Fidelity and adherence at the transition point: Theoretically driven experiments

Experiments test ‘new’ ideas about interventions that might produce better outcomes. Re-entry requires that the intervention should be offered at the transition point (from prison to community) and in the community. In general, the experiment requires the researchers to differentiate the ‘new’ approach from usual practice. The answer lies in the design and measures of the experiment. It is important to make sure that the intervention will be designed and implemented in such a manner that makes it operationally different from traditional services. Each experiment must include measures to determine the content and dosage of the new intervention as well as the traditional practice. This special edition is devoted to examining how these issues are handled in four different experiments, as well as comments from members of a Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) on the efforts to monitor studies. Together, the articles point to the need to measure the fidelity and adherence of new innovations.     

韩国“冰公主”重走民主路

朴槿惠在竞选中表示,政府应该对财阀滥用经济实力和不公正行为进行严厉打击。为此,她提出了推进"经济民主化"的三大原则:第一,帮助非正式工和中小企业等经济弱势群体;第二,逐渐改善给经济带来负担、不能惠及国民的政策;第三,尽可能发挥大企业的优势,但要遏制大企业滥用市场支配地位的行为。     

我国人民民主面临的问题及对策——基于协商民主视角的分析

人民民主是社会主义民主的核心要义,是中国共产党和当代中国的理想和追求.我国设计了以人民代表大会制度为标志的一系列制度措施来实现人民民主,但在具体的政治实践中却面临种种问题.协商民主是强调讨论对话和审议的民主形式,恰好在某种程度上弥补了目前我国人民民主实践的不足.     

On the application of CRAVED to livestock theft in Malawi

Livestock theft is common in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Experience of theft can deplete household assets and food resources. This article reports the findings of an exploratory study to investigate whether livestock theft patterns in Malawi reflect variations in the extent to which different animals are “CRAVED” (Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable, and Disposable), Clarke's mnemonic to explain preferences for items to steal. Measures of the elements of CRAVED were correlated with self-reported levels of theft for seven species of livestock using data from a cross-sectional, nationally representative survey of 11,280 households. Higher availability and disposability of livestock were significantly associated with higher levels of theft. Livestock displaying more CRAVED attributes were also stolen in greater numbers. The findings are cautiously interpreted as suggesting that livestock theft in Malawi is largely opportunistic. Implications from and for the application of CRAVED to livestock theft in Malawi are discussed.     

Corruption, democracy and the World Bank

In this era of political conditionality and good governance, anti-corruptionhas emerged as a top priority (at least in theory) for all major donors. Thisis almost always linked to support for democratisation efforts, with onenotable exception – the World Bank. The Bank is constricted by anon-political mandate which forbids it supporting one particular politicalsystem through its lending and other activities. Nonetheless, the languageit uses (e.g., accountability, transparency, participation, etc.) and theprojects it supports seem to endorse the spirit of liberal democracy. I arguethat the Bank's mandate is in conflict with a politically sensitive issue likeanti-corruption, and that it is impossible to separate economic issues frompolitical ones in this instance; however, given the lack of consensus on therelationship between democracy, development and corruption, this may bethe best state of affairs for now.     

Design standards for laws to ensure effective democracy

Electoral suffrage and civil and political rights are insufficient to guarantee effective democracy in the age of social media and the Internet. Democracy must be upgraded to strengthen and reinforce accountability, transparency, fairness and rationality, and oversight independence. Design standards in the preparation and drafting of laws would be a major contribution to this objective.     

Editoria: Corruption and democracy

Editorial Introduction

Editoria: Corruption and democracy     

Constitutional democracy and the legitimacy of judicial review

It has long been argued that the institution of judicial review is incompatible with democratic institutions. This criticism usually relies on a procedural conception of democracy, according to which democracy is essentially a form of government defined by equal political rights and majority rule. I argue that if we see democracy not just as a form of government, but more basically as a form of sovereignty, then there is a way to conceive of judicial review as a legitimate democratic institution. The conception of democracy that stems from the social contract tradition of Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Rawls, is based in an ideal of the equality, independence, and original political jurisdiction of all citizens. Certain equal basic rights, in addition to equal political rights, are a part of democratic sovereignty. In exercising their constituent power at the level of constitutional choice, free and equal persons could choose judicial review as one of the constitutional mechanisms for protecting their equal basic rights. As such, judicial review can be seen as a kind of shared precommitment by sovereign citizens to maintaining their equal status in the exercise of their political rights in ordinary legislative procedures. I discuss the conditions under which judicial review is appropriate in a constitutional democracy. This argument is contrasted with Hamilton's traditional argument for judicial review, based in separation of powers and the nature of judicial authority. I conclude with some remarks on the consequences for constitutional interpretation.I am indebted to John Rawls and Burton Dreben for their helpful advice and their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

BREXIT,democracy and the rule of law

This article employs the image of the antisyzygy, the yoking of opposites, as an analytical tool to understand the dynamic and unresolved tensions built into the very idea of the European Union. It describes the EU as a forming a supranational constitutional space which does not supersede nation states, but instead seeks to preserve their specific identities while promoting and protecting the fundamental values they are called upon to embody as liberal constitutional democracies. The article then critically examines constitutional developments in the UK subsequent to its decision to leave the European Union and suggests that, paradoxically, it may have been the European Union which held the post-War post-imperial United Kingdom together and, without it and outside it, we may anticipate the UK's imminent dissolution into its original constituent nations – Brexit leads inexorably to BreUK-up.     

War and democracy in ancient Greece

In the present paper we analyse some of the preconditions for the emergence of democracy in Ancient Greece. For democracy to emerge in Ancient Greece a combination of several enabling factors proved decisive: the development of new military tactic, the phalanx, marked by the appearance of a new type of heavy infantry warrior, the hoplite, who owned individually some property, i.e. land, sufficient to permit him to finance his weaponry and a city-state culture. We describe the emergence of this new type of warrior, link this emergence to the establishment of individual property rights and show how this brought about a military revolution, exemplified in a new tactical formation, the phalanx. We then proceed by showing how the attitudes and learning processes made necessary by this new type of warfare were transformed in the civic values and virtues that shaped democratic institutions. Our thesis can thus be briefly termed as the “military cum city-state” explanation of democracy.     

Federal democracy,distributive justice and the future of Europe

Discussions pertaining to advancing strategic policies and democracy in the EU cannot afford to disregard a fundamental institutional dilemma of the EU's political system, the conflict between intense interdependence and power sharing in a multilevel polity for one, and autonomy of governments as a condition for democratic legitimacy of power for another. Conceiving the EU as a federal democracy draws attention to this dilemma. This concept suggests democracy-preserving modes of governance instead of coercive coordination (policy adjustment to competition in the common market, joint decision-making among governments, central regulation by law and court decisions), which so far predominate in most relevant policy fields. It also calls for procedures to cope with issues of distributive justice stemming from territorial disparities in resources and burdens. The article conceptualises these challenges and outlines feasible steps to advance federal democracy in the EU.     

Court fees and access to justice: towards a policy-oriented approach in Malawi

In this article, the author examines the rise in court fees which has been decided in Malawi. The author argues that this increase is excessive and contravenes the constitutional right of access to justice, as poor litigants cannot afford the fees and thereby cannot access the justice system. In his analysis, the author suggests that the decision-makers in Malawi should adopt a policy-oriented approach in reviewing court fees in order to protect citizens’ rights and achieve equality.     

依法执政：民主政治的前提和动力

党的十六大报告揭示了依法执政对民主政治的重要作用,文章认为这种重要作用主要表现为依法执政是民主政治的前提和动力。为此,笔者分别从不同的社会和同一国家———中国的不同时期“依法执政”的不同状况所导致的民主政治的不同结果来论述这一问题。     

Dictatorship,democracy and corruption in Chile

The study of corruption in Chile suffers from the lack of a pre-existing body of academic research on which to draw for historical or contemporary analysis. This situation may be partially explained by several factors. Firstly, academic research tends to be reactive rather than proactive, in the sense that issues rarely become researched until they are either topical, or perceived to be problematic and significant. The configuration of historical circumstances in Chile has meant that corruption has been perceived to be considerably less widespread and less overt than in other parts of Latin America. For reasons which will be examined below, Chile is quite clearly not in the same league as Brazil, México or Venezuela in terms of corruption in the political system, and therefore the body of existing research has tended to focus on those cases where corruption is evident and more easily observable. Secondly, the lack of research material may also be partially explained by the nature of corruption in Chile. It undoubtably exists, but it has been characteristically low-key, assuming its own particular characteristics which have become known as corrupción a la chilena. Low-intensity corruption is undoubtedly more difficult to categorise, define and measure in comparison with flagrant abuses by individuals, sectors of society or ruling parties, and this may also be a contributory factor. A third factor may be that such low-intensity activities may become such an integral part of the political culture that they become accepted ways of the business of politics and therefore fail to even raise objections from public opinion. Only when the political environment changes do these issues become perceived as unacceptable. However, what is beyond dispute is that corruption has and does exist in Chile but it is influenced by the political culture of a particular period and by the political and social context.