Can governments use Get Out The Vote letters to solve Europe’s turnout crisis? Evidence from a field experiment

Declining levels of turnout are a problem in European elections. Are Get Out The Vote campaigns the solution to the problem? While many studies have investigated such campaigns in the US, little is known about their effect in Europe. The article presents a field experiment in which encouragement to vote in an upcoming Danish election is delivered to more than 60,000 first-time voters using direct personal letters. Eight different letters are designed, based on the calculus of voting and prospect theory. The sample is randomly divided into treatment groups or the control group. Using validated turnout, small positive effects of receiving a letter on turnout are found, with little difference across letters. The letters mostly mobilised voters with a low propensity to vote and thus increased equality in participation. In sum, while letters have some effect, they are not likely to be a panacea for solving Europe’s turnout challenges.     

Explaining postwar wage compression

One of the main problems confronting labor unions during wage bargaining is how to deal with the conflicting demands of different groups of workers over the division of labor market earnings. This article explains how their internal organizational blueprint determines how they deal with this and criticizes the scholarly preoccupation with union density and wage bargaining centralization as explanatory variables for cross-national and temporal variation in wage inequality. It does so based on a critical analysis of collective bargaining in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom during the first four decades of the postwar period.     

守正、发展与创新:“十四五”时期医疗保障的完善思路

人口结构、就业形态、新时代的健康政策与脱贫攻坚任务、技术发展等宏观环境,为“十四五”时期医疗保障的发展提供了机遇也提出了挑战。立足“十一五”到“十三五”医疗保障从无到有、从制度全民覆盖到实践全民覆盖、待遇水平持续提升、各项机制跨越式发展等发展脉络,“十四五”时期医疗保障的发展思路应定位于守正、发展与创新。第一,坚守公平共享与切实保障的发展理念;第二,回应健康需求与不平衡、不充分的医保制度现状,在待遇保障、筹资机制、支付方式、基金监管等方面补短板、强弱项;第三,直面新形势的新挑战,在新业态人员参保、大病保障、医疗保障与公共卫生资金统筹衔接等方面实现创新与突破。目标是在“十四五”时期实现一个全民享有、公平适度、法治规范、高效便捷、协同联动的医疗保障制度。     

在主题教育中重温“实事求是”的精髓和要义

实事求是是中国共产党在近百年革命、建设与改革实践中一以贯之的根本思想路线和工作方法。在中国共产党人的视野中,“实事求是”是一种态度精神、一种认识规律、一种实践路线。共产党人坚持实事求是,是因为“实事求是就是最大的党性”,因为“共产党员应是实事求是的模范”,因为我们“要靠实事求是吃饭”。在主题教育活动中重温“实事求是”,必须不断凝聚坚持实事求是的不竭动力,准确把握坚持实事求是的方法要求,努力涵养坚持实事求是的实践品格。     

资本主义代议制民主政治制度的元批判——马克思《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》新释

《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》是多个学科公认的经典名著。但国内外学者对其的解读却往往囿于各自的学科意识,忽视了其作为一篇时事政治评论的创作初衷。基于政治事件史的视角,以马克思《资本论》中成熟的思想作为分析的出发点,能发现马克思在对阶级斗争和国家原理的分析过程中还揭示出了资本主义代议制民主政治制度的本质性缺陷,即"代表"的分裂问题;制度本身无法避免成为保守势力倒转历史车轮的工具;自由主义与民主主义无休止的斗争。这些缺陷使得资本主义国家在周期性经济危机的影响下一直无法摆脱政治困境的周期性反复。当代随着经济危机的反复爆发与萧条的普遍蔓延,各种"煽动者"又开始普遍在资本主义国家政坛上崭露头角,并导致了一系列"黑天鹅"事件的发生。此时重温《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》更应别有一番意趣。     

清末民国检察文书的转型与司法现代化——基于司法档案的考察

清末以降的检察制度整体而言处在不断变革和进步之中,其文书的变化尤为明显,作为官方记录反映出司法现代化的进程。在检察制度建立之初,中国传统司法审判中最重要文书之一的批词被适用为主要的检察文书以为过渡,相应的起诉文书也初现雏形;南京国民政府时期,批词转变为近代化的规范文本,起诉书、上诉书现代化成型,其格式、内容也不断适应中央层面的现代化的改革需求,在短短二三十年间经历了从传统到现代的转型。然而形式上的检察文书快速转型与实际检察运作不一致的现象也凸显出近代中国在司法现代化过程中的根本性矛盾。     

Canadian Concerns of a Different Kind of Brexit: Britain’s First Application to the EEC and Canada’s Commonwealth Appeal

Recent debates on Brexit have made several attempts to connect the current situation with Britain’s first attempt to gain entry to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1961. In both 2016 and 1961, questions were raised about what role the Commonwealth would take and how the relationship with Britain would adapt to their then-entry and current exit of a union with Europe. This article seeks to examine how Canada reacted to Britain’s decision to enter the EEC and sheds light on the vociferous opposition it raised within the Commonwealth. Using both British and Canadian cabinet minutes and Commonwealth memoranda, the article follows the Canadian campaign against British entry to the EEC and its fervent defence of the Commonwealth as an economic-focused community. Ultimately, the Canadian-led protest against British entry into the EEC derived from a fear that Britain would drift from the Commonwealth towards Europe, leading to the complete dissolution of the economic bonds that tie the community together.     

Demonisation and electoral support for populist radical right parties: A temporary effect

Since the 1980s, Western Europe has experienced the surge of populist radical right parties. In an attempt to ward off these electoral newcomers, established parties have pursued strategies of disengagement, such as exclusion and de-legitimisation. This study examines the electoral effects of an excessive form of de-legitimisation, which we label ‘demonisation’. We estimate the effects of demonisation on electoral support for the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and its predecessor Groep Wilders. Time series analyses show that demonisation has a negative effect on electoral support, but only for Groep Wilders. Once the populist radical right party has made a successful entry into the party system, demonisation does not have its intended consequences.     

Memory and forgetting: examining the treatment of traumatic historical memory in Grave of the Fireflies and The Wind Rises

Within Japanese popular culture, manga and anime have played a significant role in mediating responses to the outcome of the Pacific War. Miyazaki Hayao's (possibly) final feature-length film, The Wind Rises, has been an important addition to the preceding body of popular media ‘texts’ that raise such themes. This article aims to address the question of how far cinematic animation can reasonably be obliged to follow the kinds of historiographical concerns that inevitably arise when engaging with Japan's militarist past. To answer this question, considerable space is devoted to examining the historical context of what others have done in the post-war period and integrate that commentary into an analysis of how the works of Takahata Isao and Miyazaki Hayao fit amongst a succession of creative works that have been co-opted in the reshaping of historical perceptions of the Japanese at war amongst the Japanese themselves. This will also require some incidental discussion of methodological issues that arise when dealing with such cases as vehicles for understanding transformations in historical consciousness. Ultimately it is argued that Miyazaki does indeed make an important contribution to the commentary on the Japanese war experience, although it must, perhaps unavoidably, be on highly personal terms so far as The Wind Rises is concerned.     

新时代深化群团改革的实践载体研究——以天津经济技术开发区群团组织“三基地一中心”为例

天津经济技术开发区总工会(团委、妇联)牢牢把握群团改革要求,主动服务于党政工作大局,以职工群众为中心,创新建设了“三基地一中心”综合服务阵地。“三基地一中心”具有政策宣传、孵化培育、职工服务、创新创业、企业服务等功能,在思想引领、组织拓展、助力发展、维护和谐、普惠服务五个方面取得了显著成效。调研结果显示,“三基地一中心”契合职工群众需求,有助于提高职工对工会的认可度,并受到企业管理人员的好评。其今后的运维应在宣传力度、精准服务、运行机制、形式内容、资源整合、沟通反馈等方面持续发力,让职工群众拥有更多幸福感、获得感、安全感,助力经济社会高质量发展。