Cohen vs. Rawls on justice and equality

G.A. Cohen criticizes Rawls’s account of justice because his difference principle permits inequalities that reflect the relative scarcity of different skills and natural abilities. Instead of viewing the ‘basic structure’ as the primary subject of justice, Cohen argues that individual citizens should cultivate an egalitarian ethos, which would enable a just society to dispense with the use of incentive payments to induce individuals to use their talents in socially ideal ways. This study examines Cohen’s critique, including his rejection of ‘incentives,’ and vindicates Rawls’s approach. Ultimately, Cohen’s argument fails to grapple with the moral pluralism that characterizes modern, democratic societies, whereas Rawls’s theory is constructed to accommodate such pluralism.     

劳动、工作、行动的区分与诠释——浅述汉娜·阿伦特政治哲学基本观念架构

汉娜·阿伦特由于曲折的人生经历促使她对哲学和政治产生与人不同的独特见解。她在严格区分和诠释劳动、工作、行动的基础上建立了政治哲学理论;然而,她过高估计政治在人的生活中的地位和意义,在政治领域中清除经济活动,使政治活动的内容狭隘而空虚,成为她理论中最大的缺陷。     

Electoral reforms,entry barriers and the structure of political markets: A comparative analysis

This article investigates the impact of electoral reforms on entry barriers in political markets. The discussion starts by delineating the theoretical boundaries of various political markets, such as those for participation, parties and government. By taking a cue from industrial organisation theory, the article offers an analysis of entry barriers, both hard and soft, along with their operationalisation for empirical research. Based on this theoretical framework, a single hypothesis is investigated. It posits that the modification of the entry barriers in the market for parties leads to changes in the concentration of the popular vote for party lists. An observable implication of this relationship would be if an electoral reform that raises entry barriers led to subsequent increases in the Herfindahl index (a measure of market concentration), and vice versa. This proposition is empirically tested by a comparative analysis of a new database covering Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The analysis offers support for the following proposition: in most cases the changes in the entry barriers led to a corresponding change of concentration in the market for parties.     

Introduction: Social Media,Political Marketing and the 2016 U.S. Election

This essay introduces the contributions of the volume “Social Media, Political Marketing and the 2016 U. S. Election.” Using a variety of methodological approaches, the authors investigate the communication strategies of the Democratic and Republican candidates for president together with the responses of their audience. Collectively, this research offers insights into how new communication technologies are changing both political marketing and the ways candidates and voters interact.     

Mandated justice: The potential promise and possible pitfalls of mandating procedural justice in the workplace

This study addresses the question of whether and how legal authorities ought to intervene in work organizations in order to most effectively regulate the behavior of employees. This question is examined empirically, by exploring whether the association between the level of fairness employees experience in procedures regarding pay and benefits, and their adherence to workplace rules, differs depending upon whether those procedures are enacted by companies voluntarily or mandated by law. This question was addressed using both a survey of a representative sample of employees in Israel, as well as their reactions to an experimental vignette. The results generally suggest that evaluations of the procedural justice of performance appraisal hearings more strongly influenced judgments of overall workplace fairness, perceptions of management legitimacy, and employee rule‐adherence behavior when employees believed fairer workplace procedures were required by law.     

Macroeconomic performance,political trust and the Great Recession: A multilevel analysis of the effects of within‐country fluctuations in macroeconomic performance on political trust in 15 EU countries, 1999–2011

Recent cross‐national comparative studies have found no effect of countries’ macroeconomic performances on trust in national political institutions, once political explanations (most notably corruption) are taken into account. Although political trust is not determined by the comparison of national economic performance to other countries, it is argued in this article that it is affected by comparisons to their own past performance. In a multilevel, fixed effects analysis of Eurobarometer data (21 waves in 15 European Union Member States between 1999 and 2011) the extent to which within‐country variations in economic performance affect political trust longitudinally is tested. Three major conclusions are reached. First, within‐country, longitudinal changes in performance (growth, deficits, unemployment and inflation) affect political trust. Second, the impact of macroeconomic performance is stronger among the lower educated. Third, even in times of economic duress, budgetary deficits tend to undermine political trust.     

If I only had a brain: Yip Harburg,J. Edgar Hoover,and the failures of FBI intelligence work

E. Y. Harburg, the lyricist behind The Wizard of Oz, remains one of the most important songwriters blacklisted during the Cold War. His removal from Hollywood features in the 1950s denied moviegoers a distinct American voice whose lyrics mixed humor and entertainment to champion liberal causes. From 1944–1972, Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau’s major field offices investigated Harburg. His declassified FBI file shows institutionalized incompetence in the way the Bureau went about writing reports, evaluating evidence, making conclusions, and conducting counter-intelligence work. Harburg’s story illuminates the battle between the left and right to shape popular culture during the Cold War. Hoover and Harburg held opposing views on politics, religion, economics, and race. Yet both men shared a fervent faith in popular culture’s capacity to transform America. Together they vied to remake the nation according to their own distinct visions – Hoover’s fear of declension stood in contrast to Harburg’s hope for radical progress.     

The Lord of the Rings and New Zealand: fantasy pilgrimages,imaginative transnationalism and the semiotics of the (Ir)Real

Peter Jackson's decision to make the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films in his native New Zealand has given the country a major boost in tourism, but this has also become the paradigm of a new imaginative transformation of landscapes. The zeal with which many tourists visit these sites has similarities to the religious pilgrimage, not only in terms of the degree of enthusiasm invoked, but also in rituals of knowledge, ardour and “spiritual” envisioning. The global fantasy industry thus fosters alternative and dualistic engagements with the land that have come to contest the cultural and physical engagement with and even access to the land, as well as exacerbating the existing racial politics, particularly in smaller and more vulnerable nations such as New Zealand. What might be called the “(ir)realist” semiotics of fantasy – with its own cultural hegemony disguised as playful dualism – becomes a notable form of global remapping, often with positive benefits, but also with dangers to local cultures and identities.     

Policy beliefs,policy learning,and risk perception: Exploring the formation of local creative Placemaking-catalyzed policy network

This article studies the formation of a local Creative Placemaking (CPM) policy network based on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and social capital perspective of policy networks. This article hypothesizes that policy beliefs, policy learning, social capital, and the perceived risks induced by defections, as well as macro-level changes in the broader political and socio-economic system, influence partner selection in the local CPM policy networks. The study collected survey data from policy actors participating in the Franklinton CPM-catalyzed revitalization project in Columbus, Ohio. An exponential random graph model (ERGM) was applied to test the hypotheses. The findings partially support the hypotheses: policy learning, certain secondary policy beliefs, and risk perceptions of changes in economic and political factors are correlated with tie formation. The reciprocity-driven bonding structure underlies the Franklinton CPM policy network, suggesting that policy actors perceive the Franklinton CPM policy network as a high-defection-risk network. This study has implications for policy makers in designing engagement strategies to better involve stakeholders holding different beliefs and occupying different network positions.