Contracting in local public organizations: the institutional economics perspective

The institutional economics is one of the approaches to explain the utility of contracting of local public service provision. This paper described and critiqued the assumptions underlying institutional economics as it is used in organization theories. It also explains whether and why these assumptions hold in public sector organizations. Finally, it discusses implications from the institutional economics approach for the local agency. Local agencies taking new institutional economics perspective as the basis for its contracting decisions should take transaction risks and information asymmetry into account. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

提升社会治理效能:社会企业生产要素社会性变革及其制度优势

社会企业通过市场机制参与社会治理的行动根植于经济嵌入社会的关系之中。生产要素本身具备多种属性和功能,长期以来商品经济理论对生产要素的单向商品化使用,造成了经济与社会、文化等非商品化属性的隔离。正如波兰尼所言,土地作为自然存在,劳动力和企业管理者作为社会人,本身并不是生产出来供销售的商品,资金使用的信用、信任和合法认可也不能作为商品去生产。因此,重新审视经济行为的目的,可以发现社会企业的发展动因。社会企业以社会企业家精神为内生动力,以企业家管理才能为社会目标通向经济行动的镶嵌通道,通过制度创新改变社会问题,并运用社会管理技术系统提升社会治理效能,将组织的制度优势转化为社会治理效能,对推动良性社会运行具有积极的作用。     

嬗变中的欧亚战略与中国外交取向

自伊拉克战争以来,全球地缘政治格局经历了深刻的变革,尤以欧亚大陆初露端倪的战略合作最为引人注目。跨大西洋的分裂有其深刻的历史背景,而美欧关于价值观和“西方”概念等诸多分歧,也从客观上推动着欧亚大陆的加速整合。这一态势很大程度上推动着中国全球战略观的根本转变,进而塑造了欧亚战略新格局的出现。     

全球减排路线图的正义性——对胡鞍钢教授的全球减排路线图的评价与修正

任何全球减排路线图的绘制都无法脱离国际正义而具有生命力。气候变化问题的特性要求全球减排路线图尊重具有两面性的国际气候正义:环境正义和发展正义,需要考虑国家间公平、人的公平和代际公平。仅以人类发展指数(HDI)作为衡量国家承担减排责任的标准缺乏足够的正义,至少还需要加入人均历史累积排放和气候变化脆弱性两个指标。三者分别体现气候变化正义性中的人的平等发展权、减排责任分担和对受害者在排放权上的补偿。综合三大指标后的四分组分类,才是更体现正义性、更容易被接受和执行的路线图。从正义性出发,中国应承担相应的减排责任,并努力推动全球减排进程,但也要注意维护自身的发展权益。中国在全球减排中的作为,应是在国际正义与国家发展战略间取得平衡。     

制度选择的逻辑——我国食品安全监管体制的演变

运用戴维斯和诺斯有关制度变迁的理论,结合我国的公共行政实践,构建了一个食品安全监管体制变迁的解释框架,并且利用这一解释框架提供的视角,对我国食品安全监管体制制度变迁过程中的逻辑进行分析.认为,在食品安全体制的演变过程中,制度变迁的收益与成本的考量是其背后的支配性因素,制度环境所提供的机遇窗口使制度变革得以可能,外部性与部门机会主义行为是制度变革的主要关注点,而路径依赖是制度变革的重要约束力量. 可以预期,我国食品安全监管体制的未来演变方向,将是制定更加完善的食品安全法律规范体系,更加清晰地界定监管部门之间的权责配置,从而降低监管的外部性;将监管权限恰当集中,减少监管部门的数量,从而降低协调的成本,尽量避免机会主义行为;建立起更加强势的部门间协调机构,甚至在国家层面设立专门的食品安全委员会;引入政府之外的力量,比如行业协会、消费者权益保护团体以及其他的一些民间团体,建立起所谓的"火警"机制,以补充由政府主导的食品安全监管体制.     

Institutional memory,institutional capacity: narratives of failed biomedical encounters in East Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses on a series of failed medical encounters that took place in East Africa in the 1950s and after, and explores how the organizations involved ? the Kenyan Division of Insect Borne Diseases, the East African Medical Survey, and the Tanzanian National Institute of Medical Research ? chose to document and remember these events. The examples focus on medical encounters characterized by disagreements and miscommunications that stymied productive work. In each case, failures were remembered in very stylized and restructured ways that stressed the validity of the science and the valor of the scientists while drawing on tropes of African communities as irrational and superstitious. Capacity is built and maintained by having a functional institutional memory, which includes recounting failure and an ability to integrate knowledge from failure, leading to new approaches. It is found that remembering failures in such stylized forms systematically diminished the functionality of their institutional memory.     

新制度经济学视角下政府成本控制

政府成本是行政学研究领域中具有重要实践意义的课题,目前大部分关于政府成本的研究多从公共行政学、公共财政学甚至行政法学角度展开的。从我国目前政府成本过高的现状出发,以新制度经济学的视角,对政府成本重新界定,从制度内部来探讨政府成本的控制方法,对降低我国政府成本具有重大的现实意义。     

渐进式整合:基层干部绩效考核的统一化逻辑

基于渐进主义的分析视角,通过考察G省西北部L县H乡2013—2018年改革个人工作考核体系的动态发展过程,研究基层政府在解决冲突繁杂的事务和多元考核对象的复杂情境与压力型体制下,如何不断调适和修正基层干部考核制度,形成以"渐进式整合"为特质的干部考核制度的演化路径,探求其深层的制度理性。我们发现,为解决现行基层治理和考核制度的合法性危机和有效性困境,基层政府会在外部环境和内部因素的双重影响下,不断在考核体系中纳入和巩固原本游离于体系之外的人员要素,如聘用人员、上级派驻的驻村干部,以及本应在考核体系之内却并未发挥效用的构成要素,如结果兑现、群众参与,最终形成自下而上的基层干部考核统一化整合框架,制度变革体现了理性选择的适当性逻辑。考核机制放弃了标准化、形式化和向上对标,采取了简单化、操作化和向下对标的松散耦合结构,体现了干中学的组织学习过程。它强化了干部考核制度的合法性基础,部分地缓解了基层治理的悬浮性问题,扭转了形式主义和痕迹主义带来的组织行为异化现象,有助于激活基层干部创新性发展、激发干部前瞻性行动、激励干部创造性干事。     

Réformes électorales et changements institutionnels dans un contexte de démocratisation. Le choix du scrutin uninominal sous la Troisième République en France

The article focus on the choice of the single member district voting system under the Third Republic based on an analysis of the parliamentary debates about three electoral laws (1875, 1889 and 1927). The aim is to study the interaction between the electoral interests of political actors, the stakes of democratization and the evolution of the political regime. We use the researches on democratization and electoral studies to question the consideration of context as a variable of analysis in electoral reforms. We demonstrate that the presence and the interweaving of the determinants of electoral reform depend on the context, which is preponderant in explaining the electoral system choice.     

The Implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in a Non-Party State: Taiwan

This article introduces the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in a non-Party state: Taiwan. It examines the reasons why Taiwan as a non-Party decided to voluntarily comply with the FCCC. The institutional and legal settings for an effective implementation, as well as the implementation strategies put forward by the Taiwanese academics and manifested by the government will be discussed. Critique of the implementation strategies pursued by the government, and external and domestic obstacles for an effective implementation will be investigated as well.