“公共”的再发现:意志论与利益论政治代表观的整合

在政治代表研究领域,意志论代表观与利益论代表观的分野存在已久,而一些试图调和二者之间矛盾的尝试则力有未逮。部分学者转向寻求民事代表研究中处理这一经典冲突的成功经验,包括代表行为前的契约、代表行为中的重复博弈与代表行为后的司法审判这三种成熟的策略。但将这些方法引入政治代表行为研究时却面对着种种无法逾越的障碍。通过对比民事活动与政治活动,我们可以发现这些障碍的根源:以往的政治代表研究者忽略了“公共”这一政治行为独有的抽象主体。公共的再发现使得政治代表的结构由二元主体转向三元主体,由一重代表转向三重代表,这为调和意志论与利益论之争提供了新的思路。     

Postsovereign Governance in a Globalizing and Fragmenting World: The Case of Mexico

Globalization and “global governance” have become the buzzwords at the turn of the century in order to name and explain the emerging post-Cold War international order. The first one makes reference to the technological revolution that is modifying our notions of space, time, and production, while the latter attempts to illustrate how power and its regulatory practices are being transformed among polities. We discuss these two notions in the first part of this essay to argue that, in fact, the emerging “global” order will be different from that grounded on state-centered notions of territory and sovereignty. Our arguments focus on the Mexican case to highlight how this country is moving from an inward-looking, state-centered, authoritarian machinery of governance, to a postsovereign, principle-based, multilayered governance structure. This transition has mainly manifested in the governance mechanisms of corporate and human rights. This does not mean that policy tools of the “ancient regime” have completely disappeared. State-centered structures of governance will remain important during this stage of economic and political change. Areas moving into postsovereign and principled regulatory practices will overlap with those that remain under the monopoly of national bureaucracies. Though Mexico's economic and political change could be explained as a reactive movement against the collapse of the state-centered authoritarian model, an important conclusion of this essay is that the emerging pattern of postsovereign and principled bureaucratic governance will play a major role in shaping the future of those changes.     

Mystifying but not misleading: when does political ambiguity not confuse voters?

The purpose of political campaigns in democracies is to provide voters with information that allows them to make “correct” choices, that is, vote for the party/candidate whose proposed policy or “position” is closest to their ideal position. In a world where political talk is often ambiguous and imprecise, it then becomes important to understand whether correct choices can still be made. In this paper we identify two elements of political culture that are key to answering this question: (i) whether or not political statements satisfy a so-called “grain of truth” assumption, and (ii) whether or not politicians make statements that are comparative, that is contain information about politicians’ own positions relative to that of their adversaries. The “grain of truth” assumption means that statements, even if vague, do not completely misrepresent the true positions of the parties. We find that only when political campaigning is comparative and has a grain of truth, will voters always make choices as if they were fully informed. Therefore, the imprecision of political statements should not be a problem as long as comparative campaigning is in place.     

Reconciliation Arguments in John Rawls’s Political Philosophy

Abstract

Recently debates about the worth of “ideal theory” have directed attention to the functions that an account of a perfectly just society can serve. One function is that of “reconciliation”: learning that a seemingly undesirable feature of the social world would exist even in the perfectly just society can show us the value that it has in the present as well. John Rawls has emphasized reconciliation as among the roles of political philosophy. For instance, Rawls claims that his theory of justice can reconcile us to the pluralism of liberal democracies. In this essay, I argue that Rawls’s political theory also can reconcile the inhabitants of liberal democratic societies to the fact that such societies may be cognitively confusing on account of their complexity. Then I contend that Rawls’s work offers valuable theoretical resources for analysing a society’s transparency or lack thereof.     

算好“政治账”:深刻把握从严治党的历史与现实

中国共产党历来重视从严治党,坚决惩治党内存在的贪污腐化分子。对于贪污腐败可能导致的严重后果,中国共产党一直十分警醒,所以始终秉持“宁可得罪少数腐败分子,也决不得罪广大人民群众”的理念,把维护人民群众的根本利益放在重要位置。整体来说,反腐倡廉、惩贪除恶是革命和建设时期锻造队伍、获得民心的必然要求,是社会主义改革时期稳定大局、取信于民的现实所需,是新时代凝聚民众心、共筑中国梦的时代召唤。把握好人心向背的“政治账”,始终站在人民群众的一边,使中国共产党的反腐大业得到了广大人民群众的拥护和支持,也必将取得更大的胜利。     

Uber Über regulation? Regulatory change following the emergence of new technologies in the taxi market

Can emerging technologies transform not only markets, but also foster new regulatory change mechanisms? In the context of prevailing theories of regulatory change, this article explores the extent to which an interest‐based explanation can account for the regulatory responses toward emerging Transportation Network Companies (TNCs). Based on a primary cross‐city analysis of the 40 largest cities in the United States, the study found that although the existence of ex ante interest groups indeed somewhat limited the extent of ex post regulatory acceptance of TNCs, regulators seemed to prefer the newcomers over existing incumbents and approved TNCs in 77.5 percent of the examined cities, rarely pursuing harsh enforcement even when TNCs operated illegally. The research attempts to explain this intriguing phenomenon by extending the interest‐based approach to account for the key role played by “technological regulatory entrepreneurs.” The entrepreneurs bridged collective action barriers by becoming the central agent that managed, and reaped the benefits of, the collective action, by lowering the organizational costs and by disseminating information effectively and turning consumers into political campaigners, thus successfully promoting regulatory change.     

Economic Democracy: The Left's Big Idea for the Twenty-First Century?

While the notion that parts of the economy should be subject to democratic oversight is not particularly new, it is only recently that the term “economic democracy” has begun to emerge as a political label and a political project in its own right. Interest in economic democracy is at a historical high as more and more people search for a comprehensive alternative to neoliberal capitalism that is neither state socialism nor social democracy. In addition, the fact that mainstream concern with economic inequality is at a historical peak means that economic arrangements are on the political agenda in a way that they have not been for many years. The central argument of this article is that economic democracy has the potential to be the “big idea” of the left this century for two main reasons. First, although economic democracy is usually thought to be concerned solely with workplaces, in fact it has implications far beyond this. Indeed, economic democracy is best understood as a comprehensive critique of the economy and a corresponding encompassing vision of an alternative. This article thus aims to offer a sympathetic overview of the main facets of economic democracy—the attempt to democratize workplaces, finance, investment, and the market system—as a holistic and integrative project. Second, economic democracy offers an important method for challenging inequality. The expansion of democratic accountability through representation, and particularly the expansion of opportunity for direct participation in economic decision-making is a fundamentally important method of redressing the structural inequality that continues to be a defining dilemma of our societies.     

In the name of the nation: reflections on nationalism and patriotism1

Treating nationhood as a political claim rather than an ethnocultural fact, this paper asks how “nation” works as a category of practice, a political idiom, a claim. What does it mean to speak “in the name of the nation”? And how should one assess the practice of doing so? Taking issue with the widely held view that “nation” is an anachronistic and indefensible or at least deeply suspect category, the paper sketches a qualified defence of inclusive forms of nationalism and patriotism in the contemporary American context, arguing that they can help develop more robust forms of citizenship, provide support for redistributive social policies, foster the integration of immigrants, and even serve as a check on the development of an aggressively unilateralist foreign policy.     

Why we will miss Ye,Teddy

• In this commentary, written by senior commentator and presidential advisor Michael Sommer, who served all three Kennedy brothers, the author argues that the dying Senator Ted Kennedy has always truly fought for all Americans, has opponents but no enemies, that the world knows it, and that his liberalism is “the best American political philosophy” that America has. The author maintains that the Senator “represents the best that is in Americans, what America really stands for,” and that the world recognizes that, too. The author believes that President‐elect Obama will once again vigorously show the world the same Kennedy‐like enabling vision, hope, great leadership and true American spirit, that the world has tragically missed from America for the past eight years.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How to argue about the new public management

Hood and Jackson's (1991) distinction between administrative argument and administrative philosophy has been largely overlooked in writings on NPM. This seemingly subtle distinction flows from the more obvious one between “practical argument” and “social scientific explanation.” These terms refer to different scholarly practices. Practical reasoning is a highly-developed form of scholarship in law, public policy, and political theory. Explanation is a highly-developed scholarly activity in political science and related disciplines. The fact that practical argument and explanation are, in principle, complementary scholarly activities in practically-oriented fields such as public management is not a reason to overlook the distinction between them. If scholars writing on NPM made more of this distinction, it might prove easier for their readers to see precisely how social science explanations and practical arguments are interrelated. Discussion of how well claims have been supported would then be facilitated. Also, it would be easier for writers to decide how to engage the NPM literature. Not only would the issues be clearer, but it would also be easier to discuss the merits of alternative approaches to tackling them. If more weight is given to the distinction between practical argumentation and social scientific research by scholars of NPM, an urgent question is: how should the scholarly practice of practical argumentation be characterized?     

A Post-Parsimonious Proposition

This article is at once a critique, a challenge, and a risk, first in the form of instructive parody, moving on to engage more seriously with the critique of “parsimonious” social science embedded within it, and finally suggesting ways to embrace and advance a legacy of new political science. Employing satire, the article begins by outlining the various methods within the field of mainstream political science currently being used to tackle the (impossible) empirical project of exploring an “ideal world.” Next, although protocol cautions emerging political scientists to tread lightly with critiques of entrenched methods, established scholarship, and renowned journals, it argues that substantive analyses of this less than “ideal world” are still urgently interwoven with provocative interrogation of this less than ideal discipline. Beyond critique however, the goal of this commentary is both to affirm the risk-taking trajectory of “new” political science that has beckoned many into the field and to insist upon the continuation of this forward move(ment): opening up space for, and claiming as political responsibility, a stake in methodological creativity and a more robust set of political associations.     

历史政治学的功能分析

历史政治学的提出引发了中国政治学界的广泛关注。作为一种新型研究路径的历史政治学不但具有客观的分析主义特征,而且和其它政治理论的研究路径一样,还具有鲜明的功能主义特征。历史政治学首先回答了政治理论的知识来源问题,从而为建构中国自主性政治学知识体系提供了可能。基于政治学取向的政治史研究有助于避免因“文化转向”而导致的历史研究的碎片化问题,这意味着历史政治学研究既追求“真相”也关怀“真理”。历史政治学的知识功能自然有其政治实践价值,那就是为治国理政提供历史解释与现实论述,并为认识合法性政治提供一套不同于理性人假设的历时性方案。     

“Sexual Assault” and Other Buzz Phrases that Need to Die

Academics nowadays have invented many phrases for which they demand widespread acceptance that do not accurately represent reality, or which make no sense when we consider them closely. Prime among these is the concept of “sexual assault,” which has made its way into state laws and the UCMJ since its coinage in the 1960s and 1970s and is now a mainstay of training on college campuses. This concept is flawed because it includes all sexual actions under the rubric of the noun “assault,” as if we spoke of “driving aggression” rather than “aggressive driving,” to color all driving with the possibility of aggression. It is simply not true that sexuality is nothing but one more form aggression, and that all sex is potentially aggression if it is perceived by one partner as such. Another false coinage we are asked to accept is the notion that men “objectivize” women. In fact few men want to sleep with or get an erotic charge from objects; if anything the issue seems to be focus on physical details. Then there is the widely repeated assertion that “gender is assigned at birth.” Rather than debating whether or not this is so we should ask whether the concept itself makes sense. Assigned? By what entity? Just at birth? These are examples of linguistic over-reach, the attempt to change the world with words rather than letting a change in the way we see the world (Kuhn’s paradigm shift) produce corresponding words in a more gradual way that most of us can accept. Just because we hear these phrases all the time from professional wordsmith academics with axes to grind, we need not feel constrained to accept them if they are not accurate representations of the world.     

全面准确地理解马克思早年的“跨越”思想

马克思早年的“跨越”思想和晚年的“跨越”思想一样,指的都是“跨越”资本主义的经济制度,而不是指“跨越”政治革命和政治解放,直接实现社会革命和人类解放。马克思早年“跨越”思想的理论基础是“共同胜利论”和“发达国家带动论”。19世纪40年代,德国的社会性质是半封建半资本主义社会,德国的资本主义制度已经存在并正在发展。马克思、恩格斯把此时代的德国看作是“支配着世界市场”,并能首先进行无产阶级革命,建立共产主义社会的国家,因此认为德国能把前资本主义国家或非资本主义国家带到共产主义新社会中去,因而也不存在跨越“资本主义制度的卡夫丁峡谷”问题。     

When Politics Matters: The Impact of Politicians' and Bureaucrats' Preferences on Salient and Nonsalient Policy Areas

For three decades, the “politics matters” literature has found that political ideology is an important explanation of public policy. However, this literature systematically fails to include the influence of the bureaucracy. In fact, it is almost impossible to identify a single study in this literature that controls for the influence of the permanent bureaucracy. In this article, we investigate whether politics still matters when bureaucratic preferences are taken into account. We do this in a simultaneous test of political and bureaucratic influences on public budgets, a policy measure often studied in the “politics matters” literature. We find that political preferences trump bureaucratic ones in policy areas salient to the public but not in less salient areas. This might be comforting news from a democratic perspective. However, as public budgets represent an easy case for political influence, it is food for thought that political preferences do not always prevail.     

Joseph Stiglitz: The Citizen-Bureaucrat and the Limits of Legitimate Dissent

Since being forced to resign his high-ranking post at the World Bank in 2000 for publicly dissenting from neoliberal ideas, Joseph Stiglitz has become a global policy celebrity, celebrated as the “Rebel Within.” While much has been said about his neo-Keynesian policy framework, little has been done to explore the political significance of his iconic status as a renowned “citizen-bureaucrat.” Yet, Stiglitz's iconic image in many ways has had a greater political impact than his policy ideas. In a world in which government and corporate bureaucracies increasingly squeeze out alternative visions, the citizen-bureaucrat suggests that space still exists within these unwieldy bureaucracies for the independent-thinker to put forward a rebellious agenda. Through an assessment of Stiglitz's policy career, this article argues that the image of the citizen-bureaucrat is, to a large extent, an ideological fantasy that masks a more uncomfortable political reality: that the available options for the “good bureaucrat” in today's neoliberal era, far from expanding, are more narrow than ever before.     

自媒体时代的政治传播秩序及中国调适

政治传播秩序系政治秩序与传播秩序有机耦合而成。自媒体时代政治传播秩序变革呈现出新图景:“传-受”关系角色融合,信息流动立体对冲,“权势”格局去中心化,“节点”移位流程再造,线上线下双层互动,参与沟通机制转向,情感意见高度聚合,政治目标共生共享,文明契合价值转化,总体模式类型蜕变。应对自媒体时代政治传播秩序变革,中国应做出主动调适:确立政治传播秩序由“一元主体”主导到“多元主体”共享的总体理念;把新时代中国特色社会主义协商民主的秩序要求贯通到政治传播新秩序的建构中;更新对政治传播“内容”的理解,扩充“政治信息”的内涵和包容量;释放政治信息的生产权和传播权,激活政治传播秩序中媒体的独有能量;依托中国特色社会主义政治传播秩序的优势,为全球政治传播新秩序贡献中国经验。     

Does the messenger matter? A comparison of the effects of Eurosceptic messages communicated by mainstream and radical right-wing parties on citizens’ EU attitudes

The fact that the European elections in 2014 resulted in an unprecedented success for Eurosceptic parties raises questions concerning the influence of political elites on citizens’ Euroscepticism. This paper examines whether Eurosceptic messages have a different impact when communicated by mainstream right-wing parties vs. their more radical counterparts. We do so using data from a survey experiment conducted in Germany in 2013. Our results show that Eurosceptic messages from mainstream parties significantly increase Euroscepticism among voters but that those effects are confined largely to “in”-partisans. Furthermore, when a message is effective among “out”-partisans, it is due to a combined effect of source and message credibility. This holds true for both mainstream and radical right parties suggesting that contrary to expectations, the former do not enjoy any advantage over the latter in terms of perceived credibility.     

Riding the Wave: World Trade and Factor‐Based Models of Democratization

Studies of “waves” of regime change, in which large numbers of countries experience similar political transitions at roughly similar periods of time, though once popular, have fallen from favor. Replacing the “third wave” arguments are several competing models relating domestic social structure—specifically, the distribution of income and factor ownership—to regime type. If any of these distributive models of regime type is correct, then global trade has an important explanatory role to play. Under factor‐based models, changes in the world trading system will have systematic effects on regime dynamics. Trade openness determines labor's factor income and ultimately its political power. As world trade expands and contracts, countries with similar labor endowments should experience similar regime pressures at the same time. We propose a novel empirical specification that addresses the endogeneity and data‐quality problems plaguing previous efforts to examine these arguments. We investigate the conditional impact of the global trading system on democratic transitions across 130 years and all of the states in the international system. Our findings cast doubt on the utility of factor‐based models of democratization, despite their importance in fueling renewed interest in the topic.     

Quantum Change in the Fragmented Metropolis: Political Environment and Homeless Policy in New York City

The dominant paradigm for understanding urban policy change has long been that of “incrementalism.” The incrementalist argument is that institutional fragmentation reduces coordination, and thus discourages what might be called “nonincremental” or “quantum” change. This article seeks to test the incrementalist understanding of urban political change. Is it possible that under certain circumstances fragmentation can encourage quantum change? We will test this possibility with an analysis of homeless policy in New York City. Briefly put, over the last 25 years homeless policy in New York City has developed in a series of quantum jumps with dramatic, short‐term changes in funding, administration, and policy “philosophy.” Policy change followed this trajectory even though New York City's political environment is notoriously fragmented. This pattern contradicts what incrementalism would predict, and therefore suggests that that paradigm must be modified. Urban politics, this study suggests, can sometimes display the nonincremental, entrepreneurial, and “ideational” characteristics that have been identified as typical of the national “new politics of public policy.”