Governance of a public sector joint venture: the control challenges of dominated owners

Local governments increasingly choose to provide a wide range of services through cooperation with other local governments. Providing complex services through intergovernmental units creates collaboration risks and collective action dilemmas that need to be mitigated. Based on a longitudinal case study, an investigation is made into the dynamic processes in the governance of a public sector joint venture (JV) and the control challenges of dominated owners. The findings illustrate that the approach to mitigating collective action dilemmas is far less rational than that prescribed by the normative literature, resulting in control challenges at later stages in the relationship. Limitations in the assessment of collaboration risks are explained by drawing on resource dependence theory (RDT) arguments. Dynamic processes in the JV relationship create the need to adjust the governance system. However, adaptability is constrained by power asymmetry and control complexity.     

Shifting rights,property and authority in the forest frontier: ‘stakes’ for local land users and citizens

Customary land and forests are more embedded in the global economy than ever. With globally significant supplies of land and raw materials and favorable terms for foreign investors, developing countries – particularly in Africa – have become increasingly attractive trade partners and destinations for investors. Increasing competition over land is placing new pressures on vast tracts of forest and woodland, areas often considered ‘under-utilized’ by national governments despite their critical role in supporting local livelihoods. While increased demand for primary agricultural, forest and mining commodities in the context of forest tenure reforms and decentralized decision-making could create unprecedented economic opportunities for forest-dependent communities, increased ‘stakes’ over forest resources and land will undoubtedly heighten governance challenges. This is in no small part due to the political dynamics of property, and to the role of the ‘recursive constitution of property rights and authority’ in the evolution of the modern nation-state. By identifying the social ‘stakes’ associated with different pathways through which sectoral and extra-sectoral commodities shape forests, this paper provides a conceptual framework for analyzing how shifting contours of rights, property and authority in the context of forest-related trade and investment shape human well-being for affected communities and the wider citizenry of host countries. It then illustrates the use of the framework through its application to two brief case studies from southern Africa: tobacco production in Malawi and copper mining in Zambia. It is hoped that this framework will provide a meaningful contribution to growing scholarship on the political dynamics of property, and implications for rights-based approaches to agricultural investment and large-scale land acquisitions.     

Developing the meat grab

‘Meat grabbing’ describes actually existing land deals undertaken for industrial meat production, either directly in the form of animal housing and stocking (confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs), or indirectly in the form of monocrop grain and oilseed production for livestock feed. Meat grabbing is also a concept for analyzing the relationships between industrial meat regimes, food security politics and the global land rush, relationships which have not yet been sufficiently considered in research or in policy. Using China's reform-era meat revolution as an analytical case, this paper proposes meat grabbing as a concept with three broad goals: (1) to show how industrial meat complicates notions of food security and of food security land grabs, (2) to incorporate social inequalities and environmental injustices into the conceptualization and measurement of land deals and (3) to expand dispossession's domain to include relationships between people and agroecosystems. This is an initial exploration of the content and framing of meat grabs, intended to synthesize its core features and raise questions for further study.     

The peasants in turmoil: Khmer Rouge,state formation and the control of land in northwest Cambodia

Over the past 15 years, northwest Cambodia has seen dramatic agrarian expansion away from the central rice plain into the peripheral uplands fuelled by peasant in-migration. Against this background, we examine the nature of relations between the peasantry and the state. We first show the historical continuities of land control processes and how the use of violence in a post-conflict neoliberal context has legitimised ex-Khmer Rouge in controlling land distribution. Three case studies show the heterogeneity of local level sovereignties, which engage the peasants in different relations with authority. We examine how these processes result in the construction of different rural territories along the agricultural frontier and argue that, in this region of Cambodia, the struggles between Khmer Rouge and neoliberal modes of land control are central to state formation processes.     

Financialization,distance and global food politics

This paper provides a new perspective on the political implications of intensified financialization in the global food system. There has been a growing recognition of the role of finance in the global food system, in particular the way in which financial markets have become a mode of accumulation for large transnational agribusiness players within the current food regime. This paper highlights a further political implication of agrifood system financialization, namely how it fosters ‘distancing’ in the food system and how that distance shapes the broader context of global food politics. Specifically, the paper advances two interrelated arguments. First, a new kind of distancing has emerged within the global food system as a result of financialization that has (a) increased the number of the number and type of actors involved in global agrifood commodity chains and (b) abstracted food from its physical form into highly complex agricultural commodity derivatives. Second, this distancing has obscured the links between financial actors and food system outcomes in ways that make the political context for opposition to financialization especially challenging.     

The Effects of Blaming Others for Legislative Inaction on Individual and Collective Evaluations

Legislators commonly blame others for gridlock. We posit that legislators may engage in this type of rhetoric to minimize the individual reputational risks associated with legislative inaction or to boost the relative standing of their party. In a series of six survey experiments, we find that blaming others for inaction undermines voters’ evaluations of individual legislators who engage in this rhetorical strategy. This effect is particularly pronounced among out-partisans and independents. However, blaming rhetoric can also enhance the standing of the blamer’s party relative to the opposing party across all groups (including out-partisans), in large part by undermining the reputations of these other actors. Ultimately, we show that when an individual legislator engages in blaming rhetoric, the immediate net electoral effects are null. This suggests that coordinated efforts by a party to blame opponents may improve the party’s relative standing, while imposing few costs on those engaged in blaming.     

农村承包地三权分置制度入典研究

《农村土地承包法修正案》将“三权分置”政策内容上升为法律规定,确立承包地三权分置制度。对解决承包地流转闭锁抵押难行等问题意义重大。却因将承包经营权本集体经济组织内封闭流转以法律固化,新设土地经营权性质不清、类型混合、流转不济,无益承包地债权性与物权性并可市场化开放性流转之“三权分置”目标实现。受其影响,《民法典分编(草案)》亦存同样问题。亟待农村承包地三权分置制度进一步入典完善。在实地调研基础上,遵循《民法总则》落实集体土地所有权前提下,于《民法典分编(草案)》完善中,基于英美地产权客体权益分离理论与大陆法系二次权能分离理论具兼创债权性与物权性经营权功能的地权二次分离理论,在保持土地承包经营权规定不变上,从其客体权益中分离出二元化土地经营权,并分别于合同编增设农地租赁经营合同具体规范债权性经营权、于物权编构造“农用地使用权”科学规范物权性经营权。以利能以债权性经营权顺农地灵活经营实践、物权性经营权应农地抵押及长期经营所需的二元化路径,促现行承包经营权本集体经济组织内封闭流转向派生出的土地经营权市场化开放性流转发展,以实现农村承包地三权分置制度入典达成“三权分置”、“放活土地经营权”之政策目标。     

集体离职研究综述与展望

近年来,许多研究者开始关注集体离职研究,出现了大量探讨其群体过程机制的实证研究并建 立了相关理论模型,这对于揭示集体离职的规律以及防范集体离职具有重要意义。本研究通过文献综述,把以 往集体离职过程研究的路径归纳为影响因素与影响过程路径、群体互动过程路径、决策机制路径,并对相关研 究进行了评述。未来研究应继续深入考察集体离职的过程机制,尤其是连带性离职中的过程机制以及引导和干 预集体离职意向的对策研究。     

文学与博览会的对话——以1935年台湾博览会为中心

1935年的台湾博览会,台湾总督府作为策展者,力求将台湾装扮成“繁荣”、“昌盛”的形象,这些展示成了外界判定“日本殖民有功论”的资料证据。当时,台湾知识分子对博览会有相关的记述和叙事,他们以自己的“小叙述”,或纠正,或对抗策展者的“大叙述”。经由博览会这一空间,可以解读出台湾“殖民现代性”的驳杂性和多义性。     

博弈视角下农地流转与农民利益保障机制探析

农地流转制度在巩固存量利益的同时,也带来了可观的增量利益,各个利益主体为分配新增利益势必会展开激烈的竞争和角逐.运用博弈论系统分析利益主体之间的博弈关系,透视现实制度实行中其他利益主体对农民利益的侵害.在策略选择上从宏观、中观和微观角度着力构建三位一体利益保障机制,矫正农地流转利益博弈中的力量失衡状态,促使农民的存量利益能够得到对价支付,确保农民能够公平参与增量利益的分配.