Developments in public affairs in Australia

• This paper discusses the integrated public affairs model most common in Australian companies, and its rationale. It describes some key characteristics of the function, drawing on a comprehensive survey of public affairs departments in late 2003. The function has become more senior and strategic, more closely aligned to business imperatives and with stable or growing budgets. It identifies areas of increased attention for practitioners, including support for organization transformation and culture change, stakeholder relations as a line, as well as staff function, reputation management and sustainability reporting.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ideas in Politics in International Context

This article asks how we might rethink the study of ‘ideas in politics’ in modern Britain. It suggests that historians need to set the problem in its international contexts in a more structured way. Focussing on the nineteenth century, the article reflects on conceptual angles opened up by ‘global intellectual’ and ‘entangled’ approaches to political ideas and behaviour. While stressing that these methods have their pitfalls, the article argues that a reconsideration of the seams where international and intellectual contexts meet can help to reconnect modern British political history with wider historical debates.     

Turnout determinants in democracies and in non-democracies

Elections are celebrated in democracies as well as in non-democracies. Studies on the factors explaining turnout normally focus, however, only on democracies. Are turnout patterns different in non-democracies? If so, how different are those? In this paper I address this issue with a unique dataset covering 1251 elections −678 democratic (in 107 countries) and 250 nondemocratic elections (in 81 countries) for the lower house and 209 democratic (in 57 countries) and 114 nondemocratic (in 60 countries)- for the period 1961–2008. I find that the turnout determinants are contingent upon the regimes and that the most important differences lay in the institutional and in the political factors.     

Sex Differences in Political Knowledge in Britain

This paper analyses, and examines the interpretation of, sex differences in political knowledge as measured in the context of nationally representative British surveys. The paper discusses the construction and operationalisation of 'knowledge' measures in survey research. British survey research finds striking sex differences in scores on political knowledge items. The inclusion of contextual variables, and of interactions between sex and other relevant variables, attenuates but does not eliminate consistent sex differences.     

浅谈公安高职高专院校英语教学的改革方向

当前英语教学改革在各高校正如火如荼地进行,而公安高职高专院校的英语教学改革却易于被人们所忽视。本文对公安高职高专院校英语课程的设置、英语教学目标的确定和英语教学模式的采用作了尝试性探索,特别是对“学习者自主性”教学方法在公安高职高专院校的应用进行阐述,提出了一些建设性意见。     

Substate variations in political values in Canada

The article aims to make three methodological and substantive contributions to the literature on substate cleavages in political values. Considerable controversy characterizes this literature. The paper argues that this controversy is due to how indicators representing political values are chosen and constructed. The paper proposes to use factor analysis to select and construct indicators of political values. The analysis identifies five dimensions, which collectively account for 57% of Canadians’ political values. They include support for moral traditionalism, egalitarianism, pluralism, openness to immigration and personal responsibility. Second, the paper shows that there is only limited variation across provinces in political values. Third, the paper shows that this result holds when considering regional variations rather than provincial variations.     

布拉格之春述评

布拉格之春是捷克斯洛伐克从本国的实际条件出发,致力于建设一个新的、民主的、符合捷克斯洛伐克条件的社会主义改革之路。它标志着社会主义国家第二次改革高潮达到顶峰;但却在苏联的武力下夭折了。尽管如此,"布拉格之春"还是顺应了历史发展的潮流,对我国的社会主义建设具有重要的启示。     

理论自觉、理论自信与理论创新、理论坚定——十六大以来党对中国特色社会主义理论体系的坚持与创新

理论自觉、理论自信是理论创新、理论坚定的底蕴和基础,理论创新、理论坚定是理论自觉、理论自信的表现和目的.中国共产党是一个以马克思主义科学理论为武装的先进的政党.高度的理论自觉、理论自信,是中国共产党区别于其他一切政党的鲜明特征和根本优势.十六大以来,以胡锦涛为总书记的党中央,凭借着高度的理论自觉、理论自信,明确提出“中国特色社会主义理论体系”科学命题,并对其科学内涵、正确性和重要性等一系列问题进行了深刻的阐述.这对统一全党思想、凝聚社会共识、促进科学发展,具有重大的理论和实践意义.     

Stakeholder model for community economic development in alleviating poverty in municipalities in South Africa

Governments globally have several responsibilities to its citizen, and one of these responsibilities is the improvement in the living standard and to stimulate social well‐being and sustainability in communities. A meta‐review of over a 100 article was conducted of both the qualitative and quantitative method related to the antecedents to business models, community economic development, and poverty alleviation. The basis for the paper is the proposition of the stakeholder model for implementing Community Economic Development in municipalities for alleviating poverty in South Africa.     

Problems of co-ordination in upazila administration in Bangladesh

The present government of Bangladesh has extensively reformed the administrative system and upgraded the previous thana to upazila (sub-district) to serve as the focal point of development administration. A new tier of local government called Upazila Parishad (UZP) has been created and a large number of functions have been devolved to this institution along with the placement of central government employees at its disposal. The reformers argue that the present system will remove the inadequacies of the previous administrative system and will bring about an improvement in the co-ordination of field services at the upazila level. However, the actual situation represents a totally different picture. The desired integration— both vertical and horizontal—and co-ordination in local level planning is non-existent due to the absence of any clear direction from the central government. Proper co-ordination among the field services in the upazila administration does not exist due to the anomalous relation between the upazila and the national government, including excessive central control; the involvement of multiple agencies of the central government in guiding and supervising; ambiguity in government thinking; the absence of clarification from the ministries concerned and agencies on the timing of different development programmes; and conflict over the allocation of resources. There is also conflict between the different tiers of local government in respect of authority and resources. Relations between public representatives and officials at the upazila level are strained because a clear allocation of authority to political executives is lacking; areas for co-operation among different agencies have not been clarified; and public representatives and government officials lack mutual respect.     

Entrepreneurial citizenship in urban regeneration in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, active citizenship in the context of urban regeneration of deprived neighbourhoods seems to have evolved into ‘entrepreneurial citizenship’. The concept of entrepreneurial citizenship combines top-down and bottom-up elements. National and/or local governments promote an ideal citizen with entrepreneurship skills and competencies to create more responsible and entrepreneurial citizens’ participation in government-initiated arrangements. At the same time, bottom-up behavioural practices from citizens who demand more opportunities to innovatively apply assets, entrepreneurial skills, strategies and collaboration with other stakeholders are initiated to achieve their goals and create societal-added value. The aim of this paper is to better understand the origins of ‘entrepreneurial citizenship’, and its meaning in the Dutch context of urban regeneration. To do this, we will review the relevant international literature and combine insights from studies on governance, active citizenship, social and community entrepreneurship and urban neighbourhoods. We will also analyse how entrepreneurial citizenship can be locally observed in the Netherlands as reported in the literature.     

Issue salience in regional party manifestos in Spain

Abstract.  This article analyses the dynamics of electoral competition in a multilevel setting. It is based on a content analysis of the party manifestos of the Spanish PP and PSOE in eight regional elections held between 2001 and 2003. It provides an innovative coding scheme for analysing regional party manifestos and on that basis seeks to account for inter-regional, intra-party and inter-party differences in regional campaigning. The authors have tried to explain the inter-regional variation of the issue profiles of state-wide parties in regional elections on the basis of a model with four independent variables: the asymmetric nature of the system, the electoral cycle, the regional party systems and the organisation of the state-wide parties. Three of their hypotheses are rejected, but the stronger variations in the regional issue profiles of the PSOE corroborate the assumption that parties with a more decentralised party organisation support regionally more diverse campaigning. The article concludes by offering an alternative explanation for this finding and by suggesting avenues for further research.     

United in Diversity? Asymmetry in Indian Federalism

Many studies highlight constitutional asymmetry as a desirablefeature of federal systems in multinational countries. Thisarticle looks at India which, mainly because of the specialprovisions for Kashmir in the 1950 constitution and the statusof newer small states in the north-east, is generally describedas asymmetrically federal. I show that, while India exhibitsconsiderable de facto asymmetry, asymmetry in the constitutionalpowers granted to individual states has (i) not been importantfor India's ability to ‘hold together’ as oftenassumed and (ii) not entailed special protection of culturalor national minorities. I thus cast doubt on the normative politicalphilosophy, particularly informed by Canadian and Spanish debates,that advances the idea of asymmetrical federalism as a modelof governance in potentially divided societies.     

The Rise of Resilience in Education in Emergencies

ABSTRACT

This article explores how resilience as a concept is being increasingly mobilised within the Education in Emergencies (EiE) community. Using content and a close textual analysis, it identifies the concept's growth in prominence within key EiE documents arguing it has been employed to serve a range of different purposes. It contends, however, that dominant conceptualisations of resilience within the EiE community are reflective of a number of shifts around the problem, subjects and purposes of education provision in such conflict-affected contexts. This serves to limit the transformative potential of resilience, particularly in regards to contributing to positive peace.     

Electoral Trends in Denmark in the 1980's

The article examines the 1984 election in a longer time perspective. As compared to the turbulent 1970's it appears that the class polarization in voting between the 'old' classes has been reestablished but that the new social cleavages in party choice are at the same time reinforced. It furthermore turns out that the consensus on the welfare state which was lost in the 1970's is now reestablished, that radical socialist sentiments are weakening, and that the political distrust of the 1970's is declining. In shon, the elections of the 1980's signal a definitive break with the political climate of the 1970's. Opinion polls furthemore indicate that Denmark is heading towards a reestablishing of the 5-party system before 1973, but with differences in relative strength between the parties, and with a different, but still group-specific. social base.     

Unions in Restructured States: Laborism in Australia and Economic Liberalism in the United Kingdom

There have been major reforms in the public sector in both Australia and the United Kingdom from the 1980s onwards. In each case, governments restructured their state sectors. These initiatives brought about not only widely acknowledged changes in organisation but also changes in the labour process and class relations as well as differing prospects for state sector trade unions.     

Improvisation in Public Administration and Policy Making in Israel

Although improvisation stands outside of conventional models for rational policy making and Weberian administration, it is nonetheless prevalent in public life. This article argues that improvisation is both a natural consequence of bounded rationality as well as a product of cultural and personal predilections and environmental circumstances. Drawing on a number of instances of improvisation in public administration and policy making in Israel, it attempts to shed light on its uses, motives, and implications, as well as on the issues involved in considering its utility.