Engaging the reluctant taxpayer

Abstract

A commitment to political neutrality means that citizens have a legitimate complaint when the coercive power of the state is used to advance some particular conception of how it is good to live. In this paper I investigate how to address this complaint in the case of public funding for the arts. There are two promising ways to justify public arts spending. First, as Thomas Nagel argues, the arts are a source of intrinsic values and so command our respect. I reject this argument because intrinsic values are not automatically political values. Second, Ronald Dworkin argues that access to the arts is required to fully participate in social life. This argument draws a connection between the arts and citizenship and so fares better in establishing a political justification for the arts. However, Dworkin relies on the special value of high art relative to popular art, which undermines the neutrality of his argument. I show that a justification can be given that does not depend on the high value of the arts. I develop an account that shows how the arts can support just relations between citizens. This account is in keeping with a liberal commitment to neutrality.     

竞争中立对我国国有企业的影响及法制应对

竞争中立政策的实施能够有效促进国有企业与民营企业之间的公平竞争,在优化社会资源配置的同时,提升国有企业自身的经营效益。目前我国国有企业在经营中仍享受着诸多的不当竞争优势,对此,应在结合域外制度经验的基础上,以竞争中立政策的适用主体与范围为切入点,依据竞争中立政策的基本要求,以政府职能分离规则、防止交叉补贴规则、透明度规则以及合理豁免规则为基本导向,对我国当前的相关法律制度进行检讨和完善。竞争中立政策要求我们必须立足于当前经济发展的实际,积极参与国际谈判,争取话语权,为今后我国国有企业乃至整个社会经济的健康、持续发展创造良好的市场环境和法制保障。     

Public Service Neutrality in Hong Kong: Problems and Prospects

Before 2002, Hong Kong's higher civil servants were required to play the dual role of quasi-ministers and civil servants. In such a context, can we make sense of the claim that Hong Kong's civil service has all along been politically neutral? What role has neutrality played in the governance of Hong Kong? Informed by Kernaghan's model of political neutrality and Oakeshott's idea of civil association, this article argues that the public service should not be regarded solely as an effective instrument of the government in power. In conclusion, this article proposes some institutional measures to strengthen the neutrality of the public service in Hong Kong and argues that properly understanding this will help prevent excessive or illegitimate partisan political power.     

Liberalism and religion: the plural grounds of separation

ABSTRACT

In what sense, and to what extent, should a liberal state be secular? Many interpret liberal-egalitarian political theory as dictating a radical separation between church and state. Against this view, Cécile Laborde has powerfully argued that, in fact, liberal-egalitarianism is not committed to strict separation as such. Laborde understands the liberal-egalitarian commitment to separation as ultimately grounded on a principle of neutrality. However, she argues that the conception of neutrality to which liberal egalitarians are committed is much more ‘restricted’ than it is often thought. If a commitment to separation is derivative from a commitment to neutrality, then, if neutrality is restricted, secularism is minimal. This means that not all forms of religious establishment should be regarded as impermissible from a liberal-egalitarian perspective. Contra Laborde, I argue that restricted neutrality should not be understood as the only ground of separation. Separation has plural grounds. Forms of religious recognition that do not violate any of the requirements of restricted neutrality may still be regarded as impermissible from a liberal-egalitarian perspective, if they (1) violate a basic commitment to fairness, (2) treat citizens in a patronizing way and/or (3) violate, in their justification, a requirement of sincerity, as grounded on reciprocity.     

From Armed Neutrality to External Dependence: Swiss Security in the 21st Century

Abstract: Historically, Swiss identity was founded on beliefs in federalism, direct democracy and armed neutrality. Given continued popular support for autonomous self‐defense in an era of transnational threats, it is worth examining whether a small economically interdependent state, such as Switzerland, is single‐handedly capable of providing for its own security. To preview our conclusions, every facet of Switzerland’s security, whether against military threats, terrorism or natural disasters, today benefits from substantial international inputs. At base, Switzerland’s increasing security dependence has been driven by the following dynamics: 1) the general development of institutionalized international cooperation; 2) the evolving nature of the threats Switzerland faces; and 3) political efforts to “securitize” issues not hitherto considered as security problems. Because Swiss security dependence owes more to broad structural factors than deliberate choices, policymakers would be better off embracing this reality by proactively using international organizations to address transnational challenges.     

The Outer Limits of Copyright Law – Where Law Meets Philosophy and Culture

This article engages in a cultural critique of copyright law. The point is to explain how and why this body of law is culturally exclusive, notwithstanding the claims made by judges and others that the law is culturally open and inclusive. This involves a discussion of the relationship between philosophy and law, and of how this nexus has been misrepresented by the courts and in recent writings on the subject. Analysis centres on a discussion of Australian case law involving indigenous claims of communal ownership of copyright and the treatment of technology when it comes to attributing authorship.     

新媒体视阈中西方政党的现代性症候及其纠错

以新媒体为特征的信息传播的发展,导致人们的政治组织行为发生了革命性的变革.人们借助网络平台,基于共同的利益诉求结成各种网络共同体,反对集权性的、等级性的科层体制,追求个人自治、分权、开放与流动的政治生活方式.这类新型政治参与主体的出现,使得西方政党在处理阶级关系、左翼与右翼政治观以及意识形态方面,表现出明显的现代性症候与不适；为了生存与发展,西方政党针对自身存在的问题,展开了现代性纠错,提出“中性化”的新政治观,倡导基层民主政治,积极推行民主政治制度的生态延伸,反对等级、线形的结构性权力,积极利用媒体提升政党形象.     

Depolitization of Bureaucracy: The Case of Central and Eastern European Countries

Political parties worldwide seek to work with bureaucrats who are close to their programs, willing to cooperate, and concerted. On the other hand, there is a huge body of literature which argues that bureaucracy should be separate from politics and that it has to consist of public servants who are technically knowledgeable, expert, and also politically neutral. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe suffered from highly politicized public administrations under one-party regimes, and have struggled to separate their bureaucracies from politics since early 1990s. In view of the relation between politics and bureaucracy from the perspective of (de)politization, this paper looks into the changes that Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) have gone through after the institutionalization of multi-party regimes and tries to provide some generalizations.     

Dispositional neutrality and minority rights

Alan Patten defends a novel principle of neutrality according to which the state must accommodate all conceptions of the good equally. This principle rests on the claim that the state must be equally responsive to the interests of all citizens. I introduce a competing principle – neutrality of disposition – according to which the state must be disposed to treat citizens with different conceptions of the good alike in relevantly similar situations. The requirement of the equal responsiveness of the state is neutral between these two conceptions of neutrality. Moreover, neutrality of disposition, unlike neutrality of treatment, is compatible with a plausible luck egalitarian view of cultural justice according to which justice requires the state to be more accommodating of some conceptions of the good than of others in situations where not being so will result in members of minority cultures being worse off than others through no responsibility of their own.     

Unequal but fair? Cultural recognition and self-government rights

This review of Patten’s Equal Recognition suggests that minority rights can be grounded either in cultural accommodation rights or collective self-government rights. I defend four propositions: (1) individuals’ interests in membership in political communities cannot be reduced to their interests in being able to pursue their own conceptions of the good; (2) liberal states do not have to extend neutrality as equal treatment to self-government claims that intersect with their own jurisdiction; (3) claims for the establishment of public languages and territorial autonomy need to be justified on the basis of self-government rights rather than on grounds of equal treatment of cultural identities; (4) as a condition for their admission, immigrants can be expected to waive collective self-government rights rather than cultural protection rights.