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This article contends that the content and scope of “second generation” state reforms in Latin America show a high degree of heterogeneity due to the national contexts and the depth of the changes produced by the earlier reforms. The “third generation” reform is rejected as a valid category. There is no clear distinction between premises or values, roles, and instruments of reform. The “first generation” of reforms constituted the easy phase of state transformation. In the second phase, the difficulties are similar to the ones that Latin American countries faced during 70 years of reformist attempts which constituted the prehistory of this process and ended mostly in failure. By means of a critical analysis of the paradigm of the “reinvention of governmentr”, the instrumental challenges implicit in its eventual materialization are reviewed. As an emblematic case, the Argentine experience is used to illustrate the main propositions of this article.

While the steep increases in rates of incarceration seen in the United States in the late twentieth century have begun to level out, one form of incarceration has seen more drastic reductions in rates of use in the 2010s: long-term solitary confinement. Across the United States, prisons that once isolated prisoners for decades at a time stand hauntingly empty. The solitary confinement reform movement provides an important lens for examining what happens when an entrenched punitive practice faces widespread and sustained criticism and reveals the multiple paradigms through which reform operates – through politics, litigation, or charismatic leadership.

This paper examines the transformation of Syrian political economy from 1970 until 2005. I argue that Syria has undergone two important phases of political and economic transformation, from building a centralized state and economy in the early 1970s to embarking on the path of market economy in the early 1990s. With the logic of competitiveness guiding the direction of economic development, the socio-economic changes of the mid-1980s and after have corresponded with an important process of class and state formation. After a brief discussion of the current transition in Syria, the following sections of the paper attempt to provide a critical study of the different strategies for economic development. Section two examines the process of state and economic centralization of the 1970s and 1980s and highlights the contradictions of this period. Section three assesses the impact of economic liberalization through a study of competitiveness in the economic policies of the 1990s and 2000. The final section examines the economic and political impasse that Syria has been faced with. In conclusion, I argue that the current path of market economy as the strategy for capital accumulation has not resolved the socio-economic problems that Syria has faced in the last two decades. This strategy will continue to face contestation by marginalized groups such as factions of the Baath Party, landless peasants, workers and small producers as Syria becomes even more integrated into the regional and global economy.

Who is ultimately responsible for the harms that befall us? Corporations who make dangerous products, or the consumers who use them? The answer to this question has a profound impact on how personal injury lawyers screen products liability cases. In this chapter, I analyze results from an experimental vignette study in which 83 lawyers were asked to evaluate a hypothetical products liability case. Half of the lawyers practice in states considered to be difficult jurisdictions for the practice of personal injury law due to tort reform and conservative political climates (Texas and Colorado), while the other half work in states that have been relatively unaffected by tort reform and are considered to be more “plaintiff friendly” (Pennsylvania and Massachusetts). While lawyers in reform states and non-reform states were equally likely to accept the hypothetical case with which they were presented, they approached the case in different ways, used different theories, and made different arguments in order to justify their acceptance of the case. Lawyers in states with tort reform were most likely to accept the case when they focused on the issue of corporate social responsibility – that is, what the defendant did wrong, how they violated the rules, and how they could have prevented the injury in question. Lawyers in non-reform states, however, were most likely to accept the case when they believed that jurors would feel sorry for the injured child and not find their client at fault for the injury.

Using data obtained from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), we investigate modifications in state tax codes to determine their characteristics, the apparent trends of state tax reform, and whether changes constituted comprehensive reform or mere incremental adjustments to existing tax structures. Based on the data, we find that few states achieved comprehensive tax reform in the 1990s despite the fiscal surplus that provided an environment conducive to widespread change. Moreover, we find that a significant number of changes that were enacted in the 1990s involved increases or decreases in state tax revenue that were ultimately tied to economic cycles. We suggest that adequacy in state tax collections may be the most common tax principle adhered to with regard to changes in tax structure. We also conclude that reform efforts in the 1990s were most successful when approached in an incremental fashion in the absence of a significant precipitating reform driver.

To examine China's reforms and successes could have been replicated to other transition economies.

The applicability of the Chinese process as an alternative for transition economies involves an analysis of the necessary reforms regarding price liberalisation‐stabilisation; privatisation; institutions; monetary policy and the financial system; fiscal policy; international trade and foreign aid and social policy.

The transition process in China has maintained political‐ideological authoritarianism and state control of the whole economy. Therefore, it was not the “special initial conditions” of China that made the model inappropriate but, rather, the switch to a democratic political‐ideological‐economic structure in transition economies.

The paper contributes to the transition literature by demonstrating that the strategy was only rendered workable in China, as the governments of transition economies neither had the mandate nor wanted to reimpose tight state direction of the politics, ideology and economy.

Following China entered the World Trade Organisation in November 2001, attention has been paid worldwide to the current Chinese legal system, political policies, and the development of economic reform. Recent debates on corporate governance in China have become a global topic of interest. The corporate governance reform is now the centre of the enterprise reform. This paper evaluates the development of corporate governance reform in China and identifies its changes in legislation on corporate control. This paper provides evidence to show that China has been making significant progress in the development of corporate governance reform. It concludes that China has established a fundamental legal framework for corporate governance. The changes in regulations on corporate control indicate that the development of a more sophisticated corporate governance system is under way. However, corporate governance reform in China is still at an early stage of development. The existing problems are still significant. Laws and legal institutions have experienced difficulties keeping up with the changes that have been taking place in China. The rights of selecting management of state‐owned enterprise still remain in the hands of the state. The reform of the banking system lags behind the development of the market economy and state‐owned banks are still under government's control. The paper argues that in Chinese context as far as the rights of selecting management remain in state's hand, the independent board of directors will have less power to achieve the goals in corporate control. Thus the agency problems will not be solved, and it is very difficult to excise and protect minority shareholders' interest. In today's Chinese market the corporate governance cannot provide the protection of minority investors' interests. This paper also argues that it is very dangerous for individual investors to invest in the Chinese market and they have to bear higher risks. This paper suggests that increasing the Sophistication of the corporate governance system of both internal and external control is the key for the Chinese market. This is because the Chinese context is very complicated. There are so many regulations and laws applied in business practice. Different companies and enterprises apply different laws. This paper points out when a national corporate governance system is established it should serve the whole economic market. Thus the further reform of state‐owned enterprises and also the banking system should take place so that China can build up a real economic market structure according to international regulations. This paper also suggests that in the long‐term, building up a cultural background for applying corporate governance system is very important in Chinese society. Improving the culture in the social environment could help to improve the corporate governance in business practices.

More than five years have passed since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983 by then‐Secretary of Education Terrance Bell's National Commission on Excellence in Education. Those years have seen the publication of an enormous body of both primary material, composed of research reports, essays, and federal and state reform proposals and reports; and secondary material, composed of summaries and reviews of the original reform reports and reports about effective programs that are based on reform recommendations. This annotated bibliography seeks to identify, briefly describe, and organize in a useful manner those publications dealing with K‐12 education reform and improvement. The overall purposes of this article are to bring organization to that list, and also to trace relationships and influences from the federal initiatives to the states and professional associations, and from there to the school districts and individual schools.

Many transition economies are former socialist planned economies and have undergone market reforms of their financial sector to signal their transition towards democracy. However, governments in these countries have been reluctant to relinquish the pre-existing controls on economy and have adopted nuanced and sophisticated approaches to retain control. In such context, scholars may find it challenging to investigate the role played by the state in the success or failure of attempted market reforms. This work investigates the different forms of state-induced accounting controls that may preserve the status quo within the economy during transition, using Myanmar as an example.

The authors adopted a longitudinal qualitative research method aiming to reveal the very processes and mechanisms used by the banks and their evolution over time. This method is in accordance with the historical institutionalist perspective that they have applied within this research.

The authors found that the Myanmar government embarked on the privatisation of their financial sector from 1990 to 2016 as a major public sector reform initiative. Under the guise of market reforms, it used both state-led and market-led controls to emulate and retain the socialist banking model where banks are used to fund the immediate government's budget deficits. This created a series of intended and unintended consequences, resulting in the ultimate failure of the government's market reforms.

Previously, research on public sector management accounting in emerging economies was not relying consistently on using theory. The relative limited theorisation led to gaps when attempting to understand and explain the opaque forms of state control mechanisms in transition economies. By applying historical institutionalist perspective, and a more theory-driven, reflective approach to the interpretation of the data collected, the authors have provided a deeper insight and understanding on how different forms of state controls can emerge, adapt and persist in transition economies such as Myanmar.

The authors demonstrated that though the state may have implemented market reforms to signal regimes change, this does not necessarily mean that the government has relinquished their control on the economy. The state could take a more sophisticated, covert approach towards state controls leading to both intended and unintended consequences. Thus, even if the state's preferences change, the decisions cannot be easily reversed, as path-dependent state controls may have become pervasive affecting any further institutional and policy developments. Thus, the authors suggest that governments in both transition and developed economies should be cautious when enacting regulations on corporate control.

In this paper, the authors have applied a historical institutional perspective in their analysis instead of the more widely used sociological, institutionalist approach. This allowed authors to harness rich longitudinal data indicating that market reforms and their success or failure should be examined as an ongoing process rather than a completed action. This is especially important in transition economies where the state may be unwilling to renounce the existing controls on the industry and may resort to more opaque forms of state control, eventually obstructing the intended reforms.

This study examines the impact of China’s mixed-ownership reform on the innovation of non-state-owned acquirers, with a particular focus on the impact on firms with high financing constraints, low-quality accounting information or less tangible assets.

We use a proprietary dataset of firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges to investigate the impact of mixed ownership reform on non-state-owned enterprise (non-SOE) innovation. We employ regression analysis to examine the association between mixed ownership reform and firm innovation.

The study finds that non-state-owned firms can improve innovation by acquiring equity in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the reform. Eased financing constraints, lowered financing costs, better access to tax incentives or government subsidies, lowered agency costs, better accounting information quality and more credit loans are underlying the impact. Additionally, cross-ownership connections amongst non-SOE executives and government intervention strengthen the impact, whilst regional marketisation weakens it.

This study adds to the literature on the association between mixed ownership reform and firm innovation by focussing on the conditions under which this impact is stronger. It also sheds light on the policy implications for SOE reforms in emerging economies.