Reforming and Performing the Informal Economy: Constitutive Effects of the World Bank's Anti-informality Practices in Kosovo

The World Bank has for over a decade tried to formalize the informal economy in Kosovo. However, local journalists and businessmen among others provide an alternative understanding of informality that problematizes the World Bank’s view and actions. Against this backdrop, the article analyses the constitution and the constitutive effects of the World Bank’s anti-informality operations in Kosovo between 1999 and 2014. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s power analytics, the article claims that the Bank’s agenda, and the economic ideas enacted through it, does structure and shape informal economic practices on the ground. Yet this structuring involves two forms of misrecognition. As a result, informality is paradoxically constituted (in novel ways) and reconstituted through the World Bank’s imposed anti-informality agenda. The article concludes with a discussion of how this underlines the need for policy solutions that depart from liberal peacebuilding’s subject–object distinction to form instead around an acknowledgement of informality as emergent and transforming throughout international interventions.     

行政信访处理纠纷的预设模式检讨

《信访条例》将行政信访定位为诉讼、行政复议和仲裁的补充渠道,承袭这些机制处理纠纷的核心技术,预设了处理信访事项的"规范一决定"裁决模式。经检验,该模式预设与行政信访处理争议的制度效能不足具有明显相关性。实践中,行政信访处理的事项,多属"利益分配、调整型决策"和"抽象法律、政策目标落实"引发的争议。此两类事项通常缺乏具体的指引规则,该模式易被作为回绝信访诉求的制度庇护。即便进行裁量处理,裁决机制也因"利益分配、调整型"决策具有"多中心任务"特征而难以适用,对于要求充分实现法律或政策目标的诉求,裁决机制难以提供有效的救济方案。     

非正式政治力量:吉尔吉斯斯坦“革命”反对派的动员基础

吉尔吉斯斯坦自独立以来已发生了三次“革命”,广义来讲,这三次“革命”均属于“颜色革命”的范畴。但吉尔吉斯斯坦反对派在进行政治动员时,往往尚不具备其他“颜色革命”反对派发起政治动员的一系列“常见”条件(如发达的社交网络、强有力的政党、较高水平的青年组织等)。而在相关条件并不充分的情况下,反对派依托何种力量实现高效的政治动员成为一个值得研究的重要问题。为解答这一问题,吉尔吉斯斯坦反对派所掌握的三种非正式政治力量--个人政治关系网络、部族认同与部族群体、传统政治习俗成为本篇文章重点考察的因素。在三次“革命”中,这三类非正式政治力量帮助反对派实现了募集资金、召集支持者、获取舆论支持、削弱政府合法性、策反政府高层官员等一系列政治目标,成为反对派进行政治动员的主要依托。运用非正式政治力量,吉尔吉斯斯坦反对派得以在其他相关条件尚不充分的情况下,于短时间内实现有效的政治动员,并最终达到了推翻现存政权的目的。     

Informal institutions and foreign investment in China

During the reform era, China has been very successful in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) for its economic development. That this has taken place despite a rather weak legal system in China challenges conventional institutional theories, which emphasize the centrality of effective state institutions to economic development and international cooperation. This article suggests that the solution to the puzzle lies in the informal institutions underlying FDI development in China. On the basis of extensive interviews in the mid- and late 1990s, I find that networks of personal connections (guanxi), which are pervasive in Chinese society, have played a major role in facilitating FDI flows to China. They have done so by complementing and compensating for the weak Chinese legal system. This article dispels a number of misconceptions about the nature of guanxi, discusses its relationship with friendship, bribery, and social capital, and analyzes the conditions underlying the transnationalization of guanxi networks. It concludes with some important caveats to the major thesis and a discussion of possible future scenarios of institutional development in China.     

行政技术手段的决策及其规制

行政技术手段的采用包括决策和运用二阶段,传统上法律对行政技术手段的调控集中于其运用程序的合法性。然而如果行政机关选择了一个错误的、不合格的甚至无效的技术手段作为其实施行政行为的重要依据,那么当这一错误的行政技术手段被确立为标准而进行运用时,为其制定再完善的程序来监督也是徒劳无益的。应当通过确定行政技术手段决策的行政裁量属性,探求法律规制这种决策行为的可能性及其有效途径。     

当前城市管理行政执法问题研究

实践证明,从法制建设和构建和谐社会的角度看,城市管理行政执法有其存在的正当性和合法性,但在现有体制结构情况下,也存在着某些弊端,面临着执法困局。设立属于城管自己的法律法规,严格执法、提高队伍素质,已成为城市管理行政执法工作的当务之急。     

《最高人民法院关于审理涉外民事或商事合同纠纷案件法律适用若干问题的规定》之评析

我国立法采用了国际上通行的以意思自治为主、最密切联系为辅的涉外民商事合同法律适用原则,但该原则在我国<民法通则>和<合同法>中的规定过于简单,缺乏可操作性.自2007年8月8日起施行的<最高人民法院关于审理涉外民事或商事合同纠纷案件法律适用若干问题的规定>弥补了现行立法的不足.该司法解释针对涉外民商事合同审判实践中经常遇到、存在异议的问题.提出了明确的处理意见.通过对该司法解释中特征性履行方法和外国法的查明等靓点的分析,认为该规定在支配当事人选择法律的效力、当事人选择法律的方式、当事人选择法律的范围、禁止法律规避之规定、保护弱方当事人利益等方面仍存在不足之处,需要加以完善.     

关于《钦定回疆则例》研究的几个问题

目前关于《回疆则例》的研究还存在一些问题,比较突出的有:在法规的名称方面,有《回律》以及《回例》等不确切的称呼,它们使《回疆则例》的性质、适用范围及对象产生了一种不确定性;在法规的性质方面,有学者将其当作刑事法规,也有学者认为《回疆则例》是回疆少数民族之间民事案件的司法审判依据,在法规性质的认定上仍然是值得商榷的;在法规内容的理解方面,就个别条款而言,缺乏对条款历史背景的考察与探究。这些问题的存在一定程度地影响了《回疆则例》研究的深入。     

暴力拆迁与暴力维权问题研究

本文针对目前社会上热议的暴力拆迁与暴力维权问题,从形而下与形而上两个层面对此问题进行了一番探讨与总结,分析了权利与权力之间、不同法律之间、各种利益之间及道德与技术之间等诸多关系的协调问题,并提出了笔者所认为的解决之道。     

Informal transfers,men, women and children: Family economy and informal social security in early 20th century Finnish households

Due to their role in discussions on community solidarity and social security in rich and poor countries alike, informal transfers between households have gradually become established as a research topic in economic and social history. Qualitative research has tended to emphasize the female-dominated nature of informal assistance. While research on intra-household resource allocation has demonstrated the potential for discerning gendered outcomes with household level data, quantitative research on informal assistance tends to ascribe a singular, “family” logic to transfers. Using an early 20th century Finnish household budget survey, this article analyses the differences in the statistical determinants of the reception of informal transfers in cash and in kind in the context of gendered household economy. Record linkage and statistical inference are utilized to reveal the sources of the different types of transfers and show how they were related to the position and welfare of men, women and children within households. The transfers in cash were actually controlled by men in the male breadwinner families of the data, exhibited elements of informal insurance, and were linked to trade union membership. The transfers in kind appeared to be the realm of particularly those women who were mainly engaged in unpaid work in households. At the same time, however, they were linked to outbound reciprocity in cash, indicating implicit dependence on male earnings.