The quality of gender equality: gender quotas and Swedish film governance

Since 2000, the Swedish Film Institute has been tasked with increasing gender equality by distributing commissioner support more equally between women and men. While this has resulted in an increase in the number of women behind the camera, this study shows that the implementation has been hampered due to a representation of gender equality as being in conflict with the core values of the film governance regime. This representation reveals a lingering gender order and opens avenues for stakeholders to consider behaviour that ignores the gender equality goals as legitimate. It is further argued that the design of gender equality measures creates a conflict between the economic conditions of women’s film making and the possibility to tell stories based on gendered experiences.     

Tracing Process to Performance of Collaborative Governance: A Comparative Case Study of Federal Hydropower Licensing

Despite collaborative governance's popularity, whether collaboration improves policy performance remains uncertain. This study assesses the link between collaborative decision making and licensed environmental management protocols in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) process for licensing hydropower facilities in the United States. Using results from a previous study of FERC relicensing (Ulibarri, forthcoming), one high‐, one medium‐, and one low‐collaboration case were selected. Using documents including meeting minutes, public comments, and issued licenses, I assessed collaboration and license outputs, then conducted process tracing to examine whether and how differences in collaboration produced differences in license quality. High collaboration resulted in jointly developed and highly implementable operating regimes designed to improve numerous resources, while low collaboration resulted in operating requirements that ignored environmental concerns raised by stakeholders and lacked implementation provisions. These results support the hypothesis that collaboration can improve environmental outcomes, revealing the pragmatic value of collaboration. [Correction added on 13 January 2015, after first online publication: the occurrences of ‘0’ in the abstract were erroneous and have now been corrected.]     

清末两级地方自治中的官治与自治模式

清末地方自治包括府厅州县和城镇乡地方自治两个层级,并建构了两个层级不同的官治与自治模式,即在城镇乡一级实行"以自治辅助官治",而府厅州县则实行"自治与官治合并"之制度。两种模式都借鉴了日本自治制度,但都有所不同。就清末城镇乡地方自治的运行来看,由于地方自治章程赋予官府监督自治之权,也由于自治团体为谋求地方利益,常常也会与官府对立,所以,官治与自治常常处于矛盾冲突之中。     

Pursuing Moral Governance

A millennium ago in Northern Song (960–1127) China, Emperor Huizong initiated the “Eight Virtues of Conduct” in order to recruit morally upright officials. In place of the candidates’ skills in literary composition and understanding of the Confucian classics, this scheme adopted candidates’ moral virtues as their major criterion of selection. This paper analyzes how this scheme was implemented. It also shows that the rejection of certain genuinely virtuous nominees and the recruitment of some candidates who had exhibited objectionable conduct somehow compromised the emperor’s ideal. This analysis is followed by a discussion of the political and social implications of the scheme. Instead of perceiving this promotion channel as a means for Huizong and Chief Councilor Cai Jing to eliminate dissidents and install ideological conformity, the author argues that the scheme was an initiative of the emperor to counter the chief councilor’s dominance and alleviate factional conflicts. The final section examines the extent to which this scheme facilitated social mobility in the Song dynasty.     

城镇基础设施供给的政治经济学分析及其管治构建

基础设施供给包括规划决策、生产建设、运营管理一系列过程。计划经济时期的基础设施供给程式具有历时分离决策的特点,并且政府包揽了供给的全部过程。由于我国行政管理体制滞后于经济体制改革,致使基础设施供给程式无法适应由于分权化和市场化改革所引起的基础设施供给约束条件与作用机制的变化,导致基础设施供给中暴露出诸多严重问题。论文从政治经济学的角度分析了产生这些问题的机理,并设计了一个可以解释这个机理的政府竞争基础设施供给的结构模型。最后论文勾画了一个由规划决策层管治和建设、运营、管理层管治构成的适应市场经济的基础设施供给管治结构,并就两个层次的八种管治模式进行了分析。     

The Study of Local Public Economies: Multi‐organizational,Multi‐level Institutional Analysis and Development

One important extension of the IAD framework has been to the study of local public economies. These are multi‐organizational, multi‐level arrangements defined as the set of governmental jurisdictions, public and nonprofit agencies, and private firms that interact in various patterns to provide and produce public goods and services within a specific locality or region. Commonly, the localities or regions studied from this perspective have been U.S. metropolitan areas, often defined as a central city and its surrounding or adjoining county. Localities can be delineated, however, on various terms, and in the IAD framework, it is the geo‐physical nature of a locality that, in substantial part, drives the analysis. One of the strengths of the approach is its capacity to explain local variations in public organization as a function of the geo‐physical diversity of localities, while at the same time developing empirical generalizations and normative principles that apply across diverse regions. What, for example, might the organization and governance of a complex metropolitan area have in common with the organization and governance of a complex protected area, such as the greater Yellowstone eco‐region or the Adirondack Park? Construing both sorts of regions as local public economies can enhance our overall understanding of public organization at the same time that it permits a more nuanced understanding of diverse localities. Such work contributes to the ongoing IAD project of “understanding institutional diversity.”     

‘I call the people.’ Church bells in fourteenth-century Catalunya

Bells were an inescapable part of fourteenth-century urban life. They signalled the hours of the day and times for prayers; they warned of tempests and enemy armies; they heralded masses, funerals, and deaths. The pealing of bells brought men, women, and children together, choreographing communal behaviour in time and space. Bells echoed the vox Domini, calling out the deaths of holy men and women, celebrating the working of miracles. The ubiquitous presence of bells reflected the omnipresence of God in the medieval world. Their echoes transformed private moments into collective experiences, elevating the mundane into the miraculous. Scholars have rarely examined the religious aspects of bells, looking instead at their more practical side, especially their utilisation as markers of time and the allegedly concurrent rise of mercantile culture. This article approaches bells from the viewpoints of those men and women who heard them and wanted them rung. Focusing on sources from Christian clerics, we see that medieval men rang the bells with clear, but many possible, purposes in mind. By marking time and prayers, Christian church bells helped to create and facilitate communities within dioceses, spurring and choreographing their actions. During funerals, bells broadcast private moments, giving them communal significance. The transformative, creative function of bells is clearest in their role in miracles. In Manresa, the vision experienced by a few became a community affair when the church bells gathered the people; the bells transformed an ordinary day into one where the people, as a community, received divine favour. Finally, with the deaths of holy persons, the tolling of bells transformed private, even anonymous deaths, into moments of wonder as God’s hand touched the world.The pealing of bells defined Christian communities in the Mediterranean and, at the same time as rulers and elites throughout the region were seeking to control minority groups, those same groups were seeking to exercise control over the sounds within their own communities. Through the pealing of bells, churchmen across Catalunya sought to direct the thoughts and prayers of their listeners. When the Christian clerics of Catalunya rang their churches’ bells, they had specific aims in mind, yet, as the evidence demonstrates, the pealing of the bells never meant just one thing. This article demonstrates that there is much more to understanding medieval bells than knowing ‘for whom the bell tolls’; we have to look at the listeners as much as the ringers in order to understand their cultural significance in medieval Europe. This article is a first step in how such a study could be begun.     

中国旅游类上市公司经营绩效影响因素研究——基于公司治理视角和非均衡面板数据的分析

本文以中国旅游类上市公司为研究样本,利用其2004～2009年的非均衡面板数据建立计量经济学模型,采用混合最小二乘法对影响我国旅游类上市公司经营绩效的关键性公司治理因素进行实证检验。研究表明,旅游类上市公司的公司治理对其经营绩效具有显著影响。股权结构中管理层持股比例、第一大股东持股比例、第一大股东性质和前五位股东持股比例的平方和,以及第一大股东持股比例与第一大股东性质的交互项与公司经营绩效显著正相关,董事会特征中董事会规模与公司绩效显著正相关。     

从灾害治理视角透视政府合法性

灾害中止社会生活的和平进程、瓦解社会秩序的正常运转。政府作为公共权力的执行者,集中一切力量将灾害降低到最低限度,履行＂以人为本＂和＂科学发展＂的战略选择,在维护国家安全、社会秩序、保障个体生命的生存权与发展权的同时,也增强了民族的凝聚力和政府的合法性,充分体现了人本政府的良好形象和我国社会主义制度的优越性。因此,进一步完善灾害预警机制、信息输入和公开机制以及资金管理制度等灾害治理体制,能够进一步推进合法性政府的构建。     

Polycentricity as spatial imaginary: the case of Helsinki City Plan

The paper analyses with a case study the use of a widely applied normative concept of polycentricity as spatial imaginary. The case study of Helsinki City Plan and the conflict over its city-boulevard scheme draws on qualitative content analysis of planning documents and expert interviews. It demonstrates the instrumental role of multiple interpretations of polycentricity in tension-ridden metropolitan and city-regional spatial planning. The conflict reveals how the conceptual ambiguity of polycentricity and the institutional vagueness of city-regional planning have together enabled advancing contradictory political aims under their guise. In conclusion, the paper emphasizes the persuasive performativity and fluidity of polycentricity as a spatial imaginary in multi-scalar planning settings.