协商民主:西方观点与中国语境

协商民主理论的兴起和发展在中西方有其各自特定的社会背景和理论诉求。西方学者对协商民主的阐述极大地推动了民主理论的发展,为改善和提升政治与政策过程的品质提供了新的路径。在中国语境下,协商民主的价值和定位还存在不少争论。但可以肯定,协商民主在中国的发展有其现实的实践需求和理论需要。面对中国政治、经济、社会发展的特定背景,协商民主的发展特别需要开掘其"治理"层面的价值和意义。     

社会主义国家更有可能实现真民主——政治经济学视野中的民主话语建构

"民主"的本意是人民当家作主,因此政治民主与经济平等密不可分。但在资本主义国家,私有制无法解决贫富分化,无法真正实现人民当家作主,只能将政治民主与经济平等相互割裂,对"民主"进行狭义化理解。这种被阉割过的西方民主,看似公平,实则很容易沦为寡头民主。只有在社会主义制度下,只有实行公有制经济,才有可能实现经济平等,进而实现人民当家作主。因此,中国要落实和发展社会主义民主,前提是坚持公有制占主导和共同富裕的发展道路。     

为民主哭泣

西方国家推广民主的热情以及其他国家乐于学习的愿望正在退潮,个中原因显而易见。     

西方国家基金监管体系对我国的启示

本文通过对西方国家基金监管制度的比较，从基金立法、政府监管和行业自律等方面对建立和健全我国的基金监管体系提出了一些建议和构想。     

反思西方式民主:转型国家民主对经济增长的实证分析

文章基于内生经济增长理论,采用实证研究方法验证了28个转型国家民主对于经济增长的影响,发现民主对于转型国家经济增长的影响是负向的,而且统计上并不显著。此外,对于不同地区,民主对经济增长的效应也不同,亚洲转型国家民主对经济增长的负效应最明显。在考虑了诸如政府稳定性、法律和秩序的强度、腐败以及经济自由度等制度变量之后,这一结果仍然试用。     

地方高校西方经济学教学体系创新研究——以齐齐哈尔大学为例

西方经济学是学生分析经济现象和解决经济问题的重要工具。通过深入分析西方经济学教学中存在的问题及原因,以齐齐哈尔大学的经济学教学为例,构建了齐齐哈尔大学的西方经济学教学体系,找出了地方高校西方经济学教学体系的创新思路,以提高西方经济学教学质量。     

西方工业民主和员工参与研究述评

本文认为，从19世纪初期的工团主义和社会劳工运动理论，到马克思主义，再到经济民主思想和现代经济学、管理学的员工参与理论，工业民主理论在不断发展演进。伴随着理论的繁荣，现实中出现了工业民主和员工参与的许多形式，包括工人自治、自治和半自治工作团队、工人代表参与决策、财政参与、集体谈判和共同咨询等。虽然在1980年代后工业民主面临着挑战，但与经济全球化相伴随的劳工运动全球化正在促进工业民主和员工参与。     

参与式民主对中国基层民主建设的启示

参与式民主是20世纪六七十年代在美国等西方国家兴起的一种民主理论范式。参与式民主通过倡导基层民主,主张公众参与,培育公众精神,在沟通、协商、妥协中实现公共利益。通过公众的讨论,倾听他人的观点,完成了民主内涵,这无疑体现了现代社会的公众精神。它的这些精神对当今中国正在构建中国特色社会主义民主政治具有重大实践意义。     

基于当代西方思潮影响下的“免疫范式”体系构建

随着全球化时代的来临,当代西方思潮对我国的影响变得越来越显著,如何建立一套行之有效的综合性防御体系,既能有效吸收当代西方思潮中的积极因素,又能克服当代西方思潮给我国主流意识形态带来的冲击,是摆在我们面前的一项重要工作,通过"免疫范式"预警机制、自稳体系、修复功能和再造性能体系的构建,可以在坚持社会主义核心价值观的同时,有效避免和克服当代西方思潮的不利影响。     

The politics of constitutional amendment in postcommunist Europe

This paper analyzes the causes and consequences of constitutional amendments in Eastern Europe. Its results challenge the conventional wisdom that constitutional change is a consequence of institutions and that major changes will increase executive powers and limit rights. It finds that the political and social context rather than institutions is the main cause of amendments. These amendments moreover tend to reduce the power of executives and strengthen guarantees of human rights. The paper attributes these results to the particular circumstances of the postcommunist transition.

混合宪制与三权分立:现代民主的君主制与贵族制特征

立法、行政与司法三权分立理论目前仍是现代代议制民主的基础。它由孟德斯鸠创立,取代了早先的混合宪制理论。后者可以追溯至柏拉图、亚里士多德和波利比乌斯,其核心主张是,世界上存在三种宪制:君主制、寡头制和民主制,而当来自三种宪制的各种制度混合在一起时,制度之间就会相互作用,影响国家的立法、执法与司法等全部职能。文章认为,今天,孟德斯鸠的三权分立说存在太多例外,已经漏洞百出,成为理解现代民主结构的障碍而非助力。因此,有必要恢复混合宪制,从而纠正西方国家就是纯粹的民主制和民主就是由人民统治这两个流行的观念。     

话语民主理论下可持续发展中的公民参与

可持续发展目标的追求需要公民的集体判断，公民参与作为可持续发展的基本原则之一，有利于实现可持续发展的目标，也是为避免“公地悲剧”尴尬局面的必然选择。从话语民主理论的角度来看，我国可持续发展进程中存在着公民参与可持续发展的不完善性和公民淡漠的问题，以及官僚式的独白现象。因此，要构建公共能量场确保可持续发展政策执行过程公民话语的正当性和合法性，实行一些人的对话参与可持续发展，通过“重复性实践”使可持续发展中的公民参与制度化。     

论县域民主与和谐社会的构建

随着我国社会主义现代化建设的推进，我国迎来了全面建设社会主义新农村，构建和谐社会的新时期。同时，县域经济的大发展为县域社会的和谐建设提供了新契机。因此，发展县域民主，改革传统落后的政治文化体制，成为了构建和谐社会的重要一环。     

Democracy and growth in Africa: Implications of increasing electoral competitiveness

Estimating a 1975–2004 decadal panel data in an augmented production-function framework, the paper finds that indexes of electoral competitiveness exhibit U-shape relationships with GDP growth, implying quite different “intermediate” and “advanced”-level effects of reforms in Africa.     

论经济全球化对世界民主化进程的推动作用

20世纪90年代以来,经济全球化进程不断加快,世界各国各地区之间的经济联系更加密切,世界各国日益强调平等互利原则,相互竞争的同时注重协调与合作,多元化、宽容、妥协与合作,成为各国经济国际化进程中的基本共识。经济全球化发展,还使更多国家选择了市场经济体制。各国市场经济体制的建立与发展,使得推动民主化进程的民主力量不断发展壮大。作为世界民主化进程的基本内容,民主的制度化与权力运作的法制化,相应地也得到各国普遍认同,在实践当中进一步丰富和发展。     

Democracy favors access to credit of firms

Access to credit is one of the main obstacles for the growth of firms. We test the hypothesis that democracy exerts an impact on access to credit. We perform regressions at the firm-level on a large dataset of 46,000 firms in 108 countries. We find evidence of a negative relationship between democracy and credit constraints for firms. We further establish that democracy contributes to reduce borrower discouragement and leads to more bank loan approval decisions. Our key finding is therefore that democracy favors firms' access to credit. Our work contributes to the debate on the impact of democracy on economic development by considering one firm-level channel of transmission.     

The Law of Primogeniture and the Transition from Landed Aristocracy to Industrial Democracy

We study the connection between inheritance systems and the historical evolution of the relationship between a society’s economic structure and its political system, with a focus on Europe from feudal times. The model predicts that, in an early agrarian phase, aristocratic political systems prevail, while democracies tend to emerge with industrialization. At the same time, as indivisible landed estates are replaced by capital as the primary source of wealth, the inheritance system evolves endogenously from primogeniture to partition. The dynamics of output, distribution, class structure and political participation are in turn reinforced by the system of intergenerational wealth transmission, with primogeniture tending to concentration and partition to equalization. “But the law of inheritance was the last step to equality.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835).     

Short Changing the Value of Democracy for Economic Development in Africa

Official donor policy towards Africa seems to be informed by the twin requirements of alleviating poverty on the one hand and ensuring respect for human rights and democratization on the other. In practice, when these interests conflict, as they usually do in Africa, donors tend to choose to continue supporting dictatorships, arguing that economic development will eventually lead to democratization. This paper argues that this faulty reasoning is a product of modernization theory that has had undue influence in western policy circles. Based on a broad survey of the literature, the paper shows that there is no theoretical or empirical basis for the claim that authoritarian regimes would provide better economic performance than democracies in general and particularly in Africa. Furthermore, available evidence suggests that the lack of democratization (defined broadly to include the substance of democracy such as government accountability and basic freedoms in addition to meaningful democratic elections) is a key constraint on economic and social development in Africa. Finally, the paper argues that even when the empirical case to establish a definite causal relationship between democratization and development cannot be ascertained, a very strong case can be made for prioritizing democratization for the long term societal transformation of the continent.     

Democracy, collective action and intra-elite conflict

We analyze a model where there is uncertainty about the future power of two ex-ante symmetric elites to appropriate surplus, and ex-ante surplus sharing agreements are not binding. We show that in an oligarchy, the stronger elite appropriates the entire available surplus, whereas a democracy results in a more balanced surplus allocation between the two elites. In a democracy, the newly enfranchised non-elite organize to act collectively, so that the weaker elite can credibly threaten to form a coalition with the organized non-elite against the stronger elite. Such a threat ensures that the more balanced surplus sharing proposal chosen by majority voting is renegotiation-proof. Therefore, sufficiently risk-averse elites unanimously choose democracy as a form of insurance against future imbalances in relative power. We emphasize that franchise extension to, and low cost of organizing collective political activity for, the non-elite are both necessary features of a democracy. Our formal analysis can account for the stylized facts that emerge from a comparative analysis of Indian and Western European democracies.