公众参与理念在美国土地规划票决中的实践及启示

美国的投票式分区管制将票决制度运用于土地规划,是一种最强程度的公众参与。实践表明,土地规划领域有适用票决制度的必要,票决制度体现的公众参与特征包括决策者与参与者之间的双向沟通关系,决策结果对公众参与具有高度的依赖性。在信息公开制度健全、议题限制、平等保护审查等条件下,居民投票不会沦为"愚众政治",与专业机构判断的对立也会缓解,而且也不会"压迫少数人的意见"。我国应在涉及健康、生命安全的公共项目选址决策中引入票决制度,并同时完善信息公开配套机制,以及加强对居民投票决策不违反公益要求的程序管控。     

中国与欧洲公众环境参与权的比较研究

公众参与权的保障与实现程度直接关系着民主决策的科学性和有效性,关系着全面建设社会主义现代化国家的进程。针对环境问题而言,如何从法律理论与实践两个层面更有效地回应公众的"参与权",值得深入研究。相较而言,欧洲的相关法律制度走在世界前列,从纵向发展的视角来看,中国和欧洲在保障公众环境参与权的进程以及所面临的挑战方面有着相似之处,欧洲经验对我国有着极其重要的借鉴作用。中国和欧洲公众环境参与权有着不同的理论基础、历史发展进程、参与范围、参与层次、参与阶段以及支持者。基于这些相似性和不同点,立足于中国的具体国情和实际,欧洲公众环境参与权保障法律机制能为我国解决类似挑战提供一些可能路径。     

政府绩效评估中的公民参与：价值预期、内在困境与制度性建构

政府绩效评估是当代社会政治经济全球化、民主化发展的产物,是政府管理发展的必然要求。公民参与政府绩效评估,不仅是促进民主行政发展的重要手段,也是提高政府绩效评估质量的有效途径。本文从关注政府绩效评估中公民参与的价值预期入手,着力分析了公民参与绩效评估的内在困境,并努力寻求制度化完善的路径,以期为我国地方治理的民主化道路选择和走向提供一些有益的思路。     

德国民商事域外取证制度研究——兼论《海牙取证公约》在德国的实施

德国的取证制度与英美法系国家相比在很多方面存在差异.在德国,取证的一个基本原则就是每一方当事人必须对自己的主张提供证据支持.在域外取证方面,当案件涉及的有关证据位于国外时德国会自动启动司法协助程序.德国参加或缔结了很多双边或多边司法协助条约,外国法院在德国取证主要根据德国参加或缔结的双边或多边司法协助条约来进行.德国也是<海牙取证公约>成员国,公约于1979年对德国生效.就<海牙取证公约>的实施而言,一方面,德国反对美国的审前证据开始程序,但是另一方面,德国对外国法院提供协助又采取了非常灵活的做法.     

通过参与的纠纷消解——作为行政纠纷消解创新机制的公众参与

为回应转型时期特别是现代社会的复杂情势,现代社会必然由法治国家向行政国家迈进,而在此过程中积极行政的拓展与自由裁量权的扩张必然导致行政纠纷的剧增。为有效缓解社会转型时期行政所面临的合法性危机,预防和消解与日俱增的行政纠纷,必须转变传统形式法治下的治理模式,充分引入公众参与,在行政过程和司法解决过程中分别注入民主酵素。由于公众参与既具有功效价值更具有本体价值,因而其对于行政合法性的补强以及行政纠纷的防范与消解有着不可忽视的意义。欲使公众参与发挥积极功能,必须辅之以必要的配套机制和制度要素。     

论地方性事务——我国中央与地方关系法治化的新进展

《立法法》首次提出地方性事务概念,具有较为重要的理论和实践意义,但是到目前为止仍缺乏对其进行法律意义上的进一步界定,理论上也未见相关研究。地方性事务是指具有区域性特点的、应由地方立法机关予以立法调整的事务。目前法律和行政法规主要采取垂直式的权限分配方式,使得中央事务与地方性事务缺乏明确区分。可以综合采取事务所涉及的利益范围、事务的实施范围和事务性质三个标准判断地方性事务,并进行初步列举。     

On-line Citizenship: Consultation and Participation in New Labour's Britain and Beyond

This article looks critically at how the Labour Government in the United Kingdom is using technology to connect with citizens. Although the UK Online and Citizen's Portal initiative may improve the level of service in transactions between government and citizens it is argued that such an approach misses out on the possibilities of using technology to re-invigorate democracy by creating a new public space where participatory decision making can enhance a wider project of democratic renewal. After reviewing briefly the background of government using technology, the article examines ideas of participatory democracy and endorses a normative ideal of democracy as political communication within a model of democratic process where citizens must engage with one another and with government in a genuinely neutral public space. The potential of technology to enhance democratic decision making is reviewed and a model of participatory decision making for computer support is outlined. This is followed by an overview of the range of computer support tools that are available to develop such a model.     

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。     

The Predicament of Modern Law: Parker's History of a Law Without a History that Matters

Kunal Parker's Common Law, History, and Democracy in America, 1790–1900: Legal Thought Before Modernism shows how nineteenth‐century thinkers thought about law and history differently than do post‐Holmesian modernist sociolegal scholars, whose ahistorical law appears contingent on politics, power, or will. Understanding time and history to be essential to law, nineteenth‐century jurists conceived of a common law that was able to work with and to shape democracy, Parker argues. Contra modernist histories then, Parker claims that the common law was not a reactionary force that stood in the way of democracy and economy. His history of legal thought before modernism suggests, further, the predicament of antifoundationalist modern law and modernist scholars: stripped of time and without its own history, how can law be anything other than politics, power, or will?     

Citizen crime prevention: Domains and participation

Attempts to engender citizens' participation in crime-prevention activities have met with varied degrees of success. Indeed, studies find great differences in participants. Part of the reason may be that different types of crime prevention are considered in the various programs and analyses. The present study uses the National Crime Survey: Victims Risk Supplement to uncover different domains of crime prevention activity and to investigate who participates in crime prevention. Five distinct types of crime-preventive behavior are isolated in the analysis. Further, path analytic techniques reveal that different demographic and crime related factors influence participation in the various crime-prevention activities. These results suggest that participation in crime prevention is complex and that we need more knowledge about who participates in different crime-prevention programs in order to promote such participation more effectively.     

Fledgling Psychopathic Features and Pathological Delinquency: New Evidence

Fledgling psychopathy is a construct that has proven useful in organizing the nomological network of conduct problems and psychopathology in children and adolescents. Drawing on data from an institutionalized sample of delinquents (n?=?252), the current study compared ADHD, CD, and ADHD+CD youth on psychopathic personality features and their association with pathological delinquency. Youths with ADHD+CD were significantly more psychopathic than their peers. Although callousness, unemotionality, and remorselessness are generally theorized to define the fledgling psychopathic youth, ROC-AUC models found that thrillseeking and impulsiveness were the strongest classification variables for delinquency and violent delinquency at the 90th percentiles. Implications for research and practice with antisocial youth are proffered.     

Congressional Leadership 1965–96: A New Look at the Extremism versus Centrality Debate

Abstract An examination of the differences between the ideological positions of leaders and other members in the U.S. House of Representatives (1965–96) demonstrates that Republican leaders tend to be significantly to the right of the median Republican member and Democratic leaders tend to be significantly to the left of the median Democratic member. Furthermore, leaders from both parties tend to be ideologically located near the mode of their party's ideological distribution. These empirical results have implications for issues such as party polarization, conditional party government, and the possibility of separating out party and ideology.     

The Structure of Citizen Perceptions of Crime and Disorder: New Insights from a Caribbean Community

Objectives

This study builds on existing research from US cities on the construct and discriminant validity of perceptual measures of crime and disorder. It seeks to determine whether citizens distinguish between crime and disorder.

Methods

This study draws on quantitative and qualitative data from a high-crime community in Trinidad and Tobago, a small-island developing nation in the eastern Caribbean. Analysis of the quantitative data relies on exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis methods designed for use with categorical observed variables and continuous latent variables.

Results

In contrast to previous research, we find that citizens do distinguish between physical disorder and general crime, but there is a perceptual overlap for some drug-related offenses and types of social disorder.

Conclusions

This study raises questions about the external validity of research on the relationship between perceptions of crime and disorder conducted in the US, and contributes to ongoing discussions and debates about the meaning of disorder. The findings suggest the need for theory and research to explain how context shapes not only the magnitudes of these perceptions, but also their structures. The results also demonstrate the benefits of mixed-methods research approaches in this area of study.

     

Congressional Elections in Presidential Years: Presidential Coattails and Strategic Voting

This article analyzes voting for Congress in presidential election years. The national Democratic vote for the House increases with the Democratic vote for president but decreases with the Democrats' perceived chances of winning the presidency (anticipatory balancing). The evidence for coattails and for balancing become visible only when statistically controlling for the other. The aggregate evidence for coattails and balancing in presidential years is reinforced by the analysis of National Election Studies (NES) survey respondents. That analysis shows that politically informed voters are more likely to vote for Congress against the party that they believe will win the presidency.     

公民有序参与：当代中国立法领域的新课题

中国的民主法治建设离不开广大人民群众的积极参与,唯其如此,社会主义法治才能得到人民的认同,民主才能真正得以落实,“依法治国”的目标才能真正得到实现。作为法治体系中关键一环的立法环节,直接关系到各类社会权利、利益的分配与协调,必须具备广泛的代表性。公民有序参与是中国立法领域的新课题。     

Bypassing Congressional Committees: Parties,Panel Rosters,and Deliberative Processes

Although scholars have examined committee rosters extensively, no study has considered the relationship between the ideological composition of panels and their participation in bill drafting. I thus ask: Which committees are frequently excluded from legislative deliberations? Does the composition of committees affect the degree to which they contribute to bill development? Using DW‐NOMINATE data, I calculate ideological scores for congressional panels between 1989 and 2010 to see whether certain committees are routinely bypassed. I find that moderate panels, polarized panels, and panels with moderate chairs are often excluded, while extreme committees in the majority direction tend to retain bill‐writing duties.     

Ambiguity and Conflict in the Implementation of Evidence Law in Criminal Matters: a Study of the United Arab Emirates Jurisprudence

Due the lack of the law of evidence in criminal matters in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it is important to address the issue of the rules of evidence in the UAE where Sharia criminal law is applied along with enacted law of Criminal Procedural Law. The courts’ decisions contradicted each other because of the differences of opinions among the law schools exist in Islamic law in one hand and between the Sharia criminal law and enacted law in the other hand. Further, the Criminal Procedural Law does not state the rules of evidence in clear manner to judges and individuals. The lack of stated rules and procedures and what evidence could be accepted and what cannot are not definite in the UAE legal system. The article will argue that because of the differences in the opinions related to the admission and acceptance of the evidences exist among the Islamic law schools and between the Sharia law and enacted law, the court decisions have contradicted each other and create ambiguities in the field of the evidence in criminal law. The Islamic jurists have different opinions about evidence in fornication crimes, Qasama evidence in qisas, and women and non-Muslim testimonies. Such differences affect the Union Supreme Court decisions. Therefore, the UAE legislator must enact the law of evidence in criminal matters in order to reduce the contradiction between judges’ opinions, clear ambiguities, and protect individual rights as it did with civil and commercial matter.     

Tennessee Citizen Police Academies: Program and Participant Characteristics

Citizen police academies (CPAs) are popular programs developed by police departments with the twin goals of educating the public about law enforcement and improving police-community relationships. Citizen police academies can help law enforcement agencies by providing them with graduates who may support police departments through volunteering, crime reporting, advocacy, and crime prevention. CPAs may aid citizens by providing them with opportunities to work with the police to make their communities safer. During the course of the citizen police academy, not only will participants have opportunities to learn more about the police depar'tment and their communities, but they may be given opportunities to patrol with police officers, solve mock crime scenes, or attend moot court. This study examines citizen police academies in Tennessee and provides an exploratory investigation of the programs and its participants. Data obtained from 31 police departments indicate CPA programs with more than a 20 year history in Tennessee. Results of a pretest and posttest of 4 citizen police academies’ participants found that attending these programs significantly and positively changed participants’ familiarity with the police chief, local law enforcement, community crime, and the criminal justice system.