Im/pulsive practices: The logic of sensation and painting

The article ‘Im/Pulsive practices: painting and the logic of sensation’ offers a critique of Gilles Deleuze's interpretation of the notion of the ‘figurai’ which is elaborated in his 1989 article, ‘Francis Bacon: the logic of sensation \ This article argues that the effects of the figurai may be activated in figurative and abstract painting and not just in the work of Francis Bacon.     

Carl J. Friedrich on Responsibility and Authority

Carl J. Friedrich’s concept of administrative responsibility is examined in his published works from 1935 to 1960. Friedrich’s idea of responsibility encompassed not only political and personal responsibility within the hierarchy of bureaucratic organizations, but also functional responsibility based on scientific knowledge and professional standards required by the reality of administrative discretion. Friedrich’s notion of responsibility is contrasted with that of Herman Finer, who espoused strict obedience to political and administrative superiors. An examination of the NOMOS series of edited volumes from the later stage of Friedrich’s career reflects the consistency of his views on responsibility and on the relationship of responsibility to authority based on reasoned communication. Friedrich’s optimism regarding such authority contrasts with Hannah Arendt’s view that authority is no longer an operative concept in modern society. Friedrich lays an important foundation for continued interest among public administrative scholars in the concept of administrative responsibility.     

权力人腐败的机会主义动因及其矫治

人类经验表明,权力腐败实质上是权力人的违法腐败。机会主义人性行为分析证明,权力人的腐败本源于权力人的机会主义人性,是人性利己与利他矛盾内耗的外在表现。通过对"左"右倾机会主义、代理人机会主义和权术机会主义的观察也发现,如果没有有效的制度规则约束,权力人从本性上必然会利用机会甚至创造机会滥用权力,作出谋求私利最大化的机会主义"败德"行为。因此,为了防止权力人的腐败,就需要以多重制度设计抑制权力人的机会主义心理,约束权力人的败德行为,矫治权力人的权力滥用。不过,值得注意的是,人类对权力人机会主义腐败的治理将是一场需要战胜自我本性的持久战,要打赢这场反腐持久战,必须坚持不懈地推进国家反腐治理体系和治理能力的系统化、协同化与现代化。     

An Essay on Officialism (Guanben Zhuyi): A Political Analysis of Chinese Traditional Society

This paper formulates a new paradigm, ‘officialism’ (Guanben Zhuyi or 官本主义), and uses it to analyse China’s traditional society. The author argues that officialism is an official based doctrine and a political culture and socio-political system which takes official power and authority as its core element. Under this culture and system, relationships of official power and authority are the most important social relationships. They become the basic standard for measuring a person’s social value, and they are the determining factor influencing a person’s social status and social attributes. In traditional China, monarchism (Junzhu Zhuyi) (君主主义) was the highest form of officialism. Despotism is the representative characteristic of officialism. People-based doctrine (Minben Zhuyi or 民本主义) is the political ideal that is the antithesis of despotism. Democracy with the rule of law is the only way of smashing officialism and of spurring traditional political civilization to head towards modern political civilization.     

Changing your political mind: The impact of a metaphor on citizens’ representations and preferences for federalism

Federalism is often presented through metaphors, but little is known about the impact of such metaphors. Two experiments were conducted in Belgium presenting federalism as Tetris – with control and treatment groups – in order to grasp the influence of this metaphor. The first experiment reveals that being exposed to text with the Tetris metaphor influences respondents’ representations of federalism towards a more institutional representation and towards more regional autonomy. The second experiment confirms the importance of the text, and more specifically of the metaphor, if political knowledge is taken into account. Respondents with a lower level of political knowledge are those who are influenced by the metaphor, whereas respondents with a higher level are not. Therefore, framing the future of Belgian federalism using the metaphor of Tetris does matter: it affects both individuals’ representations of the federalization process and, consequently, their preferences vis-à-vis the institutional future of the country.     

Politics and the Turkish military

As NATO prepares to expand into Eastern Europe, the military of one its longest-standing members, Turkey, is openly at odds with the country’s democratically elected government. Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, under pressure from his generals for months, has been forced to concede political power. The military’s successful challenge to civilian authority, in keeping with Turkey’s praetorian traditions, could have dangerous consequences. The very threat that it now struggles against – radical Islam – could deepen its hold on Turkish society as a result of the armed forces’ challenge to the political order.     

Metaphor and social action: how worker attention is translated into capital

Using the example of attention, this paper argues that there is a tendency to treat conceptual metaphors as representational resources at the expense of critically examining how they are implicated in the material structuring of social action. Rather than understanding metaphor in terms of transference, it is proposed that the concept of translation be applied to how we theorise the workings of metaphor. By translating rather than merely transferring concepts from one domain to another, metaphors function as semiotic materialisations that give structure to social action. It is through metaphor that human attentional processes are made to be translated into the material practices of knowledge work under cognitive capitalism. However, for attention to be translated from cognitive process into labour more than a simple associative process must take place. The attention-as-labour metaphor does not just transform how we think about work, it lends itself to transforming how work is performed and managed. In this way, as discursive resources metaphors participate in the constitution not only of our understanding of social realities but also how we build and act within those realities. Thus, metaphors are not just evidence of asymmetries in power relations but also function as instruments of those asymmetries.     

Introduction: Authority Building in International Administered Territories

This introduction to the special section on “Authority Building in International Administered Territories” begins by summarizing the relevant literature on international administrations. To conceptualize authority building as an ongoing process in which international and local actors confirm – or refuse – authority claims, secondly, two types of authority are differentiated: ‘interpretative authority’ and ‘performing authority’. This sociological conceptualization of authority building allows, thirdly, a discussion on the restrictions and challenges that international administrations face in their attempts to establish authority on the ground. Finally, an overview of the section’s articles is provided.     

Dissent,Public Space and the Politics of Citizenship: Riots and the ‘Outside Agitator’

This paper presents an historical examination of a significant period in which state authority and citizenship came together around the question of dissent in the US. Drawing on congressional records, news accounts and legal documents—and deploying theories of citizenship and space—it presents an argument about how state power and geographical space came together around the question of the ‘race riots’ that swept American cities in the late 1960s. I focus in particular on how government officials and others constituted the figure of the ‘outside agitator’ as the cause of illegitimate dissent and the subject of state intervention. Such arguments about the geography of authority and dissent were themselves interventions in the politics of citizenship. More broadly, then, the paper argues for closer attention to issues of difference—and the geography of difference—in the constitution of state power.     

建设廉洁政治:从理念到实践

党的十八大报告提出"建设廉洁政治",意义重大。廉洁政治,就是不以权谋私的政治。在社会主义中国,干部清正、政府清廉、政治清明,共同构成廉洁政治建设的基本形态。作为具有典型意义的实践探索,延安时期和建国初期的廉洁政治建设对当前有重要的镜鉴价值。建设廉洁政治的实践路径:要稳妥推进政治体制改革,化解权力过于集中的风险;走中国特色反腐倡廉道路,树立廉政自觉与自信;贯彻党的群众路线,发挥群众在廉政建设中的主体作用;加快构建完善的国家廉政体系,形成严密的反腐铁笼;深化反腐败体制机制与机构改革,激发反腐败活力;开展学习和实践党章活动,维护党章的权威性和严肃性。     

The first word and the last word in the budgetary process: A comparative institutional analysis of proposal and veto authorities

This study examines the role of proposal authority and executive veto in the budgetary process. A five stage sequential model of the budgetary process with three institutional actors — a legislature, an appropriations committee, and an executive — is presented. We examine: (i) the factors that affect the executive's power in shaping the final budget when the executive is granted proposal authority; (ii) how increased veto authority, in combination with executive proposal authority, affects the executive's power in forming the final budget; and (iii) the effects of different types of proposal authority and veto rules on the efficiency of the budgetary process.     

Weapon of Mass Distraction: New Zealand’s National Security System

The New Zealand’s National Security System (NSS) document is presented as the central framework for New Zealand’s whole of government approach to national security and crisis management. This article asserts that the NSS fails to be the central framework it purports to be and proposes the true objective of the NSS is to establish clear lines of authority within New Zealand’s national security architecture. The New Zealand government’s exercise of political authority within the security sector aligns with Weber’s theory of “charisma of office” for public acceptance. Using the legitimacy of charisma of office, the New Zealand prime minister can exert significant influence over New Zealand’s national security discourse and blur the lines of it liberal democratic institutions.     

试析中国政治制度化水平的科学提高

政治的科学发展是现代化的基本要求,构建科学的政治体系,发展科学的民主政治制度,保障权利和维护权力显得尤为重要。从阐述当代中国政治发展特点角度,用中国政治发展的经验,分析了科学调整政治制度的中国政治发展模式,即在保证政治对经济和社会发展有效作用的前提下,不断统筹协调、顺势而动,科学推进政治体制改革,并逐步深化和扩大民主政治进程,以确保政权稳定和国家的全面进步。     

Axiomatizations of a positional power score and measure for hierarchies

The extant literature on positional power in hierarchies is mainly restricted to the analysis of power in terms of the authority structure. This is based upon the bare positions of actors and ignores the existence of decision-making mechanisms. The few studies, which also take into account decision-making mechanisms, are ‘membership-based’. In an earlier paper we demonstrated that such an approach is, in general, inappropriate. As a solution we suggested an ‘action-based’ approach and developed a power score and measure ascribing positional power to actors in hierarchies. In this paper we axiomatize this power score and measure and illustrate their applicability.     

Valuing Public Value: Recognising and Applying Knowledge About the Governmental Process*

Rhodes and Wanna (2007) have criticised Moore's argument for ‘public value’ as an organising construct for public managers, claiming that it is confused, ill‐informed, ignores the central dynamic of political life, and demands that public managers become ‘Platonic guardians’, making it totally inappropriate for use in Australia. This article examines Moore's analysis and Rhodes and Wanna's critique, and explores the relevance for the argument of the complex nature of authority in Australian government, recent developments in the social science understanding of governing, and the experiential knowledge of practitioners. It cites the governing of the Murray‐Darling Basin as an example, and discusses the different discourses that academics and practitioners use in making sense of complexity in governing.     

Multilevel governance and women's legislative representation

Research shows that electoral systems, gender quotas and a country's socio-economic development affect women's legislative representation (WLR). Less attention is paid to the effects of the rise of regional political arenas and multilevel politics on WLR. Due to less costly and competitive electoral campaigns, women can have easier access to regional legislatures. We argue that this relationship is mitigated by the distribution of competences between the different levels of the political system and that decentralization's effect on WLR at the regional level is dependent on the regions’ political power. To test this, we use an original dataset on WLR in 383 regional parliaments in 19 European countries from 1970 to 2018. Results of the three-level models show that more political authority vested into regions leads to a lower level of WLR in the legislatures of the more politically powerful regions in comparison with not only the regions possessing less authority but also with the national parliament. Possible explanations for this effect, such as the attractiveness of these positions to the mostly male political elite and, consequently, increased costs and competitiveness of electoral campaigns, are suggested.     

Wire-Walking: Risk Management and Policy Experiments in China from a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Policy scientists have long examined how policy innovation has emerged and diffused by focusing on the interaction between agents and policy programs. In contrast, this article focuses on how uncertainty in policy environments has affected the fate of policy innovation in an authoritarian state. Using original data from China’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily,it is found that the central government’s decision to promote sensitive policy experiments is a function of the perceived risks in the policy environment. The U-shaped relationship between the promotion of sensitive policy innovation and inflation reflects the wire-walking behavior of China’s central government. The central authority in China tends to promote fewer sensitive political experiments when inflation increases and resumes promoting experiments when the inflation rate passes a certain tipping point. It is also found that the central authority intentionally regulates the promotion of political experiments during important political events.     

The Limits of Control: The Market State,Divided Power,and the Response to 9/11

ABSTRACT

The 9/11 attacks demanded a response from the U.S. government, but designing and executing that response was not easily done. The United States is an advanced market society in which power is highly dispersed. Federal policymakers were confronted with challenges that we now regard as typical of the network form of governance. Their ability to act decisively was constrained by public law, by the political influence and superior knowledge of private industry, and by widespread skepticism about the legitimacy of federal authority. While many commentators worried about the excessive concentration of power in the federal executive branch after 9/11, it might be more accurate to say that the post-9/11 period was typified by a prolonged, and often unsuccessful, effort to induce cooperation and coordination by a range of public and private actors.     

Barack Obama Meets Celebrity Metaphor

Common knowledge suggests that elections are won or lost based on demographics, finances, and other structural elements. Whether candidates win or lose, however, is a matter of action. Symbolic identification, metaphor, and an unfolding narrative—and how they are managed and interpreted in the flow of events—determine who will emerge victorious from the democratic struggle for power. The McCain campaign’s effort to cast Obama as a celebrity, with the hollow trivialities and self-aggrandizement of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, proves to be one of the most dangerous episodes for the Obama campaign. In response, the Democrats must adjust the staging of Obama’s Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver as a performance of purpose and gravitas, rather than glitz and adoration.