监察官法制定的现实必要、争议及具体设想

今年我国或将提起审议监察官法。监察官法的出台是对现行法律难以有效管理监察官队伍的必要回应,有利于提升监察职业的威信。监察官应当走专业化发展道路,试行员额制改革,将法律职业资格作为监察机关执纪调查部门初任监察官的准入条件,采用专业技术序列设置监察官的等级。在制定监察官法的具体结构和内容上,参照新修订的《法官法》《检察官法》,我国监察试点经验以及域外监察法规,监察官的范围应当限于行使国家监察权力的专责监察人员;监察官的职权尤为需要注重保密义务与树立监察权威;经验、能力、品性、政治素养应当是遴选监察官的考量因素,对于初任监察官、转隶人员、原纪检监察部门过渡人员应当予以区别任用;应当强化对监察官的培训、任职回避与监督管理,构建系统的监察官考核、奖励和惩戒机制;在工资保险福利、职务、人身安全、职业伦理、辞职辞退与退休等方面对监察官要加以保障。     

Power,Powerlessness and Petroleum: Indigenous Environmental Claims and the Limits of Transnational Law

Environmental disasters, particularly oil spills, increasingly involve a complex intermingling of the national, international and often the transnational. Traditional responses to seeking remediation have pursued the legal path of class action suits against multinational corporations. This article examines one such historic case, Aguinda v. Texaco, Inc., in which residents of Ecuador's Amazonian rainforest brought suit against Texaco in US federal courts through the legal opening provided by the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789. Dominant analyses of this case have centered on the failed promise of this law to serve as a human rights tool and view this failure in terms of the sovereigntist limitations on an emerging cosmopolitan order. Against these analyses, this article offers an alternative approach that shifts the focus from the limitations of the law towards a perspective on power. Bringing to bear political science's power debate to develop this perspective on power, the article highlights what analytical tools from this debate are translatable or which are not for understanding the power relations of the Aguinda case. Through this exercise, this article aims to prod a reconsideration of dominant theories of power, developed in a frame of the nation-state, and to provoke their redevelopment to better engage with the complex and dynamic flows of power in cases of environmental justice and politics across borders.     

The Settlement and Process of Devolution: Territorial Politics and Governance under the Welsh Assembly

Devolution has been the most notable feature of the Labour government's plan to modernize the constitution. Principal consideration is given to Wales and to events since the formation of the National Assembly, which are examined by recourse to theoretically informed analysis on territorial politics and the nature of governance. The central question concerns the extent to which the Assembly can develop an autonomous policy position. Contemporary theories argue that internal and external developments have left central government in a less powerful position, which potentially can further augment the prospects for devolution. Events prior to and after the formation of the Assembly question whether government has moved into a new phase of development. Central government still commands an extensive range of resources and powers, especially over territorial bodies. At the same time, comparative analysis shows that such institutional parameters need not remain fixed. There is institutional space within the state for these powers to be contested and that the continued significance of territory can act as the basis of such political struggle.     

Policy Preference Formation in Legislative Politics: Structures, Actors, and Focal Points

This article introduces a model of policy preference formation in legislative politics. Emphasizing a dynamic relationship between structure, agent, and decision-making process, it ties the question of policy choice to the dimensionality of the normative and cognitive political space and the strategic actions of parliamentary agenda setters. The model proposes that structural factors, such as ideology, shape policy preferences to the extent that legislative actors successfully link them to specific policy proposals through the strategic provision of focal points. These ideas or images shift attention toward particular aspects of a legislative proposal, thus shaping the dominant interpretation of its content and consequences. This interpretation affects both individual-level policy preferences and policy outcomes. The propositions of the focal-point model are tested empirically in a detailed examination of European Union legislation on cross-border takeover bids, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.     

从法律体系到法治体系——论党的十八大对中国特色社会主义法治体系的基本建构

党的十八大明确提出了“全面推进依法治国”的宏伟方略,将法治确立为“治国理政”的基本方式,中国特色社会主义法治体系的基本架构清晰可见.从法律体系到法治体系,中国人民对于治道的探索和认识发生了根本性转变和提升.法治体系是“法的统治”在法律的价值层面、事实层面和形式层面的有机统一,社会主义法治体系是真正意义上的系统工程.为了实现中华民族伟大复兴的“中国梦”,必须在党的领导下,坚持依法治国的基本方略,矢志不移地全面推进中国特色社会主义法治体系,此乃中华民族复兴和人民权利保障的不二选择和必由之路,对此必须坚定道路自信、理论自信、制度自信.     

传统法律文化与依法行政

我国传统法律文化对依法行政的影响表现在以下四个方面:轻视法律的作用,重义务轻权利的观念,官本 位的封建特权思想,片面追求和谐的价值取向。要全面推进依法行政,基本实现建设法治政府的目标,需要培养全体公民 特别是行政人员法律至上的观念,尊重和保障公民权利的观念,行政人员依法行使职权的观念,行政行为遵循法定程序的 观念,强化政府责任的观念。     

William Hurst,Ruling Before the Law: The Politics of Legal Regimes in China and Indonesia

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Disputes, Democracies, and Dependencies: A Reexamination of the Kantian Peace

Militarized interstate disputes are widely thought to be less likely among democratic countries that have high levels of trade and extensive participation in international organizations. We reexamine this broad finding of the Kantian peace literature in the context of a model that incorporates the high degree of dependency among countries. Based on in-sample statistical tests, as well as out-of-sample, predictive cross-validation, we find that results frequently cited in the literature are plagued by overfitting and cannot be characterized as identifying the underlying structure through which international conflict is influenced by democracy, trade, and international governmental organizations. We conclude that much of the statistical association typically reported in this literature apparently stems from three components: (1) geographical proximity, (2) dependence among militarized interstate disputes with the same initiator or target, and (3) the higher-order dependencies in these dyadic data. Once these are incorporated, covariates associated with the Kantian peace tripod lose most of their statistical power. We do find that higher levels of joint democracy are associated with lower probabilities of militarized interstate dispute involvement. We find that despite high statistical significance and putative substantive importance, none of the variables representing the Kantian tripod is associated with any substantial degree of predictive power.     

Bringing the Outside In: Somaliland,Statebuilding and Dual Hybridity

International norms of what it means to be a state dictate domestic policy within developing and unrecognized states but must co-exist with internal demands. With a mutual dependence between internal and external considerations and, indeed, legitimacy, at the fore of Somaliland’s statebuilding project and its stability, it is a useful study in achieving ‘success’ in statebuilding and in what success can mean in bringing together internal and external demands. This article examines the impact of the hybrid inclusion of traditional authority in the central democratic government as the marriage between internal and external demands. This article argues that the Somaliland state is successful because it is a flexible process rather than a project; a process that reflects the demands and expectations of society, an aspect that is often absent in statebuilding projects.     

Fake Claims of Fake News: Political Misinformation,Warnings, and the Tainted Truth Effect

Political Behavior - Fact-checking and warnings of misinformation are increasingly salient and prevalent components of modern news media and political communications. While many warnings about...     

职权法定与越权无效——略论行政执法权的行政法制约

行政执法权具有天生的扩张功能,只有对其进行必要的行政法制约才能保证其合法有效运行,而落实对行政执法权必要的行政法制约必须建立和完善相关的法律与制度,尤其必须确立和贯彻好职权法定与越权无效的法律原则及相关制度。     

建党90年来反腐倡廉法律制度体系的建立与完善

建党90年来的反腐倡廉历程是一个从命令反腐到运动反腐再到制度反腐的演进过程,反腐倡廉法律制度建设同样经历了这三个发展阶段。当前我国制定了以宪法为依据的一整套反腐倡廉法律法规和以党章为依据的一系列党内规章制度,已经形成了较为成熟的反腐败和廉政建设法律法规制度体系。但和《联合国反腐败公约》确立的国际标准相比,我国在实体法、程序法、制度层面。尤其是财产申报制度上,尚存在一定差距。应当从这三个方面着手,结合我国实际情况,进一步完善现行的法律法规和规章制度,真正建成胡锦涛总书记所强调的“科学严密完备管用的反腐倡廉制度体系”。