Exclusivity of citizens’ initiatives: Fuel for collective action?

ABSTRACT

Self-organized citizens’ initiatives are a form of collective action and contribute to society through the production of public goods and services. Traditional collective action theory predicts that such initiatives are near impossible because of the persistent problems of free-riding. Citizens’ initiatives however do exist and function properly, and their numbers seem to be increasing in countries such as the Netherlands. This article argues that free-riding problems can be overcome when some form of exclusivity is arranged in citizens’ initiatives. We assume that citizens’ initiatives use active and/or passive strategies to limit free-riding behaviour. Using three illustrative cases, our research shows that position rules, boundary rules, and authority rules are used in a subtle and often implicit way to differentiate the level of influence and authority between the more and the less committed members, enabling collective action. Such rules, though advantageous, may be paradoxical to the goals of the citizens’ initiatives and can undermine the virtues associated with them.     

Testing the liberal subject: (in)security,responsibility and ‘self-improvement’ in the UK citizenship test

The recent debate over the changes to the ‘Life in the UK’ citizenship test offers another opportunity to reflect on the testing of would-be citizens in liberal democracies. The citizenship test has often been understood as part of the ‘strengthening’ of national borders: set within a discourse of fears over high levels of migration and the risk to cultural homogeneity. Furthermore, it has been viewed as an illustration of the death of multiculturalism and presented as an illiberal strategy of cultural assimilation. I propose that whilst the notion of ‘testing’ is built out of fears regarding ‘threatening’ difference and ‘community cohesion’, what the UK testing process presents is an explicitly liberal strategy of governing. Drawing on the history of the test, I suggest that it is not purely a mechanism of restriction but that it also relies on strategies of responsibility, empowerment and ‘self-improvement’. The citizenship test, alongside other recent border strategies, may be better understood as representing a fascinating nexus between advanced liberal ideas of governing and concerns regarding (in)security. I argue that studying the test in this way offers up vital questions about how community and political membership continues to be shaped in late modernity.     

Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement

What effect, if any, does the extent of economic inequality in a country have upon the political engagement of its citizens? This study examines this question using data from multiple cross‐national surveys of the advanced industrial democracies. It tests the theory that greater inequality increases the relative power of the wealthy to shape politics in their own favor against rival arguments that focus on the effects of inequality on citizens' objective interests or the resources they have available for political engagement. The analysis demonstrates that higher levels of income inequality powerfully depress political interest, the frequency of political discussion, and participation in elections among all but the most affluent citizens, providing compelling evidence that greater economic inequality yields greater political inequality.     

近代西方政府职能理论之嬗变与政治实践

自由资本主义时期,西方社会思潮的主流是古典自由主义。垄断资本主义时期,国家主义逐渐抬头。现代西方社会,政治上出现了两种改良的思潮:新自由主义与社群主义。在欧陆国家,政府具有较大的权力,负有较广泛的职责。在英美国家,政府权力相对较小,职责范围较为有限。我国政府改革的目标应是建立小而强的政府。     

Laborde’s religion

ABSTRACT

Cécile Laborde’s Liberalism’s Religion proposes liberal principles to address political controversies over religion. One is the public reason requirement that reasons for state policies should be accessible. Another is the civic inclusiveness requirement according to which symbolic religious establishment is wrong when it communicates that religious identity is a component of civic identity. A third is the claim that liberal states have meta-jurisdictional authority to settle the boundary between what counts as religion and what counts as non-religion. The article considers whether Laborde has managed to articulate these three principles in a way that is operationalisable and can serve to provide solutions to practical controversies over religion. It is argued that Laborde’s formulations leave important issues open, and some ways of settling these issues are considered.     

What is democratic reliability? Epistemic theories of democracy and the problem of reasonable disagreement

It has proven difficult to reconcile epistemic justifications of political authority, especially epistemic theories of democracy, with a basic liberal commitment to respecting reasonable value pluralism. The latter seems to imply that there can be no universally acceptable substantive outcome standard to evaluate the epistemic reliability of different political procedures. This paper shows that this objection rests on an implausible interpretation of political competence. In particular, the paper defends two claims: first, that epistemic theories of political authority are in fact compatible with a liberal commitment to respecting reasonable pluralism; but second, that if we take reasonable pluralism seriously, the standard of competence we should use is a pragmatic one. Good political decision procedures reliably fix practical problems of social coordination and adapt to new demands and developments; we need not demand that their decisions are all-things-considered just or optimal. This pragmatic account of political competence is compatible with reasonable pluralism, since on this basis we can comparatively evaluate political procedures without controversially asserting a single standard of ‘truth’ in politics. Hence, it is possible to give an epistemic account of political authority that works within a liberal theory of political justification.     

新农村建设中政府公共服务能力的限制因素及其对策

社会主义新农村建设是一个系统工程,仅靠市场机制的自发调节是无法完成的。政府必须承担起相应的责任,然而,政府责任不在于直接参与市场竞争,而在于提供公共服务。政府公共服务能力直接影响一个国家公共服务的总体水平。因此,政府必须强化农村公共服务职能,提升公共服务能力,提高公共服务水平。     

对公共政策制定的政治哲学思考

公共政策制定是社会政治生活中公共决策系统的经常性活动。在现代社会,由于公共政策的巨大作用和影响,公共政策制定问题引起了广泛的关注。从政治哲学的角度审视,以公意为价值取向、以政治权力为基本依托,以政治秩序为最终归宿,才能建立起人民期待的合理、公正、有效的公共政策,从而进一步推进决策的科学化、民主化。     

论赃物犯罪中的犯罪对象——以刑法修正案（六）为视角

刑法修正案(六)虽然对赃物犯罪的修订力度较大,不仅扩张了赃物犯罪的对象范围、行为方式的种类,而且加重了其法定刑的配置。但这次修订也并不尽如人意,赃物犯罪的对象是否仅限于有体物,不动产能否成为其犯罪对象,赃物是否仅限于经济价值之物,财产性利益可否成为赃物,赃物与相关财物的厘定等问题也没有较为明确的规定,因而探讨并厘清这些问题对于指导司法实践将有所裨益。     

Can my religion influence my conception of justice? Political liberalism and the role of comprehensive doctrines

In his last works, John Rawls explicitly argued for an overlapping consensus on a family of reasonable liberal political conceptions of justice, rather than just one. This ‘Deep Version’ of political liberalism opens up new questions about the relationship between citizens’ political conceptions, from which they must draw and offer public reasons in their political advocacy, and their comprehensive doctrines. These questions centre on whether a reasonable citizen’s choice of political conception can be influenced by her comprehensive doctrine. In this paper I present two models of the relationship, which give contrasting answers to these questions, and defend the model that is more permissive with regard to the influence of comprehensive doctrines. This has important implications for our understanding of Rawlsian political liberalism, and reduces the force of objections that have been offered by theorists sympathetic to religion.