Government-opposition dynamics in the European Union: The Santer Commission resignation crisis

Abstract.  This article seeks to shed light on the sources of government-opposition dynamics in the European Union (EU). It considers the ideological left-right divide and the sovereignty-integration dimension as potential sources of a government-opposition cleavage in the EU, as well as a 'representation dimension'. The empirical evaluation of these propositions is based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the political crisis leading to the collective resignation of the Santer Commission. The article finds that government-opposition dynamics in the EU are related to the sovereignty-integration dimension of EU politics and to representation in EU executive institutions, rather than a left-right divide. Both political beliefs and opportunistic motivations determine government-support and opposition in the EU.     

Hans Jonas: A Study in Biology and Ethics

Hans Jonas was a philosopher who looked nihilism in the eye and courageously stood his ground. He did so by volunteering to serve against the Nazis in World War II, by discovering the links to nihilism in his thought of his teacher Martin Heidegger and by developing a novel philosophy of nature that took its lessons from both Aristotle and Darwin. Jonas’s philosophy of organic nature – his rehabilitation of the soul as a relevant notion for biology – provided prescient insights for the still developing fields of bioethics and environmental ethics.

佛教伦理:一种全球伦理资源的意义

全球伦理作为一种共享的全球性道德理想,必须在全球各种文明中寻找思想的资源.本文通过对佛教伦理内容的概括与梳理,考察了在"全球伦理"语境下佛教伦理的现代诠释方法,从信仰伦理、社会规范伦理、美德伦理等方面构建了佛教伦理的体系,探讨了佛教伦理思想的特质,展现了佛教伦理作为一种全球伦理资源的必要性、可能性及其意义.     

A Symposium on Intelligence Ethics

Twenty-six experienced intelligence scholars and practitioners from seven countries, collaborated to create a short reader, an hour's read for busy people who recognize why ethics matter. This symposium presents summaries of the 13 essays selected for publication.     

Ethics and Government: Preliminary Considerations

This symposium reproduces several of the papers presented during the international conference sponsored by the Queensland University of Technology Centre for the Study of Ethics, at Parliament House, Brisbane, 11-13 February, 1999. The theme of the conference was 'Government and Business: Integrity and Accountability'. The papers have been revised following discussions within a research colloquium associated with the conference. They were initially presented within a strand entitled 'Competition, Marketisation, Public Services and Public Ethics' which explored ethical issues for contemporary government within different national contexts (New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Australia) around the impact of economic policies that have reframed the role of government primarily as a servant of the international market.     

Scaling legislative decision making: A methodological exercise

Previous work in American state politics shows that an accurate measure of legislative decision-making attributes can be a useful tool for empirical research. Using data from a new survey of state legislators, conducted in 1981, the present analysis includes both an improved survey item and a sophisticated scaling procedure.     

Framing the Oxymoron: A New Paradigm for Intelligence Ethics

Despite some arguments to the contrary, I argue that because ethics benefit, rather than harm, the intelligence profession they should be considered an inherent part of intelligence studies. The literature largely presents intelligence ethics as a two-sided debate between teleologists and deontologists. I propose that ethical justifications should instead be considered along a progressive spectrum drawn from the work of moral psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. Such a spectrum has numerous applications for gauging the moral arguments of individual practitioners of intelligence. I illustrate this using the dilemma of targeted political assassination – first in a hypothetical context, and finally using examples from the investigations of the 1975 Church Committee.     

青少年网络道德问题的心理学分析

网络是一把双刃剑,它对青少年开阔视野、拓宽知识领域起到了积极的促进作用,但同时也带来了某些负面的、消极的影响,其中最突出的问题是网络严重地冲击着青少年的世界观、人生观、价值观和道德观,导致青少年严重的网络道德失范行为。青少年网络道德失范问题已十分严重,这也给我们的青少年道德教育带来严峻的考验,成为教育工作者的一大研究课题。     

社会主义道德体系的宏伟蓝图——《公民道德建设实施纲要》的深刻思想内涵

邓小平同志１９８６年在一次高级干部会议上谈到社会主义精神文明建设时，曾非常深刻地指出：“经济建设这一手我们搞得相当有成绩，形势喜人，这是我们国家的成功。但如果风气坏下去，经济搞成功又有什么意义？会在另一方面变质，反过来影响整个经济变质，发展下去会形成贪污、盗窃、贿赂横行的世界。”因此，他多次强调“一定要在全党和全国范围内有领导、有计划地大力提倡社会主义道德风尚”，加强道德教育和道德建设。以江泽民同志为核心的党中央，高举邓小平理论伟大旗帜，以“三个代表”重要思想为指导，坚持两手硬、两个文明建设一起…     

《廉政准则》中的作风建设问题

加强领导干部的作风建设是新形势下反腐倡廉工作的一项重大战略任务，也是爱护干部、保护干部的重要措施。加强领导干部的作风建设的目的在于抓好反腐倡廉工作中的苗头性、倾向性问题，使党和人民的事业少受损失。同时，要建立健全惩治和预防腐败的体系，并把这个体系的建立作为反腐倡廉工作的重点，治理腐败要各种方法综合运用，多措并举。党员领导千部一定要注重良好作风的养成，注重道德的表现和树立公众形象，要将领导干部的作风表现规范化、纪律化。     

Ethics and Public Good in a Transforming State: A Study of Estonian Civil Servants

After Estonia's systemic change and restored independence in 1991, Estonian civil servants must re-conceptualise their relationships with other spheres of society and with what they see as the 'Public Good'. They are involved in the adoption and creation of new value judgments, professional identities and views of ethical and unethical conduct. This article presents an empirical examination of these processes. Carried out from June 2005 to January 2006, it makes use of group interviews (N = 58) and a national e-mail questionnaire (N = 960) of civil servants. According to the results, the officially adopted Civil Service Code of Ethics is seldom relied upon. The idea of civil service as a vocation, preference for self-regulating measures, suspicion towards external control and avoidance of media publicity are indicative of the respondents' view of the overall role of civil service in society. The paternalist attitude inherent in this discourse is considered in this article to be in line with the specific functions of a state still completing its systemic transformation.     

Malaysia Incorporated: Ethics on Trial

It is logical to begin by considering briefly the influence of Malaysia's post-1957 social, economic and political factors in the evolution and development of the close and intimate relationships between government and business that have become the hallmark of the Malaysian economic equation. In 1957 when Malaya 1 achieved independence from Britain, it inherited a form of government based on the Westminster model which, with a few local adaptations, remains very much in place. Of equal significance is the inheritance of an economy based on the traditional British colonial mercantile interests centred on the export of rubber and tin. The nation boasted the most efficient plantation economy in the world, so efficient, in fact, that Malayan foreign exchange earnings helped Britain enormously to repay much of its war debt to the USA. It was not for nothing that Malaya was known as Britain's Dollar Arsenal. Economic prosperity, by the standards of Asia, was not new to the country. It was, however, commodity-based and opportunities for corruption were nothing like those that presented themselves in the 1970s.