后土地财政时期减支增收的财税法律规制

后土地财政时期出现的财税现实困境暴露出过往经济发展失衡的问题,究其根源,无疑是现存财税制度的供给无法有效应对后土地财政时期的预期。面对财税领域特别是地方财政增量减少的窘况,并不能一味以外延式增加地方财政收入的方式来解决。应以财税制度供给侧结构性改革为指导,转变“全能政府”的传统观念,运用财税衡平理念和理论,强化内涵式减支增收财税法制供给与实施保障。只有矫正过往稀缺财税资源粗放使用的痼疾,使财税资源集约化配置,才能产生有效率的高质量经济发展功效。应通过财税衡平法律机制的纠偏,优化财富分配的社会实质公平效能,最终实现新时代社会和谐与经济可持续发展的理想目标。     

关于生态发展区的土地发展权转移

土地发展权是经济法意义上之权，具有公权和私权的二重属性，其所保护的法益为社会公共利益，它有利于实现社会资源配置的帕累托最优。在构建生态发展区土地发展权转移机制时应坚持经济法的理念和原则，调制的实体内容和程序规范要有法可依，调制行为要符合生态和经济发展的客观规律，调制的绩效要兼顾效率和公平；在推进生态发展区土地发展权转移时必须定位实施主体，明确职责，建立高效、透明的开发区管理制度，科学合理地设立招商引资门槛，以保障生态发展区的发展机会与发展权利。     

Interfacing interplay of local government,traditional leaders and society

Wilmien Wicomb from the Legal Resource Centre states that the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 marks the first time that customary law was recognised as a law equal to its common law and even statutory law counterparts. Whilst this recognition is implicit in chapter two of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence in 2000 placed such recognition beyond doubt to make sure that the legislature and executive entrench the understanding of constitutional recognition of customary practices. This article considers the following research question: Is the interface of the interplay of local government, traditional leaders and society possible to restore transformation and community development where there are traditional leaders’ presence? To answer, qualitative methodologies were explored. The study found that traditionality and modernity, lack of clarity of the role of traditional leaders, parallel administrations, power struggles and court battles needed resolve to ensure meaningful public-sector reforms and transformation.     

Legislative Transparency and Credit Risk

Open governance requirements are designed to improve accountability, which implies that transparent governments are more trustworthy stewards of their publicly invested power. However, transparency may also reduce institutional effectiveness and inhibit political compromise, diminishing the capacity to manage resources responsibly. We assess empirical support for these competing perspectives in the context of American state legislatures, many of which have become exempt from state sunshine laws in recent decades. We leverage variation in the timing of these legislative exemptions to identify the effect of removing transparency in a crucial governing institution on investors’ risk perceptions of states’ general obligation bonds. Our analysis of these data during the period 1995–2010 suggests that removing legislative transparency reduces state credit risk. We conclude that while openness in government may be normatively desirable, shielding legislative proceedings from public view may actually be better for states’ debt repayment capacity, improving their overall fiscal health.     

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.     

“We feel that our strength is on the factory floor”: Dualism,shop-floor power,and labor law reform in late apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article explores the transformation of South African labor relations during the 1980s. In 1979, prompted by new shop-floor militancy, the Wiehahn Commission recommended that black workers, previously excluded from state labor machinery, be permitted to join recognized trade unions. Most discussions of this shift in apartheid labor relations focus on the ensuing debate within the black unions, torn between preserving their independence or securing state legitimation. This article looks instead at the related debate about ‘levels of bargaining’: should emergent black unions demand to negotiate at the factory level, where they had secured shop-floor strength through organizing and democratic practice, or pursue the benefits of the corporatist bargaining structures that had long excluded them and had privileged white workers? The eventual drift towards corporatism, I argue, imprinted the character of the South African labor movement into the post-apartheid era. An understandable desire to wield influence at the level of the national political economy eroded the tradition of workers’ control, shop floor democracy, and struggle unionism that black unions had forged during the 1970s and 1980s.     

A nexus between labour movement and labour movement: the Knights of Labor and the financial side of global labour history

The rise of global and transnational labour history has revolutionised the study of working-class movements and individuals and the global forces that shaped them. Some of the more mundane considerations of these movements, however, have so far been neglected in this rapidly growing field. One of the most important of these considerations was money, or in other words the financial affairs of transnational movements such as trade unions and political parties. This article is a call to write the financial side of global labour history. It focuses on a global working-class movement that is itself often neglected in the historical literature, the Knights of Labor, and their outposts in Britain and Ireland. It examines the history of the British and Irish Knights through the prism of their financial history, so far as we can reconstruct it from the scanty sources that are available. This article argues that their financial ties with the United States and a series of embezzlement cases became major causes of their decline and, ultimately, their dissolution. Finally, this article draws conclusions from the financial misadventures of the British and Irish Knights of Labor that are relevant to the study of other international working-class movements and to the writing of global labour history in general.     

民族区域自治法规在云南的贯彻执行

云南民族区域自治地方对民族区域自治法规的贯彻执行体现在以下几个方面其一,在选举自治机关过程中贯彻执行民族区域自治法规;其二,自治机关的立法过程;其三,自治机关与上级国家机关协商、监督、贯彻执行民族区域自治法规;其四,民族自治地方的行政、司法机关的执法过程.云南贯彻执行民族区域自治法规已取得可喜的成就,但也存在一些有待改进的问题.     

论如何运用行政法之诚信原则改善政府信用现状

政府作为一个国家的权力机构和管理机构,其运行须遵从正式的法律、规范,且有一定的制度作为保障。行政法对行政权力的控制与平衡是改善政府信用的重要途径,而其中的诚信原则更突出了政府法治讲求诚信的重要意义。从行政法的角度探析如何运用行政法中的诚信原则来改善政府与民众之间的信任关系,提高政府信用度具有现实意义。     

“怪圈”启示录——论中国政治体制改革与法制建设

我国经历的数次机构改革始终在“精简—膨胀—再精简—再膨胀”的“怪圈”中徘徊。作者在总结“怪圈”形成的原因和运行规律的基础上,提出了当前进行的政治体制改革本身具有不可逆转性;改革实践由于各种利益严重冲突、各类矛盾相互交织而具有了艰巨性;改革的过程由于缺乏法制规范而具有了随意性和不彻底性。据此,作者得出结论,走出政府机构改革的“怪圈”,必须依靠法制的强制力和规范的程序,将政治体制改革纳入到法制的轨道上来,实行依法改革。