Diversity and pluralism in earth system governance: Contemplating the role for global administrative law

This article aims to explore whether procedural rights and administrative law mechanisms - such as, for example, the right to a hearing, the duties to provide a reasoned decision and to disclose relevant information - can enhance the accountability and democratic legitimacy of earth system governance.The democracy-enhancing potential of such mechanisms and rights - which in the national context have proved to be beneficial in strengthening citizens' participation and the acceptance of decisions - can be limited in the global arena, by a number of factors. One of these factors is “legal imperialism”, understood as the grafting onto the global level rules and institutions that impose the hegemony of western values.In fact, administrative law mechanisms, being a construct of a certain type of western, liberal model of the state (and its capitalist model of development), could be perceived, in developing countries as an instrument to reproduce the dominant position of advanced industrialized countries and their economic actors.The analysis suggests that in order to realize their democracy-enhancing potential, these mechanisms should draw, as far as possible, on cross-cultural principles, and be supported by financial and technical instruments enabling “developing countries” and marginalized groups to engage in dialog with the most powerful actors.     

Independent agencies: more than a cheap copy of independent central banks?

The rise of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) confronts governments with new challenges. More specifically, it raises the twin issue of (democratic) legitimacy of both the IRAs and of the delegating government once a large number of key areas of policymaking are moved outside its direct control. So, the effectiveness of IRAs depends on their interactions with the other branches of government and on governance arrangements that provide the right incentives to all stakeholders involved. To identify such models, this paper first reiterates the history of independent central banks, the prototype IRA. The main lesson from is that the independent central bank model is characterized by an independence-bias and that there is a growing realization that more attention needs to go to the entire governance model, as opposed to simply independence. Based on this lesson, the paper proposes a governance model for IRAs based on independence, accountability, transparency and integrity to provide the right incentives to all stakeholders. The last part of the paper empirically illustrates how policymakers are currently dealing with two of these four pillars—independence and accountability—when redesigning financial sector supervisors. More specifically we show that the virtuous interaction between independence and accountability is not (yet) always well understood.     

民主制度的责任视角:一个基本模型

竞争性民主是现代民主制度的主要实现方式。政治竞争的一些内在特征,包括选民"选择"行为特点、信息不对称以及候选人事前承诺不可置信等问题常常导致无效竞争。保证民主选举中竞争有效运行的关键在于存在保证竞选人在当选后的任期中会努力实现自己承诺的责任机制,从而提高事前承诺的可置信程度。文章通过一个简单的正式模型展示了这一点,进而尝试从选举机制、评价机制与声誉机制等方面初步探讨构建审责机制的可能路径。     

中国上市公司董事会治理评价实证研究

董事会治理是公司治理的核心,董事会治理评价是公司治理评价系统的关键内容.本文在对国内外有关研究文献进行评述的基础上,构筑了董事会治理评价指标体系,并从不同的角度对我国上市公司董事会治理状况及其与公司绩效之间的关系进行了实证分析.实证结果显示:第一,控股股东性质、行业因素会对董事会治理水平产生一定的影响,民营企业具有显著的治理优势;第二,公司治理绩效与董事会治理水平之间呈现一种倒U曲线关系.实证结果验证了Rediker与Seth关于董事会治理机制间替代效应的观点.该结论的政策含义是,在当前董事会治理缺乏外部治理机制、大股东治理弱化、内部董事间的相互监督和经理人持股的激励效应都不强的情况下,董事会治理改革的关键在于,通过引入战略投资者特别是民间战略投资者,完善董事会专业委员会的制度建设,强化内部治理机制.     

Toward Subnational Democracies of Scale: Tensions between Democratic Legitimacy,Legality, and Effective Governance

Although democracy is often discussed as a universally applicable ideology, the liberal democratic state tends to assess democracy on the basis of government institutions. This paper argues that democratic institutionalism favours national governments and makes it difficult for subnational governments to expand their governance capacity and exercise additional powers. Greenland, Shetland, and Tresco (Isles of Scilly) serve as case studies of different subnational strategies for exercising greater governance capacity: 1) Actual adherence to democratic form (Greenland), 2) Symbolic adherence to democratic form (Shetland), and 3) Operating external to democratic form (Tresco). Despite the efforts of local governance actors, governance in these three island communities has proved problematic in terms of democratic legitimacy, legality, and/or effectiveness. It is argued that pressure toward the development of liberal democratic government institutions can in fact decrease the quality of subnational democracy. This requires a reassessment of definitions of democracy and authoritarianism. It is necessary to pursue place-specific and community-sensitive democracies of scale if we wish to democratically empower local communities.     

基于受托责任视角的公司治理与内部审计关系分析

建立和完善公司治理结构是当前深化国有企业改革,建立现代企业制度的一项重要任务,健全和完善内部审计的监督机制是良好公司治理结构的内在要求。从所有权和经营权分离的角度,对受托责任的根源和内涵进行了分析探讨,以此为基础,分析了公司治理、内部审计与受托责任的本质关系,并从受托责任角度探讨了公司治理与内部审计的关系。     

Toward global checks and balances

The rapid growth and importance of intergovernmental coordination in the regulation of markets, transportation and communication, the environment, and national security poses numerous challenges for democratic accountability within participating states. Direct public participation in the intergovernmental regulatory bodies is generally modest or absent. Information regarding their deliberations is limited. And the multiple oversight mechanisms and supervisory processes that exist at the domestic level of developed democracies that can scrutinize intergovernmental regulatory decisions tend to be lacking. This lack of accountability raises legitimacy concerns, the most prominent of which is the fear executive branch officials will delegate controversial policy decisions to intergovernmental bodies in order to escape democratic deliberation. In this paper we survey the ways that different review venues (other international institutions and national courts) are attempting to cope with these accountability related issues: we argue that national courts may prove to be the most effective venue for promoting democratic accountability. This is not because they are more reliably representative of their domestic constituency or possess a more cosmopolitan perspective than the bodies whose decisions they are reviewing. Rather their relative advantage lies in: (1) the increasing acceptance on the part of domestic courts that inter-judicial coordination is a prerequisite for their continued ability to fulfill their judicial review function; and (2) the visibility that the decisions of these courts possess. Acting together these two forces have the potential to foster greater transparency and public deliberation than most rival venues.     

The state-augmenting effects of globalisation

Recent debates have drawn attention to the legitimacy challenges faced by new forms of global governance. Privatised governance in particular has come under considerable scrutiny. This paper attempts to contribute to this debate through an analysis of the widespread critiques of climate governance that focus on its ‘marketized’ or ‘privatized’ character. Such critiques fundamentally attempt to delegitimise dominant governance mechanisms which can be collectively known as the ‘global carbon market’. The paper argues that to understand the political dynamics of legitimacy surrounding these forms of governance we need to take into account the recurrent tension within capitalism between accumulation and legitimation. This focus enables us to understand the legitimacy problems surrounding climate governance. First, it draws attention to the character of the discourses which are critical of marketized climate governance, which attack it precisely because of the forms of accumulation it enables. Second, many of these governance projects have themselves been developed in part precisely in order to overcome legitimacy crises inherent in capital accumulation, and specifically in the current context in relation to the dominance of finance within contemporary capitalism. Finally, it suggests that one of the strategies of firms involved in such governance is to attempt to overcome this legitimacy-accumulation tension in the way that automobility did in the Fordist era. Climate governance practices should be understood as a pursuit of this sort of coherence which might give rise to an ‘ecological regime of accumulation’ that aims to forestall more radical critiques that argue that capitalism and sustainability are inimical.     

企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制:结构探索和量表开发

在相关文献梳理与分析的基础上,界定了企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制的概念,通过半结构化访谈和开放式问卷调查等方式进行资料收集,并利用扎根理论进行编码,提炼出企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制的结构维度。在此基础上,遵循量表开发的标准模式和范式,通过对Haier智家社群、小米社区和花粉俱乐部的问卷调查,实现了对企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制结构模型和测量量表的验证。研究发现:(1)企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制是一个多维度概念,包括问责机制、关系规范、社区激励和网络惯例四个维度;(2)经过探索性和验证性因子分析的检验,本文所开发的企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制测量量表具有较高的信度和效度。本研究不仅拓展了治理机制在企业虚拟品牌社区情境中的理论研究,实现了对企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制概念内涵和结构维度的探索,而且首次开发了企业虚拟品牌社区治理机制的测量量表,为后续实证研究提供了有效测量工具。     

Migrants' Remittances,Governance and Heterogeneity

This paper investigates the effect of governance on remittances with specific focus on accounting for heterogeneity in the relationship. Using nonparametric kernel methods that are robust to arbitrary forms of non-linearity, heterogeneity and model specification, and six governance measures from the World Governance Indicators (WGI), the relationship is analysed for 109 countries for the period 1996–2014. The findings show that all six measures: voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption are significantly related with remittances. Moreover, the relationship is highly nonlinear and heterogeneous across countries or regions, and time. In addition, specific aspects of governance quality matter differently for remittances across each regional groupings. Hence, there is the need for country-specific rather than a one-size fits all governance reform agenda.     

社会资本、民主发展与政府治理——对69个国家的比较研究

社会资本被认为是社会的润滑剂和善治的社会基础。很多文献认为,高水平的社会资本能够提高政府的治理绩效。但是目前国内外的研究均忽略了社会资本发挥作用的制度环境。本文通过对全球69个国家的实证数据进行比较分析后发现,社会资本能否对政府治理产生影响,依赖于一定的制度环境。在民主制度建设不完善、民主发展水平较低的情况下,社会资本对政府治理并不能产生显著的影响;只有在民主发展水平比较高、民主制度比较健全的情况下,社会资本才能显著地促进政府治理绩效的提高。而且,民主制度建设得越完善、越充分,社会资本对治理的正面促进作用就越大。     

股权分置改革对价确定与我国上市公司治理机制有效性的检验

由于一个公司业已形成的公司治理原则和实践会影响股权分置改革中对价的确定,因而股权分置改革中的对价确定为我们从新的角度检验我国上市公司治理机制的有效性提供了机会。本文基于股权分置改革对价确定这一特殊的公司治理事件,从新的角度检验了我国上市公司现存公司治理机制的有效性,从而为判断目前我国上市公司治理现状提供了新的证据。本文的研究表明,在我国上市公司现存的公司治理机制中,控股股东之外的积极股东的存在成为目前阶段较为有效的公司治理机制,而发行B股或H股、债务融资对经理人挥霍自由现金流的约束以及董事会的治理作用还有待于进一步改进。由于一个公司业已形成的公司治理原则和实践会影响股权分置改革中对价的确定,因而股权分置改革中的对价确定为我们从新的角度检验我国上市公司治理机制的有效性提供了机会。本文基于股权分置改革对价确定这一特殊的公司治理事件,从新的角度检验了我国上市公司现存公司治理机制的有效性,从而为判断目前我国上市公司治理现状提供了新的证据。本文的研究表明,在我国上市公司现存的公司治理机制中,控股股东之外的积极股东的存在成为目前阶段较为有效的公司治理机制,而发行B股或H股、债务融资对经理人挥霍自由现金流的约束以及董事会的治理作用还有待于进一步改进。     

Toward a Humanist Reconstruction of Economic Science

This paper examines whether governance matters for the economic growth of developing countries, empirically captured within the institutional economics theoretical framework using the panel data estimation procedure. In doing so, it tests the effect of several dimensions of governance on the growth of 84 low and middle-income economies using regression specifications common in the growth literature. The empirical results show that political stability and government effectiveness is significantly positively correlated with growth. Voice and accountability and corruption are statistically significantly negatively correlated with growth. The regulatory quality and rule of law dimensions of governance are negatively but statistically insignificantly correlated with growth. The findings of this study imply that the dynamics of the current modern economy makes it necessary for developing countries to act now and within their own country, improve the dimensions of governance and establish good governance practices that are domestically relevant and internationally comparable and consistent.     

Legitimate governance of risk at the EU level? The case of genetically modified organisms

In the past few years, the EU has been establishing a new regulatory framework for GMOs, a central issue in the governance of risk that came under fierce attack in the mid-1990s. The primary question addressed in this article is whether this new framework will be able to solve the legitimacy problem of GMO governance at the EU level. Focusing on theories concerning input–output legitimacy and democracy and the role of expertise, this article examines the level of involvement of stakeholders in the process leading to the new rules; the predominant mechanisms of representation that have been used in that process; and the forms of participation in the day-to-day governance of risk as envisaged in the new rules. Based on document analysis and a series of interviews with central stakeholders, the conclusions bring up two further theoretical matters regarding EU governance, namely the transformative nature of citizenship and the conceptual distinction between input- and output-legitimacy.     

A Spoonful of Sugar: Privatization and Popular Support for Reform in the Czech Republic

We analyze the role of privatization in creating a constituency for economic reform, markets, and democratic institutions, focusing on the Czech Republic. Drawing on a 1996 survey, we examine the 1,459 respondents' opinions on reforms, economic policies and systems, the legitimacy of transition, and democratic values. Using ordered probit estimation, we find that receiving property through restitution is strongly associated with support for reform and markets. Concerning voucher privatization, we find positive effects for participants retaining shares, but little impact of participation alone. Our simulations suggest that policy designs have substantial consequences for citizens' support of reforms, markets, and democracy.     

公司治理模式的有效性及其对我国的启示

本文在分析英美市场导向型公司治理模式和德日银行导向型公司治理模式有效性的基础上，归纳出了一种治理模式要取得良好的治理效率应满足的条件，并结合我国的股权分置改革，以及新《公司法》、《证券法》和《关于进一步规范国有企业改制工作的实施意见》，提出了通过进一步优化所有权结构、大力培育合格的机构投资者、完善公司治理结构中的经营者调控模式、发挥银行在公司治理中的作用、完善独立董事制度和字善的外韶精督棚制等．形成有中国特仁。的公司治理栅制的对镱性建议．     

基于文本分析的治理内涵研究

根据1993—2010年期间"治理"被学者们所赋予的各种定义,采用文本分析法,分别对治理的主体、途径、目标和视角进行聚类分析,进而揭示治理概念的内涵。研究结果表明:治理主体至少包括治理者和被治理者两类主体;治理途径主要有"规则"、"正式和非正式制度"、"指导和控制"、"合作和协调"4类;治理目标可被聚类为"协调行动,实现良好秩序","增进社会福利,实现公共利益","规制权力执行,维护法律制度","产生明晰结构,实现可问责性"4个方面;界定治理概念的视角有过程和活动,且两种视角出现的频率相同。     

基于价值的公司治理--股东价值与利益相关者价值的比较

公司治理是一个多角度、多层次的概念,从公司创造价值和价值实现角度看,基于价值的公司治理是公司治理的核心.本文研究了当前居于主流地位的基于股东价值的公司治理和基于利益相关者价值的公司治理两种模式,笔者认为两种治理模式都有其理论上的支撑和实践上的依据,二者的分歧多源于对基本理念、概念和范畴理解上的差异.针对我国当前国企改革的实践,我国公司治理如果完全采用基于股东价值的公司治理模式,需要与之配套的成熟公司控制权市场、经理人市场以及比较健全的法制环境,即相对完善的公司外部治理机制.在我国目前外部治理机制不成熟情况下,国有公司治理应借鉴基于利益相关者价值的治理模式,在公司治理中发挥利益相关者共同治理和相机治理的作用.     

Creating legitimacy in global private governance: The case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil

This article suggests that understanding legitimization processes of private governance initiatives requires a multi-dimensional approach. This suggestion has been operationalized in three aspects that can be used to better understand such processes: legality, moral justifications, and consent/acceptance. These aspects are based on different theoretical traditions and are applied in an analysis of the process of creating legitimacy of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). This empirical research reveals the characteristics of the legitimization process of the RSPO and shows the value of a multi-dimensional approach. The three perspectives complement each other and deepen our insights in legitimization processes by revealing tensions and trade-offs in the different ways in which non-state market driven governance arrangements can create legitimacy.