社会资本视角下农村民间组织社区参与的动力机制--基于温岭市横峰老年协会的实证分析

社会资本视角下农村民间组织社区参与的动力机制，主要体现在其发挥自身优势及网络内互动优势等方面，但同时也存在着民间组织参与农村社区的社会网络还不够完善，社会资本积累不够强大，由此导致其社区参与动员能力不足等问题。基于温岭市横峰老年协会的田野调查，揭示了老年协会参与农村社区的动力机制，并提出如何进一步扩大其社区参与的广度和深度，以及如何促进村民自治健康发展的对策建议。     

农村社区法制建设的创新思路

社区是人类社会区域生活的共同体，是一个具有多重功能的社会实体，是人们参与社会生活的基本场所，并以聚落作为自己的依托或物质载体。作为一种社区类型的农村社区，是在农村生产方式基础上由一定的人群、一定的地域、一定的生产和生活没施、一定的管理机构和社区成员的认同感等等要素构成的社会实体，既是农村社会的有机构成单元，又是农村社会的缩影，具有经济、政治、文化、社会等多重功能，是农民参与各种生活的基本场所，并以聚落作为自己的依托或物质载体。虽然我国城市社区与农村社区在功能上存在一定的差异性，但随着统筹城乡进程的加快，城市社区和农村社区之间将不再严格区分，城乡连为一体，社区成为城乡重要的基层组织。因此，农村社区法制建设应当具有长远的眼光，考虑到统筹城乡发展的需要，从城市社区与农村社区逐步融合的角度，整体思考社区法制建设的定位。     

中部地区农民政治参与问题研究——基于河北省安新县A村的实地调研

农民的政治参与状况直接影响和制约着政治文明的进程。河北安新县A村农民政治参与案例表明，在中国欠发达地区的农村，农村公民的政治参与具有主动性组织化程度较低、政治参与程度和水平较低、政治参与非制度化可能性仍存在的特征。健全中部地区农民政治参与的对策，应当从加强农民政治参与制度建设，加强农村社会主义政治文化建设，发展农村经济，提高农民社会地位，早日建立农民利益的政治表达组织等方面入手。     

从国家社会关系透视中国农民的政治参与

农民政治参与直接关涉国家权力及其在现行政治体制中的运行问题,现阶段中国农村政治的基本状况是:国家主导农村社会的格局没有发生根本性的变化,村级治理体制处于结构性转型之中。建立国家与社会在农民政治参与中的良性互动关系,是农村政治发展的关键。     

农村民间组织参与乡村治理的解释路径与工具选择——社会资本理论分析视角

社会资本理论为农村民间组织参与乡村治理奠定了社会网络基础,推动了农村民间组织建立社会信任,促进了农民合作,规范多元主体参与。但是,农村民间组织参与乡村治理的网络、信任和规范缺失也影响了治理的绩效。要促进我国农村民间组织更好地参与乡村治理,实现乡村的良性治理,应促进公民参与,引导社会网络良好发展、提高民间组织活动透明度,重拾社会信任、加强农村民间组织立法和制度建设,规范社会资本运行。     

农村社区法制建设的创新思路

社区是人类社会区域生活的共同体,是一个具有多重功能的社会实体,是人们参与社会生活的基本场所,并以聚落作为自己的依托或物质载体。作为一种社区类型的农村社区,是在农村生产方式基础上由一定的人群、一定的地域、一定的生产和生活设施、一定的管理机构和社区成员的认同感等等要素构成的社会实体,既是农村社会的有机构成单元,又是农村社会的缩影,具有经济、政治、文化、社会等多重功能,是农民参与各种生活的基本场所,并以     

农村社区治理的困境和消解路径

新时代加强和创新农村社区治理是摆在当前的重要问题,农村社区治理的成效在促进社会和谐稳定,推进乡村振兴发展,助力全面建成小康社会等方面具有重要的意义,但当前农村社区存在集体力量薄弱,社区服务水平较低,社会力量参与不足等问题。为此必须采取针对性的措施,在发展壮大农村集体经济,提升社区服务水平,引导社会力量参与农村社区治理等方面进行路径探讨,以此推动农村社区治理的进一步发展,促进农村善治局面的实现。     

法治下的农民政治参与与农村社会稳定

本文从农民政治参与和农村社会稳定的关系出发,阐述政治参与的制度化和法制化在实现农村稳定中的重要作用以及完善我国农民政治参与制度的基本思路。     

论农村村民政治冷漠的成因及消解

农村村民政治冷漠的根源主要是,农村村民经济地位不独立,农村基层民主不完善,传统政治文化影响根深蒂固。农村村民的这种政治冷漠对村民自治、国家治理和农村社会的和谐都有着消极影响。倡导由“半熟人社会”向“熟人社会”过渡的治理环境,拓展村民参与成本的弥补措施,是消解农村村民政治冷漠的重要途径。     

社会参与的提升机制

社会参与有利于社会整合，但在社会科学研究领域，研究较多的是政治参与。因此，我们将围绕政治参与的研究成果展开对社会参与的探讨，进而提出完善社会参与的有效机制，以提高社会的参与动力和参与水平。     

论社会中介组织对中国社会发展的影响

经过了20多年改革，中国社会的组织结构发生了深刻的变化，各类社会中介组织以前所未有的速度和规模发展起来，在数量和种类大大发展的同时，其组织独立性明显增强而合法性也日益得到确认，在中国社会中承担着越来越多的功能和职责，也成为人们在日常生活中越来越直接和频繁地与之接触或交往的对象。中国的社会中介组织将同政府部门和市场部门一起，直接决定着整个中国社会在新世纪里的发展。     

Deep Probe: The Evolution of Network Intelligence

Over the last several decades, civil society activists and non-governmental organizations have been employing new information and communication technologies, such as the Internet, to facilitate their activities. At the same time, an increasing number of computer scientists, hackers, and engineers have become increasingly politicized, contributing their skills to security, privacy, and networking tools used by civil society organizations worldwide. The merging of these two social forces, and their sophisticated uses of technology for political action, is giving rise to a new form of distributed information and communication networking that I refer to as ‘network intelligence’.     

Introduction to Jesse Burkhead Symposium

Government budgeting is one of the major processes by which the use of public resources is planned and controlled. To the extent that this is done well, governmental programs are brought increasingly to the service of its citizens, enhancing their material and cultural status.
The study of government budgeting is a study in applied economics—in the allocation of scarce resources. This study must look at operations and begin with organization and procedure, the routines which have been established for decision–making in government. It should extend to an examination of the influences, governmental and nongovernmental, that come to bear on the decision-making process.
Ours is both an organized society and a society of organizations. The significance of organization is nowhere more evident than in the public sector. Here organizational arrangements bring together the learning of all social scientists. The patterns for decision-making do not provide separate compartments for economic knowledge, for political knowledge, for social knowledge. These are merged in the organizational arrangements which have been established for the conduct of governmental affairs.1     

Reviving Social Rights in Latin America: The Potential Role of International Human Rights Documents

Social rights are essential to our ability to fully participate in society. In Latin America, these rights are increasingly marginalized as neoliberal policies take hold. At the same time, the related concepts of civil society and social capital are often incorporated into strategies aimed at alleviating the problems of the Latin American poor. It is expected that by strengthening people's civic capacity, their sense of mutual responsibility and ability to self-provide certain services will be enhanced. In the context of the current policy environment, however, such strategies are unlikely to be entirely successful. Lack of economic resources may preclude the Latin American poor from effective civic participation. More importantly, the promotion of civil society and social capital on the part of aid agencies and governments may represent an implicit threat to social rights, in as much as the organizations advocated are not likely to actively struggle for expansion of rights. Nevertheless, human rights documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child provide a base upon which rights-based movements can be constructed.     

Contesting power, trust and legitimacy in the South African e-waste transition

Socio-technical transition theory is increasingly being used in research and practice to explain and guide transitions toward sustainability. Although recognizing the coevolution of technology and society, multi-scalar influences, and complex social processes, transition theory has thus far inadequately accounted for the role of power and in shaping transitions. This study uses the example of the transition-in-progress toward more sustainable e-waste practices in South Africa as one illustration of how power shapes the successes, failures, and direction of transitions. I look specifically at three transition arenas that are competing for legitimacy to guide the South African e-waste transition and show how their history, membership, and rules of participation shape the different pathways promoted by these organizations. In the South African case, vested interests and constraints on participation resulted in the splintering of original transition arena. While socio-technical transition theory suggests the importance of different competing niche experiments, in this case, different pathways are being promoted by different coalitions of actors through different arenas. The presence of multiple arenas and pathways has divided resources, created confusion, and arguably delayed the transition. Further, the scope for participation in these organizations differs, and this has implications for the redistribution of power. I suggest the need to more carefully consider the role of power, trust, and legitimacy within socio-technical transition theory and specifically within the transition arena. Importantly, analyzing the transition arena as a site of contestation over the distribution of costs and benefits of the particular pathway will enhance socio-technical transition theory’s explanatory power regarding how and why particular outcomes emerge.     

Commentary: The Politics of Distrust

Abstract

Scholars have recently begun to study civil society on the regional level more systematically. When regionalization of civil society is studied, it is often understood within processes of regional governance in which state actors craft regional institutions and policy frameworks to solve common problems. Yet, most studies dealing with civil society in regional governance have a state-centric approach, focusing on the marginalization of civil society organizations (CSOs) in such processes, treating them as rather passive actors. This is especially true for research on southern Africa. Contrary to previous studies, this article shows under what circumstances CSOs are granted space in regional policy-making related to the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It is concluded that, in light of CSOs' material and economic weakness, one of the key factors determining their advocacy success on the regional level is production of knowledge and strategic use of communication tools. Even though many challenges remain, for example, the power structures inherent in the SADC, the case of civil society advocacy around the SADC is a sign of a new form of participatory regional governance in the making, which is more democratic than present modes of regional governance in Africa.     

The Effects of ‘Social Expectation’ on the Development of Civil Society in Japan

The European Union (EU) stands out among the major trading powers for its significant and dramatic response to new demands for access and participation in its external trade policymaking process. A spectacular range of mechanisms designed to increase the involvement of civil society organizations, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have been introduced recently. This article examines whether these new political opportunities in the EU have an impact on the trade processes and policy outcomes by revisiting a case that has been celebrated as indicative of the potential of global civil society to promote social justice—the Access to Medicines campaign. The findings show that although NGOs were instrumental in providing education, raising awareness, and giving a voice to broader societal concerns about the social and health-related aspects of the proposed trade deals, their impact on policy outcomes was limited. EU policymakers did not pursue policies that placed public health concerns over stringent intellectual property right protection, despite NGO involvement in the external trade policymaking process. I argue that the robust liberal and legal epistemic foundations of the international trade regime effectively hamstrung NGO efforts to move the external trade policies in more sustainable and just directions. These findings have broad implications for the power of epistemes and their ability to enable and delimit NGO agency in global economic governance.     

Structurally Excluded? Structural Embeddedness and Civil Society Competition for Funding

ABSTRACT

The debate about the funding and support of civil society by government bodies has become a central and politicized issue in many countries. European states in particular have sought to make use of civil society to deliver key supra-national policy aims of addressing economic and social disadvantage, as well as delivering national and territorial outcomes. To this end European structural funding has been used at a regional level to develop and engage organizations and their beneficiaries. One of the key considerations in such activity is the ability of civil society organizations to engage with the funding available, and whether structural barriers exist that potentially prevent organizations with relevant expertise participating. In order to illustrate this, this article investigates how civil society organizations fared in gaining funds from the 2007–2013 European Social Fund (ESF) programmes in Wales, what, if any, barriers were found to exist in acquiring those funds and what this means for the sector in Wales in the context of future funding. The wider significance of this work is in revealing how the structural embeddedness of organizations plays a significant role in determining organizational success in gaining ESF funds, and how this contributes to a cleavage in the sector as a whole. Thus, this article concludes that it is organizations that are structurally embedded that will be most successful in gaining ESF funds, due to their organizational characteristics and their institutionalized relationships with, and receipts from, the state. Other organizations, conversely, are shown to become structurally excluded.     

“寄居蟹的艺术”:体制内社会组织的环境适应策略——对天津市两个省级组织的个案研究

我国社会组织面临着合法性和经济资源的双重困境,并缺乏自主性,似乎是一个不争的事实。不过,对天津市两个省级体制内社会组织的个案调查,却在一定程度上发现了与之相反(而并不矛盾)的特殊事实。为了重构这两个组织获得合法性和经济资源及其一定的自主性的特殊逻辑,本文首先对组织社会学的资源依赖理论和新制度主义进行了综合分析,并建立了体制内社会组织对国家-社会的合法性与经济资源的双重依赖的分析框架;然后,重构了两个个案对国家与社会的双重依赖格局,特别是揭示了其平衡这一依赖的相关策略。缺乏社会基础的体制内社会组织凭借和利用国家的特殊合法性支持而进入到社会领域中以汲取资源的相关策略,被称为"寄居蟹的艺术"。本文作为一项个案研究,其分析有利于提出研究假设,而其结论不能直接普遍化。     

The fraying of the socio‐economic fabric of Hong Kong

Abstract

Since the 1980s, Hong Kong has undergone momentous socio‐economic changes, which in turn have greatly affected public attitudes toward society and the economy. Interpersonal trust and the sense of community have weakened. Hong Kong as a society is increasingly seen as unfair in the sense that it is not perceived as a land of opportunities for the hardworking. The capitalist rules of the game are increasingly considered by the people to be unacceptable. Public demands for more governmental intervention in the economy, particularly in the area of income redistribution, are increasingly raised. Nascent feelings of class antagonism are palpable as economic inequalities are getting worse. As social conflicts of various kinds proliferate, public anxieties about Hong Kong's fraying socio‐economic fabric have come to the fore. People expect the government and the legal institutions to strengthen social order. At the same time, however, public trust of all social, economic and social authorities is declining. Accordingly, as social discontent and anxieties accumulate, the socio‐economic system of Hong Kong will face serious challenge in the years ahead.