信访与足球

纵观当今中国的信访活动,你会发现这是一个充满悖论和荒谬,也充满无奈和悲戚的怪现状——政府既颁发了信访条例,把信访当作倾听和化解民怨的一条途径;同时也表达出拦截上访者的指令和默许。上访,在中国已经成为一个被强制从事的职业,对许多上访专业户来说是终其一生的职业。在不经意间,访民们有的成为精通官场潜规则专门家,有的成为自家成材的法学家,有的则在循环往复的怪圈里成功地被逼成“偏执狂”;     

审判政要,国家有别

和穆巴拉克、阿罗约的滥用职权相比,乌克兰前总理季莫申科可算是冤大头。和穆巴拉克家族的腐败案例相比,希拉克的腐败行为变得不值一提。2011年,又有一批政要遭到审判,犯罪指控都能从与权、钱、人命和性有关的罪名中找到一项或多项。国家不同,定罪标准的底线存在差异,被审政要在具体犯罪情节轻重上差别很大。在一些国家会被熟视无睹的操作挪移到他国就成了不可容忍的罪行。     

世界杯与足球政治

在这类足球小国,民主化依然大量依靠个人魅力,第三世界球星得到了参政的捷径,只要懂得配合国情,是可以有一番作为的。因此,我们观赏球赛时,不要忘记政治,说不定球员当中隐藏着不少未来国家领导人呢。     

近现代政要身边的绍兴师爷

在中国近代史上,无论从哪个角度去看,李鸿章都是一个重量级的人物,李鸿章说自己是“少年科甲,壮年戎马,中年封疆。晚年洋务”,而他之所以能功成名就,离不开幕僚对其的辅佐,一代名幕娄春藩就曾帮过他的大忙。     

世界政要的尴尬相亲史

小布什与尼克松之女＂没有然后＂11月11日除了是中国人民喜闻乐见的光棍节和购物狂欢节外,其实还是美国的老兵节,这一天,美国前总统小布什为父亲老布什撰写的304页传记《41：我父亲的肖像》正式发行——＂41＂指代老布什的身份,美国第四十一任总统。当天,一对父子、两个总统,共同现身美国得克萨斯州大学城内的老布什图书馆,参加了新书首发式。     

各国保卫外国政要有绝招

随着多边外交不断展开,各国政要的活动也明显增多,他们穿梭于全球各种场合,竞相展现国家影响力及个人魅力.鲜为人知的是,每逢有外国重要人物到访,也是东道国警卫部门最忙的时候,身怀绝技的顶级保镖们,或防守于领导人周围,或布控于周边要地,或身穿警服神情凝重,或平民打扮暗中盯梢,一举一动都透着神秘色彩.     

国际政要人物登长城的故事

外国领导人访华大多会在首都北京停留,故宫、长城等景点是他们青睐的地方.据人民网的统计,在20次外国领导人偕夫人参观中国名胜古迹的活动中,最频繁的是参观八达岭长城,达到7次,其次是故宫4次,兵马俑3次.     

国际政要人物登长城的故事

正1972年,尼克松访华,开启了中美破冰之旅。期间,尼克松偕夫人游览了八达岭长城。此后,里根、克林顿、小布什、奥巴马都到过长城。普京、萨科齐、卡梅伦……长城接待过的政要不在少数。外国领导人访华大多会在首都北京停留,故宫、长城等景点是他们青睐的地方。据人民网的统计,在20次外国领导人偕夫人参观中国名胜古迹的活动中,最频繁的是参观八达岭长城,达到7次,其次是故宫4次,兵马俑3次。1952年,时任政务院副总理的郭沫若先生提出了修复长城,向游人开放的建议。经过6年的精心整修,1958年,八达岭长城首次接待国内外游人参观游览。从1963年2月16日周恩来总理陪同柬埔寨国家元首西哈努克亲王登临八达岭长城的那一刻起,八达岭长城又担     

中文微博上的外国政要们

外国政要扎堆齐开中文微博,成为互联网上的新鲜一景。这为普通中国人开启了一个近距离观察西方政治人物的窗口,同时,也给西方政要们提供了观察更复杂、更真实中国的另一平台。完全没想到,一个西方大国的政治家,澳大利亚原总理陆克文,能与中国大陆普通网友交流,还能和我这样普通的网友微博私信。4月28日     

外国政要的"空中官邸"

俄罗斯总统--"空中堡垒".俄罗斯总统乘坐的专机是俄空军专用飞机.机内信息系统完善,装备先进的电子设备和电话机,同时装配了具备空对空、空对地功能的多脉冲频率无线电通讯设备.机内有总统卧室、会议室、贴身保镖室,以及陪同总统出行的50名助手和100多名保镖.飞行中,俄防空部队担负着确保国家领导人出访所乘专机的安全重任.今年,俄总统普京访问日本,其专机在雷达盲区飞行的时间长达90分钟.据俄防空司令讲,在这90分钟里,俄罗斯雷达部队的雷达根本无法捕捉到专机.在这段时间里,地面和空中的威胁信息无法传递给专机,雷达部队由于不知道专机的具体位置,也无法向专机提供保护.     

Politicians and Interactive Decision Making: Institutional Spoilsports or Playmakers

In recent years interactive decision making has become quite popular in The Netherlands, especially at the level of local government. It involves new forms of participation of citizens, consumers of public services and interest groups in the process of policy formation. Workshops, panels, internet discussions and a lot of other techniques are used to arrive at innovative and supported solutions for existing problems. The ambitions are high: these new forms of participation should result in better government both in the sense of providing better policies, but also in bridging the democratic gap between local government and citizens. However, these new forms of participation in local government are not without problems. Recent experiences suggest that one of the major problems is the challenge interactive decision making constitutes for the existing practice of representative politics. On the basis of two cases — the decision-making process concerning the expansion of the Rotterdam Harbour and the discussion about a new administrative structure for the Rotterdam region — this article illustrates that one of the barriers that stands in the way of the success of such processes is the ambiguous attitude of elected politicians. Although politicians often initiate interactive decision-making processes, they do not actively support these processes when they are in progress. The outcomes of interactive decision-making progress are often not used in the formal political procedures that follow. Because elected politicians fear that these new forms of participation threaten their political primacy, they find it hard to play a constructive role in these processes.     

The Politics of Competitive Tendering: Political Orientation and Attitudes towards Contracting Out among Finnish Local Politicians

Using survey data on Finnish local politicians (n = 364) we examine the extent to which political orientation affects attitudes towards and perceptions of competitive tendering in social and health service provision. Expectation of cost benefits turns out to be the most important factor accounting for willingness to increase the usage of competitive tendering. The perceived positive impact of tendering on local democracy is also related to local politicians' readiness to implement reforms. However, political orientation does have a strong effect on politicians' perceptions. We also consider whether there are mitigating factors that could mask the relationship between political orientation and attitudes towards tendering. We identify one such factor, municipal employment: public-sector employees form a kind of informal ‘interest group’ resisting public-sector reforms in municipal decision making. In general, our results suggest that macro-level studies on competitive tendering underestimate the effects of political ideology on local decision making.     

政治世家再度问鼎总统宝座——菲律宾新任总统阿基诺三世

2010年5月10日,菲律宾迎来了新一轮总统选举。根据菲律宾宪法,2004年当选的现任总统阿罗约不得竞选连任,因此引来众多重量级政治人物竞争总统宝座。在登记的10名候选人中,呼声最高的是菲律宾前总统阿基诺夫人之子、自由党候选人阿基诺三世,他在大选前的民调中一直领先。     

The Relationship Between Civil Servants and Politicians in a Post‐Communist Country: A Case of Slovenia

In modern democracies, civil servants have outgrown their classic role as implementors of the orders given by politicians as their masters. They now play an increasingly important role in the exercising of authority – a role which depends to a great degree on politicians themselves. Based on classical politico‐administrative divisions, the main hypothesis of this paper is to claim that, in the case of the post‐communist country of Slovenia, politicians are in charge of policy‐making and possess a dominant role over high‐ranking civil servants, who are mere implementors of policy. To verify this hypothesis, we use several mutually complementary methods and techniques, among them detailed empirical research. We find that the relationship between members of Slovenia's administrative and political elite does show competitive traits, but the conflict between the two groups is not such that would lead to a win‐lose situation. Both high‐ranking civil servants and politicians do in fact have a role as important and irreplaceable actors in the policy‐making process.     

Celebrity Politicians as Health-Promoting Role Models in the Media: the Cases of Vladimir Putin,Donald Trump,and Benjamin Netanyahu

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society - In recent years, scholars have increasingly revealed the importance of celebrities in society, among them celebrity politicians. These...     

Power and transformational and transactional leadership in public and private organizations

Ten public and 35 private organizations located in Central New York State participated in a university- sponsored research project to study the effects of organizational characteristics upon types of leadership (transformational/transactional) and power demonstrated by supervisors. Public sector organizations in which managers had low control over rewards were compared to private sector organizations in which managers had high control over rewards.

Followers perceived public sector supervisors as more inspirational by their followers and they used more active management-by-exception behavior than those in private organizations. Private sector supervisors had more reward, legitimate and coercive power than supervisors in public sector organizations.     

Russian stereotypes and myths of Ukraine and Ukrainians and why Novorossiya failed

This article discusses two inter-related issues. Firstly, the factors lying behind Russia's fervent belief that its Novorossiya (New Russia) project, aimed to bring back to Russia eight oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhhya, Odesa, Mykolayiv, and Kherson in eastern and southern Ukraine and launched during the 2014 “Russian Spring,” would be successful. Russian identity misunderstood, and continues to misunderstand, Ukraine and Ukrainians through stereotypes and myths of Ukraine as an “artificial state” and Ukraine's Russian speakers as “fraternal brothers” and Russians and Ukrainians as “one people” (odin narod). Secondly, why Ukrainian national identity was different than these Russian stereotypes and myths and how this led to the failure of the Novorossiya project. Russian stereotypes and myths of Ukraine and Ukrainians came face to face with the reality of Russian-speaking Ukrainian patriotism and their low support for the Russkij Mir (Russian World). The article compares Russian stereotypes and myths of Ukraine and Ukrainians with how Ukrainians see themselves to explain the roots of the 2014 crisis, “Russian Spring,” and failure of Russian President Vladimir Putin's Novorossiya project.