The Big Society: Back to the Future

This article contributes to the steady flow of critiques of the big society idea contained in The Political Quarterly. It focuses chiefly on two sets of parallels. The first is between the big society and the policies pursued by the Thatcher government which, despite their obvious rhetorical differences, contain many striking similarities, including their neoliberal origins, application of the ‘crowding out’ thesis and uncritically idealised notions of community. The second is between the big society and a policy with the same name pursued doggedly by the Chinese Communist Party for nearly 20 years until being abandoned as a failure. Lessons for the Prime Minister's flagship policy are drawn from the Chinese experience. The article concludes with a welcome for the rediscovery of the social by public policy and some suggestions as to how a more participative and democratic state could follow from this breakthrough.     

冲突与构建和谐社会的逻辑起点

构建社会主义和谐社会,是新一届中央领导集体从新世纪新阶段现实出发,提出的重要治国目标、治国方略和治国机制。这一重大现实命题的提出,使中国特色社会主义事业的总体布局由经济建设、政治建设、文化建设“三位一体”优化和提升为包含社会建设在内的“四位一体”。面对这样一个重大的现实问题,社会科学工作者需要从不同的学科视界进行深入和系统的研究。在马克思主义的政治学看来,我们所生活和所建设的社会无疑是由众多社会成员个体、组织、团体、群体、阶层、阶级等单元或要素组合而成的复杂系统或有机体,这其中利益博弈是各类要素或单元之间的基本作用机制,利益关系是其基础性的关系,利益结构是社会系统和政治系统的深层结构,构成社会和政治运行的内在动力。本专栏的五位作者从政治学角度对社会利益关系与和谐社会建设之间深层次的关联进行学术层面的探讨,得出了比较新鲜和富有启发性的结论。     

论唐初缔建和合社会的精神架构与文化约束

唐初统治者通过“王权”思想的广泛物化导致社会各阶层的精神敬畏;一元政治文化模式主导社会文化的发展方向;法律约束的深入细分规范社会行为;民本关怀引导社会道德精神走向。完善了一整套社会精神控制和文化约束的体制,为当时社会统治和和谐发展打下了良好的基础。     

Silence and Catastrophe: New Reasons Why Politics Matters in the Early Years of the Twenty‐first Century

Megaprojects are systems of highly concentrated power whose footprints, or radius of effects, are without precedent in human history. Once upon a time, even under imperial conditions, most people on our planet lived and loved, worked and played within geographically limited communities. They never had to reckon with all of humanity as a factor in their daily lives. Whenever they acted recklessly within their environment, for instance, they had the option of moving on, safe in the knowledge that there was plenty of Earth and not many others. Whenever bad things happened, they happened within limits. Their effects were local. The politics of megaprojects radically alters this equation; it poses new questions about the governance of risk and the nature and limits of democratic politics. The politics of megaprojects—put simply—raises fundamental questions about the ‘life and death of democracy’.     

周初德刑思想探析

周武王的军队占领殷都朝歌,统治了六百余年1的商朝灭亡,周朝由此建立。周朝建立之后,以周公为代表的周初统治者巧妙地使用了"德"这个概念,将天与王权结合起来,为武王克商找到了合理依据,同时也为周王朝未来的统治提出了合理性规划。"德"以及德治思想的提出既体现了周人思想体系中天命思想的羁绊,也是人文精神萌发的开始。     

“The Big Society,” Public Expenditure,and Volunteering

The debate on volunteering has paid insufficient attention to the relationship between public spending and volunteering. The importance of this relationship is highlighted by the British government's “Big Society” plan, which asserts that an increase in volunteering will compensate for the withdrawal of public agencies and spending. This idea is based on the widely held belief that a high degree of government intervention decreases voluntary activities. This article uses a multidisciplinary approach to improve understanding of how public spending affects the decision to volunteer. A theoretical model conceptualizes this relationship in terms of time donation by employed individuals. The model is tested empirically through an econometric analysis of two survey data sets and interpretative analysis of narratives of local volunteers and public professionals. The results suggest that volunteering is likely to decline when government intervention decreases and that a collaborative approach to sustaining volunteering is needed.     

Big Data in Public Affairs

This article offers an overview of the conceptual, substantive, and practical issues surrounding “big data” to provide one perspective on how the field of public affairs can successfully cope with the big data revolution. Big data in public affairs refers to a combination of administrative data collected through traditional means and large‐scale data sets created by sensors, computer networks, or individuals as they use the Internet. In public affairs, new opportunities for real‐time insights into behavioral patterns are emerging but are bound by safeguards limiting government reach through the restriction of the collection and analysis of these data. To address both the opportunities and challenges of this emerging phenomenon, the authors first review the evolving canon of big data articles across related fields. Second, they derive a working definition of big data in public affairs. Third, they review the methodological and analytic challenges of using big data in public affairs scholarship and practice. The article concludes with implications for public affairs.     

文明危机与第二开端的哲学

人类文明因环境、资源和大规模杀伤性武器等问题的压力而遭遇到了前所未有的根本性危机,其根源则在于文明的底基是人之自然性的不断释放,以至于最终突破了地球的承载极限。因此,按照文明之U型总模式的进路,人类接下来的文明之旅必须"往回返",其拐点即为第二开端。如同第一开端基于形而上学的哲学范式一样,第二开端也需要自己的哲学范式,而生态哲学则是新开端的第一哲学。建设第二开端的哲学必须重视和开发精神及其自由的文明价值,培养和塑造第二开端的人与文化。     

Government Information Policy in the Era of Big Data

Reliable public sector information serves as a pivotal source for big data. Government postal codes, for instance, have been crucial for predicting demographics. Confidentiality, however, may be at risk when combined with other sources. Public sector information not only describes government activity but contains material, such as campaign finance filings, produced by outside sources. How does information production impact policy concerns if material is reused for big data projects? Information production is analyzed using a framework of five methods of production. The framework considers information that the public sector writes, publishes, manages, produces through research, and compiles through legal mandates. This paper examines the policy implications of using U.S. federal public sector information in big data projects.