Democracy,social capital and school governing bodies in South Africa

Critics of school governing bodies (SGBs) – both on the left and on the right – tend to rely upon arguments that ignore significant portions of the act that created SGBs – the South African Schools Act (SASA) – the exact nature of the changes to SGBs wrought by amendments to the act and the manner in which the courts, in interpreting the act, have both reinforced the autonomy of SGBs at the same time as they have set limits on those powers. The authors’ reading takes seriously all of the provisions of SASA, its amendments and various court constructions of SASA's provisions. This close reading of the South African Constitution, SASA, SASA's amendments and the case law reveals the lineaments of a fourth level of democratic government. Even with their uneven success as a fourth tier of democratic government, SGBs reflect, in many respects, the most important interactions that citizens have with the state. The authors contend that SGBs provide a vehicle for popular political participation that is quite real, and that participation is made no less real by the strictures imposed upon them by South Africa's constitutional and regulatory order. Despite concerns about their lack of capacity, SGBs enjoy popular acceptance and participation across class and language divides. The legal status of SGBs does not merely enhance various forms of local democracy, SGBs also maintain and create effective social networks that generate new stores of social capital. The ability to provide new forms of democratic participation and to create new stores of social capital suggests that SGBs have the makings of a great, new and rather unique ‘South African’ political institution.     

新闻媒体的公权利与社会权力

知情权、参与权、表达权、监督权这四权是新闻媒体权利的主要构成要件.其中知情权和表达权是新闻媒体赖以生存的基础;参与权和监督权则是新闻媒体安身立命的价值所在.新闻媒体拥有的公民权(公权利),也可转化为强大的社会公共权力.它是公民权利和社会权力的合金.新闻自由是公民和媒体的宪法权利,包括媒体搜集、制作、发布、传播新闻和言论的自由,及公民个人收受新闻、通过媒体发表意见和言论的自由,均应受法律保护,也要受一定限制,承担相应的社会责任、法律责任.     

MP Transparency,Communication Links and Social Media: A Comparative Assessment of 184 Parliamentary Websites

Parliamentary websites (PWs) can potentially enhance the quality of government by providing information and communication links that stimulate political awareness, deliberation and participation. This article focuses on two particular uses of PWs that can facilitate communication between constituents and their Members of Parliament: provision of MP contact and background information; and links to social media. Through a seminal empirical examination of all 184 functioning lower house and unicameral PWs around the world, this study found that although PWs in wealthy democracies generally provide more MP information, the majority of PWs are deficient in providing basic MP information to citizens and utilizing linkages to social media. By contrast, some non-democratic states and newly democratized countries, especially those with compulsory voting, display a relatively high level of MP transparency and social media connectivity.     

MPs and the Internet – An Empirically Based Typology

In recent years, both an increase in and a process of differentiation of ‘new’, digital media devices, including rising numbers of citizens turning to them, have stimulated recurring speculation about a readjustment of the communicative relationship between political representatives and the people. The debate about ‘electronic democracy’ has so far focused predominantly on technical potentials on the one hand and citizens' exposure to interactive political communication channels on the other. By contrast, the ‘supply side’, that is, the internet activities of political actors and especially their motives, has been investigated relatively rarely. Against this backdrop, two representative surveys were conducted among German and Austrian members of parliament that investigated their attitudes towards the internet. The results demonstrate similarities and differences in internet-related competences and assessments which are explained by micro- and meso-level factors. Foremost, an age-related ‘digital divide’ was found crossing the parliamentarian rows in both countries.     

Reaching out to the people? Assessing the relationship between parliament and citizens in Finland

Despite the Open Government (Parliament) initiatives and notions of a ‘democratic parliament’, the relationship between legislatures and citizens remains seriously under-researched. This article introduces a comprehensive analytical framework, combining the normative principles of visibility, accessibility, and permeability with practical indicators (parliament as public space, sharing of information, contact with MPs, media and digital engagement, transparency of legislative process, and actual participation in legislative decision-making) for assessing the public engagement of parliaments. Applying this framework to the Finnish Eduskunta, the authors show that despite recent reforms that have partially ‘opened up’ parliamentary proceedings and attempted to connect citizens to democratic process, there remains scope for reforms and innovations. The Eduskunta should embrace a more positive approach towards new forms of civic participation, particularly regarding how its influential committees operate. The findings reflect the tensions between, or the difficulties in reconciling, traditional forms of representative democracy with alternative and more direct channels of political participation.     

媒介传播时态下的“微政治”：基本认知与中国语境

自媒体作为典型的媒介传播正在以一种前所未见的技术力量深刻地塑造着后传统社会的生态与情境,并将人类带入了微政治的全新时代。微政治不是传统的阶级政治,它是以网络传媒为代表的新兴技术力量嵌入并塑造的社会;是将普通人的日常事务纳入政策关切,从而带来治理结构转型的一场政治社会运动。微政治也对中国的社会政治结构变迁提出了挑战。     

Nondecision making and inertia in Portuguese health policy

Despite there having been a positive context for initiating health care reforms in Portugal in the past fifteen years (accompanied by political consensus on the nature of the structural problems within the health care system), there has been a lack of reform initiatives. We use a process-based framework to show how institutional arrangements have influenced Portuguese health care reform. Evidence is presented to demonstrate inertia and nondecision making in three critical areas of Portuguese health policy: clarifying the public-private mix in coverage and provision, creating financial incentives and motivation for human resources, and introducing changes in the pharmaceutical market. Several factors seem to explain these processes, namely, problems in the balance of power within the political system, which have contributed to a lack of proper policy discussion; a lack of pluralism in the formation of health care policies (with low participation from citizens and high mobilization among structural interest groups); and the low priority of health care in public sector reforms. Portuguese politicians should be aware of the pitfalls of the current political system that constrain participatory arrangements and pluralism in policy making. In order to pursue health care reform, future governments will need to counterbalance the strong influence of structural interest groups.     

我国公民参与公共决策的问题探究

公民参与公共决策是公民个人或组织通过直接或间接方式影响公共政策制定的行为,其目的是实现公共资源的有效配置,达到公共利益的最大化、合理化。随着市场经济和民主政治的发展,公民主体意识、利益意识和自主意识逐渐形成,公民不再只是被动地接受政府所提供的公共产品和公共服务,还会就公共产品和服务的质量提出自己的意见或建议。公民在公共决策中的主体地位日益凸现。因此,公共决策中的公民参与已成为政府和公民普遍关注的问题。本文探讨了我国公民参与公共决策的必要性,分析了公民参与公共决策所面临的问题与困境,并提出一些建议和措施,旨在为公民参与公共决策提供借鉴。     

Public Attitudes toward Auxiliary Police in China: a Preliminary Investigation

Despite their colossal size and importance in policing, China’s auxiliary police forces have garnered very little research attention. This study attempts to fill our knowledge gap by first describing key features that distinguish the auxiliary police from the regular police in China and their counterparts in Western societies, followed by an empirical investigation of public attitudes toward the auxiliary police in China. Based on survey data collected from a coastal city in China, we reported the general patterns of people’s evaluations of auxiliary officers and assessed whether variables representing institutional trust, media exposure, and neighborhood context are predictive of Chinese attitudes toward the auxiliary police. We found that Chinese citizens rated their local auxiliary officers very positively. Trust in the government and police and known negative reports about the auxiliary police are linked to Chinese’ global satisfaction with the auxiliary police. Trust in the police, exposure to and belief in negative media reports about the auxiliary police, and perception of neighborhood collective efficacy are associated with people’s specific attitudes toward auxiliary officers. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

     

法治视野下的网络反腐

网络反腐法治化建设的宪政意义在于它是电子民主时代公民参政权的重要展现。参政权作为宪法及法律规定的现代社会公民享有的基本权利,在于确认和保障公民参与国家管理及社会事务的管理,监督和抑制权力滥用及其腐败。电子民主时代,网络参政拓宽了公民民主参与的渠道,公民参政权的实现变得切实可行。网络反腐法治化有利于公民参政权的落实,进而有力地推进民主监督制度的发展。网络反腐法治化的基本理念包括公众参与、规范统一、网民保护、信息公开,而建立健全网络反腐的法律制度,保护并激励网络举报人是其法治化的路径选择。     

The public salience of crime, 1960–2014: Age–period–cohort and time–series analyses†

The public salience of crime has wide-ranging political and social implications; it influences public trust in the government and citizens’ everyday routines and interactions, and it may affect policy responsiveness to punitive attitudes. Identifying the sources of crime salience is thus important. Two competing theoretical models exist: the objectivist model and the social constructionist model. According to the first, crime salience is a function of the crime rate. According to the second, crime salience is a function of media coverage and political rhetoric, and trends in crime salience differ across population subgroups as a result of differences in their responsiveness to elite initiatives. In both theories, period-level effects predominate. Variation in crime salience, however, may also reflect age and cohort effects. Using data from 422,504 respondents interviewed between 1960 and 2014, we first examine the nature of crime salience using hierarchical age–period–cohort (HAPC) models and then analyze period-level predictors using first differences. We find that 1) crime salience varies mostly at the period level; 2) crime salience trends are parallel (cointegrated) across demographic, socioeconomic, and partisan groups; and 3) crime salience trends within every population subgroup are most consistent with the constructionist model. The crime rate does not exert a significant effect in any subgroup.     

Who Can Deviate from the Party Line? Political Ideology Moderates Evaluation of Incongruent Policy Positions in Insula and Anterior Cingulate Cortex

Political polarization at the elite level is a major concern in many contemporary democracies, which is argued to alienate large swaths of the electorate and prevent meaningful social change from occurring, yet little is known about how individuals respond to political candidates who deviate from the party line and express policy positions incongruent with their party affiliations. This experiment examines the neural underpinnings of such evaluations using functional MRI (fMRI). During fMRI, participants completed an experimental task where they evaluated policy positions attributed to hypothetical political candidates. Each block of trials focused on one candidate (Democrat or Republican), but all participants saw two candidates from each party in a randomized order. On each trial, participants received information about whether the candidate supported or opposed a specific policy issue. These issue positions varied in terms of congruence between issue position and candidate party affiliation. We modeled neural activity as a function of incongruence and whether participants were viewing ingroup or outgroup party candidates. Results suggest that neural activity in brain regions previously implicated in both evaluative processing and work on ideological differences (insula and anterior cingulate cortex) differed as a function of the interaction between incongruence, candidate type (ingroup versus outgroup), and political ideology. More liberal participants showed greater activation to incongruent versus congruent trials in insula and ACC, primarily when viewing ingroup candidates. Implications for the study of democratic representation and linkages between citizens’ calls for social change and policy implementation are discussed.     

Racial profiling and searches: Did the politics of racial profiling change police behavior?*

Research Summary Scholarly research has documented repeatedly that minority citizens are disproportionately stopped, searched, and arrested relative to their baseline populations. In recent years, policymakers have brought increased attention to this issue as law‐enforcement agencies across the United States have faced allegations of racial profiling. In the 1990s, the politics generated by accounts of racially biased policing placed heightened pressure on law‐enforcement agencies. However, to date, few studies have explored whether the increased social and political scrutiny placed on police organizations influenced or changed their general pattern of enforcement among black and white citizens. Using data in the search and citation file from the North Carolina Highway Traffic Study, this research specifically examined whether the politics generated by the media coverage of racial profiling and racial profiling legislation in North Carolina influenced the search practices of officers of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol's drug interdiction team. The findings suggest that media accounts and the passage of new legislation were particularly powerful influences, which thereby reduced racial disparity in searches. Declines in the use of consent searches and an increased probability of finding contraband also were influenced by the politics of racial profiling. Policy Implications The results of this study suggest several important policy recommendations. First, law‐enforcement agencies must monitor the policing practices of their officers because such supervision can influence officer compliance with fair and unbiased policing policies. Next, supervisors need to familiarize themselves with enforcement data to identify potential problem officers and organizational practices. By doing so, police organizations will not only increase officer accountability but also will potentially improve communication with their local communities. Such communication can empower community members to file charges against officers who violate their civil rights. Next, the media and political effects documented in this study suggest that external oversight can be particularly influential on police practices. Therefore, police agencies should consider developing a citizen complaint board, which is an external oversight board that would be responsible for investigating allegations against officers who engage in racial profiling or other racially biased enforcement practices. Such a board could assist police administrators in identifying problem officers as well as in making recommendations for corrective action. Finally, external social and political pressure must continually be placed on police forces to improve equity in police behavior. These external forces can assist in creating opportunities for police to increase the overall quality and efficacy of policing.     

文化法的定位、原则与体系

文化法属于社会法的范畴,旨在保障公民文化权益的实现和满足人民群众精神生活需要。建立公民文化权利与政府责任之间的关联性,确立和维护产业文化与事业文化形态,促进文化体制改革、社会核心价值体系建设和文化繁荣发展,需要加强文化法治建设。文化法治建设应当遵循文化权利保障、政府主导与公众参与结合、市场化与政府规制协调以及综合效益原则,构建由宪法文化权利与宪法文化政策两块坚实基石、文化事业法制与文化产业法制两个基本侧面、中央文化立法与地方文化立法两个对应层面、文化政策与文化法律两个互动方面有机构成的文化法制体系。     

Forging a new political culture: Plenary behaviour in the scottish parliament

Part of the appeal of creating a new Scottish Parliament lay in the ability of legislators to re-define the institutional culture of politics. For advocates of change, the Westminster system, with its emphasis on adversarial and male-dominated politics, turned citizens off politics. Devolution advocates argued that a Scottish Parliament, composed of a new type of politician and operating according to modernised rules, would better serve the public. The four principles of the Consultative Steering Group report included among them references to a more open and accessible political system. The 1999 elections introduced a number of new faces but among the 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) are a number of sitting and former local councillors, Members of Parliament and party workers. This article examines these individuals and their behaviour in the first year of plenary debates to determine whether the social characteristics of these MSPs, their gender, their partisan ties or their previous political experiences affects the likelihood of a new model of political debate. It argues that initially the political experience of MSPs affected their levels of participation but that increasingly, position within the Parliament exerts a greater influence. Some social characteristics such as gender, however, continue to influence the extent and manner of participation.     

Punishment, Socially Deprived Offenders, and Democratic Community

The idea that victims of social injustice who commit crimes ought not to be subject to punishment has attracted serious attention in recent legal and political philosophy. R. A. Duff has argued, for example, a states that perpetrates social injustice lacks the standing to punish victims of such injustice who commit crimes. A crucial premiss in his argument concerns the fact that when courts in liberal society mete out legitimate criminal punishments, they are conceived as acting in the name of all citizens—on behalf of the whole political community. Resisting this premiss, Peter Chau has suggested that courts ought to be conceived as acting only in the name of “just citizens”: citizens who cannot be plausibly seen as having contributed to distributive injustice. When conceived in this way, Chau argues, courts can no longer plausibly be regarded as lacking standing to punish. This article uses the debate between Duff and Chau to explain why the question of whether to punish socially deprived offenders can only be answered adequately when connected to broader concerns of democratic theory. Specifically, it argues that Chau’s proposal is not available within the context of the kind of political community upon which (Duff rightly believes) a system of liberal criminal law depends for its justification and maintenance: a community in which citizens see the law as embodying shared norms whose specific demands they disagree about. State officials are morally permitted to see themselves as acting on behalf of a subset of the citizenry, I argue, only in circumstances of democratic crisis: circumstances in which a moral community can no longer be plausibly said to exist.     

Family, Social Inequalities, and the Persuasive Force of Interpersonal Obligation

To date, the privatization of the costs of social inequalitiesfor women and children has been criticized predominantly froma policy perspective. This article seeks to make a strongercase against remedying social inequalities through private lawobligations by addressing the theoretical difficulties withsuch privatization with a particular focus on familial obligations.I take my core examples from the current Canadian understandingof the spousal and child support obligations. My analysis proposes and proceeds on the basis of a new discoursefor obligations traditionally grouped together as "Family Law"obligations: first, interpersonal obligations, which arise fromand tie together two citizens through either a single interactionor through their relationship as a whole; second, social obligations,which are owed by the community as a whole to individual citizens. I argue that the persuasive force of the focus on an individual'sresponsibility for another's financial need has obscured thereality of the state's obligation, the broader social obligation,to respond to this need. I conclude with a discussion of theconsequences of my analysis for the future of the spousal andchild support obligations. If we deny an expanded role to thesesupport obligations, can we do so in a way that avoids leavingthe impoverished in an even more precarious position?     

我国党风廉政建设中公众参与的政治动员模式：回顾与反思

动员公众参与党风廉政建设是我国在特定的历史条件下为获得公众对这一议题的认同和支持．引导公众积极参与而采取的一种模式。客观分析这种模式形成的背景，深入剖析这种模式的特征。认真总结其经验和教训。对当下如何引导公众参与党风廉政建设，完善公众参与制度，加强政府与公众在党风廉政建设中的互动与合作仍具有重要的意义。     

Technological Change,Globalization and the Europeanization of Rights

In contrast to civil and political rights, and to economic and social rights, which have been constructed and guaranteed within the framework of the nation-state, the new rights that aim to respond to opportunities and risks arising from new information and communication technologies, biotechnologies or, more generally, technology-based industrial development, are emerging in a context characterized by the strengthening of trans-national forces and dynamics (so-called 'globalization') and the erosion of state sovereignty. The state's loss of power and autonomy to regulate economic and social activity, as well as to protect individual rights, has been accentuated in the European Community (EC) as a result of a process that to a certain degree anticipated contemporary global tendencies. The EC appears, therefore, as a privileged observatory of the possible impact of globalization on the contents of rights, whether 'classical' rights or new rights, such as the rights of access to information, new forms of intellectual property or rights to be consulted or to participate in decision-making about environmental risk. My main objective in this article is to analyze recent developments in the EC's legal framework of informational and environmental policies with a view to evaluate how opportunities for individual and collective action and welfare, made possible by new information and communication technologies or claimed by environmentally alert citizens, are being defined in the form of rights recognized to individuals or social groups.     

Governing digital societies: Private platforms,public values

Online digital platforms have deeply penetrated every sector in society, disrupting markets, labor relations and institutions, while transforming social and civic practices. Moreover, platform dynamics have affected the very core of democratic processes and political communication. After a decade of platform euphoria, in which tech companies were celebrated for empowering ordinary users, problems have been mounting over the past three years. Disinformation, fake news, and hate speech spread via YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook poisoned public discourse and influenced elections. The Facebook—Cambridge Analytica scandal epitomized the many privacy breaches and security leaks dogging social media networks. Further compounded by charges of tax evasion and the undermining of fair labor laws, big tech companies are facing a serious ‘techlash’. As some argued, the promotion of longstanding public values such as tolerance, democracy, and transparency are increasingly compromised by the global ‘exports’ of American tech companies which dominate the online infrastructure for the distribution of online cultural goods: news, video, social talk, and private communication (Geltzer & Gosh, 2018). As extensively discussed in our book ‘The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connected World’, the digitization and ‘platformization’ of societies involve several intense struggles between competing ideological systems and their contesting actors, prompting important questions: Who should be responsible for anchoring public values in platform societies that are driven by algorithms and fueled by data? What kind of public values should be negotiated? And how can European citizens and governments guard certain social and cultural values while being dependent on a platform ecosystem which architecture is based on commercial values and is rooted in a neolibertarian world view?