美国政府向非营利组织购买公共服务模式分析及启示

早在19世纪,美国政府就有向非营利组织购买公共服务的实践。经过一个多世纪的发展,美国政府向非营利组织购买公共服务在法律与物质保障、购买方式与内容以及购买流程和监管体系方面都取得了明显成绩,基本上形成了一套具有美国特色的购买体系。美国政府向非营利组织购买公共服务模式对我国的启示是,加强政府购买非营利组织公共服务的制度化保障,创新购买模式,扩大购买服务的范围,建立规范的购买程序,完善评估监督机制。     

业主拖欠物业服务费的法律问题研究

目前,物业服务行业的发展存在一种问题,业主由于各种原因对物业服务企业存在不满,进而拖欠物业服务费,而业主认为这是一种维护自己权利的行为。于是就出现了实践中物业服务企业继续降低服务质量、业主继续拖欠物业服务费的恶性循环。因此,了解业主拖欠物业服务费相关法律原理,对于促进物业服务行业的良性发展能起到促进作用。     

着力推进中国特色公共文化服务体系建设

中国特色公共文化服务体系,是指以政府为主体的公共部门向公民提供公共文化产品与服务的制度和系统的总称。中国特色公共文化服务姓"公",它以服务全体公民为对象,主要任务是保障公民的文化权利、满足公民的文化需求、促进公民的文化消费。中国特色公共文化服务主体是政府,主要职能是指政府为满足公民的基本文化需求所提供的基本文化服务,包括明确公共文化服务目标、增加公共文化服务供给、完善公共文化服务制度。这里的公共文化服务制度,不是指顶层设计和具体政策,而是指如何规范和制约政府行为的制度安排。推进中国特色公共文化服务体系建设的举措,包括用科学理论指导实践、以核心价值凝聚共识、靠道德建设规范行为,以及全面整合文化资源、加快文化事业发展、扶持文化产业发展等。     

基层服务型党组织建设的区域化实践模式——基于苏南探索的案例分析

苏南在基层服务型党组织建设的区域化实践模式探索中,从党建理念、组织形式、活动方式和工作机制上形成了创新优势,并在拓展空间布局、整合党建资源、消除薄弱环节、促进融合提高、共建活动载体、发挥党员作用、完善运行机制、实现整体提升等方面取得了实践成效。但在探索中仍存在制约因素和深层次问题,需进一步优化发展路径。     

NEPAD and good governance

This paper is an analysis of South Africa's public service improvement strategies since 1994. It first describes the historical factors that underpinned South Africa's service delivery initiatives before 1994. It is argued that the pre-1994 public service sector was racialised and highly politicised, as opposed to being people-centred and service delivery oriented. The transition to democracy in 1994 necessitated a complete revision of South Africa's public administrative system in order to meet the developmental challenges of service delivery needs. However, this transition also coincided with global reform initiatives that were taking place in the public sector, as informed by the new public management (NPM) paradigm with its emphasis on cost effectiveness, accountability and transparency. The primary argument of the paper is that commendable legislative reforms have been enacted in South Africa's public administration system in the post-1994 period, based on the NPM, but the fragility of the state bureaucracy as manifested in the silo approach characterising the South African government operations, as well as capacity limitations, encumbers the success of these reforms. The Community Development Worker (CDW) programme, operating in South Africa's Eastern and Western Cape Provinces, is used as a case study to illustrate this argument. A brief look at India's experience of the NPM also informs the discussion. The significance of the case study lies in the fact that it was conceived in the interest of increased responsiveness and accessibility to government services, a vital pillar of the NPM framework.     

Structural and Behavioural Characteristics of Informal Service Employment: Evidence from a Survey in New Delhi

This article argues that at least two distinct categories within the informal sector - informal services and informal manufacturing - exhibit different structural and behavioural characteristics. While some segments of informal manufacturing may indeed be 'dynamic' as noted by some recent studies, the hypothesis is tested for the informal service employment on the basis of a survey by the author in New Delhi, India. It examines investment, earnings, returns to human capital, socio economic characteristics and scope for upward mobility of informal service employment. It finds formal education does not explain differences in earnings in the sample but background characteristics do; earnings in the informal service sector are neither the lowest in the economy nor are they comparable to wages in the urban formal unskilled sector, when differences between migrants and non-migrants are taken into account. On the basis of these results, the paper reflects on the nature of growth and structural change in the Indian economy and draws some analytical and policy implications.     

The Dynamics of Local Service Delivery Arrangements and the Role of Nonprofits

This article examines the relationship between “contract failure” (the bringing “in-house” of previously contracted services) and service characteristics. The connection between contract failure and nonprofit and for-profit status is also explored. The analyses are performed using International City/County Management Association data and three service typologies constructed by previous scholars. The findings indicate that: 1) contract failure is more common than anticipated, and is actually relatively more common than privatization; 2) while service characteristics are associated with the frequency of contract failure, the nexus is tenuous; 3) nonprofit entities are less prone to contract failure than their for-profit counterparts.     

A Review of: “The Take”

This study uses four waves of panel data to analyze inadvertent learning—that is, learning in the absence of interest or motivation—from watching public service television channels. Previous research suggests that motivation-based gaps in political knowledge are at least partly a function of the political information opportunities provided by the major television channels in a country, which influence the likelihood of being inadvertently exposed to news and current affairs programs. The present study puts the inadvertent learning hypothesis to a thorough empirical test by analyzing individual-level growth in knowledge over time, based on panel data collected during five months leading up to the Swedish 2010 national election. Using multilevel growth curve modeling and an extensive battery of surveillance knowledge questions, the results show not only (a) that public service channel viewing was related to learning, but also (b) that knowledge growth occurred among public service viewers independently of their political motivation and news attention, and (c) that such learning was even more pronounced among viewers lacking an interest in politics. The findings are discussed in light of ongoing media environmental transformations as well as cross-national comparative media systems research.     

Campaigns Matter: How Voters Become Knowledgeable and Efficacious During Election Campaigns

Election campaigns are more than simple competitions for votes; they also represent an opportunity for voters to become politically knowledgeable and engaged. Using a large-scale Web panel (N ≈ 5,000), we track the development of political knowledge, internal efficacy, and external efficacy among voters during the 2011 Danish parliamentary election campaign. Over the course of the campaign, the electorate’s political knowledge increases, and these gains are found across genders, generations, and educational groups, narrowing the knowledge gap within the electorate. Furthermore, internal and external efficacy increase over the course of the campaign, with gains found across different demographic groups, particularly narrowing the gaps in internal efficacy. The news media play a crucial role, as increased knowledge and efficacy are partly driven by media use, although tabloids actually decrease external efficacy. The findings suggest that positive campaign effects are universal across various media and party systems.     

Malign Neglect or Benign Respect

Abstract

A central tenet of feminist criminological scholarship is the examination of women's experiences with crime and incarceration through their own narratives. Through semi-structured interviews with thirty jailed women, this article examines carceral conditions through the critical lens of the female inmate. Highlighted in this article is the availability and quality of health care in a detention center in Arizona. The findings indicate a contentious duality, exposing both heinous neglect and benign solicitude in the care delivered to jailed women. This duality is situated within the dismal health care system available to indigent women in the region.