重申人民主权:国家权力的结构改革

在建构现代国家的过程中,中华人民共和国确立了人民主权的基本原则。应当认为,目前的政体安排是中国民主革命的必然结果,也适应了中国开启现代化过程的历史要求,但它还难以坐实人民主权原则。在国家基本制度的安排上,人民代表大会制度与人民政协制度,其功能还没能得到真正发挥,无法有效落实人民主权,而执政党对于国家权力的掌控,自身高度的行政化定位,决定性地影响了国家权力的具体运行。因此,必须区隔党权与国权,进而从目前政府改革意义上所讲的还政于民逐步走向国家建构和政体选择双重意义上的还权于民,真正坐实人民主权原则。     

Authority in rebel groups: identity,recognition and the struggle over legitimacy

This article asks how rebel leaders capture and lose legitimacy within their own movement. Analysing these complex and often uneasy relations between elites and grassroots of insurgency is important for understanding the success or failure of peace processes. This is because internal contestation over authority between rival rebel leaders can drive a movement’s external strategy. Based on ethnographic research on the Karen and Kachin rebellions in Myanmar and insights from Political Sociology, the article suggests that leadership authority is linked to social identification and the claim to recognition among insurgent grassroots. If rebel leaders manage to satisfy their grassroots’ claim to recognition, their insurgent orders are stable. Failing this, their authority erodes and is likely to be challenged. These findings contribute to understanding insurgency and peace negotiations in Myanmar and civil wars more generally by showing how struggles over legitimacy within rebel groups drive wider dynamics of war and peace.     

Owning the issue agenda: Party strategies and vote choices in British elections

Explanations of party competition and vote choice are commonly based on the Downsian view of politics: parties maximise votes by adopting positions on policy dimensions. However, recent research suggests that British voters choose parties based on evaluations of competence rather than on ideological position. This paper proposes a theoretical account which combines elements of the spatial model with the ‘issue ownership’ approach. Whereas the issue ownership theory has focused mainly on party competition, this paper examines the validity of the model from the perspective of both parties and voters, by testing its application to recent British general elections. Our findings suggest that as parties have converged ideologically, competence considerations have become more important than ideological position in British elections.     

Appointments to boards and committees via lottery,a pathway to fairness and diversity

• Public appointments for committees or boards can be controversial due to cronyism or pandering to demands of noisy or powerful interest groups. One relatively unexplored method for selecting committee or board members is random selection which has advantages beyond interrupting cronyism. This paper canvasses the strengths and weaknesses of an unusual selection method and makes a case for the use of a lottery as a robust process that will lend legitimacy and credibility to committee or board governance.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managing the conceptual gap on sovereignty in China–EU relations

While, historically, sovereignty is what Europeans invented and what the Chinese were forced to accept, today it is what Europeans try to bury and what the Chinese hold dear. A conceptual gap on sovereignty clearly exists between China and Europe which more often than not exerts a negative impact on their relationship. It breeds misunderstandings and disputes, makes it more difficult to reach agreements on many bilateral issues, and complicates China–Europe cooperation in third countries. But the conceptual gap on sovereignty does not prevent China and Europe from building a strategic partnership. Given that strengthening or weakening national sovereignty means totally different things to China and Europe, the two parties should jointly and proactively manage their divergence on sovereignty issues by mutual avoidance, mutual assurance, and mutual accommodation, in order to unlock sovereignty-related impasses in China–Europe relations.     

发展中的东盟“中国观”：从威胁到机会？

本文旨在分析为何东盟国家曾经将中国视为威胁，如今却转变观念，将中国视为促进地区稳定和一体化的重要推动力。第一部分将阐述东盟国家对中国的官方立场的变化，即从“中国威胁论”向“中国机会论”的转变。在80年代，当中国的经济开放促进了其与南部周边国家之间的关系时，这种观念的转变尤为突出。第二部分认为，在欧美日经济发展呈现出保护主义趋势，并遭遇发展瓶颈的情况下，中国的发展为东盟国家的经济增长提供了新契机。同时，笔者着重分析了中国从地区的不稳定根源向地区安全保障者转化的原因。第三部分指出，尽管中国与东盟国家之间建立起了特殊关系，但中国无法排斥其他大国，尤其是日本与美国在该地区的影响力。     

How (not) to operationalise subnational political opportunity structures: A critique of Kestilä and Söderlund's study of regional elections

Based on an aggregate analysis of the French regional elections of 2004, Kestilä and Söderlund, in their 2007 article, 'Subnational Political Opportunity Structures and the Success of the Radical Right: Evidence from the March 2004 Regional Elections in France', examine the impact of subnational political opportunity structures on the success of the radical right and argue that such an approach can control for a wider range of factors and provide more reliable results than cross-national analyses. The present article disputes this claim on theoretical, conceptual and methodological grounds and demonstrates that their empirical findings are spurious.     

Great Expectations: Understanding Bali and the Climate Change Negotiations Process

This article reviews the December 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali. It considers expectations for the meeting and whether the event delivered on these expectations. It also evaluates the long-term context of the meeting and examines the discussions in Bali on the post-2012 period (when the Kyoto Protocol's first 'commitment period' expires). The article finds that the Bali meeting did not necessarily meet public expectations or respond directly to the latest scientific assessments calling for urgent action. However, the article also finds that Bali was successful in the context of the prevailing political and diplomatic realities and the immense complexity of the climate change challenge – a problem that does not lend itself to a 'quick fix' solution. The article concludes that Bali produced a solid outcome that gives direction to future talks and sets a clear deadline for their completion. Finally, it argues that, contrary to some experts' opinion, the lack of detail in the Bali outcome may prove to be a strength rather than a weakness, since it provides flexibility to negotiators as they try to craft a consensus by the end of 2009.     

China's New Neighboring Diplomacy

China＇s new thinking about neighboring diplomacy in Asia since the end of Cold War can be analyzed theoretically from angle of international institutions. China utilizes institutionalism with great flexibility in four sub-regions-Central Asia, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, where institutional models-dominant participation, deep participation, active participation and moderate participation models have been adopted. In the four sub-regions in Asia, China has handled the presence of U.S interests well and responded reasonably to the United States＇ Asian diplomacy. China and the United States have therefore achieved a compatible coexistence in Asia. Compatibility and coexistence between China and the United States in Asia are the fundamental reasons that China has made progress in this new stage, and are the essence of the new thinking in China＇s neighboring diplomacy.     

论李明博政府的实用主义外交

李明博政府上台后推行实用主义外交政策,主要包括以服务于"先进化国家"为宗旨,强化韩美同盟关系、开启对日关系"新思维"、调整对朝政策、奉行有限度的"平衡"外交、积极开展对华经贸关系、对俄能源外交以及全球外交等.实用主义外交是基于国际和国内、历史与现实、社会与个人等多种因素考虑的结果.实用主义外交面临着美韩同盟利益与韩国民族利益的冲突、韩日之间的结构性矛盾、对朝政策的有效性以及李明博政绩认可度等挑战,其效果还有待于进一步观察.