Political culture, alternative politics and foreign policy: The case of Israel

This article analyzes how sociopolitical dynamics within a state can help explaining foreign policy. We show that under certain conditions, the public can be involved in ways that extend beyond expressing opinions that act as constraints on policy makers, and also takes active initiatives that eventually shape foreign policies. The article explains how sociopolitical processes in Israeli society, which transformed the nature of citizen–politician relations from a top-down to a bottom-up orientation, gradually led to shifts in foreign policy regarding the conflict with the Palestinians. The Israeli public has adopted an approach to solving social problems by unilateral initiatives, as part of its attempts to shape foreign policy from the bottom up, due to continuous government failure to provide public services, combined with blocked influence channels. As long as Israeli politicians ignored these changes, they failed to mobilize support for policies imposed from the top down and lost their positions of power.     

国际关系主体生长和国际政治的转变

国际关系主体可分为国家行为体和非国家行为体.国际关系主体随着国际政治的发展而朝多元化方向发展,并对国际政治产生深刻的影响.特别是非国家行为体的增生,冲击了传统的国际政治理念,促进了国际政治向合作参与型、制度化方向发展.     

国际关系民主化对我国外交政策的机遇与挑战

由于新兴民族国家的独立 ,民族民主意识的增强 ,要求改变旧的国际政治经济秩序 ;全球化的深入发展带来种种问题 ;世界文明的多样性特点 ,使得国际关系民主化成为当今时代的迫切要求。但由于霸权主义和强权政治仍大行其道 ,国际关系民主化任重而道远。我们应始终把握住国际关系民主化的大方向 ,策略上灵活运用 ,要看到国际关系民主化的长期性和艰巨性 ,这样我们才能“有所作为”。     

The paradox of politics and policy in redistributing income

With political ideology with respect to the income distribution measured by proxy as the fraction of conservative coalition victories, it is found that over the period 1961–1984 the degree of conservative coalition strength is positively associated with changes in inequality, holding the effects of unemployment and inflation constant.A natural question is why don't the low income types vote in candidates who will consistently redistribute income in their favor? The result of such a political process would be a downward trend in income inequality. In point of fact, there is no evidence whatsoever of any trend in income equality over the period. The answer to both questions may be that Tullock (1983, 1986) is on to something. If the middle class voters transfer gains back and forth, the poor can't gain and they don't, then the distribution should be stable and is.     

Estimates and public policy: The politics of numbers

Abstract

Estimates of the number of homeless persons in the United States are frequently said to range from 250,000 to three million. In fact, the latter number is an invalid guesstimate that developed staying power for political reasons. National estimates of homeless persons based on explainable methodologies actually range from 230,000 to 736,000, with the most likely estimates around the half‐million mark. Despite the confrontational politics surrounding the numbers issue in the 1980s, a consensus is developing in the 1990s among private groups, including some major advocacy organizations, and all levels of government regarding policy direction in assistance programs for the homeless. There is widespread recognition that the goal should be to end homelessness, not simply to provide emergency assistance. Permanent housing solutions for special populations are needed in the context of renewed efforts to combat poverty.

In the public debate about the policy implications of divergent national estimates of the numbers of homeless persons, a common assumption is that the estimates vary widely and inexplicably—anywhere from a few hundred thousand to three million or more. Those who do try to explain the odd discrepancy between the extremes seem to assume that any count is politically motivated. They say that it depends on how one defines homelessness and who is counting. In other words, the implication is that numbers derive from policy and politics, rather than the other way around.

Given such perceptions, it is not surprising that some who have neither the time nor, perhaps, the resources to judge the accuracy of estimates begin to feel that the truth must be somewhere in between, as if a mathematical average were equivalent to a political compromise. Others will believe the message if they like the messenger. In a recent book on homelessness, for example, the author confesses that he trusts estimates “made by people who live where ‘the rubber meets the road’… rather more than the bright theorists tucked away in ivory towers.”¹ Although many statistics are politically controversial, it is probably safe to say that the debate on homelessness during the past decade represents the apogee of political numerology. It is worth reviewing just how this came to pass.     

Problems,politics, and policy streams in policy implementation

We apply Kingdon's multiple streams framework (MSF) to policy implementation to reflect a nested process separate from but interdependent with policymaking. Then, we generate a hypothesis concerning the conditional nature of problems, policies, and politics stream impacts on policy implementation. We test our hypotheses with state‐level implementation of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, using a pooled data set of 10 years of toxic releases data. Findings suggest an important interaction occurs among problems, policies, and politics during the policy implementation process. More specifically, when any of the three is held at median levels, only marginal differences in outputs occur; however, when all three are increased to extreme levels, substantive differences emerge. Conclusions connect policy implementation to larger issues of MSF theoretical development and suggest implications for governance.     

The international politics of climate change after Brexit

The Paris Agreement provides a framework for achieving cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions that could mitigate the worst of global warming, and there has been a trend of increased participation and stronger national institutional support, cooperation and ambition towards that end. Among EU states, the United Kingdom has led that trend for three decades. The uncertainty introduced by the Brexit vote may weaken it.     

Domestic politics and the strategy of international trade

The policymaking problem in international trade is fundamentally strategic, since optimal national policy depends on what other nations choose to do. The game is not between unitary rational actors, however, but rather between players with considerable internal divisions about what policy should be. There is a rich domestic politics to international trade policymaking. Conventional wisdom holds that internal division is a liability in international interactions. This article demonstrates that if countries are divided internally between divergent interests, this will alter the outcome of strategic games between countries in, for example, setting tariffs. In particular, internal division can actually be helpful to a country, since a protectionist faction helps to make a protectionist threat more credible.     

Transnational policy influence and the politics of legitimation

Many domains of transnational policy are now governed through dynamic, multilevel governance processes, encompassing transnational, national, and subnational scales. In such settings, both membership of policy communities and distributions of authority within them become more fluid and openly contested—increasing the importance of the politics of legitimation as a basis for distributing influence over policy processes and outcomes. Drawing on insights from theories of organizational and institutional legitimation, this article theorizes three distinctive strategies of policy influence exercised by transnational actors in multilevel governance settings, through which strategic efforts to legitimize transnational actors and forums are deployed as means of transnational policy influence. The three strategies involve: transnational field building, localized network building, and role adaptation. The effects of these influencing strategies on policy processes and outcomes are illustrated with reference to the case of Indonesian land governance, in which highly dynamic, contested, and multiscalar governance processes lend our theorized strategies particular salience.     

生态与政治:观念反思和理论变革

环境问题和生态政治的产生对政治理论的研究带来了一些值得深刻思考的基本问题.经济思想在一定历史阶段的发展,解释了自然考虑在其中所处于的边缘性地位的原因,以官僚制运作理念为例证的政治思维则同样受到工具理性和经济理性的控制而使自然关注受阻,政治所具有的不同于经济的特性使它可能完成生态转变,但必须是理论性变革.改变自然观念在经济思想和政治思维中的缺位状态,需要对政治理论传统进行生态变革,变革从三个方面来展开,即,政治活动的场所与政治新成员的引入、政治概念的开掘和丰富、政治思想的拓展和补遗.     

中国国际政治学中的中国特色

国际政治学是一门从政治的角度研究国际社会演变及其发展规律学的学科,广义讲,泛指国际政治的理论、历史与现状,包括全球学和地区学：狭义讲,又是一种分支学科,单指国际政治学的理论学科,即综合性、系统性、现实性的理论学科,主要从分支学科的角度论述中国国际政治学理论建设中的一些问题。     

科学发展观与民主政治的内在联系

按照马克思主义世界是普遍联系的观点,科学发展观与社会主义民主政治有着紧密的内在联系,二者相互促进,不可分割.弄清楚二者之间的联系,对于建设物质文明、政治文明、精神文明、科学发展民主政治意义重大.