Understanding public agency communication: the case of the Swedish armed forces

This article suggests a diagnostic framework of public communication intended to capture new communication strategies used by Armed Forces across Europe to legitimize new tasks and recruit new personnel. Three distinct communicative models that impact differently on democratic values and public support are suggested: an Old Public Administration (OPA) model influenced by bureaucratic values, a New Public Management (NPM) model fuelled by market values and a deliberative model labelled ‘New Public Service’ (NPS) that is largely influenced by proponents of ‘e‐democracy’. A case study of the communication of the Swedish Armed Forces identifies a lingering bureaucratic (OPA) ideal. The market ideal (NPM) however clearly dominates. The article concludes that communication along market purposes, principles and practices risks distancing Armed Forces further from society. Yet, an embryonic deliberative ideal (NPS)—much fuelled by the use of social media such as blogs—was also identified. This growing ideal holds the potential of infusing deliberative vigor into the organization and presumably facilitates the bridging of the gap to society. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding the development of fundamentalism

We use economic theory to examine the intensity of fundamentalist sects in which leaders work to enhance their followers’ observance level. We model three stylized situations under which fundamentalist groups function, examining the intensity of observance in each. We find that, under reasonable conditions, rivalry among fundamentalists makes them more extreme.     

遵循社会基本矛盾规律促进社会科学发展

社会基本矛盾规律是马克思主义历史观中重要的原理,它是我们制定各项方针、路线和政策的基本依据。准确把握社会基本矛盾规律,对于我们理解和把握科学发展观和社会主义建设具有十分重要的意义。     

Causal inference and American political development: the case of the gag rule

Public Choice - We extend previous work on the role of politically motivated donors who contribute to candidates in an election with single dimension policy preferences. In a two-stage game wherein...     

Understanding sustainable development in the context of other emergent environmental perspectives

Concepts of preservation, conservation, and development shaped in large part the debate about U.S. environmental policy at the end of the 19th century. Forest use was often the focal point of controversy. Throughout the 20th century, Americans continued debating forest use, but by the late 20th century, the assumption that 19th century beliefs prevailed had begun to create a barrier to understanding changing perspectives. This paper begins by discussing one of these new perspectives, sustainable development, which has gained international prominence since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development after being mentioned in the 1986 World Commission on Environment and Development's Our Common Future. Following the introduction to sustainable development, this paper briefly presents the results of a 1989 study using Q methodology, which identified the emergence of sustainable development as one of several beliefs in a more complex framework of perspectives on forest use than had been assumed. In addition to sustainable development, this new framework included beliefs in nature as a community to be respected, a place for personal growth, a means for demonstrating self-reliance, and a rallying point for grassroots activism. This paper examines sustainable development in the context of these other belief types and concludes by cautioning policymakers to consider these additional policy arguments and define the policy agenda more fully.     

The congressional foundations of agency performance

When Congress delegates a policy mandate to a regulatory agency, Congress acts as a principal, choosing the institutional arrangements, or the ‘rules of the game’ for agency decision making. Individuals in the agency, acting as agents, take the rules of the game as given and do the best they can within these institutional arrangements. In this paper we develop a simple model that relates the congressional choice of institutional arrangements to two underlying environmental factors — uncertainty and conflict. We suggest that uncertainty and conflict of interest lead Congress, in delegating, to prescribe a greater scope of permissable regulatory activity, a wider array of regulatory instruments, and more confining regulatory procedures. Increased scope and stronger instruments tend to broaden the overall discretionary authority of the agency, while more confining procedures tend to narrow it. We conjecture that with increased uncertainty or conflict the narrowing tendency more than offsets the broadening tendency, for a net decrease in the agency's overall discretionary authority. Lastly, we argue that the performance of a regulatory agency in fulfilling its mandate is determined in large measure by the foundations Congress constructs for the implementation of delegated authority.     

Modes of influence: Participation in publicly administered development programmes

This article considers the way that farmers within a national agricultural advisory programme in Uganda were able to exert influence over that programme's policy and practice. Although the literature has tended to focus on engagement within formal programme structures as a major mode of participation, the analysis of the NAADS case reveals that farmers were able to exert an important influence over programme policy through their roles as political constituents. The brokerage role of supportive programme staff also worked to allow farmers' views to influence the programme, as did the collective weight of decisions commonly made by farmers, and to a lesser extent, the lobbying efforts of national NGOs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

近代陕西烟毒的泛滥及影响

近代西方列强的入侵,对中国社会产生了深远的影响,远离沿海的陕西也未能例外,引发了严重的社会问题。特别是鸦片在陕的传入与蔓延,冲击了陕西地区传统的经济模式,加之军阀为敛财强迫民众种植鸦片,造成当地农业大幅减产,民族工业的发展遭到重创。同时,由于鸦片的泛滥,原本民风淳朴的陕西地区,社会风气急剧下降。民众吸食鸦片,危害了国民的身心健康。     

An experimental study of the efficiency of unanimity rule and majority rule

Scholars traditionally claim that unanimity rule is more capable of producing Pareto optimal outcomes than majority rule. Dougherty and Edward (Public Choice 151(3):655–678, 2012) make the opposite claim assuming proposals are either random, sincere, or strategic. We test these competing hypotheses in a two-dimensional framework using laboratory experiments. Our primary results suggest: (1) majority rule enters the Pareto set more quickly than unanimity rule, (2) majority rule leaves the Pareto set at the same rate as unanimity rule, and (3) majority rule is more likely to select a Pareto optimal outcome than unanimity rule at the end of the game.     

Information technology and public commenting on agency regulations

In this research, we assess whether the number of public comments filed in response to proposed agency rules has dramatically increased as a result of the automation of the submission process. Specifically, we compare the volume of comment activity across two large sets of rules issued by the Department of Transportation, one that occurred before the launch of an agency‐wide electronic docket system and another that occurred after this launch in 1998. Our analysis shows that, contrary to expectations held by many researchers and practitioners, the overall levels and patterns of stakeholder behavior showed a remarkable degree of similarity across the two periods. This finding implies that public involvement in rulemaking is not likely to become vastly more prevalent in the information age, confounding both hopes of democratization of the process and fears of costly and harmful mass participation.     

The limits of authoritarian solidarity: The Gulf monarchies and preserving authoritarian rule during the Arab Spring

Scholars have recently begun to examine how authoritarian rulers cooperate with each other in order to fend off popular challenges to their power. During the Arab Spring the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) supported fellow authoritarian regimes in some cases while backing opposition movements in others. Existing theoretical approaches fail to explain this variation. Advancing the study on authoritarian cooperation, this article develops a theoretical approach that sets out to explain how authoritarian regimes reach their decisions. Drawing on poliheuristic foreign policy analysis, it argues that perceptions of similarity serve as a filter for estimating threats to regime survival at home. If regimes perceive the situation in other countries as similar to their own, supporting other authoritarian regimes becomes the only acceptable strategy. In contrast, if perceptions of similarity are low, regimes also consider other options and evaluate their implications beyond the domestic political arena. Applying this framework to the example of the GCC states during the Arab Spring, the analysis reveals covariation between perceptions of similarity and threat among GCC regimes, on the one hand, and their strategies, on the other.     

Interest groups in Croatia: Institutional development,strategies, and influence

As it transitions to democracy from a history of authoritarianism, Croatia's interest group system is a work in progress. It is slowly moving from a fluid, informal, and behind the scenes group system to one more institutionalized, with wider participation, and some transparency of group activity. In this article, we explain the evolution of Croatia's interest group system. The main argument is that specific features of institutional design and structures have very much influenced political advocacy behaviour and lobbying strategies of both informal and organized interests.     

制度设计的前在预设

对于一个社会来说,政治规则为什么有必要?或者简单地说,我们为什么需要制度?这是一个既是“已然”(经验命题)又是“未然”(理论命题)的问题。需要从理论上追问和解析。本文通过“无赖原则”等八个方面的归纳与探讨,从多种视角透视了制度创制、制度设计的理论前提和客观价值意义,揭示了人类规则体系所特有的既基于人性又超越人性的文明特征,为政治规则与规则政治的内在关系的确立,寻求一种理论支撑点。同时,本文的研究也为完善政治学学科内容、裨补政治学学科这方面久已存在的阙失,提供了学术尝试。