A Response to Giorgios Kallis’ Notions of Socialism and Growth

ABSTRACT

Kallis’ discussion of degrowth in a transition to socialism is misleading and substantially detached from the current context, especially with recurring cataclysms due to climate change and the requirements to implement a programme to prevent even worse outcomes while there is a narrowing window of opportunity to do so. The fallacies of Kallis’ arguments originate in his misinformed account of economic and physical growth relative to thermodynamics and ecological processes, his feeble grasp of capitalist relations, and his gross misrepresentation of socialist, and specifically ecosocialist, thought.     

加强纪律建设 涵养政治生态

旗帜鲜明讲政治是马克思主义执政党的根本要求,营造风清气正的政治生态是加强党的政治建设的基础性、经常性工作。纪检监察机关要把讲政治的要求贯彻并体现于推进纪律建设的全过程,以辩证思维、系统思维、法治思维、底线思维和创新思维分析问题,多角度、立体化推进优良政治生态的净化养成。     

干部选拔任用中圈子文化的成因、影响与整治

干部选拔任用中圈子文化盛行主要源于传统官僚文化的承袭与市场利益驱动的交织、人事任免权力过于集中、干部的资源依赖与人身依附心理作祟等多重因素。圈子文化一旦渗入干部选任的各个环节,会造成破坏干部选任原则与标准、削弱干部队伍的领导和治理能力、阻碍动议与民主推荐中的制度执行等负面影响。要破除干部选拔任用中圈子文化的束缚与藩篱,在积极正向的政治文化和政治生态中打造忠诚干净担当的干部队伍,就必须构建科学的干部选任标准,优化干部选任制度体系,做实民主推荐强化过程监督,多主体协同培育优良政治文化,同时也要从源头加大对圈子文化的整治力度,防止圈子文化的蔓延和对政治生态的侵蚀。     

“Value Grabbing”: A Political Ecology of Rent

This paper aims to redress the under-appreciated significance of rent for political ecological analysis. We introduce the notion of value grabbing, defined as the appropriation of (surplus) value through rent. A concept that is analytically distinct from accumulation, rent is both a social relation and a distributional process that is increasingly central to the reproduction of contemporary capitalism. Emphasis is placed on the “grabbing” of value in order to shed light on the processes at work by which surplus value is distributed unevenly between different classes and fractions of classes. A focus on rent within political ecology, we argue, can help us distinguish between two organically related but analytically distinct “moments”: (a) the creation of property rights that establish rent relations and (b) the struggle over the appropriation and distribution of surplus value generated by the rent relation itself. We explore some of the implications of this perspective for understanding new forms of socio-ecological struggles and their varied relations to the state. We maintain that a value-grabbing perspective has far-reaching consequences for political ecology, as it provides a sharp conceptual tool for situating a wide range of socio-ecological conflicts and movements as class struggles over value appropriation and distribution.     

权力、利益与生态:反腐新常态的价值取向

反腐新常态的形成和发展,取决于能否实质性地改变原有的权力结构、利益格局和政治生态。革新权力结构、调整利益格局和重构政治生态是一个统一整体。革新权力结构可以突破权力限制,形成科学的权力体系;调整利益格局可以摆脱利益固化,形成合理的利益关系;重构政治生态可以改变官场风气,形成清正的从政环境。当前,革新权力结构旨在形成不同权力之间互相制约又相互协调的关系;调整利益格局旨在消除特殊利益集团的垄断;重构政治生态旨在追求政治伦理,坚持法治反腐,改变腐败文化的负面影响。     

新中国成立初腐败发生源的政治生态学分析

新中国成立后,腐败现象和行为并没有伴随新政权和新社会的建立而彻底消失,反而由于受到权力运行外环境社会变革中的某些不成熟和不完善的环节、部分,以及权力运行体系自身内环境中隐藏的风险的双重作用,一度相当"猖獗"。这些特殊化劣变生态因子的滋生,说明了新中国成立初反腐斗争的艰巨性、复杂性,以及反腐败所取得的成绩来之不易;同时也表明,政府反腐败政治体系的构建不是"一劳永逸"的,必须在科学分析和把握具体政治生态环境特征的基础上实行"与时俱进"。     

试论中国政治发展进程中的乡镇长选举制度改革

目前、四川、山西、广东深圳等地所进行的乡镇长选举制度改革尝试的实质是政治参与水平和层次的提高与扩大,符合中国民主政治发展的长远方向。但在当前这个转型的关键时期,将这种改革尝试向更大的范围和更高的更次推广的时机尚不成熟。对当前的政治发展与政治稳定而言,遏制腐败蔓延比发展政治民主更重要,提高政府能力比扩大政治参与更重要,发展党内民主比发展党外民主更重要。     

The Childhood of an Approach

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to examine the possibility that a political marketing strategy might develop in the Italian political system context, characterized in the last decade by a profound “political earthquake.” After an analysis of the main features of Italian politics (party system, electoral laws, party organisations, campaign dynamics and actors), the authors seek to explore both constraints and opportunities of what they define as “reductionist” and “holistic” approaches to political marketing, drawing the conclusion that Italy is still living in a period of transition in which, however, a trend towards more “high-tech” and marketing-driven campaigning could be detected.     

对公共政策制定的政治哲学思考

公共政策制定是社会政治生活中公共决策系统的经常性活动。在现代社会,由于公共政策的巨大作用和影响,公共政策制定问题引起了广泛的关注。从政治哲学的角度审视,以公意为价值取向、以政治权力为基本依托,以政治秩序为最终归宿,才能建立起人民期待的合理、公正、有效的公共政策,从而进一步推进决策的科学化、民主化。     

Political Donations in Australia: What the Australian Electoral Commission Disclosures Reveal and What They Don't

The transparent disclosure of political donations is an important anti‐corruption measure. However Australia's current disclosure system has been too poor to sustain rigorous empirical analysis by either journalists or researchers. The barriers to analysis lie in the data collected and in how it is disclosed to the public. This article seeks to give an overview of the transparency problems in the disclosures. It then outlines what limited insights can be gleaned about the political donations landscape. It finds that donations are dominated by the federal election cycle, transparently declared donations make up a small and declining proportion of parties’ incomes at 12–15%, and the amount of money going entirely undisclosed is more than 50% and growing. It also finds indications of paying for access and donor strikes being used to punish government that require further research.     

An Analysis of Political Ambition in Britain

Representative democracies require sufficient numbers of citizens to put themselves forward as candidates for political office. Existing studies have shown that political institutions are not representative of the population as a whole, suggesting that political ambition is not evenly distributed across all potential candidates. We discuss evidence from the first systematic study of political ambition in Britain, examining the question of who is interested in putting themselves forward for political office. We find patterns in the distribution of political ambition that help to explain why British political institutions do not look like the British people as a whole and include a gender gap, a social class gap, an education gap, a north–south divide, and a personality gap. We discuss the implications of our findings for political parties, arguing that they need to adjust practices of candidate recruitment in such a way that minimises the effects of these biases.