Statesmanship and Ethics: The Case of Thomas Jefferson's Dirty Hands

The topic of statesmanship has been largely neglected by public administration scholars. This article underscores the moral dilemmas and implications that arise when statesmen abandon their principles for the good of the state, as was the case when Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France without congressional consent. This example draws our attention to the important connections between statesmanship and administrative ethics. Jefferson's decision to abandon his strict constructionist principles to acquire Louisiana illustrates the ethical complexities of public administration, public management, and the democratic governance process.     

Voter Buying: Shaping the Electorate through Clientelism

Studies of clientelism typically assume that political machines distribute rewards to persuade or mobilize the existing electorate. We argue that rewards not only influence actions of the electorate, but can also shape its composition. Across the world, machines employ “voter buying” to import outsiders into their districts. Voter buying demonstrates how clientelism can underpin electoral fraud, and it offers an explanation of why machines deliver rewards when they cannot monitor vote choices. Our analyses suggest that voter buying dramatically influences municipal elections in Brazil. A regression discontinuity design suggests that voter audits—which undermined voter buying—decreased the electorate by 12 percentage points and reduced the likelihood of mayoral reelection by 18 percentage points. Consistent with voter buying, these effects are significantly greater in municipalities with large voter inflows, and where neighboring municipalities had large voter outflows. Findings are robust to an alternative research design using a different data set.     

Ontological Anti-naturalism and the Emergence of Life and Mind: Castoriadis and Deacon

This essay compares the ideas of Cornelius Castoriadis and Terrence W. Deacon. Castoriadis’s anti-Naturalistic ontology, with its conception of radical ontological creation and fundamental indeterminacy, along with his analysis of the category of the “for-itself”, comprising all subjective beings from the living organism to the social-historical, is compared to Deacon’s exploration of the emergence of life and mind, which sees the emergence of teleological beings as resulting from the creation of form-generating constraints that involve new types of dynamic process. Significant parallels and convergences between Castoriadis and Deacon are uncovered and explored.     

Exploring the Government's role during COVID-19 through a newly validated scale

The present study aims to explore the perceived role of the government during this pandemic situation. The study, through the perception of general masses examine the government's role during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is believed that this is the first empirical study conducted on this issue. The study was conducted on general masses in the northern part of India. The data was collected from two states, namely, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh having different geographical and cultural base. It confirms preventive and supportive role of the government during this pandemic. The study provides a validated scale for future research on the issue under investigation. The results of this study obtained through newly validated scale can be generalised for evaluating the real performance of the government during this pandemic. Further, the government can also assess its role played at the time of this pandemic.     

Exploring the Inner Life of the Party: A Framework for Analysing Elite Party Culture

This article presents a framework for analysing party‐organisational culture, with a special focus on the elite level. The framework is based on an interpretation of Mary Douglas’ Grid/Group model, and is empirically supported by an extensive study of the seven party groups in the Swedish parliament. The model identifies two fundamental cultural dimensions: the level of submission by individual group members to the group as a collectivity; and the principle that dictates the distribution of status and prestige within the party (a distribution here correlating with views on knowledge). The study shows that the parties distribute themselves on the cultural map in ways that do not coincide in any straightforward way with other well‐known variables of party politics, such as ideology, origin or size. The methodological innovations presented in this article pave the way for a new framework for analysing party politics in which hitherto neglected aspects of party organisation are highlighted.     

解放思想的障碍分析

解放思想，实事求是是邓小平理论的精髓，如何把握解放思想是重大的理论和实践问题。本文围绕这一问题从解放思想的内在要求、解放思想的认识误区、解放思想的主客观障碍，尤其是诸种非主流思想对解放思想的影响，以及非主流思想泛化的问题，进行了剖析。     

Creating a political image: Shaping appearance and manipulating the vote

The key question addressed is whether political consultants can shape a candidate's appearance in such a way as to influence voters' preferences. To explore this question, an attempt was made to discover the components of a favorable political image and then use that information to manipulate voters' preferences. Photographs of over 200 women were analyzed and the features of the women's appearance which affected the quality of the image projected were isolated. Using this information, a make-up artist and photographer were employed to shape the appearance of six women. Photographs of the women were then placed on campaign flyers along with information on the women's political party affiliation and their position on several key issues. Pairs of flyers were used to create mock elections. The result of these elections suggest that it is possible to shape a political candidate's image in a way which may effect electoral outcomes. The implications of this for electoral politics are discussed.     

Engage Them through Emotions: Exploring the Role of Emotional Intelligence in Public Sector Engagement

The public administration literature has demonstrated the valuable impact of employees' engagement on public service. However, studies conventionally deal with engagement as a unidimensional construct, with few explanations for its evolution. To promote knowledge in this arena, the authors propose public sector engagement (PSE) as a multidimensional construct, comprising social responsibility, work engagement, and organizational citizenship behaviors at the individual level. The authors develop and examine a set of hypotheses proposing that PSE may be augmented by enhancing civil servants' emotional intelligence (EI) as well as their supervisors' EI. Using a two‐study multimethod approach (i.e., an experiment and a survey), the authors identify employees' and managers' high EI as a critical resource in enhancing PSE. The article concludes by theoretically framing the findings using the job demands‐resources model and illuminating the practical value to public service of better selection and training of high‐EI employees and managers.     

Fiscal Decentralization Policies in the EU: A Comparative Analysis through a Club Convergence Analysis

Abstract

We study the degree of convergence or divergence in fiscal decentralization in the European Union over the period 1995–2015 using a club convergence approach. First, we analyze non-central expenditure and revenue as percentages of GDP, of total expenditure and of total revenue. The results for the EU-15 countries indicate some clustering, with three clubs formed when using GDP and four to five when using total revenue or expenditure. Second, we study the gap between expenditure and revenue as a proxy of fiscal responsibility. This results in three and two clubs respectively, with Denmark as the divergent country with the highest gap. Finally, we analyze potential unions of clubs and transitions. We also interpret our results taking into account variables found in the literature as determinants of fiscal decentralization. These results show how European countries are quite heterogeneous in terms of fiscal federalism and decentralization, with greater convergence in fiscal responsibility than in the other magnitudes.     

Making Up the Government's Mind: Agenda Setting in a Parliamentary System

One of the most important aspects of policymaking in any political system is the pre-decision stage at which a potentially wide range of concerns and preferences are fashioned into some actionable list of proposals or a recognizable hierarchy of priorities. As well as indicating which concerns may dominate the thinking of officials who will later take formal decisions, it is at this early stage of policy development that non-government elites and other key actors may succeed or fail in their attempts to exercise significant power and influence (Schattschneider 1960; Downs 1972; Lukes 1974).     

Measuring Political Brands: An Art and a Science of Mapping the Mind

The field of political brands has developed a host of approaches and explored a variety of cases over the last years. However, less attention has been devoted to brand measurement—specifically efforts to construct a measure that attempts to explain the relationship between voters and parties. Against this backdrop, this article discusses how to measure a political brand by first selecting one part of the diverse brand concept for further investigation. Next, the two existing brand measures in the literature are evaluated, and the article proposes an alternative measure that underlines a stronger connection to the immense political science literature on voters and parties. Then, the three measures are compared by empirically investigating which measure is best at explaining voters' party sympathy. Here, it is demonstrated that the alternative measure seems to be the most valid and reliable construct when it comes to explaining voters' sympathy for a particular party. Finally, the proposed alternative measure is further validated in a representative sample (N = 2251), establishing a preliminary correlation between party brand and voter sympathy.     

《西游记》中的英雄原型横向、纵向分析

《西游记》是一部家喻户晓的经典之作,赢得了不同时代、不同读者的喜爱。这并不是因为它的故事情节吸引人,而是因为它塑造了孙悟空这个英雄形象。《西游记》是人类集体无意识的共同心声,即人类对英雄原型的崇拜心理。     

基层民警惧枪心理分析及对策

基层民警的惧枪心理已远远不适应现实公安工作,基层民警作为一支带枪的队伍,如何正确、科学而有效地用好枪已成为减少民警伤亡和提升公安队伍战斗力的重要途径和研究课题,本文对基层民警惧枪心理的成因、对策等进行探析。     

Animalism: a nascent ideology? Exploring the ideas of animal advocacy parties

ABSTRACT

In recent years political parties advocating animal rights and animal interests have sprang up in several countries and seem to constitute a new party family. At first sight, they appear to be single-issue parties, but a closer look at their party programmes suggests that they are developing a new ideology based on the core concept of compassion and adjacent concepts of equality, intrinsic value and interdependence.     

网络极化现象研究——基于四个中文BBS论坛的内容分析

本文试图把"极化"这一概念引入网络政治传播的考察中,主要针对四个中文BBS论坛(强国深水、猫眼看人、天涯杂谈和新浪杂谈)政治讨论中的极端化态度分布状态进行描述与比较。结果显示,态度极化现象与论坛群体和特定的议题类别紧密相关。其中激进派聚集的论坛更容易出现极化;涉及"政府"的议题更容易在激进的论坛中出现极化,而在温和派占据主流的论坛则呈现非极化状态。同时,发帖积极性越高的ID越容易出现态度极化的现象;而且,网民的意见同质化程度越高,则群体极化的程度也就越高。     

解放思想:中国特色社会主义的时间和空间视阈

从马克思主义发展进程的主题、当代中国的社会主义实践演进、当代世界发展格局中的挑战和抉择、世界社会主义的前途和命运四个视阈,论述了解放思想与中国特色社会主义的历史、当代、世界和未来四个维度的关系.解放思想与社会主义的历史命运、中国特色社会主义的命运是统一的.在中国特色社会主义发展中,解放思想就是要对内走出一条中国特色社会主义能够持续发展进步繁荣的道路;对外走出一条中国作为一个世界最大的发展中大国走向现代化并能够被世界所接受、与各国共同发展共同繁荣的道路.