The Federal Budget: Policy,Process, and Politics

Fiorina, Morris. Divided Government. New York: Macmillan, 1992. Pp. xi, 138. $13.00 Paperback.

Jacobson, Gary C. The Electoral Origins of Divided Government: Competition' in U.S. House Elections, 1946-1988. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990. Pp. xvi, 152. $15.95.

Mayhew, David R. Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations, 1946-1990. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Pp. viii, 228. $25.00 Hardback.     

Patterns of Change in the Congressional Budget Process, 1865-1974

This paper examines five periods of congressional budget reform, from 1865 to 1974, and asks two sets of related questions: (1) What are the external and internal factors that seem to precipitate reform? and (2) Are there systematic differences in the ways Congress responds to internal and external pressures for change? If so, in the process of formulating successful (i.e. adopted) reforms, how are the responses to external stresses balanced against those designed to deal with internal questions? The research indicates that economic difficulties engendered by war and major changes in presidential-congressional relations with respect to fiscal policymaking are the crucial external variables. Internally, major shifts in the power relations of those involved in congressional spending decisions appear to facilitate budget reform. In responding to external pressures on its budget process, Congress tends to centralize its budget procedures. In response to internal pressures, Congress tends to decentralize those procedures.     

Minor Parties and the Legislative Process in the Australian Senate: A Study of the 1993 Budget

In 1993, minor parties in the Australian Senate played a prominent role in negotiating changes to the ALP government's budget. The term 'obstructionist' was widely applied by the media and the Labor Party in describing these actions, particularly when it came to the Greens' (WA) efforts to change aspects of the budget bills. This article develops a conceptual framework through which the behaviour of the minor parties in the Senate might be viewed. Using the 1993 budget as an example, the article considers the capacity of minor parties to bring about legislative changes, as well as the type and level of resistance they pose to the executive.     

辛亥革命中的满汉冲突与调适

辛亥革命的排满宣传对汉人加入排满革命起到极大的鼓动作用,排满宣传下的满汉关系极为敏感。面对排满宣传及排满行动,部分满洲贵族采取排斥汉族官员及防备新军的做法,这又加剧了满汉矛盾。革命党纠正宣传中的偏颇,调整革命初期的错误做法,但革命进程中旗人受到不同程度的伤害,进而报复汉人,满汉经历了再一次的矛盾激化。以反满为口号的辛亥革命虽然使旗人消除了特权,逐步走上自食其力的道路,但在旗人心中留下的感情伤痛不容忽视。     

Congress,Health Care Reform,and Reconciliation

This article explores the role of reconciliation in the passage of health care reform in the 111th Congress. Although counterintuitive, the analysis suggests that the loss of a filibuster-proof super-majority with the election of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) aided Democrats in clearing the overhaul package by facilitating the use of reconciliation. Reconciliation provided the critical procedural mechanism enabling health care reform to be enacted into law. Despite reconciliation's importance, substantively the reconciliation “fixes” were relatively modest amendments. Moreover, notwithstanding the use of reconciliation, Congress passed the health care legislation with largely conventional means—separate health care reform measures cleared the House and Senate in 2009, in 2010 the House approved the Senate bill, and then both chambers quickly passed the reconciliation addendum. This research draws on discussions I had with over a dozen key actors after health care reform passed.     

Reconciliation and research in Afghanistan: an analytical narrative

This article examines the evolution of western policy towards the idea of pursuing negotiations with the Taliban, or ‘reconciliation’, in Afghanistan and the role that research and expert opinion played in that process. The official western position has evolved iteratively from initial rejection to near complete embrace of exploring the potential for talks. It is widely assumed that the deteriorating security situation was the sole determinant of this major policy reversal, persuading decision‐makers to rethink what had once been deemed unthinkable. Moreover, given the politicized and sensitive nature of the subject, we might expect the potential for outside opinion to influence decision‐makers to be low. Nevertheless, this article demonstrates that it would be a mistake to underestimate the role that research and expert knowledge played—the story is more nuanced and complex. Research coalesced, sometimes prominently, with other key drivers to spur and shape policy change. Importantly, it often took experts to make sense of events on the ground, especially where the failure of the military approach was not recognized, understood or palatable to those in official circles. Research interacted with changing events, policy windows, the emergence of new personalities and the actions of various intermediaries to shape emerging positions. More broadly, the case of reconciliation in Afghanistan reveals the difficulties and challenges, but also the variety of opportunities and techniques, for achieving research influence in conflict‐affected environments.     

Forest Service Budget Requests and Appropriations

In spite of recent arguments that significant changes are occurring in the United States Department of Agriculture's Forest Service, to date little empirical evidence exists demonstrating that this is indeed the case and whether these presumed changes are impacting upon substantive policy outcomes. Most of the current evidence available is from studies that have inferred change by measuring attitudinal change in Forest Service employees. None to date has examined changes in quantitative indicators of agency policy efforts or outcomes. In this article, we analyze trends in the budget requests of the Forest Service, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and appropriations made by Congress, to ascertain whether priorities of these actors concerning the commodity and non-commodity programs of the National Forests have changed since the passage of the National Forest Management Act. The data reveal shifting priorities for the Forest Service, USDA, and OMB. However, although the shifts have been greater for the Forest Service than for the other two agencies, they have been significantly less than the shifts in congressional appropriations. This fact suggests that Congress is changing its view of how the Forest Service should manage its lands more quickly than the Forest Service is changing itself, and that, as some have argued, Congress has been an important external agent of change concerning the agency and its policies.     

Synopsis of the D- and E-regions during the Energy Budget Campaign

Electron density profiles derived from rocket-borne measurements are presented. These data were obtained at two different sites in northern Scandinavia under various degrees of geophysical disturbance. The observed electron density profiles are related to ionospheric absorption as observed with the dense riometer network in that area.     

The Proto-politics of Reconciliation: Lefort and the Aporia of Forgiveness in Arendt and Derrida

Reconciliation is often suspected of being an inherently ideological concept in the sense that it fosters acquiescence to a social order that is neither necessary nor desirable. In particular, it is sometimes argued that this is because reconciliation is a religious concept that has been transposed into political discourse. This transposition is seen to be inappropriate because reconciliation presupposes a prior social unity that needs to be restored when, in fact, no such unity has ever existed between historical antagonists. In this article, I argue that the presupposition of a social unity is, indeed, always in danger of becoming ideological to the extent that this unity is conflated with the nation. However, the invocation of a counterfactual social unity or ‘polity’ also potentially enables the staging of a reconciliatory politics in a way that politicises the terms of association between former antagonists.     

阮元调和汉宋学思想析论

阮元生当乾嘉汉学风靡之时 ,深受汉学皖派由训诂以明义理之学风的影响 ,为学扬汉抑宋 ,主张“实事求是” ,学以致用。然而作为当时学术界“山斗” ,以科举正途入仕的阮元又不满于汉学家的门户之见 ,主张调和汉宋之争。这是因为 ,一方面 ,清廷奉程朱理学为官方正统哲学 ;另一方面 ,汉学末流日益脱离现实而不能解决任何实际问题。他主张兼采汉宋学的思想 ,对晚清学术界特别是以林伯桐、陈澧等为代表的岭南学术产生了深远的影响。     

时间预算与狩猎采集技术

在史前研究中,我们会发现不同地区的技术会有明显差异。比如在整个更新世,华北地区的旧石器显示不断精致化的趋势,在旧石器时代晚期出现了细石器,并扩散到青藏高原以及整个东北亚和西北美。而华南地区的旧石器技术和类型一直很少变化,以粗大的砾石工业为主。对于这种现象,我们常常从文化传统角度来解释,认为是不同的人群和技术传统造成了这种差异。还有,随着全新世初定居和农耕经济的开始,全球范围内的史前石器技术显示出一种普遍衰退的迹象,比较精致的打制技术被砸击技术所取代。托伦斯这篇文章从时间预算的角度为石器技术差异和变化的解释提供了一个崭新的视角,认为精致技术的发展是在时间压力之下,狩猎采集者为了减少觅食失败而加大技术投入的结果。这种具有时间压力的生存方式一般以狩猎为特点,因为猎物迁徙季节性强或转瞬即逝,所以必须加大技术投入确保狩猎成功,以免空手而归所造成的灾难性后果。这种技术精致的现象往往随纬度升高而越发明显,这是因为随着纬度的升高,猎物资源越趋单一,于是生存的希望完全仰仗技术工具的有效性,所以必须加大技术投入以提高工具的功效。而在南方,食物种类多,互补性强,而且大部分食物为植物,在采集利用上没有时间压力,所以缺乏改善技术和工具的动力。同样,随着人类的定居和流动性减少,生存方式和食物资源发生变化,以前那种要求精致技术的时间压力也随之消失,人们自然也就转向权宜性的石器技术。从这篇文章我们可以体会到人类学理论在考古材料解释上的价值,从生态适应来研究史前技术的差异和变迁,能够使我们从类型学的分析转向对人类行为的深入了解,从而能更好地进行历史的重建。     

Complexity,Capacity, and Budget Punctuations

The budgeting literature has long focused on “institutional friction” as a cause of ubiquitous punctuated equilibrium (PE) findings. A recent wave of scholarship looks to identify specific institutional mechanisms that affect the number of punctuations in policy outputs. We contribute to this growing body of research by focusing on the complexity of the institutional environment surrounding a policy area as well as that of the government as a whole. These factors have opposite effects: the more complex a policy area, the greater the likelihood of extreme spending changes. But, higher institutional capacity in general leads to greater stability. To test these ideas, we develop a novel index of budgetary change that balances the conceptual importance of extreme changes while analyzing the entire distribution of budget changes, not only the tails. In addition, we also demonstrate that findings are robust to a number of important distinctions, such as between series associated with slowly moving demographic trends or quickly moving stochastic events. We, therefore, demonstrate the robustness of important findings from the established literature, add a new measure of the dependent variable, and push the literature forward with a new focus on issue complexity and institutional capacity.     

葡萄牙与《中葡和好贸易条约》的签订

《中葡和好贸易条约》是近代以来中葡两国草签的一个重要条约,葡萄牙政府在谈判过程中曾采用各种手段,以期从法律上确认对澳门的占领,清朝谈判官员的昏聩,使葡萄牙人几乎实现了他们在几个世纪里梦寐以求的目的。只是清政府在换约前提出修改条约的主张,才使其努力功亏一篑。本文依据中葡双方的档案史料,对葡萄牙殖民主义者在这次修约交涉中企图侵占澳门的险恶用心和卑劣手法做一概括说明。     

Atmospheric dynamics observed during the Energy Budget Campaign

Using data of several meteor radar experiments during the Energy Budget Campaign, a synthesis of the main components of the upper mesospheric wind field is presented. Tides, long period waves and prevailing wind, as well as small scale fluctuations, are studied. The prominent feature of this comparison relates to the semidiurnal tide variability.