回流精英掌控乡村权力的若干思考

回流精英作为乡村中少数的优秀人物,在智力、能力、财产等方面超过大多数,在乡村民主政治发展中扮演着重要的角色。以一个村落的发展进程为线索,阐述了回流精英掌权后对乡村经济政治发展产生的积极影响,但是应警惕长期当政的回流精英易形成权势集团阻碍乡村的民主政治发展。如何引导回流精英在乡村中充分发挥正能量,促进乡村民主政治的有序运行具有重要意义。     

The Rise and Fall of Power Line EMFs: The Anatomy of a Magnetic Controversy

The suggestion that power line electromagnetic fields (EMFs) cause diseases like cancer has generated dozens of popular articles and television news segments, hundreds of scientific studies, and numerous consensus reports; it has attracted the attention of epidemiologists, biologists, physicists, policymakers and lawyers. This article will examine the evolution of this controversy through a detailed analysis of the arguments that have been used for and against the hypothesis that power line EMFs have adverse health effects. This article argues that the power line EMF issue provides a classic case study for exploring the challenges citizens, scientists, and policymakers face in sorting out a complex science‐based controversy. This story not only brings together many different perspectives and—from popular notions of cancer clusters to complex epidemiological arguments, from to state‐of‐the‐art animal studies to policy instruments such as the precautionary principle—but also reveals the manner in which a heated controversy can be effectively resolved over time.     

The Neglected Power of Elite Opinion Leadership to Produce Antipathy Toward the News Media: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Today, most Americans dislike the news media as an institution. This has led to considerable debate about why people dislike the media and how their public standing could be improved. This paper contributes to this literature by using a survey experiment to test the effect of several different considerations on evaluations of the media. It finds, consistent with the broader literature on political persuasion, that elite partisan opinion leadership can powerfully shape these attitudes. Additionally, it finds that tabloid coverage creates antipathy toward the press regardless of predispositions and that horserace coverage has a negative effect on opinions among politically aware citizens on both sides of the political spectrum. Contrary to some claims in the literature, this study finds no detectable effect of news negativity.     

Iraq: The New Criminal 'War' of the Transnational Elite

Abstract The aims of this paper are fourfold: first, to show that the present invasion and occupation of Iraq is in fact the culmination of a campaign that began with the 'war' in the Gulf in 1991 and continued with over a decade of constant bombardment and embargo, with the overall aim of establishing a client regime in Iraq as a means of achieving a number of important economic and geopolitical aims; second, to discuss the role of the UN in the New World Order and the change in this role between the 'Clinton doctrine' and the 'Bush' doctrine'; third, to discuss the criminal invasion itself and the dubious character of the 'victory' claimed by the transnational elite,1 all the members of which, directly or indirectly, took part in this campaign; fourth to examine the role of the Left in relation to the 'war'.Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. (British) Proclamation of Baghdad, 19 March 1917 Our forces are friends and liberators of the Iraqi people, not your conquerors. Tony Blair's address on Towards Freedom TV, 10 April 2003     

The Role of Elite Accounts in Mitigating the Negative Effects of Repositioning

Repositioning by political elites plays a key role in a variety of political phenomena, including legislative policymaking and campaigning. While previous studies suggest that repositioning will lead to negative evaluations, these studies have not explored the role of elite communications in structuring mass responses. We argue that this omission is problematic because elite explanations for their actions may limit the costs associated with ‘flip-flopping’ by persuading some citizens to update their attitudes so that they agree with the elite’s new stance and also by molding beliefs about the motives of the elite when repositioning. We present evidence supportive of this argument obtained from two large experiments conducted on samples of American adults. Ultimately, we show that elites offering a satisfactory justification for their change can avoid most, if not all, of the evaluative costs that would otherwise occur. This study thus has important implications not just for this particular element of elite behavior, but also related questions concerning governmental accountability and representation.     

政府变革的精英逻辑及其未来走向

精英不仅意味着经过挑选的那些人,而且预示着一种制度。这种制度将治理权授予给那些经过挑选的人,并在权力体系或市场体系中予以中心化。在此逻辑下,大众在社会治理中处于失语状态,扮演着臣民或市民的角色,难以获得公共生活与公共行动的机会。政府变革的首要问题不是工具更新或政府升级,而是观念更新、视角转换,从传统的精英逻辑向公民视角转换。     

Party Behaviour in the Finnish Parliament

This article focuses on party behaviour in the Finnish Parliament. We consider the political parties as vote-seekers, office-seekers, or policy-seekers in a multiparty system. We presume that the parliamentary position of a party affects its behaviour, and that the behaviour of a party differs from one arena to another in Parliament. The party activity is measured in terms of proposed motions, reservations to committee decisions, debates and statements at plenary sessions, and roll-calls at plenary sessions. The empirical findings indicate that political parties in opposition act first and foremost as vote-seekers. Only opposition parties make reservations to committee decisions and initiate roll-calls at plenary sessions. On the other hand, the governing parties seem mainly to focus on policy-seeking.