Still a ‘Male Business’? Explaining Women’s Presence in Executive Office

This article aims to account for cross-national and over-time variation in women’s participation in cabinets. Specifically, it focuses on some key political factors which have not been tested yet, such as the effectiveness of party gender quotas. Previous literature has mainly centred on structural variables, such as the degree of democratisation and economic development. Using an original longitudinal cross-sectional sample of 23 advanced industrial democracies, this article provides new evidence that some important political factors should be considered. It finds that countries with a specialist system have a higher percentage of women in cabinet than generalist systems, left-wing parties in government appoint more women, women are more likely to receive a ministerial post when the governing party has adopted gender quotas, and an increasing number of women in parliament boosts women in cabinet. Furthermore, the article shows that these political variables perform differently through time, and that political factors have become more relevant in recent decades.     

Was there a ‘Youthquake’ in the 2017 general election?

Studies using data from the British Election Study and the British Social Attitudes survey have concluded that the case for a significant rise in turnout amongst young people at the 2017 general election remains unproven. A limitation of these data sets for assessing the so-called Youthquake thesis is the small number of younger voters they contain. In this research note we use data from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey to produce more robust estimates of turnout amongst people aged under thirty between the 2010, 2015, and 2017 general elections. Our findings support the claim that turnout increased markedly among voters in this age group in 2017. They also demonstrate that the increase in youth turnout was not specific to 2017 but, rather, represented a continuation of a change between 2010 and 2015. Our analysis confirms the heightened importance of age as a predictor of vote choice in 2017, with younger voters significantly more likely to vote Labour compared to 2010 and 2015.     

China’s ‘New-Type’ Private Think Tanks: Is ‘New’ Better?

Journal of Chinese Political Science - China’s public policy research community has long been dominated by large state-run research institutes, but in recent years financially and...     

Are Voters Mobilized by a ‘Friend-and-Neighbor’ on the Ballot? Evidence from a Field Experiment

In his seminal work on Southern politics, V.O. Key observed that voters disproportionately support local candidates at the ballot box. While empirical analyses have confirmed “friends-and-neighbors” voting across numerous electoral contexts, no one has directly examined voter turnout as the mechanism linking place of residence to vote choice. We argue that place of residence is a social identity that incentivizes citizens to turn out to vote on behalf of the local candidate. We test this mobilization mechanism using a randomized field experiment conducted during a 2014 state legislative primary election. Our results show that county ties between candidates and voters likely boost turnout. Our findings contribute to our understanding of the importance of place identity for turnout decisions in low-information elections.     

So what's new? Rethinking the ‘new antisemitism’ in a global age

ABSTRACT

Judaken discusses the various strands that constitute the so-called ‘new antisemitism’. He argues that this is not the first time a new crisis of antisemitism has been heralded. Indeed, in the wake of every major struggle in the Arab-Israeli conflict since the Six Day War, prominent scholars and advocates have sounded the alarm about a crisis resulting from the rise of what they designated a ‘new antisemitism’. Moreover, what writers point to as the vectors of the new antisemitism—Holocaust denial, the antisemitism of the extreme left, antisemitism in the Islamic world, anti-Zionism as antisemitism, even anti-racism as antisemitism—all have a fairly long history. What has changed are the role of information technologies and the geo-global context in which they function. These technologies have both facilitated the global dissemination of antisemitism as well as furnishing new means of combatting it. At bottom, this electronic warfare is both a symptom and a cause of the global forces at work in antisemitism today. After delineating the constellation of factors in the rise of global antisemitism post-September 2000, Judaken then draws on the work of Léon Poliakov, Judith Butler, Jean-Paul Sartre and the Frankfurt School, among others, to assess what Pierre-André Taguieff most aptly calls the ‘new Judaeophobia’.     

Against ‘creativity’: a ­philistine rant

The aspiration to be creative seems today to be more or less compulsory in an increasing number of areas of life. In psychological vocabularies, in economic life, in education and beyond, the values of creativity have taken on the force of a moral agenda. Yet creativity is a value which, though we may believe we choose it ourselves, may in fact make us complicit with what today might be seen as the most conservative of norms: compulsory individualism, compulsory ‘innovation’, compulsory per­formativity and productiveness, the compulsory valorization of the putatively new. This article suggests that, in order to escape the moralizing injunction to be creative, we need to cultivate a kind of ethical philistinism, albeit disaggregating such philistinism from the negativism of outright cynicism or fatuity. However, there is not much use in outlining an abstract model of philistinism. Instead, we take some ‘exemplars’ of a philistine attitude to creativity – Gilles Deleuze, F. R. Leavis, and Paul Cézanne – in order to show how such an ethos can be accomplished, on the one hand, with or without philosophy, and, on the other, with or without even the very idea of creativity itself, invoking instead the notions of ‘inventiveness’ and an ‘ethics of inertia’ as against creativity as such. The message should be that, rather than this or that theory, only exemplars – the bit-by-bit assembly of reminders – can help liberate us from the potentially moronic consequences of the doctrine of creativity.     

中国电子市场在‘收缩’吗?

最近,海外对大陆电子市场是否“收缩”表示关切。对此,记者日前走访了中国电子工业部。电子工业部新闻发言人对记者说:中国电子市场正在日益扩大,对外经济技术交流将进一步扩大不会“收缩”。     

‘放下便是’与‘放不下’

‘放下便是’与‘放不下’黄福群老舍先生生前创作时，曾经自己规定任务每天写两千字左右。但就这样的指标他还是不能很好地完成，有时候三天连一个字也写不出，面对着稿纸不知如何下笔。写不出东西往往使作家痛苦万分，同样，一旦文思泉涌来不及写时；也会使作家烦恼不安...     

我们能够闯过‘廉洁关’吗?

我们目前要准备过两个关:一个是“价格关”,一个是“廉洁关”。过“价格关”是为了将我们的经济引上商品经济的大道,这个“关”虽然不好过,是改革的一大难关、险关,但我相信我们是有办法过得去的,只要把必要的准备工作(包括抑制通货膨胀)做好。比较起来,人们还是担心“廉洁关”难过,阻力太大。 “克服腐败现象,保持党政机关的廉洁”——是为保证治理经济环境全面深化     

‘But this is a park’! The paradox of public space in a Buenos Aires ‘no man's land’

Drawing upon qualitative fieldwork, this paper analyzes the occupation of an abandoned park in the south of Buenos Aires by the city's urban poor, delineating the implications of this incident for notions of citizenship in the context of deeply fragmented social rights. While public space has historically been understood as an expression of the universality of rights bearing membership in a political community, I show how this universalism became the object of struggle during a conflict over the park between the local middle class and squatters, many of which were of immigrant origin. The discourses mobilized by various social groups blurred the distinction between citizenship as a set of legal–formal rights versus a project of normative inclusion. While public space is juridically constructed as universal, particularistic claims to these spaces are imbued with increased legitimacy in a context in which social rights – conceived as a set of provisions guaranteed by the state under a regime of liberal citizenship – are unrealizable. By claiming this space for particularistic uses, squatters drew attention to the contradictions embedded in public space's democratic pretensions in a setting in which putatively universal rights are ignored by the state.     

孙亮的‘问’与‘破’

《三国志·吴志·孙亮》里记述了这样一件事: 孙亮有一次要吃生梅,让宦官到内库去取蜜浸梅。蜜取来后,孙亮发现蜜中有鼠屎,就召来管内库的官吏查问。管库的官吏一见蜜中的鼠屎,吓得体如筛糠,连连叩头,回答不出一句话来。对君主的事情如此马虎,这还了得,管库官吏限看就要大祸临头了。     

Toward a ‘harmonious society’ through corporate social responsibility

The objective of this paper is to examine how corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of foreign multinational enterprises in China contribute to China's national priorities, by discussing the relationships between CSR and the building of a ‘harmonious society’ in China. This paper is based on personal reflections, extensive literature review, and 8 years of experiential field work in China by the author. Many CSR programs are found to superficially complement China's harmonious society policy. Only four exemplars out of 20 multinational enterprises surveyed are committed to fostering green growth, improving livelihood, developing outwardly into the west, and promoting a general integration of Chinese business into global markets through social innovations and collaborative projects. The paper posits that it is possible to use CSR as a change agent in China when enlightened public concerns are brought back to business operations through the involvement of non-government organizations, local government, and local citizens and a greater degree of transparency of information. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘A quite natural and moderate defensive feeling’? The 1945 Hampstead ‘anti-alien’ petition

In October 1945 an ‘anti-alien’ petition was launched in the London Borough of Hampstead that, under the pretext of securing homes for returning ex-servicemen, campaigned for the removal of the district's predominantly Jewish refugee population. By examining the nature of support and opposition to the petition Macklin's local case study provides further evidence to suggest that reactions to those who had fled Nazi terror remained complex. Those who did find sanctuary were characterized by the local press not as ‘deserving victims’, but as the cause of the problems created by their Nazi persecutors. A detailed examination of the rhetoric of the petition movement reveals how this defence of local amenities against ‘alien‘ encroachment can rightfully be defined as ‘antisemitic’. Following an analysis of the role of the local press, Macklin examines its impact on, and interaction with, local and central government policy regarding reconstruction and immigration, which continued to be dominated by the dogma that harmonious race relations necessitated the strict control of immigrants, regardless of the desperation of their plight. He concludes by examining the media's symbiotic relationship with extremist and fascist politics.     

Do people want a ‘fairer’ electoral system? An experimental study in four countries

When judging how ‘fair’ voting rules are, a fundamental criterion used by both scholars and politicians is their ability or inability to produce proportional results – that is, the extent parties’ seat distribution after the elections accurately reflects their vote shares. How about citizens? Do citizens care about how proportional the outcome is? Or do they judge the outcome solely on the basis of how well (or poorly) their party performed? Taking advantage of a uniquely designed survey experiment, this article investigates the causal effect of proportionality on voter support for voting rules in four countries: Austria, England, Ireland and Sweden. The results show that proportionality drives support for the voting rules not above, but beyond party performance. There is little cross-country variation, which suggests that proportionality is appreciated in different contexts with little status quo bias. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the causal mechanisms linking electoral rules to voter support.     

达赖是去布拉格‘坐禅’吗?

捷克斯洛伐克总统哈维尔不顾中国方面的严正交涉,执意邀请长期流亡国外从事分裂祖国活动的达赖喇嘛访捷,这是对中国内政的粗暴干涉。对此,中国政府提出了抗议,中国人民表示极大的愤慨。     

新‘官’上任先‘拾柴’

新‘官’上任先‘拾柴’江西王水宝领导干部到了新的工作单位，想把工作干好，并干出政绩来，于是上任伊始便革新图治，方案措施频频出台。这种做法于情于理无可厚非。但也有些新“官”，上任伊始，情况还不熟悉，便盲目地烧起了不切实际的“三把火”，结果适得其反。前段...     

浅议干部‘用’‘管’脱节问题

很长一段时间以来,在不少地方出现了一种对干部重用轻管,“用”“管”脱节的怪事,严重地腐蚀了干部队伍,贻误了一些能力很强,培养潜力很大的干部的健康成长,在一定程度上阻碍了各项事业的发展。 怪事一,明知不对,也不过问。一些领导同志,对一些干部身上存在的不良现象,看在眼里,记在心中,但就是打不开情面,不敢理直气壮地开展批评,总是采取事不关己,高高挂起的态度。一是明知不对,不敢过问。因为是熟人,有的甚至关系比较密切,对待他们身上的缺点和不足,刚开始时还会很委婉地进行劝说,一旦当事人没有什么反映,就再也不敢去提醒,怕伤了和气。二是明知不对,不去过问。很多同志,自我要求“较严”,对发生在别人身上的问题,总有一种好也好,歹也好,都是别人的事,与自己没有任何关系,不去管为妙,     

‘Fraternity in diversity’ or ‘feudal fanatics’? Representations of ethnicity in Rwandan presidential rhetoric

ABSTRACT

Between independence in 1962 and the genocide in 1994, only two presidents ruled Rwanda. In addition to the enormous economic and developmental challenges that faced Presidents Grégoire Kayibanda (1962–73) and Juvénal Habyarimana (1973–94), each had to manage the ethnic divisions that plagued the country. In this paper Mayersen explores how each president discussed the issue of ethnicity in presidential speeches, interviews and key policy documents. Ostensibly, Presidents Kayibanda and Habyarimana both promoted national unity and advocated allegiance to a unified Rwandan identity rather than a focus on ethnicity. President Kayibanda called for ‘tolerance and understanding between the ethnicities’, while Habyarimana entreated Rwandans to ‘love your countrymen without distinction of ethnic or regional origin’. Yet in the allusive and indirect communication style typical of Rwandan discourse, underneath the presidential promotion of unity was a more complex message. Mayersen argues that the way each president addressed the issue served to maintain a high level of consciousness regarding ethnicity, and contributed to ongoing ethnic disharmony.     

UK Labour and the EU Single Market: ‘Social Europe’ or ‘Capitalist Club’?

This article looks at the UK Labour Party’s view of the EU single market over the last four decades, focussing on three case study periods when this issue was particularly salient: first, the time of the single market’s introduction under Neil Kinnock’s leadership; second, the A8 accession with Tony Blair as Labour Prime Minister; and third, between the 2016 European referendum and 2019 general election during Jeremy Corbyn’s time as party leader. This historical narrative uses the theoretical approach of Harvard economist Dani Rodrik—of a ‘trilemma’ faced by national policy makers in response to globalisation—as a lens to describe a clear arc in Labour’s policy towards the single market across the three case studies. A position of initial scepticism moved to support under Kinnock’s leadership, and then active encouragement under Blair, before coming back again under Corbyn to uncomfortable non-commitment. This arc directly correlates with the ebb and flow of the party’s overall economic approach—first the Keynesian, national Alternative Economic Strategy at the time of the party’s 1983 general election defeat; then, the deviation under Blair to a policy that actively encouraged cross-border market liberalisation; and finally the return to an Alternative Economic Strategy-style approach under Corbyn.