非政府组织——公民政治参与的“领导者”

非政府组织（Non—Government Organizations,缩写为NGO）,出现于50年代,兴起于70年代,在过去20年有了飞跃性的发展。如今非政府组织已经渗透到社会生活的方方面面,并且发挥着越来越大的作用。随着世界民主化浪潮波及全球,公民的政治参与成为当代政治生活的重要内容。但是由于种种原因,中国公民的政治参与无论是广度,还是深度都是比较低的,谁能“领导”公民参与政治,非政府组织无疑是最好的领导者!     

Descentralization and Citizens Participation

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Welfare State and Welfare Society

This paper updates and extends my earlier work on how the middle class fares throughout the world based on the microdata sets that comprise the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). Wave #6 LIS data, recently released and centered around 2004, provides an opportunity to assess what has happened to the size of the middle class around the world in the early 2000s. In contrast to the 1980s and 1990s, there was no noticeable decline in the middle class during the early 2000s. The paper provides further evidence that the size of the middle class in each nation depends mainly on government tax and spending policies. In particular, it shows the key role played by family allowances and paid family leave in supporting a national middle class.     

Strategic Political Participation and Redistribution

The purpose of this paper is to study formation of support and opposition to redistribution. We analyze a society with two groups of citizens and a government. The government distributes income from one group to the other in response to political pressure. The interaction between the groups is modeled as a two-stage game. In stage 1, the groups decide if they want to be politically active. In stage 2, the active group or groups seek influence on the direction and size of the transfer. We demonstrate that supporters of redistribution are always politically active but that opposition is often absent. Moreover, when opposition is absent there is a strong tendency for underdissipation of the transfer, while political competition typically leads to overdissipation.     

EU Enlargement and the Future of the Welfare State

The eastern enlargement of the EU resembles German unification in its momentousness. Whereas the latter led to a 26% increase in the population of the Federal Republic, the former will increase the population of the EU by 28% if all ten entry aspirants are accepted. A special problem will be posed by migration. Given the existing wage differences between eastern and western European countries, a massive westward migration can be expected after enlargement. A temporary east–to–west migration until the eastern countries create an efficient capital stock makes economic sense if this is driven by wage differences and meets with a flexible labour market. Migration does not make economic sense, however, if, and to the extent that, it is induced by the current social assistance systems. Moreover, welfare–motivated migration would create competition among western European states to frighten off potential migrants, and this would lead to an erosion of the traditional social welfare state. If the EU plan incorporated limitation on the free movement of labour, beneficial migration would also cease. A better solution would be to limit access to the western social systems, at least for a transitional period, in order to filter out migration induced by differing social standards. An EU–wide application of the home–country principle in the granting of social benefits would achieve this goal.     

International Integration, Risk and the Welfare State

How does international integration affect the welfare state? Does it call for a leaner or an expanded welfare state? International integration may affect the distortions caused by welfare state activities but also the risks motivating social insurance mechanisms. This paper addresses these potentially counteracting effects in a fully specified intertemporal two–country stochastic endowment model, focusing on the implications when product market integration reduces trade frictions across national product markets. It is shown that lower trade frictions may increase the marginal costs of public funds, which gives an argument for reducing (steady–state) public consumption. However, tighter integration of product markets unambiguously leads to more variability in private consumption, and this gives a case for expanding the social insurance provided via state–contingent public sector activities (automatic stabilizers). JEL classification: E30; F10; H11     

International Factor Mobility, Government Size and Welfare

An examination of the available data reveals that the size of government varies considerably across time and countries. By making use of a simple general equilibrium model, this paper demonstrates that size of government is affected by the availability of capital and labour within an economy. Specifically, this paper utilises a model of a closed economy that produces one-private and one-public good. Both goods are produced by means of capital and labour. Production functions are subject to constant returns to scale and perfect competition prevails in all markets. The elasticity of substitution between the public and the private good is greater than unity and there is no international factor mobility in the initial equilibrium. The size of government is measured by total spending on the public good as a proportion of the total expenditure on the private and public goods. It is shown that capital (labour) inflow can decrease (increase) the size of government. Capital inflow increases welfare if the private good is relatively capital intensive whereas labour inflow increases welfare if the public good is relatively capital intensive.     

从布莱尔政府的福利改革看福利国家的转型

布莱尔政府福利改革的主要目的在于调整国家在社会福利中的角色和减轻政府的财政负担,这次改革涉及到劳动就业、养老保险、医疗保健等各个方面.布莱尔政府的福利改革是对福利国家弊端的一种应对措施,反映了由福利国家向社会投资型国家转型的这一当代潮流.     

论中国国家福利的重构

社会权利是公民权利的一部分,社会政策对保持一个和谐的社会起决定的作用。在福利国家发展进程中,社会政策对于自由放任资本主义导致的两极分化起了缓和社会矛盾、保障社会安全的根本性作用。中国应该根据经济和社会发展的现状和国际社会的经验,调整社会政策,推进国家福利的重构,这是消除市场经济体制下出现的社会发展不和谐因素,促进社会和谐的治本之策。     

日本地域福利的现状及其走向——以东京都调布市“生活支援照看网络”为例

日本社会福利的制度化框架自1940-1950年代确立以来,其社会福利服务理念不断成熟、规范,特别是随着1970年代地域福利的推进,建设福利社区的计划也在逐步实现.本文拟通过东京都调布市生活支援照看网络这一案例的研究来分析日本地域福利的现状,并透过地域中具有连带关系的福利共同体的视角来分析日本地域福利的发展趋势,以期对我国的社会福利事业发展有所启示.     

略论新中国公民政治参与的发展与变迁

公民政治参与是当代世界各国政治民主化进程的一个重要标尺。新中国成立60年来,伴随着社会主义经济的改革与发展,我国公民政治参与也经历了曲折的三个阶段。特别是改革开放以来,公民政治参与的主体、领域、意识、手段都发生了变化,从这些表面变化中可以透视其内在的嬗变：从革命型、动员型、激情化向建设型、自主型、理性化转变。未来中国,公民政治参与还将不断完善。     

Reassessing the Social Foundations of Welfare (State) Regimes

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was formed in 1964 to ‘create a forum in which the more prosperous member countries [of the United Nations] would come under pressure to agree to measures benefiting the less-developed countries’. More specifically, its formation was ‘a deliberate effort to use international bureaucracy and conference diplomacy to alter current norms affecting trade and development’. UNCTAD's founding reflected the growth in membership of the United Nations of newly independent states. A large number of the e´lites of these new entities keenly felt the iniquity of the world order which had ushered in their formal statehood. UNCTAD and the later call for a ‘New International Economic Order’ (NIEO) therefore were rejoinders to problems encountered by developing countries as a result of the creation and operation of the Bretton Woods system.