Hannah Arendt on Kant, Truth and Politics

Hannah Arendt is right to give prominence to Kant's Critique of Judgment—for that work contains Kant's fullest treatment of 'ends' and purposes, and Kantian politics (embracing universal republicanism and eternal peace) is meant to be a 'legal' realization of moral ends (when 'good will' alone is too weak to produce what ought to be). But Arendt is wrong to try to extract a 'new' Kantian politics from Judgment's aesthetic ideas: Kantian politics is already 'there', and need not be squeezed out of his theory of art. She has chosen the right work, but given it a bizarre reading.     

Quentin Skinner on the Proper Meaning of Republican Liberty

This article examines Quentin Skinner's revisionist project of reconciling republican liberty and negative freedom. His conceptualisation is analysed in the contexts of both contemporary political theory as well as a historiographical interpretation of Machiavelli. Skinner advances two claims: first, that Machiavelli's idea of liberty is negative freedom, and second, that republicanism shows that liberty is best maintained by the coercive use of the law. I argue that there are two conflicting concepts of the law underlying Skinner's theory. One regards the law as an invisible hand, while the other takes the law to be a liberating agency. Skinner's influence on the emerging juristic paradigm in republicanism is also considered.     

Seeing eye to eye: organizational behaviour,brokering and building trust in Tanzania

The focus of this article is organizational behaviour in and around the private sector in Tanzania at a time of transition through liberalization and the promotion of private sector activity; how the private sector has re‐emerged in the very recent past; how it operates as a group or, more accurately, as a set of groups, and the relationships between its component parts and with other development organizations (notably public actors: the state and aid donors). Within this framework our interest is in how organizational behaviour is mediated and trust is built through the brokering of relations between different organizations which intersect the public and private (and what this means for the public sphere). The article assesses the usefulness of a three‐level framework for analysing organizational and institutional transformation, shows that some tentative but modest change is occurring, and that a range of incomplete but positive political processes are happening. We show that institutional development is the weak link in these processes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

论居住权的权利建构

早期罗马法上的居住权制度已被后世两大法系演进为现代收益性居住权,集合物权、人权、民生权等多项权利基因,且在当下通过诉诸法院而表达出来,经由法院裁判生成一种新型权利。鉴于其权利结构具有融合性,能够有效融入我国《物权法》体系,故当以私法意义上的用益物权属性为权利基础,形成以《物权法》为核心的权利架构,明确居住权的主体与客体、权利与义务、变动与终止,以保障其权利的可诉性与规范的可操作性,拓宽居住权保护的救济路径,以实现居住权的法律保护。     

The First Machiavellian Moment in America

Standard interpretations of early American political thought and of the classical‐republican tradition fit uneasily with an overlooked episode in the history of ideas: the reception of Machiavelli in seventeenth‐century New England. Some puritans there not only found ways to justify bad means for good ends but also adopted a deeper, properly political Machiavellism, upholding the priority of popular judgment over elite wisdom and of institutionalized accountability over discretionary political authority. Unlike the eighteenth‐century republicanism that has preoccupied modern scholarship, the theory of radical democracy associated with the first Machiavellian moment in America puts fundamental institutional reform and accountability with teeth on the agenda of democratic theory.     

Metropolitan Institutions and Policy Coordination: The Integration of Land Use and Transport Policies in Swiss Urban Areas

The article addresses the question of how different metropolitan institutional settings affect the quality of political negotiation processes and their subsequent policy decisions. Starting from the theoretical controversy of the two metropolitan reform traditions, two opposing ideal types of metropolitan government institutions are conceptualized: on the one hand the public choice model that stands for a decentralized, nonprofessional, and politically dependent administration in fragmented urban areas, and on the other hand the neoprogressive model that stands for direct public service production by centralized and professionalized bureaucracies within consolidated municipalities. A qualitative comparative analysis of nine decision cases in four Swiss urban areas uncovers three main results: voluntary, positive, and policy-driven coordination as well as well coordinated policy solutions are found in centralized rather than decentralized institutional settings, in fragmented rather than consolidated metropolitan areas, and in project structures with a strict separation of the political sphere of negotiating from the technical sphere rather than in negotiations without such clear distinction. However, it is only under very specific institutional conditions that these well-coordinated solutions are also being implemented. The findings must be put into perspective in two respects. On the one hand, the positive effect of fragmentation on the quality of deliberation is supposedly unique to Switzerland due to its very strong federalism. On the other hand, the importance of bureaucratic autonomy is probably due to Switzerland's marked tradition of a weak state. The results from the nine test cases in general, however, substantiate the hypotheses derived from the neoprogressive model of metropolitan government institutions rather than the public choice model.     

Constitutional Qualms or Politics as Usual? The Factors Shaping Public Support for Unilateral Action

The formal institutional constraints that Congress and the courts impose on presidential unilateral action are feeble. As a result, recent scholarship suggests that public opinion may be the strongest check against executive overreach. However, little is known about how the public assesses unilateral action. Through a series of five survey experiments embedded in nationally representative surveys, we examine the extent to which Americans evaluate unilateral action based on constitutional, partisan, and policy concerns. We find that Americans do not instinctively reject unilateral action as a threat to our system of checks and balances, but instead evaluate unilateral action in terms of whether it accords or conflicts with their partisan and policy preference priors. Our results suggest that the public constraint on presidential unilateral action is far from automatic. Rather, the strength and scope of this check are variable products of political contestation in the public sphere.     

西方古典共和主义的历史流变

作为西方历史与文化传统的重要组成部分,古典共和主义自古代希腊和罗马以来,其思想和实践不断得到丰富和发展,中世纪后期,形成了较为完整的古典共和主义理论,为近代共和主义的诞生乃至发展提供了理论和实践的基础。     

创新体制从源头上预防和治理腐败

“一把手”腐败、用人腐败、司法腐败、公贿和行政腐败等政治领域腐败现象日益突出。制度反腐败的重点应当从经济领域转向政治领域,通过继续推动政治体制改革与创新从源头上预防和治理腐败。其中,党政领导体制改革、干部人事制度改革、司法体制改革、政府间管理体制改革和行政管理体制改革在遏止政治和行政腐败方面具有特别重要的意义。     

论罗马法中的刑事责任制度

罗马法中的刑事责任制度具有民事责任与刑事责任混同,以承担民事责任的方式解决刑事责任,平等责任与不平等责任并存和刑事归责采过错责任原则三个特点。罗马法中刑事责任制度特征的形成与其发达的奴隶制商品经济、贵族与平民相对平等的政治地位以及繁荣的法学研究有关。罗马法中的刑事责任制度对后世影响深远,应当重视对罗马法中刑事责任制度的研究。     

Prisoners and escapees: improving the institutional responsibility square in Bangladesh

The article argues that explanations of problematic governance are institutional rather than organizational and have their roots in the deep structures of society. Bangladesh is used as an exemplar for such analysis, deploying the notion of the institutional responsibility square comprising four institutional domains of state, market, community and household. A prior or ‘total institution’ metaphor is used to describe the ways in which different classes are obliged to pursue their livelihoods, entrapped within the problematic social embeddedness of these four institutional domains. The article develops this argument via three themes: permeability between these domains (i.e., blurred moral boundaries between public and private behaviour); problem of legitimation of public institutions, given this permeability; and the incorporated rather than independent characteristics of civil society, thus limiting optimism about its potential to create reform. Nevertheless the article offers a strategic agenda of institutional improvement (i.e., escape from the prison) based on the principles of shifting people's rights from the problematic, uncertain informal sphere towards the formal realm. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On Forcing Individuals to be Free: T.H. Green's Liberal Theory of Positive Freedom

Berlin argues that Green's positive freedom, at odds with his liberalism, justifies an oppressive society. Berlin's argument proceeds in three steps. The first embraces a shift from negative freedom to rational self-mastery, which is underpinned by a metaphysics of a split self. Then it is claimed that positive freedom is realizable only in a certain kind of society which, thirdly, it is argued, is oppressive. Green takes the first two steps but they do not commit him to the totalitarian conclusion, not least because he grounds positive freedom in a view of a unitary self and his society does not leave empty the institutional framework which makes possible the realization of freedom. Green's society is not oppressive in the name of freedom, but rather enabling in the name of freedom.     

Republican Europe and Multicultural Citizenship

This article explores the possibilities for a normative understanding of the politics of EU development from a republican perspective. It draws on current debates on republicanism, which combine republican, liberal and multicultural themes, and defends an approach to European citizenship and the design of European institutions in which the contemporary republican emphasis on freedom as non-domination is complemented with the multiculturalist concern with group rights that cut across national boundaries. It is argued that the combination of republican institutions and multicultural citizenship can provide a model for European construction.     

Republican democracy and compulsory voting

In this article, I focus on Chapters 4 and 5 of On the People’s Terms, chapters that deal with democratic influence and control. I take an applied political science approach to how Pettit’s republic might be practically achieved by exploring the under-appreciated capacity of elections to mobilise the resistance-prone, contestatory public upon which his republicanism depends. Whereas Pettit tends to focus on public contestation between elections and only demands that the public has the opportunity to vote when elections are held, I argue that they should be given a more prominent role within his republic and further, that access to voting is not enough: rather, citizens should actually vote. In order to ensure that participation is socially inclusive and that the public’s attempts at influence are ‘individualised’, ‘unconditioned’ and ‘efficacious’ in the manner Pettit desires, I suggest that compulsory voting should be a major pillar of his republicanism.     

Managerial Responsibility

The concept of managerial responsibility is a shining thread in the literature of public administration, but its definition within our constitutional scheme remains elusive. How will we know responsible public management when we see it? We propose one answer: Public administration should be conducted according to what we term a “precept of managerial responsibility,” which involves four interrelated elements derived from the classical literature of public administration: judgment, accountability, balance, and rationality. We apply this precept to one of the most vexing problems of public administration theory and practice, institutional reform litigation. This application illustrates how the precept solves a major theoretical problem of American public administration by defining a role for administrative officers that fully comports with the Madisonian scheme of separated institutions—legislative, executive, and judicial—sharing power.     

Development and Prospects of Deliberative Democracy in China: The Dimensions of Deliberative Capacity Building

Since the landmark volume The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China (Leib and He eds. 2006), a growing number of theoretical and empirical studies in the context of China have advanced our knowledge of deliberative democracy in comparative settings. This paper aims to discuss the recent development and prospects of deliberative democracy in China, with particular focus on the approach of a deliberative system that has not been adequately addressed in the context of China. This paper proposes an analytical framework for the concept of deliberative capacity building in the context of contemporary China. The paper analyses three dimensions of deliberative capacity building: social capacity, institutional capacity; and participatory capacity of a deliberative system. The three dimensions lay particular emphasis on the public sphere, empowered space, and deliberative actors respectively. The multi-dimensional framework considers deliberative capacity building as a process by which the three dimensions synergize and evolve with each other to produce a functional deliberative system incorporating isolated deliberative practices. The multi-dimensional analyses suggest that deliberative capacity building is critical to democratization in China, as it produces a stronger public sphere, more effective government responsiveness and improved participatory competence.     

Collaborative Governance: Integrating Management,Politics, and Law

Scholars have engaged in an ongoing dialogue about the relationships among management, politics, and law in public administration. Collaborative governance presents new challenges to this dynamic. While scholars have made substantial contributions to our understanding of the design and practice of collaborative governance, others suggest that we lack theory for this emerging body of research. Law is often omitted as a variable. Scholarship generally does not explicitly include collaboration as a public value. This article addresses the dialogue on management, politics, and law with regard to collaborative governance. It provides an overview of the current legal framework for collaborative governance in the United States at the federal, state, and local levels of government and identifies gaps. The institutional analysis and development framework provides a body of theory that incorporates rules and law into research design. The article concludes that future research on collaborative governance should incorporate the legal framework as an important variable and collaboration as a public value.     

"第四势力"与"舆论监督"之比较

首先,本文通过比较西方学者和我国学者对其所下的定义来展开阐述并解释"第四势力"与"舆论监督"的概念。其次,探讨二者的相同之处,如:二者都体现媒体的基本职能,二者都不是绝对的自由,二者都体现公益性,二者都来源于公民权利。第三从法理的层面运用阐述二者的不同点:二者的主体性质不同、二者所包含的内容不同,法律对二者的要求不同,对二者的主要制约方式不同。最后,探求我国"舆论监督"的发展方向。     

The Scandinavian Welfare State: The Institutions of Growth, Governance, and Reform. Review Article

In a review of five recent works on Scandinavian politics and public policy, it is shown that the basis for talking about a Scandinavian model is unfounded. Politics and policies diverge from country to country and within each country from sector to sector as a result of institutional variation. This variation is embedded in institutional history which accounts for strong national path dependency in public policies. However, the institutional set-up at a given point in time also provides political actors with incentives for change. Two of the works reviewed take up this lead as they argue for institutional reform, in one case to protect the welfare state against political erosion, in the other case to facilitate renewed economic growth and improved living standards. The review concludes by arguing for the positive prospects for systematic comparative analysis of Scandinavian politics, providing a mixture of institutional and political similarities combined with theoretically relevant variation.     

Leader Survival,Revolutions, and the Nature of Government Finance

Leaders face multiple threats to their political survival. In addition to surviving the threats to tenure from within the existing political systems, which is modeled using Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues' (2003) selectorate theory, leaders risk being deposed through revolutions and coups. To ameliorate the threat of revolution, leaders can either increase public goods provisions to buy off potential revolutionaries or contract the provision of those public goods, such as freedom of assembly, transparency, and free press, which enable revolutionaries to coordinate. Which response a leader chooses depends upon existing institutions and the structure of government finances. These factors also affect the likelihood and direction of institutional change. Tests of leader survival indicate that revolutionary threats increase the likelihood of deposition for nondemocratic leaders. Leaders with access to resources such as foreign aid or natural resource rents are best equipped to survive these threats and avoid the occurrence of these threats in the first place.