POLICY INNOVATION AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAGMENTATION*

This article argues that fragmented and decentralized policy making structures can generate major Policy innovation as well as can centralized structures. The fragmented committee structure of Congress is shown to facilitate innovation in the example of federal water pollution control legislation. Thorough consideration of four dimensions of costs and benefits strengthens the case for disjointed Innovation since it “promotes entrepreneurship, encourages competition, minimizes the costs of change, and promotes legitimacy….”     

空间不匹配带来城市收缩的三重逻辑——制度空间位移、政策空间悖论与行为空间失衡

自改革开放以来，持续了近40年的飞速发展和规模扩张，我国的城市发展步入了“后城市化”时代。“快速扩张下”的城市收缩现象越来越引起理论和实务层面的关注，其中空间层面的资源不匹配和不协调是带来城市收缩的重要原因。基于“空间—行为”互动理论，尝试从“制度—政策—行为”层面的空间不匹配，解释城市收缩的逻辑归因。其中，制度空间通过“经济体制转型”和“社会结构变迁”，带来收缩城市在空间和社会上的两极分化；政策空间基于政治体制、社会政策带来城市发展的不平衡；行为空间嵌入个体、群体、家庭行为中，通过职住分离、就业环境等带来个体“空间—行为”的不匹配。最后，提出深化经济制度改革，促进收缩型城市再“更新”、关照区域政策平衡，扩大收缩型城市的公共服务供给、坚持“以人为本”，让城市成为“人”的“家”等治理导向与政策尝试。     

制度厚实、制度空间与区域发展

1990年代以来,经济地理学愈来愈多地开始倾向于用制度和社会文化因素来解释区域经济发展。本文回顾了西方制度取向经济地理学的理论背景及其主要研究内容,并在探讨制度厚实和制度空间的理念及其与区域发展关系的基础上,探讨了西方制度经济地理学的研究发现及其不足。本文认为,对于制度转型时期的大国-中国而言,倘能将包涵尺度特征与制度套叠变化的制度空间理念纳入到大规模制度变迁与中国区域经济发展的理论框架中,将有助于深化对中国区域空间差异的解释能力。     

THE ASSUMPTIONS OF POLICY ANALYSIS

The preconditions of policy making are a concern in a human mind about some situation, actual or hypothetical, which is perceived as important and the conceived possibility that human action could make it better. Perceptions of the situation and of its origins and of the scope if any for acting on it and the actions conceived as available vary immensely with the culture of the society involved; and they change with time. This theme is illustrated by a brief summary of British political and cultural responses to poverty and to unemployment in the last hundred years.     

POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURE

This paper suggests that there has been a small shift in American agricultural practices, and more importantly in policy making in this area, toward what can be called organic or alternative agriculture. These policy changes are partially due to triggering devices, exogenous forces that have led to changes in the policy agenda. Two major exogenous factors are reviewed–the energy “crisis” and environmental factors. Both sets of forces have resulted in farmers beginning to turn to alternative agricultural techniques, in government officials changing their attitudes about alternative agriculture, and new research activities in this direction being undertaken by various government bodies.     

THE SOURCES OF PUBLIC POLICY: WELFARE POLICY IN THE AMERICAN STATES

The conceptualization of political and economic determinants of public policy as interactive rather than sufficient causes is subjected here to a comparative state analysis. An examination of interactive effects of culture, wealth, and gubernatorial power on AFDC grants and Medicaid benefits offers empirical illustration of Stonecash's reconceptualization of the classic politics-process-policy model. The results indicate that political dispositions become more potent in combination with increasing concentrations of wealth and executive power.     

THE POLICY LEGACY OF RONALD REAGAN

Charles O. Jones, ed. 1988. The Reagan Legacy: Promise and Performance B.B. Kymlicka and Jean V. Matthews, eds. 1988. The Reagan Revolution? J.D. Lees and Michael Turner, eds. 1988. Reagan's First Four Years: A New Beginning?