Re‐evaluating the relationship between electoral rules and ideological congruence

Two new studies challenge the prevailing consensus that proportional representation (PR) systems produce greater ideological congruence between governments and their citizens than majoritarian ones. This has led to what has become known as the ‘ideological congruence controversy’. G. Bingham Powell claims to resolve this controversy in favour of PR systems. Specifically, he argues that the results from the two new studies are based on an anomalous decade and that PR systems generally do produce greater government congruence. In addition, he also asserts that PR systems exhibit less variability in government congruence. In this article, the empirical evidence for these two claims is re‐evaluated using exactly the same data as employed by Powell. The analysis indicates that although PR systems produce better and more consistent representation in the legislature, they do not hold an advantage when it comes to representation at the governmental level.     

行政类事业单位改革路径初探

新一轮事业单位改革中,行政类事业单位面临"不得突破政府机构限额和编制总额",即在"两个不突破"的约束性条件下,实现"行政职能回归"的艰巨挑战。但是,在"两个不突破"的约束性条件下,行政类事业单位不能完全实现"行政职能回归";即使放宽"两个不突破"的约束性条件,某些法律、法规授权或者法律、法规委托的行政类事业单位,也不能以行政机构的方式回归。行政类事业单位既然长期存在,又符合"分散化公共治理"的趋势,不如重新界定事业单位,在事业单位法人类型下涵盖行政类事业单位,通过法定机构或执行机构的方式改革行政类事业单位,实现政府决策职能和执行职能的相对分离与相互制约,是行政类事业单位改革一个值得考虑的路径。     

过失实行行为的本质及其客观不法认定标准

过失实行行为的本质在于制造并实现不被容许的风险。对过失实行行为客观不法的认定,应坚持结果回避义务对行为是否制造了不被容许的风险判断的决定作用;结果回避的不可能性导致结果回避义务的无效性;当法益侵害结果的发生不在注意规范保护目的范围内时,应否定过失实行行为的存在;行为人违反结果回避义务制造并实现了不被容许的风险方能将结果归责于行为人;风险升高理论是对违反结果回避义务行为与不法结果在无法确证因果关系时仍应予以客观归责的补强;容许的风险和风险分配理论仅具有在立法层面对结果回避义务的规定起理论支撑作用,在司法适用上并无有价性,而作为两者下位规则的信赖原则,实际亦是一个无用的规则。     

论大实践视野的信息理性与分析哲学的意义、指称困境

哲学的实践转向,根本上是实践观的时代性转轨。只有确立诸因素多维度、大时空、全方位的互为目的、手段、中介的大实践观,发掘实践信息的综合现实意义和多维交叉促动的超循环现实超越意蕴,才能使非现实超越的逻格斯思辨失去形而上学的根基。英美分析哲学,在所指客观主义和“家族相似”、“本体承诺”的相对主义之间的二难说明：以实践信息为语言奠基,拓展语境观为大实践视野,已经成为语言问题上的时代哲学必然!     

Dysfunctional institutions? Toward a New Agenda in Governance Studies

There is a wide‐spread perception among academics and commentators that institutional dysfunction has become increasingly common in important social, political, and economics arenas. Opinion polls show a decline in trust and confidence in major actors and institutions, including inter‐governmental organizations, governments, firms, NGOs, and religious organizations. For some, the core of the problem is that the hitherto well‐functioning states have become less effective in aggregating and acting upon citizens' preferences. Many policy initiatives of the 1990s – deregulation, privatization, new public management, private regulation, regional integration, civil society, and so on – seemed to have failed to meet expectations. This symposium seeks to identify important theoretical and empirical questions about institutional failure, such as why do institutions fail, why are they not self‐correcting, what might be a clear evaluative yardstick and analytic approach by which to measure performance, and to what extent contemporary theories of institutional evolution and design are useful in examining institutional restructuring and institutional renewal? Symposium essays by leading social science scholars offer important insights to inform future work on institutional performance and outline an agenda for institutional renewal and change.     

The legacy of the home owners’ loan corporation

Abstract

The appraisal practices of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) and its Residential Security Maps are often cited as major contributors to later redlining and the perpetuation of segregation through unequal access to mortgage credit. This article focuses on whether there was a relationship between the HOLC's neighborhood assessments and mortgage outcomes.

Our results indicate that the agency was clearly instrumental in restructuring the home finance system and permitting far greater access to homeowner‐ship, but it is important to consider other factors in examining the HOLC's legacy in the reshaping of the mortgage market and the operation of the financial sector after the Great Depression. Specifically, the issue of increasing segregation in older cities in the late 20th century remains inextricably linked to both the shifting nature of real estate finance after the HOLC era and the demographic, economic, and residential changes affecting U.S. cities.     

Policy Change and Industry Associability: The Australian Mining Sector

In this paper we use evidence from the recent trajectories of mining industry associations in the Australian federation to argue for the significance of institutional explanations for the formation and maintenance of interest groups. We argue that the recent lack of consultation by the Commonwealth government with the Minerals Council of Australia over resources rent taxation proposals reflected a weakness that resulted from the shifting basis of associability stemming from institutional changes.     

论信赖原则及其在交通肇事罪认定中的适用

信赖原则具有平衡社会公共安全保护与交通建设事业发展、限制过失犯罪成立范围的功能,其适用条件有严格的限制。国外关于信赖原则的立法、判例对我国在刑法理论、立法领域引入该原则具有非常重要的借鉴意义。我国目前的交通设施环境、法治观念等已经基本具备了适用信赖原则的条件。     

浅谈语境对二语阅读理解的作用

为了更好地传递信息,人类必须把握住原语言的意义。然而,脱离语境的词义具有歧义性、多义性和模糊性,会导致整个信息传达不准确。语境指真实的语言环境。它是限制语言使用的不同因素的总和。意义理解指正确理解特定材料给出的一定环境下的原语言。它不仅涵盖了对词的理解,还包括对文章的理解。脱离了语境,没有人可以理解任何对象的真义。语境在意义理解中起到束缚和限制的作用。为了得到某个词、句、段的确切意义,就要在语境中研究意义,即语境中的意义,这对学习二语的人们而言是十分必要的。     

Meaning construction in legislative discourse: a sociosemiotic interpretation on supervision system reform in China

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the reform of supervision system in China through the Supervision Law, and identifies this Law as a sign within its corresponding social and political purposes and intentions from the sociosemiotic perspective. Within its legislation process, the Supervision Law could be identified as both a sign textualized among the disciplinary regulations, and as a signifier configured with the successive interpretants by relevant laws, for example, the Constitution Amendment 2018 and the Criminal Procedure Law 2018, showing the social construction of legislative meaning as infinite semiosis. In other words, from the whole process of sign perception, reception, acceptation, and interpretation, a legislative text could be interpreted both as a sign constructed in the external but relevant sign systems and as a signifier reconstructed with the successive but infinite interpretants in the internal sign system. This study also finds that the social construction of meaning is achieved and represented to the extent which is constructed through the representation and interpretation of law-making process by sign receivers or legal participants.     

高等学校加强创业教育探讨

如何认识和加强高校创业教育是目前社会各界尤其是教育界关注和研究的热点。本文在梳理了创业教育的概念基础上,从整个社会的就业形势、学生就业对高校自身发展的重要性以及目前大学生创业素质的现状三个角度讨论高校加强创业教育的紧迫性,进而对如何加强创业教育提出了若干策略。     

Representation,agendas and institutions

Dynamic agenda representation can be understood through the transmission of the priorities of the public onto the policy priorities of government. The pattern of representation in policy agendas is mediated through institutions due to friction (i.e., organisational and cognitive costs imposed on change) in decision making and variation in the scarcity of policy makers' attention. This article builds on extant studies of the correspondence between public priorities and the policy activities of government, undertaking time‐series analyses using data for the United States and the United Kingdom, from 1951 to 2003, relating to executive speeches, laws and budgets in combination with data on public opinion about the ‘most important problem’. The results show that the responsiveness of policy agendas to public priorities is greater when institutions are subject to less friction (i.e., executive speeches subject to few formal rules and involving a limited number of actors) and declines as friction against policy change increases (i.e., laws and budgets subject to a greater number of veto points and political interests/coalitions).