国家治理体系的制度弹性研究

在利用市场自身调整和依靠国家全面干预之间,寻找促进社会发展的中间路线的国家治理,日益成为时髦的词汇和政治活动。国家治理体系的制度弹性体现为,治理体系能包容日益多元的政治行为主体和公共的善,并在保持自身的开放性和适度刚性的基础上,根据权益诉求和政治生态的变化来进行动态的制度调整,以实现整个体系的适应性和稳定性。国家治理体系的制度弹性主要体现在这几个方面：治理主体的多元性、公共善的包容性、治理体系的改良柔性以及弹性制度具有刚性原则。具有制度弹性的国家治理体系打破了传统统治体系的排斥性和刚性,降低了社会运行和转型中的革命风险。     

安仁县农村基层民主建设调查与思考

基层民主是社会主义民主制度的基础部分。安仁县农村基层民主建设虽有较大发展,但诸多因素的制约,仍不可避免地存在一些问题。本文采取调查研究、对比分析等方法,阐述了基层民主在社会主义民主政治中的地位和作用,探讨了安仁县基层民主建设的现状和存在的问题,并对加强安仁县农村基层民主建设提出了一些思考和建议。     

Union democracy and the labor-management reporting and disclosure act: An alternative reform proposal

The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959 gives union members certain democratic rights, including a decision-making role in various matters affecting their organizations’ finances. The informed exercise of these rights requires access to meaningful financial data, and the LMRDA mandates disclosure of such information. Recently, the Department of Labor has revised disclosure requirements in order to promote these union democracy objectives. This article provides an analytical framework for examining the adequacy of existing and future disclosure requirements. The analysis reveals weaknesses in the disclosure formats, and proposes a set of alternative reforms. In addition, the article attempts to facilitate the financial analysis of unions by applying standard accounting measures to a selected set of unions’ finances. In so doing, it shows the potential utility of suggested reforms.     

The determinants of international migration: Unbundling the role of economic,political and social institutions

International migrants may relocate because of economic, political and social factors in their origin or destination countries. Using global bilateral migration flows from 103 countries over the period 1990–2000, we explore whether emigrants self-select based on economic, political and social institutions. Our study adds social dimension as a potential determinant of migration and separates the pull and push effects of political, economic and social institutions. Our results indicate that economic, political and social institutions are significant pull factors of migration; economic freedom has the most substantial pull effect followed by the political institutions; social institutions have the weakest pull effect on migration. Moreover, economic and social institutions are significant push factors of migration, while political institutions do not show any push effect. Furthermore, educated migrants are more sensitive to the destination economic, political and social institutions than less-educated migrants, and less-educated migrants are more sensitive to the social institutions at the origin.     

The impact of civil war on foreign direct investment flows to developing countries

We investigate the impact of civil war on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to developing countries. We employ a new data-set that disaggregates FDI inflows to primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Second, we control for a richer set of economic and institutional variables that could determine FDI inflows including population, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the degree of trade openness, exchange rate variability, inflation, the governance structure of the host country using International Country Risk Guide data and its regime type using the POLITY autocracy–democracy data. We also address the reverse causality between FDI and conflict and the potential endogeneity of explanatory variables by employing dynamic system generalised method of moments (GMM) techniques in estimation. Our results indicate that primary sector FDI flows to developing countries are not significantly affected by civil war, whereas secondary and tertiary sectors FDI are more sensitive to such outbreak, potentially leading to reversals of existing FDI. Among institutional variables, government stability and control of corruption are more significant compared to regime type, law and order, and bureaucratic quality.     

Authority and Democracy in Corporate Governance?

Although McMahon offers a potentially valuable extension of Joseph Raz's conceptualization of authority by distinguishing three different kinds of authority, this paper argues, first, that his account of the conditions and considerations that would justify managerial authority is problematic because it relies on a conception of reasons for action that excludes precisely the kind of rationality that plays an important role in the␣explanation and justification of authority in economic␣organization. This paper explains, second, why McMahon's thesis of the justificatory similarity of authority in governments and nongovernmental organizations can also be seen to hold for corporate governance of publicly owned firms more specifically. Finally, this paper raises some critical objections against McMahon's presumption of democratic governance in governments and NGO's alike. The thrust of these objections is that democratic corporate governance does not make sense in the publicly owned firms because: (1) it will not produce results that are fair or welfare maximizing, and (2) it will undermine the legitimacy of managerial authority in such firms. J. (Hans) van Oosterhout holds an M.A. in political science from Leiden University and a PhD in organization theory from RSM Erasmus University, where he is currently an associate professor. His research involves the positive and normative theory of organizations and institutions, with a current emphasis on corporate governance and comparative economic and political organization. Earlier publications have appeared in: Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Business Ethics and Futures.     

Evaluating Strategies for Negotiating Workers’ Rights in Transnational Corporations: The Effects of Codes of Conduct and Global Agreements on Workplace Democracy

Following the offshoring of production to developing countries by transnational corporations (TNCs), unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have criticised working conditions at TNCs’ offshore factories. This has led to the emergence of two different approaches to operationalising TNC responsibilities for workers’ rights in developing countries: codes of conduct and global agreements. Despite the importance of this development, few studies have systematically compared the effects of these two different ways of dealing with workers’ rights. This article addresses this gap by analysing how codes of conduct and global agreements both independently and interactively affect workers’ rights. We do this based on a qualitative study of the Sri Lankan operations of a Swedish TNC in Sri?Lanka, and on interviews with union and NGO representatives actively involved in codes of conduct and global agreements. Our results indicate that global agreements independently address all the aspects included in codes of conduct, while also addressing additional, more process-oriented aspects of workers’ rights. Hence, on their own, global agreements seem to comprise the superior approach to promoting workers’ rights. Furthermore, our results indicate that promoting codes of conduct has negative interactive effects on global agreements. Based on these results, we argue that the current focus on codes of conduct is counterproductive for the promotion of workers’ rights.     

我国收入差距调控的效果与机制的制度分析

我国收入差距调控出现了再分配失灵。再分配失灵是指政府用于收入差距方面的公共支出的覆盖率、结构及受益面现状与预期目标的差距。公共支出的利益归宿在我国不同群体中存在较大的差距。我国的再分配失灵与我国公共支出的决定机制有关。在我国,再分配给谁及如何再分配一般是由行政权力决定的。而我国行政权力受到的制约比较少,这就使再分配规则的确定、再分配方式的选择容易受到利益集团的影响。库兹涅茨到u型假说的成立既取决于工业化、城市化、要素市场的完善及产业结构的调整等,也取决于民主化及法治化进程中再分配机制的完善。克服再分配失灵的根本举措是建立一种有利于全社会尤其是低收入群体受益的再分配机制。这种再分配机制的建立需要与我国转变政府职能,强化公共财政及建立社会主义民主政治相关联。     

Informed Consent Out of Context

Several attempts have been made to transfer the concept of informed consent from medical and research ethics to dealing with affected groups in other areas such as engineering, land use planning, and business management. It is argued that these attempts are unsuccessful since the concept of informed consent is inadequate for situations in which groups of affected persons are dealt with collectively (rather than individually, as in clinical medicine). There are several reasons for this. The affected groups from which informed consent is sought cannot be identified with sufficient precision. Informed consent is associated with individual veto power, but it does not appear realistic to give veto power to all individuals who are affected for instance by an engineering project. Most importantly, the concept of informed consent puts focus on the public’s acceptance of ready-made proposals rather than on its participation in the decision-making process as a whole, which includes the development of alternatives for the decision. Therefore, the concept of informed consent is not applicable to a company’s relations with groups and collectives. It may, however, be applicable to a company’s relations with individual persons such as customers and employees.     

中国土地权利立法论纲

土地权利立法是中国物权立法的重要内容,物权法对其如何规定则涉及中国社会的生存和发展。土地权利立法必须以物权立法的价值为指导,以平等独立的现代物权理论为支撑,以公私法相互交融为方法。在具体制度构建上,应以生存利益高于一切来决定土地利用权利制度的取舍,以现代民主的要求来构建土地所有权的运行机制。据此,独具中国特色的土地权利制度就能够形成。