Static law and dynamic administration: Marshall dimock's assault on the legal profession

This article examines Marshall Dimock's thought on the relation between public administration and law. The examination revolves around his book, Law and Dynamic Administration,but also incorporates insights from his many other works. Dimock treated the idea of rule of law as an important source of authority and guiding principles for both the public administrative and legal professions. He criticized the legal profession harshly for its tendency in this century to disparage and reject law as such a source. Its treatment of law has led to many abuses that affect the legitimacy and efficacy of all who govern in our society. Dimock hoped to reunify the fields with a common jurisprudence that is mindful of public, institutional needs. In the process, he pressed the point that public administrators should be legal artisans in their own right, contributing confidently to the content and processes of the law for public benefit.     

EU issue voting and the 2014 European Parliament elections: a dynamic perspective

EU issue voting in European Parliament elections has been shown to be highly conditional upon levels of EU politicization. The present study analyzes this conditionality over time, hypothesizing that the effect of EU attitudes on EP vote preferences is catalyzed as EP elections draw closer. In contrast to extant cross-sectional post-election studies, we use a four-wave panel study covering the six months leading up to the Dutch EP elections of 2014, differentiating between party groups (pro, anti, mixed) and five EU attitude dimensions. We find that EU issue voting occurs for both anti- and pro-EU parties, but only increases for the latter. For mixed parties we find no effect of EU attitudes, yet their support base shifts in the anti-EU direction as the elections draw closer. The overarching image, however, is one of surprising stability: EU attitudes form a consistent part of EP voting motivations even outside EP election times.     

Unity Without Totalitarianism: Tensions Within Normativity

Although he did not invent the term, Jürgen Habermas has popularised “constitutional patriotism” as a form of political unity that avoids excessive nationalism. This paper attempts to examine the link between emotivism and normativity that has otherwise been excluded from Habermas’s notion of constitutional patriotism. Beyond Habermas, political theory as a whole has not yet taken emotivism as a serious component of normativity. Rather than developing it in isolation, this paper attempts to reconcile emotivism with cognitive-normative practices found within rational deliberation. Reconciling the two not only provides a better normative steering component for judging good from bad practices, but also depicts contemporary political practices more accurately. In sum, constitutional patriotism’s normativity must be sourced from a complex integration of emotion and cognition, or put another way, from the interplay between citizens’ moral sentiments and rational judgements.     

隐形知识的转型:马来西亚华人家族制造业研究

马来西亚华人家族企业文化的特征是以"家"作为其管理模式,是一种集企业文化与权威于一体的家族文化。在"家族至上"的意识下,企业的成员和个体完全归属于家族,个人利益也须服从于家族利益,一切都以家族利益为重。所有的家族成员都有义务尽全力去追求家族的兴旺、发达和荣耀。家族成员都身居要职,掌握着家族企业的隐性知识和核心秘密。由于马来西亚华人家族的利益和企业利益的高度一致,因此他们都会严守秘密,创新其组织,因而制造出利基产品(Niche Product)而使本身企业在激烈的竞争中立于不败之地。当马来西亚华人中小型家族企业(SMEs)经历世代交替之际,这些华人企业却鲜少着重于如何发展其创办人的隐性知识。然而,为确保企业的永续发展,马来西亚华人企业的新一代已开始将隐性知识更加具体化,培育和创新其企业管理、进行企业改革和改善企业的行销技巧。     

Violence in the city that belongs to no one: urban distinctiveness and interconnected insecurities in Nairobi (Kenya)

ABSTRACT

Rapid urbanisation in the global South has prompted attention to the causes and dynamics of urban violence. Yet, much research tends to either analyse urban violence without attention to the broader conflict complexes of which it forms a part, neglecting linkages between different forms of urban violence and between urban and rural dynamics, or conversely study violence in cities without acknowledging the particularities of the urban context. In this article, we conceptualise urban violence, theorise how it is shaped by urban dynamics and explore its manifestations in Nairobi, Kenya. We find that while Nairobi is not uniquely violent inside Kenya, violence takes on distinct urban forms given city-level processes, and also that urban violence has led to policies that increase securitisation and militarisation of the city. Our analysis thus improves knowledge of how criminal and political violence is shaped by and shapes the stability of developing cities.     

WHERE DID BHUTAN'S GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS COME FROM? THE ORIGINS OF AN INVENTED TRADITION

The Kingdom of Bhutan has attracted international attention for adopting “Gross National Happiness” (GNH) as its national development policy. The central notion is that gross national happiness is more important than gross national product; the four pillars of GNH are sustainable economic development, good governance, preservation of the natural environment and preservation of the national culture. This paper traces the historical origins of the concept of Gross National Happiness and finds that GNH is newer than the literature and the propaganda usually suggest. Close study of GNH's origins and salience over several decades reveals evidence of the invention of a tradition, in Hobsbawm and Ranger's terms [Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Eds.), The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: CUP, 1983]. The meteoric rise over the last 15 years of GNH as Bhutan's official ideology is a key part of the Bhutanese state's efforts at nation building in the context of rapid and disruptive social and economic change in a highly plural society.