审计监督的政治学思考

审计监督具有鲜明的政治意义,审计监督本身及其所反映出的种种问题的实质就是“围绕公共权力而展开的活动”,应结合政治学来探索审计监督的本质和发展规律,并推进审计工作进一步发展。     

Aggregate Investment in South Africa: A Model with Implications for Political Reform

A small macroeconomic model is used as the basis for estimating the determinants of investment in South Africa within a simultaneous equations framework. Investment is highly sensitive to interest rates, relative prices and political instability. The policy implications of such sensitivity are outlined.     

Performance Implications of Ties to the Government and SOEs: A Political Embeddedness Perspective

In many countries governments not only regulate business activities, but also become involved in the corporate governance of individual firms through ownership and board ties. While existing studies usually focus either on benefits of political connections or on costs of government influence, a political embeddedness perspective helps us consider both advantages and constraints associated with ties to the government. In particular, firms with direct ties to the government will experience significant costs associated with government officials' involvement in the corporate governance process. In contrast, firms with ties to state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) are connected to the government indirectly and thus, while getting access to state‐owned resources, avoid costs associated with the government's interventions. This study compares the performance consequences of board and ownership ties to the government with the consequences of board and ownership ties to SOEs. I find that ties to SOEs are associated with higher profitability, while no significant differences are discovered for firms with direct ties to the government.     

Veblen and the Political Economy of Technocracy: The Herald of Technological Revolution Developed an Ideology of 'Scientific' Collectivism

Abstract . In the early 1900s, engineers the United States began developing their own analysis of the economy. Thorstein Veblen, in The Engineers and the Price System, gave a systematic treatment of that analysis. But Veblen's approach to political economy was broader than that of the engineers. His understanding of social change was based on a two-part research program: First, recognize the institutional elements of social stability; then identify an operative force with technological values that could foster change. When applied to the U.S. of his day, this research program resulted in Veblen's seeing a conflict between pecuniary and industrial values. Veblen believed that the triumph of industrial values was crucial for making society compatible with mass-production technology. These values were held to by both engineers and industrial workers. Veblen's earlier works emphasized workers as being agents for social change; later he shifted his focus to engineers. In both cases he reacted to the social activism of each group.     

The Political Economy of Urban Land Reforms in a Post-Colonial State

This paper investigates the rationale for land law reforms as well as their implications for different societal groups in Cameroon. It is revealed that the rationale — that is, to place as much land as possible in state hands — has remained unchanged since the colonial era. The study further shows that the land law reforms have always been skewed in favour of political and bureaucratic elites, entrepreneurs and the salariat at the expense of women in the informal sector, ethnic minorities and the poor. Thus, a potent consequence of land law reforms in Cameroon is that they have effectively accentuated socio-economic inequities characteristic of the country. To remedy these problems, it is recommended that authorities seek to create some fit between the ‘modern’ land tenure system and the traditions, culture and beliefs of the Cameroonian society. Additionally, it is recommended that serious efforts be made to institute programmes designed to redistribute income and improve the performance of the bureaucratic machinery, particularly the institutional framework for land policy administration. Cet article explore la raison d’être des réformes de la loi agraire ainsi que leurs implications pour différents groupes sociaux au Cameroun. Je révèle que la raison d’être —à savoir, mettre le maximum de terres dans les mains de l’état — n’a pas changé depuis l’époque coloniale. Cete étude montre aussi que les réformes de la loi agraire ont toujours été biaisées en favour des élites politiques et bureaucratiques, des entrepreneurs et des cadres au détriment des femmes du secteur officieux, des minorités ethniques et des pauvres. Une conséquence importante des réformes de la loi agraire au Cameroun est donc que les inégalités socio-économiques caractéristiques du pays ont effectivement été accentuées. Pour résoudre ces problèmes, cet article recommande que les autorités essaient d’ajuster le système ‘moderne’ d’occupation des terres et la culture et croyances traditionnelles de la société camerounaise. De sérieux efforts pour introduire des programmes de redistribution des revenus et pour améliorer la performance de l’appareil bureaucratique, en particulier le modèle institutionnel pour l’administration de la politique agraire, sont aussi recommandés.     

Focus on Economic Sociology A Principal-Agent Analysis of the Family: Implications for the Welfare State

This paper suggests that a principal-agent perspective may be one of several useful ways of analyzing the family. The principal-agent literature has so far ignored an important set of cases where the principal is incapable of defining and defending her own interests, and so is assigned an agent by law or custom. This paper applies principal-agent analysis to one such case, the family, where the child is taken as the principal and the parent is her agent. The principal-agent problem within families creates a prima facie case for certain state interventions to protect the interests of child-principals. The principal-agent perspective on the family sheds new light on two old debates: about provision of state welfare services in cash or in kind, and about user fees for social services.     

Political Profit: Taxing and Spending in the Hierarchical State

A bstract . The actions of government fall into two types: taxes (the taking of property ) and expenditures (the awarding of gifts ). Politicians profit as long as the value of resources raised from taxation exceeds the cost of expenditures. From their point of view, fiscal efficiency consists in maximizing the support obtained by spending and minimizing the opposition generated by taxing. This is accomplished by spending on well-organized groups and taxing the uninformed public. This results in the "iron law of political redistribution" in which income and wealth are transferred from the latter to the former. In a hierarchical State , it is usually profitable for those at the top to centralize control over taxing and spending, if for no other reason than to make it difficult for politicians at lower levels to compete against them. This gives rise to the "law of hierarchical centralization "—in a hierarchical State, power becomes centralized over time. The greater the power of government, the faster this process takes place. In order to avoid this problem, one could design constitutions which are non-hierarchical in nature, in which each unit of government is completely autonomous from the others, as firms are in a free market.     

The Development of Corporate Identity: A Political Perspective

abstract    A corporate identity denotes a set of attributes that senior managers ascribe to their organization. It is therefore an organizational identity articulated by a powerful interest group. It can constitute a claim which serves inter alia to justify the authority vested in top managers and to further their interests. The academic literature on organizational identity, and on corporate identity in particular, pays little attention to these political considerations. It focuses in an apolitical manner on shared meanings when corporate identity works, or on cognitive dissonance when it breaks down. In response to this analytical void, we develop a political analysis of corporate identity and its development, using as illustration a longitudinal study of successive changes in the corporate identity of a Brazilian telecommunications company. This suggests a cyclical model in which corporate identity definition and redefinition involve power relations, resource mobilization and struggles for legitimacy.     

Political Instability and Economic Growth: Implications of Coup Events in Sub-Saharan Africa

The study examines the differential roles of various elite political instability (PI) events—successful coups d'etat, abortive coups, or coup plots—in the growth of Sub-Saharan Africa. It analyzes World Bank economic statistics and data on the incidence of coups d'etat for 31 countries in a cross-country augmented production function framework that incorporates PI events as well as labor and capital as arguments. It finds that abortive coups, rather than successful coups, had the greatest adverse impact on economic growth over the 1960–1986 period. Coup plots were also observed to be growth-inhibiting. This deleterious "direct" effect of PI is observed to be channeled via the deterioration in the marginal productivity of capital, regardless of coup event. While abortive coups negatively influenced economic growth monotonically, however, the impacts of successful coups and coup plots appeared to be non-monotonic: negative generally but positive at very low levels of investment.     

The Cognitive Style Index: A Measure of Intuition-Analysis For Organizational Research

Almost 1000 adults participated in the development of the Cognitive Style Index (CSI), a new measure designed specifically for use with managerial and professional groups. the objectives of the study were, first, to produce a psychome-trically sound instrument suitable for application in large-scale organizational studies, and second, through its development, to confirm empirically the generic intuition-analysis dimension of cognitive style. Findings suggest that each objective was largely fulfilled. At a time when there is a burgeoning interest in intuition as a basis for decision making and problem solving in organizations, the CSI would appear to be a notable addition to the small collection of measures appropriate for survey research.     

The Political Economy of Confucian Harmony: A Xunzian Vision

A global market economy of pure instrumental rationality now poses a growing threat, jeopardizing common citizenship, the capacity for human flourishing, and harmony between humans and nature. Growing skepticism about the sustainability of market capitalism and its moral legitimacy propels us to search for a new economic model in which humans are no longer held hostage to the unbridled pursuit of self‐interest and limitless possession at the expense of the well‐being of others and nature and that attempts to overcome the old conflict between capitalism and socialism. We can call this alternative model “moral economy,” an economic system that reconciles private interests with the public good broadly construed. In this article I reconstruct the Confucian ideal of moral economy by paying close attention to Xunzi's ethical and political thought. Xunzi, one of the key classical Confucians, stipulates the threshold of sufficiency by extending the ruler's care to the most destitute of society as well as giving moral priority to their basic needs without dismissing the foundational importance of individual merit and contribution. Rejecting both pure economic meritocracy and dogmatic egalitarianism, Xunzian Confucianism aims to create a political economy of harmony where various distributive values (need, equality, and merit, among other things) each have their own place.     

The Political Economy of Silvio Gesell: A Century of Activism

Silvio Gesell (1862–1930) pioneered a version of the market economy that was about competitive entrepreneurship but not about capitalism. The financial interests of the hoarders of scarce bank financing and those leveraged with speculative land dealings were to be sacrificed for the greater good of a nation of free and enterprising men and women. Gesell was a radical reformer and quite a famous one, having received more than a respectful mention in John Maynard Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Keynes dubbed Gesell a non-Marxian socialist. Gesell founded the Free Economy school, which is undergoing a renaissance today in Eastern Europe as a possible model for a redesigned transition economy.     

"智慧"城市主义:思想内涵、现实批判及其转型启示

作为关于智慧城市及其发展所构建的新的话语体系,智慧城市主义旨在理解、批判与反思当下智慧城市发展的理念、目标、主体、方法、受众及结果等内容.虽然近十年智慧城市主义的思潮得到西方学术界的广泛关注,但我国城市研究对智慧城市主义的基本内涵、发展特征、发展困境及转型诉求都鲜有探讨.为此,综述介绍西方学界对智慧城市主义的最新研究成果,并发现:1)当前以技术为导向、政府—企业型治理结构主导了智慧城市的发展,且产生了诸如城市治理公司化、技术官僚治理方法、社会控制及对社会民居参与及需求的漠视等问题;2)转型智慧城市强调应该将"城市作为一种社会关系"纳入到智慧城市政策制定和实施过程中,倡导应用导向的智慧城市治理结构,促进智能技术设计、开发、实施与应用的社会构建过程,以及重视场景要素对治理结构、技术功能及解决方案的决定影响.基于此,提出我国未来智慧城市发展的建议.     

The European Learning Community: Towards A Political Economy of Management Learning

Stephen Fox is a Lecturer and Teaching Director in the Department of Management Learning at the University of Lancaster. He is also the Business Administration subject coordinator for the ERASMUS programme described in the article published here. Writing as an ‘insider’, he uses this particular programme to examine critically the prospects for the emergence of ‘European Management’.     

梁小民 思潮涌动的一年

人物素描: 梁小民,1943年出生于山西霍县,1962年考入北京大学经济系.大学毕业前夕,文化大革命爆发,1966年他被分配至东北林区当林业工人,几年之后,进入当地中学作语文老师.