New markets and new commons : Opportunities in the global casino

The United Nations is well positioned for the global changes of the information age now engulfing nation-states. The UN role and tasks—as global norm setter, broker, networker, convenor, and peacekeeper—are ideally suited to today's world of linked ‘infostructures’ and distributed power, influence and knowledge typified by the emerging global civil society. The UN can serve all these emerging infostructures—and be compensated by fostering debates and convening parties to design the needed agreements for operating the emerging ‘electronic commons’, including today's global financial casino. Technological, social and economic contexts for this new global agenda are described together with some market opportunities in new public/private partnerships to serve the global commons.     

Contesting public accountability: A dialogical exploration of accountability and social housing

This paper analyses the interaction between neoliberal inspired reforms of public services and the mechanisms for achieving public accountability. Where once accountability was exercised through the ballot box, now in the neoliberal age managerial and market based forms of accountability predominate. The analysis identifies resistance from civil society campaigns to the neoliberal restructuring of public services which leads to public accountability (PA) becoming a contested arena. To develop this analysis a re-theorisation of PA, as a relationship where civil society seeks to control the state, is explored in the context of social housing in England over the past thirty years. Central to this analysis is a dialogical analysis of key documents from a social housing regulator and civil society campaign. The analysis shows that the current PA practices are an outcome of both reforms from the government and resistance from civil society (in the shape of tenants’ campaigns). The outcome of which is to tell the story of the changes in PA (and accountability) centring on an analysis of discourse. Thus, the paper moves towards answering the question – what has happened to PA during the neoliberal age?     

Does co-creation impact public service delivery? The importance of state and governance traditions

Co-creation in public service delivery requires partnerships between citizens and civil servants. The authors argue that whether or not these partnerships will be successful depends on state and governance traditions (for example a tradition of authority sharing or consultation). These traditions determine the extent to which co-creation can become institutionalized in a country’s governance framework.     

Noneconomic Engagement and International Exchange: The Case of Environmental Treaties

We examine the role of noneconomic partnerships in promoting international economic exchange. Since far-sighted countries are more willing to join costly international partnerships such as environmental treaties, environmental engagement tends to encourage international lending. Countries with such noneconomic partnerships also find it easier to engage in economic exchanges since they face the possibility that debt default might also spill over to hinder their noneconomic relationships. We present a theoretical model of these ideas and then verify their empirical importance using a bilateral cross-section of data on international cross-holdings of assets and environmental treaties. Our results support the notion that international environmental cooperation facilitates economic exchange.     

Social accounting's emancipatory potential: A Gramscian critique

At the heart of the social accounting project lies a radical and emancipatory intent. Yet social accounting practice, in the form of corporate self reporting, has systematically failed to open up organisations to substantive critique. Rather than rendering transparent the contradictions within capitalism, corporate social accounting primarily obfuscates these. Through corporate social accounting business expresses Moral and Intellectual Leadership, further entrenching its hegemony. This paper offers a theoretical explanation for why this is the case, drawing upon the work of Antonio Gramsci. Corporate social accounting serves a regressive role because it is closely tied to the economic base of society. An emancipatory social accounting would operate relatively autonomously from the economic base and actively expose the contradictions of the current hegemony. Such an accounting could be, indeed is, practiced by civil society. This paper goes further than merely critiquing corporate social accounting and draws attention to some of the different types of social accounting that are practiced by civil society organisations. In drawing attention to these civil society accounts the paper suggests that the social accounting project's emancipatory intent can still be realised although this would require a reassessment of the faith that has hitherto been placed in the corporation as an emancipatory change agent.     

Value for Money and Risk Relationships in Public–Private Partnerships: Evaluating Program‐based Evidence

Value for money – VfM (the provision of improved public infrastructure and services at lower cost) – is a central rationale for the deployment of public–private partnerships (P3s). However, it remains unclear how VfM is actually created in P3s. There are several issues that surround the ex ante evaluation conducted during P3 assessment, including: transparency of the process, engagement of stakeholders, potential restrictions on current and future public sector flexibility, and political influences that call into question the legitimacy of the process. This study examines these issues using Alberta's P3 projects executed since 2003, and interviews 35 key participants and stakeholders. The findings suggest that while the transfer of risk from the public to the private sector is a key driver of VfM, it may overstate the extent to which planning related risks can be transferred. This paper recommends enhanced VfM component disclosures and transparency as the evaluation process evolves. Furthermore, a more rigorous approach to risk conceptualisation and valuation should be adopted. Risk allocation should be about managing not only occurrence, but also impact of the risk factor. Finally, political interference must be moderated to allow for the optimal realisation of the best possible choices presented by P3 deployments.     

经济法责任特征新论

经济法责任在形式上表现为由若干法律责任元素遵循行政责任在先、民事责任居中、刑事责任在后,市场主体责任在先、主管机关责任在后这一基本规律形成的链条,体现着经济法先规制市场失灵,再控制政府失灵这一事实逻辑和经济法产生与发展的轨迹.经济法责任链有长有短,链条中所包括的责任元素有多有少,这取决于经济违法行为给社会造成危害的可能性与严重程度.在实质上,经济法责任链是经济违法行为外部性在法律责任上的体现,是社会责任本位对经济法的内在要求,体现了经济法的价值目标--社会整体经济效率.     

Risk society and ecological modernisation alternative visions for post-industrial nations

Two prominent social theories have been shaping the discourse of environmental politics during recent years. Ulrich Beck's risk society theory contends that conventional definitions of social class are losing their significance in advanced nations due to the success of the welfare state in reducing economic scarcity. As societies transition toward late modernity new social cleavages based on the distribution of environmental and technological risks are gaining salience. Standing in contrast is the theory of ecological modernisation originally advanced by Joseph Huber outlining a hyper-rational strategy for correcting the ecological flaws of contemporary production and consumption practices. This paper introduces a typology that joins the two theories into a unified framework and suggests that the direction toward which a particular society progresses will be conditioned by its predisposition to scientific rationality. Due to increasing public endorsement of alternative epistemologies, most countries will likely encounter great difficulty achieving ecological modernisation.     

Making sense of New Zealand’s ‘spirit of service’: social identity and the civil service

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the creation a more unified civil service in New Zealand with the Public Service Act 2020, which promotes the most profound changes to the public service since New Zealand’s New Public Management heyday in the late 1980s. Among its many reforms is an explicit attempt to foster a unified culture around a ‘spirit of service to the community’—a construct without fixed definition that appears to incorporate ideas of motivations and ethics. This paper shows that this unified culture can be traced through a series of key collaborative discussions that have taken place among New Zealand’s public sector chief executives. The authors present a case study to show how these collaborations contributed to a new social identity, and provided a foundation for a civil service unified by its spirit of service to the community. The paper contributes to this PMM theme by providing empirical evidence from the latest New Zealand experience; and also contributes to theory of social identity and sensemaking in creating civil service values.     

The human side of disaster

Public engagement through deliberative processes is promoted in both academic and policy circles as a potential means to build public trust in risk decisions and decision‐makers. Governments in particular seem to optimistically take a positive relationship between public engagement and trust almost for granted. This paper provides a new and critical analysis of this hoped‐for relationship, questioning whether such a direct and positive link between engagement and trust is a false hope. The paper draws upon personal experience of deliberative processes to discuss key components of an engagement process that have the potential to impact positively on trust. Specifically, who is engaged and which interests are represented; an open and collaborative framing of the discussion, and a direct and clear relationship between engagement and the risk decision. But the paper argues that given the complexities of optimising these process elements and in the light of the known underlying dimensions of trust, expectations are misplaced and that enduring trust is unlikely to spring from engagement itself. This is not to negate the other benefits of engagement, rather it is to focus on those key elements that will need to be in place, both process and beyond, if trust is to be enhanced.     

Public service ethics in a changing world

The past 25 years have seen profound changes in the management and delivery of public services throughout the UK and elsewhere. Such developments, known as New Public Management (NPM) have taken hold, to a greater or lesser extent, in many OECD countries. These developments have had an impact upon the ethics of public service in a number of different ways. This paper explores four themes arising from these developments, i.e. (1) regulatory regimes and performance; (2) changing organisational structures, relationships and partnerships; (3) the public service ethos and (4) individual virtue.The themes are located within a complex set of mutual relationships involving individuals, organisations, government and society. Ethical behaviour will reflect a balance between these relationships, expressed in decisions taken within a ‘problem space’ characteristic of public services.     

The path to corporate responsibility

Nike's tagline,"Just do it," is an inspirational call to action for the millions who wear the company's athletic gear. But in terms of corporate responsibility, Nike didn't always follow its own advice. In the 1990s, protesters railed against sweatshop conditions at some of its overseas suppliers and made Nike the global poster child for corporate ethical fecklessness. The intense pressure that activists exerted on the athletic apparel giant forced it to take a long, hard look at corporate responsibility--sooner than it might have otherwise. In this article, Simon Zadek, CEO of the UK-based institute AccountAbility, describes the bumpy route Nike has traveled to get to a better ethical place, one that cultivates and champions responsible business practices. Organizations learn in unique ways, Zadek contends, but they inevitably pass through five stages of corporate responsibility, from defensive ("It's not our fault") to compliance ("We'll do only what we have to") to managerial ("It's the business") to strategic ("It gives us a competitive edge") and, finally, to civil ("We need to make sure everybody does it"). He details Nike's arduous trek through these stages-from the company's initial defensive stance, when accusations about working conditions arose, all the way to its engagement today in the international debate about business's role in society and in public policy. As he outlines this evolution, Zadek offers valuable insights to executives grappling with the challenge of managing responsible business practices. Beyond just getting their own houses in order, the author argues, companies need to stay abreast of the public's evolving ideas about corporate roles and responsibilities. Organizations that do both will engage in what he calls"civil learning".     

Financial Institutions and Non‐Governmental Organizations: An Advocacy Partnership for Sustainable Capital Markets?

In this article, the Chief Responsibility Officer for Aviva Investors examines the potential for financial institutions (FIs) to work in partnership with non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in advocating changes to public policy that promote sustainable capital markets. Many NGOs have argued that the current form of global economic growth is unsustainable—and they routinely engage in public policy advocacy. However, such advocacy has generally proved ineffective, in large part because most NGOs have a very limited understanding of how capital markets function. Investors, for their part, are increasingly recognizing that key aspects of the global economy are on an unsustainable footing. And some are concerned about the negative implications for the long‐term value of their assets. But with a few notable exceptions, they have not made systematic efforts to work with governments to correct the market failures. NGO‐FI advocacy partnerships could identify specific cases of systemic or sectoral market failures, and recommend long‐term changes to the sectoral operating environment that would affect the cash flows and values of companies operating within that sector in ways designed to “internalize” the effects of negative social and environmental externalities. To foster the development of such partnerships, there is a need for academia to develop learning forums that stimulate the exchange of ideas between the executives within NGOs and FIs in an environment of mutual trust and respect.     

Revival of a traditional community engagement model for the sustainable future of a historical commercial district: Bursa/Turkey as a case

Historical commercial districts in city centres in Turkey face social, cultural, environmental and economical challenges of managing rapid urban and economical development in the last two decades. They are being subjected to dramatic physical deterioration and rapid social and economical decline. Enriching relationships between local tradesmen associations, local authorities and non-governmental organisations through a structured engagement process can deliver innovative new revitalisation approaches and design options towards sustainable futures of historical commercial districts both in Turkey and in the world. This paper presents a community engagement model, which can be seen as the revival of a guild system (Lonca), which is unique to Ottoman Turkish culture, for the sustainable future of a historical commercial district in a Turkish city, Bursa. One of the main objectives of this study is to discuss and evaluate successes and failures of this community engagement model. Other objective of the paper is to discuss the effectiveness of this civil organisation for creating scenarios about sustainable future of a historical commercial district. The key finding of this study shows community engagement models should support public decision making by developing a coherent framework to identify the sustainable future scenarios with multi- or interdisciplinary collaborations.     

Back to the future: The dream of a perpetuum mobile in the atomic society and the hydrogen economy

This article analyses a certain kind of society in which it is proclaimed that abundant energy can be used without any negative side effects. In such “utopias”, individual needs are described as unrestricted, and economic and technological change is said to be unlimited - as if the society were to have a perpetuum mobile at its command. The two examples connected with such expectations are “the atomic/nuclear society” and “the hydrogen economy”. Although these two utopias do differ, their many similarities are the focus of this article. They are similar in that they both invoke the dream of controlling a virtual perpetuum mobile, propose an expert/lay knowledge gap, downplay any risks involved, and rely on a public relations campaign to ensure the public’s collaboration with companies and politicians. I thus connect these two different utopias, discussing them as a part of the modern history of energy production and consumption. Making this connection clarifies some lessons for future energy planning, such as the need for reflection on and critical engagement with utopias, awareness of how a more participatory democratic process may be secured regarding energy issues, and the negative consequences if risk is described in solely economic terms.     

以公共风险的结构和强度重塑财政政策体系

随着我国社会、经济发展形态和发展目标的变化,财政政策体系目标和运行逻辑也需要超越建立在确定性思维基础上的凯恩斯主义分析框架,财政政策供给要根据风险权衡原理,视公共风险的结构和强度进行相机调整.在当前复杂的国内外发展环境下,财政须充分发挥作为国家治理的基础与重要支柱的作用,以应对各种不确定性作为财政政策体系运行的目标,与金融环境协调配合,在保证财政自身风险可控前提下,通过灵活多样的政策工具为经济社会注入确定性,降低风险、引导预期,使经济社会系统整体的公共风险最小化.     

Performance Audit of the Operational Stage of Long-Term Partnerships for the Private Sector Provision of Public Services

This study investigates the challenges associated with designing a system to evaluate the mature operating phase of long-term partnerships with the private sector for the provision of public services (PPPS), an area largely neglected by a performance audit (PA) focus. It argues that assessing economy, efficiency and effectiveness (the three Es) are key to any PA, but that their nature is contextually defined; that auditing for effectiveness involves going beyond a 'watchdog' to a 'sheepdog' role; and that internal evaluation procedures provide insights that are necessary, but not necessary and sufficient to evaluating the achievement of the three Es in the PPPS mature operating stage. Findings are based on an analysis of the literature and an engagement with an audit office. The paper elucidates the meaning of each of the three Es in the context of PA of the PPPS mature operating stage.     

Beyond Self‐Evident: Recognising the Problematic Political Context of Accrual Accounting Adoption in South Korea

This paper responds to a recent call by researchers that we need to move beyond both advocacy of and technical arguments about the value of accrual accounting to more fully recognise the institutional forces, key change agents and the local political fields. We draw on elements of institutional theory and the practice theory of Pierre Bourdieu to explore the ‘problematic’ aspects of institutional forces, key organisational change agents and the local political field associated with the adoption of accrual accounting in the South Korean public sector. We found that accrual accounting was driven by many factors including a local financial scandal, the advocacy of a civil society group and the ambitions and the ideology of key actors. The contribution of this paper is that it shows how the practices of accounting cannot be separated from their political and personal context.     

人口老龄化、养老保险基金缺口弥补与经济增长

本文构建一个包含财政支出和公共债务的世代交叠模型,以养老保险基金缺口弥补为核心内容,考察人口老龄化对经济增长的影响,并探讨采用何种基金缺口弥补方式更有利于促进经济增长。研究发现,若采用财政补贴方式弥补基金缺口,生存概率上升和生育率下降均提高经济增速;若采用发行公债方式或两者兼用方式弥补基金缺口,当人力资本产出弹性较小时相应结论不变,反之则经济增速随生存概率上升呈倒U型变化趋势,随生育率下降而提高。基金缺口弥补方式是影响经济增长的重要制度因素,人力资本产出弹性较小时发行公债方式下的经济增速最高,反之则为财政补贴方式。结合我国现实,本文认为政府应探索包括发行公债在内的多种基金缺口弥补方式以更好地应对人口老龄化,实现经济长期较快增长。     

The accountability of NGOs in civil society and its public spheres

In the past two decades, globalisation has brought about many unexpected changes in the assumed role of governments. Part of this has included the role and rise of non-government organisations (NGOs) that have grown in number and power to fill services that governments are either unable or unwilling to provide. The prominence of NGOs in third-world countries fills a void of humanitarian services that are often lacking, but in all nations they have increasingly become potential vehicles for ideology instead of assistance, subject to capture by both sides of politics. In this respect, a new question and a new challenge face those who look for the accountability of NGOs in the public sphere—are NGOs doomed to fail by the environment that made them necessary? In other words, are they doomed to fail because they are unelected and unaccountable, and unlikely to rise above the limitations of the current system that made them necessary in the first place? The possible role for NGOs can be evaluated by examining alternative of ways of thinking about the “civil society”. This draws together interpretative strategies from philosophers such as Stanley Aronowitz, Carl Boggs, Craig Calhoun, Timothy Luke, Randy Martin and Charles Taylor. From their work, an ontic dialectical thinking is developed and can be used to assess whether NGOs can truly fill the democratic vacuum, and contribute towards the good society. More particularly, NGO contributions involve examining connections with accountability in a world in which public intervention and social awareness have been trivialised. A reinvigorated civil society can help to reconcile the role of NGOs to an authentic and effective end.