Are people in the SADC region willing to pay more tax to fund public healthcare?

ABSTRACT

For Africa to develop and achieve sustainable development, African governments have to prioritise spending on public health. However, the current spending data shows that health spending is a continuing struggle for African countries. Many researchers have the view that African governments have to collect more tax to spend enough on public healthcare. The question here is what extent people are willing to pay more tax to increase spending on public healthcare? Employing a multilevel regression model on Afrobarometer survey data, this paper examined to what extent individual and country level factors influence people’s willingness to pay more tax to increase spending on public healthcare in 12 Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states. This study found that peoples’ trust in their government is an important determinant of willingness to pay more tax, while factors such as the country’s quality of democracy, economic condition, and current per capita health expenditure have no influence.     

(In)equality and the South African Constitution

ABSTRACT

Does the South African Constitution constrain or empower government, courts and citizens in addressing systemic social and economic inequalities? This article argues that the Constitution is explicitly ‘transformative’, but is an enabling document, providing ‘scaffolding’ for political and legal activities. It is government, strong institutions and civil society that are ultimately responsible for securing its equality aspirations. Here the Constitution admits of different understandings of equality and different economic and social policy choices. This article identifies these contested meanings of equality and suggests that a liberal egalitarian/social democratic version is dominant in policy choices and the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. It illustrates this with reference to the Court’s jurisprudence on equality, and suggests that more radical and transformative interpretations remain possible. However, it concludes that we cannot escape politics, the need for good policy choices and effective implementation and enforcement.     

Political Entrepreneurship and the Democratic Allocation of Economic Resources

Political entrepreneurship occurs when an individual acts on a political profit opportunity. These profit opportunities can be divided into two categories: productive, and predatory. Productive opportunities enable entrepreneurs to profit from enhancing the efficiency of government, while predatory opportunities enable entrepreneurs to profit from forcibly transferring resources from some to others. This analysis shows that political institutions tend to favor predatory over productive political entrepreneurship, and shows that what is sometimes referred to as political exchange does not have the same efficiency characteristics as voluntary exchange in private markets.     

The relevance of democracy to organizational management

The relationship between democratic ideals and organizational structuring and functioning receives attention in this article. After a brief historical consideration of liberal democracy in the United States, we analyze social, managerial, ethical, and economic issues defining the relevance of democracy to organizational management. These issues lead to a presentation of specific purposes that particular mechanisms of organizational democracy can serve. Because of other scholarly attention to participative management and employee ownership, hierarchical constraints receive emphasis here.     

Adverse selection in group insurance: The virtues of failing to represent voters

Compared with non-union workers, union workers take more of their compensation in the form of insurance. This may be because unions choose democratically, and democratic choice mitigates adverse selection in group insurance. Relative to individually-purchased insurance, we show that group insurance chosen by an ideal profit-maximizing employer can be worse for every employee, while group insurance chosen democratically can be much better. The reason is that democracy can fail to represent the preferences of almost half the group.Received: January 2003, Accepted: September 2004, JEL Classification: J51, D82, G22     

交往理性：公民政治参与的新范式

哈贝马斯交往理性理论有力地批判了近、现代工业文明条件下以工具理性思维模式为基础的“精英民主论”，为当代“大众参与民主论”发展提供了一种哲学话语和方法论基础。以交往理性建构的程序主义商谈民主观，其核心在于强调只有公民的有效参与，才是实现民主的根本途径。这种政治哲学思维对促进当代中国政治文明建设，实现公民参与公共决策具有一定的理论启迪和借鉴意义。     

浅析我国"红顶商人"现象

“红顶商人”是市场经济不成熟的产物。“红顶商人”与民争利 ,利用特权敛聚财富 ,不但严重破坏市场经济秩序而且滋生政治腐败。要彻底清除“红顶商人”现象 ,应采取促进民主政治建设、制定“国家公务员法”、规范行业协会行为、增加地方财政收入和加强监督力度等有力措施。     

民主政治与社会和谐

社会和谐问题的关键,是搞好以民主法治为中心的国家治理。中国的制度变迁是经济和社会层面的变迁,是自上而下推动的改革型的变迁,在由权力集中到权力分散的制度转型过程中,稳中求进是中国实现社会和谐的经验总结,制度的设计不宜过于完美。民主政治是社会和谐的前提和归宿,是执政合法性的来源,没有民主政治就没有和谐社会。     

推进党建与业务工作深度融合,引领企业高质量发展

新时期国有企业基层党建工作应以党的十九大精神,尤其是习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想及国企党的建设工作会议精神为指导,加强组织建设,发挥党员先锋模范作用,推进基层党建工作与业务工作深度融合,形成以党建促业务发展的新常态,努力实现以党建引领推动工程项目建设,以高质量党建引领企业高质量发展。     

论村民自治制度的完善与民主政治的发展

村民自治是我国农民的伟大政治创造,它有力地推动了中国基层民主政治发展和民主化进程。从《村民委员会组织法》的实施来看,村民自治制度还存在诸多需要迫切解决的问题。正确处理村党支部和村委会的关系,建立有效完善的冲突解决机制和监督保障机制,消除宗族势力、家族利益对村民自治的负面影响,解决好村民自治与乡镇政权的衔接等问题,将积极促进村民自治制度和民主政治的健康发展。