民主与参与:走出貌合神离的困境?——评卡罗尔·帕特曼的参与民主理论

参与民主理论目前是国内外政治学研究的热点之一,卡罗尔.帕特曼作为当代参与民主理论的主要代表人物,对参与和民主之间的内在联系作出了具有新意的论证。当代民主理论的演变主要体现为从共和主义向自由主义的转变,其中蕴含着“民主”与“参与”的悖论,认为大多数公民的政治冷漠是民主体系的稳定的条件,公民的政治参与一般不应超出投票选举的水平。帕特曼的参与民主理论对此提出了质疑,并得到了左翼政治理论家的普遍支持,但参与民主理论本身也面临一些难以解决的难题。参与和民主能否走出貌合神离的困境依然是一个悬而未决的问题,而对代议民主和参与民主的正确认识则对把握民主的逻辑具有关键的意义。     

选民投票行为:理性,抑或非理性——公共选择学派的投票理论述评

在代议制民主政体中,选民投票行为具有至关重要的意义。公共选择理论认为,选民扮演着一种政治市场上的经济人角色。但在大集体活动中,个人理性不是实现集体理性的充分条件。在现代社会通行的多数票选举规则的约束下,由于存在信息的不完备性、个人选择的不确定性、选择结果的强制性以及损益的公共性等方面因素的影响,选民往往会表现出“理性而无知”的政治冷漠心态。文章指出,选民是否参加投票都是基于个人理性的成本———收益计算的结果;而要对之施加良性影响,必须改革不合时宜的政治制度和选举制度     

制度与实践:当前党内选举现状评析与启示

当前,中国共产党党内选举已形成相对完整的制度体系,实践层面也取得了成就,表现为党员的权利得到较高程度的确认与维护、党内权力授受关系清晰、党内监督日益强化等.但党内选举在制度设计及操作过程中也表现出选举制度的适用度、候选人提名制度与介绍制度的全面性、选举人意志和权利的实现程度、选举操作程序的科学性、选举监督机制、选举结果保障机制及评价机制的健全程度等方面的不足.     

马克思主义视角下的当代西方民主理论评析

当代西方主要民主观念和理论体系极为庞杂,各种学说目不暇接,代表人物流派层出不穷。用马克思主义的视角观察与评价西方的民主观念和民主理论,是我们研究西方政治观念的基本出发点和方法。西方式民主是在西方社会这块独特的土壤上培育出来的,是一种特殊的、历史的政治现象,有其历史和社会局限性,并不具有普遍适用性。在当代中国政治发展过程中,不能照搬西方的民主体制和价值观念,应当树立科学、正确的民主观。从方法上讲,必须坚定阶级的立场、历史的观点、全面的观点和过程的观点。只有这样,才能真正有助于推动中国特色社会主义民主政治的发展。     

实证分析:制度认同与程序歧见的交织

人民代表大会制度是我国人民实现在国家政治生活中当家做主的根本政治制度,选举人大代表既是人民代表大会制度的重要构成内容,也是人民代表大会制度运行的基础性程序和环节.然而,从我们的实际调查情况来看①,人们对我国人大代表选举制度的认同存在一定分歧,对选举活动的参加也不够积极.针对问题的原因,亟待进一步完善选举制度.     

民主政治:实现权力制约的根本途径

正尽管对权力的制约有不少模式和途径,但是,追根溯源,权力制约的根基,还在于民主政治。民主政治包含了权力制约的基本理念和制度。公共权力所有者与行使者分离的内在矛盾,决定了权力所有者应该对权力行使者进行制约。只有通过民主政治建设,才能从根本上实现对权力的制约。一、民主政治包含了权力制约的基本理念民主政治并不是像西方所说的那样,它的实质应是"多数人统治"的政治或"人民主权"的政治,其精神就是主权在民,就是由人民来决定国家事务或公共事务。当人民能够真正决定国家事务或公共事务的时候,既表明民主政治     

参与式民主的理论与价值

参与式民主是西方发达国家民主发展的新趋向,主张民主不仅是一种政治制度,更是一种生活方式,自由和个人的发展只能依靠公民在社会和国家事务中直接地不断地参与才能实现。参与式民主在代议制民主的基础上要求扩大直接民主的有效范围,丰富民主政治的合理内核,符合民主直接化的要求,代表着当代社会政治生活从精英民主趋向大众民主的发展方向。     

民主与自由的冲突及平衡——托克维尔民主思想评析

民主与自由之间存在一种微妙的关系。在自由主义的发展历程中，大多数自由主义者对民主持一种否定性的态度，认为民主与自由存在冲突。托克维尔作为自由主义发展历程上的一个重要人物对近代民主政治理论的发展做出了巨大贡献。托克维尔提出民主是历史的潮流，民主政府的好处在于维护大多数人的利益，但是，民主也存在不可避免的弊病，在许多方面是敌视自由的。因此，自由主义者必须学习如何将自由与民主调和起来。     

民主理论视域中的自由主义与民主

从民主理论的角度来看,自由主义对民主的建构具有以下几个特征:对人民主权原剐的远膏、以财产权为基础的经济特权的优先性、在政治领域的范围之内的民主、把民主作为一种政治方法与手段.可见,使民主定位于自由主义的政治框架之内是自由主义与民主之间关系的核心内容,"民主只能是自由主义式的"成为自由主义民主理论的信条.     

International Technology Cooperation: The Problem of Commercial Rivalry

International technology cooperation promises to help countries exploit the potential of new innovations, but commercial rivalry between companies and governments raises obstacles to it. In this article, I present and solve a model of international technology cooperation. The formal analysis shows that a technology agreement must address two issues. First, governments must be able to induce companies to innovate. Second, governments must credibly commit to penalizing companies for failing to share new information produced through research. Based on these observations, I show that the potential for technology cooperation is maximized in symmetric settings between equally capable governments and companies. In practice, this observation warrants a policy focus on countries and industries that are already on a level playing ground. I also consider extensions to multinational companies and adverse selection problems. The formal analysis provides a solid foundation for practical policy implementation.     

Portfolio Allocation and Policy Compromises: How and Why the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats Formed a Coalition Government

The question of ‘who gets what?’ is one of the most interesting issues in coalition politics. Research on portfolio allocation has thus far produced some clear‐cut empirical findings: coalition parties receive ministerial posts in close proportion to the number of parliamentary seats they win. This article poses two simple questions: Why did the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats agree to form a coalition government and, secondly, did the process of portfolio allocation in the United Kingdom in 2010 reflect standard patterns of cabinet composition in modern democracies? In order to answer these questions, a content analysis of election manifestos is applied in this article in order to estimate the policy positions of the parties represented in the House of Commons. The results show that a coalition between the Tories and Lib Dems was indeed the optimal solution in the British coalition game in 2010. When applying the portfolio allocation model, it turns out that the Conservatives fulfilled the criteria of a ‘strong party’, implying that the Tories occupied the key position in the coalition game. On account of this pivotal role, they were ultimately able to capture the most important ministries in the new coalition government.     

Performance of political parties in the 2016 parliamentary election in Slovakia: regional comparisons and district-level determinants

This paper explores the results of the 2016 parliamentary election in the Slovak Republic, with a special emphasis on the regional aspects of participating political parties’ election campaigns. It summarizes the election results for the country as a whole, as well as separately by region. An empirical analysis of party electoral performance at the district level suggests that the incumbent Smer party tended to do well in districts with higher rates of unemployment and a lower proportion of university-educated population. Similar patterns hold for the Slovak ethnic nationalist Slovak National Party and the far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia. By contrast, the two parties that presented themselves as being starkly opposed to the Smer government’s policies—Freedom and Solidarity and Ordinary People and Independent Personalities—exhibit greater support in districts with more university-educated voters and lower unemployment rates.     

一致还是冲突：对公共政策理性预设与价值选择的思考

公共政策总是在一定的理性限度和价值定向中发挥其分析功能,理性的有限性和价值的冲突性,决定了政策系统中有组织的无序状态,政策制定与执行的过程并非如应然的有序、一致和形成普遍的共识,政策分析是一项艰难而复杂的工作。     

Intra-Executive Competition between President and Prime Minister: Patterns of Institutional Conflict and Cooperation under Semi-Presidentialism

The article examines the dynamics of political competition over the control of the executive that shapes the coexistence of popularly elected presidents and prime ministers in semi-presidential regimes. It explores how variation in the political status of cabinet and the character of the party system, as well as differences in presidential and parliamentary powers over the cabinet, affects both the type and intensity of intra-executive conflict in democratic and semi-democratic environments. It demonstrates that presidents' and prime ministers' strategies in intra-executive relations in both types of political environment are systematically affected by the nature and extent of cabinet's political support in parliament, as well as by the degree of presidential control over cabinet.     

Schism on the Left: the Motivations and Impact of Ralph Nader's Candidacy

In the United States there is noticeably less controversy over the third party candidacy of Ralph Nader in this year's election than there has been in the previous two. Nader was blamed by many on the left for the Democratic Party's loss of the 2000 election. He has further provoked the ire of the Democrats by claiming that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. This article will focus on addressing several of the emergent questions from the Nader candidacies, namely: is there a difference between the two parties in the United States? Did Ralph Nader cost the Democrats the election in 2000? Are citizens better off voting for the ideal candidate or settling for the best candidate who has a chance of victory?     

Small winners and big losers: strategic party behaviour in the 2017 Dutch general election

Abstract

This article analyses party strategies during the campaign for the Dutch general election of March 2017, making use of issue-yield theory. It investigates whether parties strategically emphasise high-yield issues, by juxtaposing the issue opportunities provided by voters with parties’ issue emphasis during the campaign. More specifically, it asks whether parties strategically emphasised issues that were expected to reward them electorally. Analysing voter preferences and party campaign data, it is found that parties and most of their constituencies show high ideological consistency, that parties emphasise mostly positional issues and thus choose a conflict-mobilising strategy, and that most parties emphasise high-yield issues rather than following the general political agenda. Four small parties that won significantly behaved strategically while the social democrats – who severely lost – hardly did. The findings imply that the issue-yield framework can help to explain the election result in the fragmented Dutch multi-party context.     

Is it Population or Personnel? The Effects of Diversity on Immigration Policy Implementation by Sheriff Offices

Abstract

The federal-local cooperative immigration removal program Secure Communities (S-Comm) has resulted in wide variation into how aggressively national interior immigration policy has been implemented locally. Some communities have removed thousands, but others have removed few if any. Community composition explains much of the variation, but representative bureaucracy tells us agency diversity also influences implementation. Focusing on county sheriff offices, a vital local partner in S-Comm, this study finds that agency personnel diversity (specifically, offices with larger percentages of Hispanics and African Americans) produce fewer removals and submissions to ICE for immigration background checks. Other agency-specific factors are also important. Both the agency’s total budget and whether it has a 287(g) agreement with federal immigration authorities increase removals. Despite recent efforts to blur the distinction between immigration and criminal justice policy, this study finds no relationship between local removals and local crime.     

Civic activism and Korean democracy: the impact of blacklisting campaigns in the 2000 and 2004 general elections

Abstract

For the general elections in 2000 and 2004, civic groups in South Korea joined forces to stage the so-called ‘blacklisting campaign’ or ‘defeat campaign’ against allegedly corrupt, incompetent or anti-reform politicians. The campaigns not only played a significant role in thwarting many politicians from getting nominated or elected but also heralded a new era in Korean politics: civic groups have now emerged as a major political force, capable not only of challenging party policies and pending legislation but also taking on an agenda-setting prominence in a wide array of policy areas. In analyzing the success of NGO political activities in the 2000 and 2004 general elections, this paper draws on resource mobilization theory to show how the civic groups effectively utilized various resources, including leadership skills, communications and office facilities, and access to the mass media, to achieve their objective rather than relying simply on the spontaneous participation of voters. In comparing the efforts of civic groups in the two elections, the paper also explains the factors that made their endeavors relatively less successful in 2004 (e.g. a splintering of alliances among the civic groups). On the whole, the paper argues that the greater political involvement by civic groups is likely to lead to a more pluralistic, open and competitive form of democracy, and that the vibrant civic activism in Korea is an indication not only of maturing democracy but also a more secure entrenchment of civil society.