argument to the effect that the scope of openness required in democratic governance is less extensive than traditionally assumed. I focus on the concept of democratic authority and argue that we can understand the practices of classification as an exercise of a special right to secrecy that is implied in the democratic state’s right to rule in a content-independent way.     

完善我国行政问责制的对策

建立健全行政问责制,是改善政府管理、建设法治政府的一种有效制度,是构建和谐社会的必然要求。本文探讨了我国现行行政问责制的基本内涵及存在的问题,在此基础上提出了完善行政问责制的相关对策和建议。     

论人大问责及其正当性

人民代表大会制度是我国根本的政治制度,人大问责是最具权威性和实效性的问责方式,人大问责的主体、对象、手段、所追究责任都与其他问责方式不同。无论是从法理依据还是从法律依据上进行分析,人大问责均具有正当性,我们应充分发挥人大问责的优势,实现对政府和政府官员问责的效能最大化。     

Oversight of the Executive in the Eastern Cape Province,South Africa

This paper examines legislative oversight of the Executive in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, since the divisions within the ANC in the run-up to the party's 2007 Polokwane conference. It explores the dynamics of oversight and experiences of MPLs of the governing and opposition parties and of legislators and senior officials of government. Importantly, it assesses the perception and confidence of citizens in rural communities in the oversight process of the Legislature. The paper argues that the factions within the ruling party have had remarkable impact on the oversight of the Executive in the Eastern Cape. Whilst a vital element of the legislative process in the Eastern Cape, oversight is weak and ineffective: ineffectual oversight intersects with citizen apathy in legislative and oversight processes in the province.     

Electoral accountability in the developing world

Do citizens of the developing world behave as economic voters? Do they blame and reward incumbent governments for their perceived economic performance? In addressing these questions, the current paper fills an important void left by the extant literature by adopting a large-n approach with the use of public opinion survey data and by focusing on emerging democracies of the developing world. The proposed analysis develops a series of incumbent support models to assess the impact of economic assessments. It relies on the use of public opinion survey data from countries of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia, and the Arab world. The paper contributes to the extant literature at the empirical, methodological, and theoretical levels. Empirically, it provides a unique and systematic account of the phenomenon through a large-scale comparative approach. Theoretically, it contributes to the debate on the value of economic voting to explain electoral behavior in the developing world. Methodologically, it shows that using presidential approval is a fair alternative to vote choice and that a full model specification is not absolutely necessary to estimating the economic effect.     

公共服务合同外包中政府责任的复合维度:价值、支持与能力

合同外包在运用市场化、社会化手段革新公共服务供给方式的同时,也要求政府重新定位自身须承担的责任,实现工具理性与价值理性的平衡。为保证服务效率与分配公平并重,公共服务合同外包中的政府责任应依循公共价值管理的理念,在价值、支持和能力三个维度上得到明确和落实。通过以公共需求为核心传递价值、以多元参与为导向整合支持、以过程管理为基础提升能力,政府能够在公共服务合同外包的过程中发挥更加积极的作用,成为负责任的服务安排者和精明的项目发包方。     

对完善我国行政问责制法律制度的思考

具备高度的责任心和负责精神,完善的责任机制和可问责机制,无疑是一个有效率和有公信力的现代政府所必须具备的品格,也是其活力的源泉。行政问责制是民主政治的一个组成部分,是实现责任政府的一个重要现实途径。本文对实施行政问责制的障碍进行了分析,提出了完善我国行政问责制的路径。     

Trust but verify? Voluntary regulation programs in the nonprofit sector

In this article we examine how information problems can cause agency slippages and lead to governance failures in nonprofit organizations. Drawing on the principal–agent literature, we provide a theoretical account of an institutional mechanism, namely, voluntary regulation programs, to mitigate such slippages. These programs seek to impose obligations on their participants regarding internal governance and use of resources. By joining these programs, nonprofit organizations seek to differentiate themselves from nonparticipants and signal to their principals that they are deploying resources as per the organizational mandate. If principals are assured that agency slippages are lower in program participants, they might be more likely to provide the participants with resources to deliver goods and services to their target populations. However, regulatory programs for nonprofit organizations are of variable quality and, in some cases, could be designed to obscure rather than reveal information. We outline an analytical framework to differentiate the credible clubs from the “charity washes.” A focus on the institutional architecture of these programs can help to predict their efficacy in reducing agency problems.     

质疑“权力政府”向“责任政府”转变

我国政治体制改革最终决定政府转型目标的实现。政府权力法定,政府权力与责任相辅相成。我国近年行政学界流行的“权力政府”向“责任政府”转变论,从法理、管理、哲理等角度看值得商榷。加大改革我国过分集权的领导体制,促使政府政治化权力转为法治化权力,才能从根本上增强政府的责任心。