行政责任:概念、性质及其视阈

在结构性的意义上,行政责任体现为政府行动者的角色或功能。功能界定了公共行政的限度和范围,角色表明了政府与其他行动者之间的关系。行政责任问题实际上可以看作是一系列解决有关以行政权力为轴心的紧张关系的问题。将这种基于不同角色、不同地位、不同利益、不同权力和义务的紧张关系纳入到责任问题的范畴中,就为分析各种利益诉求之间的复杂博弈关系提供了切入性的方法。     

Nineteenth century newspaper accounts of a murder committed by an inmate of a Scottish asylum

This study explores an incident from the late nineteenth century in which an inmate at the Royal Dundee Lunatic Asylum murdered a fellow patient while working in the hospital grounds. The incident was reported extensively in the local press in the days following the event. Analysis of these reports reveals a picture, which while recognisable to the twenty-first century newspaper reader, does however depart from contemporary media reporting in some important ways. We argue that while the image of the unpredictable dangerousness of the lunatic has a long history and is deeply embedded in popular conceptions of mental disorder, shaping public perceptions of those with mental illnesses, it is the manner in which this is presented by the media that has bearing upon how the case is understood by wider society.     

跨国公司侵犯人权行为的法律规制简

在当前国际经济秩序中,跨国公司凭借其强大的经济实力愈发扮演起重要的角色.跨国公司在经营活动中,侵犯东道国人权的问题已引起广泛关注.然而,现行法律框架不足以规制跨国公司在东道国侵犯人权的行为.在现行国际法规制模式下,跨国公司不是国际法主体,国际法无法直接规制跨国公司行为.在现行国内法规制模式下,东道国没有实力进行规制,甚至有些侵犯人权行为在东道国法律体系下根本不构成违法;母国没有意愿进行规制,唯一相关的母国立法,即美国ATCA存在诸多缺陷,实际效果有限.通过母国法律规制母公司的行为是一种解决途径,主要基于“企业理论”使母公司对子公司在东道国的侵犯人权行为承担责任,或者母国通过立法给母公司施加规制子公司行为的义务,但是该途径也在法律上及实践中存在障碍.根本的解决途径是促使发展中东道国积极签署并切实履行人权保护相关公约,来规制境内跨国公司侵犯人权的行为,提升本国法治环境.     

Reinventing the Governance of Public Finances in Remote Indigenous Australia

The economies of remote Indigenous settlements are dominated by public finances. The current system of governing public finance is highly saturated, fragmented and centralised, and this has a corrosive effect on local governance capability. The political accountability of leaders to their constituents is weakened in favour of an administrative accountability ‘upwards’ to higher authorities. New Public Management reforms have promoted administrative deconcentration, over political devolution, and this has been accompanied by an influx of public servants, Non‐Government Organisations (NGOs) and private contractors, and a decline in Indigenous organisations and local government. The end result in many settlements is a marked disengagement of Indigenous people in their own governance. There is evidence of considerable political capabilities existing within local government electorates. Decentralised financing arrangements can be used to catalyse these capabilities and then address deficits in administrative and technical performance.     

Governance Under Surveillance in South Africa

Good governance and legitimacy are becoming more and more important in South African society. Increasingly there are tendencies and trends of corruption, poor service delivery, crime, violence, and xenophobia in South Africa. The lack of accountability, responsiveness, and transparency reflects negatively on governance principles. It is becoming more evident that governance in South Africa must be investigated. Government is finding it difficult to tend to public participation, maintain law and order, provide for the basic needs of citizens, and combat unemployment and strikes. There is a direct link between governance and legitimacy because good governance is one of the essential elements and a prerequisite for legitimacy. Legitimacy depends on the government＇s performance and the support of citizens for the ruling party.     

公民参与式民主理论的拓展——异体问责的视角

公民参与式民主能够完善异体问责的理论和发展路径,而异体问责作为公民参与式民主的重要体现,能够为公民参与式民主的发展提供新视角。公民参与式民主理论强调公民与政府的双向互动,公民可以通过制度保证对政府管理进行监督问责,政府必须对公民监督问责做出积极回应并改善行政管理。民主模式从古希腊城邦的直接民主发展到近现代的代议制民主,20世纪中后期,随着时代的发展和科技的进步,参与式民主理论在对代议制民主的批判和重构中逐渐发展成熟。在该理论指导下的参与式民主实践逐步深入,从而加强了公民作为政府异体问责主体的地位,在具体实践中体现为宏观领域的行政民主、中观领域的电子民主、微观领域的工业民主。     

Responsibility attribution for corruption scandals

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the effect of the type of government on responsibility attribution for corruption scandals. Most studies on corruption voting have assumed that voters punish all kinds of governments. This article challenges this assumption by distinguishing between two types of governments: single-party majority governments and minority/coalition governments. This hypothesis is tested using data from the 2011 Spanish local elections. Our findings reveal that the effect of coalition governments on corruption voting is not statistically different than majority ones. However, when we differentiate between welfare-enhancing and welfare decreasing corruption, we find that welfare-decreasing corruption has a clear negative effect on the electoral performance of the mayor’s party when it impacts single-party majority governments, but not when the mayor needs the support of other parties (minority or coalition governments).     

Amid Political Spin and Online Misinformation,Fact Checking Adapts

After more than a decade of rapid growth, the worldwide fact-checking movement has surged since 2016, fuelled by rising concern about the political and social influence of online misinformation. This movement is also changing in ways that deserve close attention, as understanding and mitigating the spread of false information across digital networks has become an urgent priority for governments, charitable foundations, academic researchers, and technology companies. This research brief presents a snapshot of the field based on a mid-2019 survey designed to reveal how fact-checking organisations understood their mission, where they were directing their resources, and how their focus had shifted in the last several years. We found evidence of diverging missions in the fact-checking world, as a focus on combatting online misinformation began to supersede one on checking rhetoric from public figures.     

Is the EU held accountable for economic performances? Assessing vote and popularity functions before and after membership

The EU has become increasingly responsible for the state of national economies over the last decades. Meanwhile, many observers have claimed that this increased responsibility has not translated into more accountability. In this article, we revisit this literature and analyse vote-popularity functions before and after accession because it provides a situation when the EU is an incumbent and when it is not. Using Eurobarometer surveys from 2001 to 2011, which were carried out in the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, we first show that individuals do not hold the EU accountable for macroeconomic performances before accession, but that they do after accession. Using European Election Studies surveys, we also indicate that the incumbent European Peoples’ Party is held accountable for the state of the economy in countries that are ruled by the EU, but not in countries that have just become EU members.     

建设服务型政府需要的“六个转变”

服务型政府需要通过重塑政府与公民的关系、调整政府职能结构、创新政府管理方式、再造政府绩效评价机制、构建行政问责制度、确立行政理念等基本路径,实现6个根本性的转变：从“政府本位”“权力本位”到“公民本位”“权利本位”;从“社会管理为主”到“公共服务为主”;从“基于强制”到“基于同意”;从“内部评估”到“公众满意”;从“问责运动化”到“问责法治化”;从“为民做主”到“为民服务”。