Bending the bars of the iron cage: Bureaucratization and informalization in capitalism and socialism

Despite some important similarities, capitalism's informal economy and socialism's second economy are not functional equivalents or structural counterparts. An informal economy is the product of efforts to circumvent accountability to the explicit rationalizations of regulatory bureaucratization. It operates according to principles disparate from those of the rules of internal labor markets but congruent with the market principles that coordinate the formal economy. In the centrally planned economies of state socialism where informalization responds to the contradictions of redistributive bureaucratization, the embryonic market relations of the second economy are incongruent with the bureaucratic principles that coordinate the formal economy, and in fact, stimulate the institutionalization of transactive market relations and the expansion of property rights inside the socialist enterprise. As a sphere of activity relatively autonomous from the state, the second economy is a source of fundamental change remaking the economic institutions of socialism.     

中国未来行政发展模式的选择一新公共管理还是现代官僚制

作为对传统行政特别是现代官僚制的批判,新公共管理已成为西方国家行政发展的主要模式。新公共管理的产生有其特殊原因,虽然我国可以吸取和借鉴其成功经验,但由于中西方在诸多方面存在着巨大差异与差距,决定了我们只能立足现实,以继续完善现代官僚制为首要任务,探索适合我国未来行政发展的新模式。     

Record keeping practices: Consequences of accounting demands in a public clinic

This observational study explores the tensions and negative consequences of record construction for patients and front-line staff in a public clinic providing services to poor women and children. For emphasis, it is possible to say that the routine of the clinic is record driven, not service driven. More is accomplished in clinic work than producing records; patients certainly do receive needed health care. However, tight regulations filtered through heavy paperwork requirements stifle the effective delivery of comprehensive, flexible services especially needed by disadvantaged families. Clinic staff may be motivated to attend to individual patient concerns, but accounting demands generally circumscribe their work and create barriers for patients. The record has a life of its own as a socially constructed artifact in the process of caregiving in bureaucratic settings, where actual services often respond not to the client, but to the countable, accountable mandates of management.     

Performance Management,Caseloads and the Frontline Provision of Social Services

Caseloads and performance management are important working conditions of workers delivering public social services in street‐level organizations. The literature on these working conditions argues that high caseloads and performance management have considerable consequences for workers' performance in terms of the quality of services they provide and the results they realize. This article empirically investigates and compares these consequences, drawing on the results of a quantitative study of frontline workers in 14 local welfare agencies in the Netherlands. These workers are responsible for the delivery of welfare‐to‐work policies to social assistance recipients. The findings show that high caseloads do, indeed, have a detrimental effect on workers' performance, whereas the impact of performance management is more modest, though confirming some of the findings reported in other studies on performance management. The results also show that by focusing service provision on a proportion of their caseload, workers are able to reduce the negative impact of high caseloads somewhat. Overall, the article finds that the negative impact of high caseloads is more pervasive than that of performance management. The article concludes that the recent focus in the literature on performance management and its consequences for public services should not turn scholars' attention away from the ‘traditional’ public administration problem of high caseload sizes.     

Making welfare conditional: A street-level perspective

This article looks at how welfare conditionality is delivered at the street level. It argues that the street-level delivery of welfare conditionality is structured by policies, the governance context in which workers deliver welfare conditionality, the organization in which they work, and the occupation they are part of. Characteristics of these contexts present street-level workers with a variety of signals and incentives that direct their decision making. The article elaborates on this proposition on the basis of a review of academic studies analysing the street-level delivery of various aspects of welfare conditionality: the use of sanctions, service personalization, and the treatment of vulnerable clients. The review shows that context characteristics together have a significant impact on the street-level transformation of welfare conditionality policies into practices. Street-level decision making concerning the use of sanctions is far more complex than can be captured by a perspective on street-level workers as merely policy implementers. Sanctioning practices are sometimes harsher, sometimes more lenient than policies lead us to expect. The “soft” side of welfare conditionality—represented by service personalization—is often under pressure at the street level, potentially strengthening welfare conditionality's tough side. This affects vulnerable jobseekers most: Street-level studies show that the balance between disciplining and enabling aspects of welfare-to-work is most at risk for more vulnerable groups. The article concludes that the contextual pressures street-level workers have to deal with in their daily work hardly reflect the “delicate equilibrium” that they need to deliver welfare conditionality in a professional, responsive, and responsible way.     

西方官僚制批判之反思

20世纪80年代以来,官僚制在西方遭到了前所未有的批判,包括官僚制低效论、缺陷论、过时论、威胁论和渗透论。但是这些批判都没能从根本上对理性官僚制形成具有说服力的替代性超越。梳理归纳这些批判并加以反思,将有利于重新审视官僚制,明确批判方向。     

关于专家咨询制度的思考

随着社会问题的复杂化,决策也变的复杂化。一项决策不仅事关某一领域,而且可能对几个领域都产生影响,这样就使决策的科学化变得尤为重要。为使决策科学化、民主化,最大化地保障人民的利益,我国建立了专家咨询制度。本文追溯了专家咨询制度的理论渊源,并提出了该制度中专家的局限性,最后对该制度的未来发展作了展望。     

汉代司空职官考论

汉代司空职官的种类繁多,大致有三公官司空、非三公官的朝官司空、王国官制中的司空和地方官制中的司空四大类。虽然两汉大司空与御史大夫屡次相互易名,其属官大致相同,但仍有单独考察的价值所在。三公的职权十分广泛,文献与实物所见大致有20多种。汉代司空职官的禄秩从号称秩万石到160石,上下差别很大。     

政府回应:实践阙如与实质性演进

当前政府回应存在“形式官僚制过足”与“实质官僚制不足”两方面致命的缺陷,而这单靠政府自身是无法彻底得到改变的。因而应增加民众的刚性制约因素,赋予民众对决策实质的影响力,实现从“为民决策”到“互动决策”的转变,使政府回应由单向性向互动性转变。     

土地革命时期中央革命根据地的廉政建设

中央革命根据地建立后，高度集中的政治体制、官僚政治的余毒、制度不健全等因素致使腐败滋生。苏维埃政府采取了统一财政制度、加大监督机制、健全民主制度等一系列廉政建设措施，有效地消除了干部队伍中存在的某些腐败现象，巩固了苏维埃政权，并且为我党的廉政建设积累了宝贵的经验。