核武器对同盟的影响——以朝核问题与日美同盟的互动为例

核武器通过对威胁能力与威胁认知的修正对同盟建立产生影响。核武器及其拥有国的数量影响同盟的结构样式和结构变动。核武器拥有、部署及威慑功能的变动持续塑造同盟参与国对威胁的认知,从而影响同盟参与国的对外政策。同盟内核保护的明确性与可信性、核武器功能及部署的分享与分工、国际核安全机制的构建,都将影响同盟的内部互信。综观朝核问题对日美同盟的影响:日美同盟参与国对外政策的不协调为其表,日美同盟内互信的动摇为其中,日美同盟结构的进一步"平等化"为其里。     

Swiss Energy Policy and the Challenge of European Governance

The European Union establishes external relations with third countries in different ways. Network governance is considered as an organisational opening that provides for more cooperative flexibility and inclusion. In this article, I examine to what extent network governance enables Switzerland's inclusion in the European energy sector. I argue that, as the network governance of EU energy policy becomes more institutionalized – from the regulatory forums of Florence and Madrid to the European Regulators Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG) – Switzerland tends to be excluded. I further argue that this lack of political inclusion is partly compensated by patterns of market governance that favor Swiss firms. Neither network nor market governance, however, is a sufficient form of coordination and traditional options such as bilateral agreements (electricity) and autonomous adaptation (gas) seem inevitable.     

Explaining Policy Stability and Change in Swiss Health Care Reforms

The article investigates recent health reforms and reform attempts in Switzerland. A substantial reform, the revision of the health insurance law in 1994, is followed by a long period of refused reform proposals and incremental change. In order to explain policy change and policy stability in health policies, we apply veto‐player theory to partisan and parliamentary debates on reform proposals of the health insurance from the end of the 1980s until today. Shifts in ideological positions of parties, especially with regard to the objective of solidarity, allowed for a new win‐set in the 1990s that was at the base of the law revision. Since then, the win‐set is empty as parties did not change their preferences. New and substantial reforms will only be possible, it is concluded, if the pivot player, the Christian‐democratic party, changes its ideological positions to a significant extent.     

Progress,Perceptions and Peace in the Sino-Indian Relationship

The Chinese and Indian government are eager to intensify bilateral ties. This paper evaluates whether this enthusiasm has positively affected perceptions of the two societies in general, political actors and experts. A review of opinion polls, publications and official documents learned that this is not the case. Mutual perceptions are marked with ambivalence and distrust.

朝日“绑架问题”上的日本外交方针分析

朝日"绑架问题"历经小泉内阁、安倍内阁、福田内阁,已成为朝日邦交正常化的重大悬案之一。针对日益僵化的"绑架问题",小泉内阁以"绑架问题不解决,日朝邦交不会正常化"为基本原则,回避历史问题,企图完全以"对话和压力"的外交方针来解决"绑架问题"。而安倍内阁则继承和"发扬"小泉的上述方针,一味地强调以"压力"来解决"绑架问题"。福田当选日本首相以后,多次表示一揽子解决日朝间的历史问题和"绑架问题"的意愿。     

IMF conditionality: An approach based on the theory of special interest politics

Financial assistance provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other International Financial Institutions (IFIs) aims to help member countries reduce their economic policy distortions. Because these distortions are endogenously generated, it is important to understand how IFI assistance interacts with the domestic political economy. In this paper, we review recent models of IFI conditional assistance that are based on the theory of special interest politics (Grossman and Helpman 2001). In these models, governments adopt inefficient economic policies and instruments because of lobbying by interest groups. IFI assistance helps reduce these inefficiencies, at least under perfect and symmetric information, and provided IFIs are representative of the general public in creditor and debtor countries. Factors limiting the effectiveness of conditional assistance as an incentive system are also identified. These are related to information asymmetries, the potential for political instability in debtor countries, and the IFIs’ own financial solvency.

Policy change in nascent subsystems: Mozambican higher education policy 1993–2003

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), developed by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith in the late 1980s, has proven to be a valuable theory to explain policy change. At the same time, however, researchers have identified limitations in the ACF relating to various dimensions such as definitions of key variables, their operationalization, and the universal applicability of the framework to any context, be it Europe, the US, or countries outside the OECD. The key question addressed in this article is whether the ACF, like most other established public policy theories or frameworks developed in a western industrialized context, can be applied to very young (sub)systems in volatile contexts. We try to answer this question by applying the ACF to the development of the Mozambican higher education subsystem, a subsystem that fits the conditions of volatility and nascence. On the one hand this subsystem is characterized by a turbulent environment and a weak democracy. On the other hand, the higher education subsystem is built practically from scratch. The findings of the study suggest that the ACF is built on basic assumptions that do not apply to a country with a high degree of civil and political turbulence. Some revisions need to be made to improve the ACF’s fit to such a context.

Political enthusiasm for social pensions and its eventual decline in Taiwan: an institutional account of pension dynamics in a new democracy

Over the last two decades, there has been a remarkable transformation of the demography and political economy of East and Southeast Asia, thus raising pensions as an important policy issue. In addressing the pension needs of those outside formal sector employment, Taiwan was the regional forerunner regarding social pension provision. However, the immense political popularity of these schemes waned and from the mid-2000s onwards the government began to substitute them with a contributory system for the socially disadvantaged. This paper analyses the political dynamics of social pensions in Taiwan, from expansion of coverage through to gradual dismantlement. The politics surrounding these benefits has received scant attention in international scholarship, with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank Institute, in particular, having focused most of their attention on policy design issues. The contention here is that a specific configuration of political factors featured prominently in Taiwan, thus providing an explanation for the evolution of its pension policy. Also, these political dimensions can shed light on how this type of pension could evolve in other East and Southeast Asian countries, which is pertinent given that many have increasingly ageing populations.     

Inter-regional diffusion of policy innovation in China: A comparative case study

Classic theoretical research on the diffusion of policy innovation is usually based on decentralized democratic regimes. However, in authoritarian centralized countries such as China, questions such as, ‘What are the driving forces and the structural dynamics behind local government policy innovation and inter-regional diffusion?’ and ‘How do the governmental structural factors lead to the different patterns of diffusion of policy innovation across local governments?’ are interesting research topics. The theoretical framework proposed in this study highlights the roles of the contingent vertical and horizontal governmental relations in innovation diffusion. I extract two key properties: vertical mandatory intervention from the central government and horizontal political competition among peer governments. This research uses four models to develop a new typology of the inter-regional diffusion of policy innovation in China: (1) the enlightenment model, (2) the championship model, (3) the designation model, and (4) the recognition model. A comparative case study is conducted in this research, with four policy cases showing that China has developed diversified mechanisms to encourage local governments to perform policy innovation and inter-regional diffusion.     

Environmental advocacy: insights from East Asia

Environmental advocacy in East Asia takes place in a context where there are few well-funded professional advocacy organizations, no viable green parties, and governments that are highly pro-business. In this advocacy-hostile environment, what strategies are environmental organizations using to promote better environmental outcomes? Using an original database of environmental organizations and interviews with activists and officials throughout the region, this paper investigates which strategies are most common, and compares them to the advocacy strategies found in the United States. It finds, perhaps surprisingly, that (a) environmental organizations across East Asia employ similar advocacy strategies, even though they are operating in very different political conditions, and (b) the strategies most favoured in East Asia are also the strategies most often utilized in the United States. It then argues that new theories of advocacy should be developed to pay closer attention to certain actors (academics and artists), and particular processes (organizational networking, government collaboration, and culture-making), that appear to play important roles in advocacy in countries around the world, irrespective of political context.