KOMMUNIKASIE EN DIE DEMOKRATISERING VAN TELEVISIE

SEKER die standhoudendste definisie van kommunikasie is al daardie opvattings wat verband hou met die ideale van die demokrasie. Ons begrip van kommunikasie is sedert die negentiende eeu vol van die voornemens van die goeie demokraat: daardie romantiese siening van die individu se betrokke oorgawe aan die samelewing. Kommunikasie het'n baie handige begrip geword om die individu se deelname en inspraak, sy medeseggenskap en medeleelsaamheid, kortom, sy maatskaplike betrokkenheid, ideologies te regverdig. Vandaar al die goeie bedoelings met kommunikasie van almal wat maar iets te sê het oor hedendaagse maatskaplike toestande en die begrip populariseer met selfversekerde uitsprake dat kommunikasie en demokrasie dieselfde is.     

Network relationships and standard adoption: Diffusion effects in transnational regulatory networks

The soft law measures that transnational regulatory networks produce have become increasingly important in regulating cross-border market activity. However, domestic agencies vary considerably in terms of the rate by which these soft law measures are adopted, and the ways in which they spread across jurisdictions are not well understood. This article argues that existing theoretical explanations referring to socialization or power dynamics have a specific network-structural pattern associated with them, and that longitudinal network analysis can be used to test their hypothesized effects. In particular, we study the widespread adoption of the International Organization of Securities Commissions’ (IOSCO) Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU). Based on a longitudinal dataset (2002–15) of the inter-agency relationships between securities regulators (n = 109), we use Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models (SAOM) to predict the rate at which transnational standards are adopted by domestic agencies. The results indicate that standard adoption is contagious in the network of securities regulators.     

Inclusivity in Online Platforms: Recruitment Strategies for Improving Participation of Diverse Sociodemographic Groups

Governments are increasingly implementing smart and digital approaches to promoting citizen participation. However, whether online participation platforms are tools that improve inclusivity in citizen participation remains underexplored. To address this gap, this article focuses on the role of recruitment messages and their effect on participation in an online participation platform by gender and age. A field experiment with a neighborhood census sample (N = 6,066) shows that online participation dips for younger and older citizens and is equal among women and men. For the age groups between 60 and 75, differences in the control and intervention recruitment messages significantly impacted participation. These findings can help public managers tailor recruitment strategies to facilitate inclusive participation and represent a first step toward learning what types of messages are effective for whom.     

Prosecutorial regulation in the Global South: Environmental civil litigation by prosecutors in China compared to Brazil

Brazil's successful prosecutorial civil action against polluters could be a regulatory example for the Global South. This paper analyses whether such regulation could also develop without the major political, institutional, and legal reforms that spurred it in Brazil. To do so, it analyzes China, where similar reforms have so far not occurred, but where prosecutors have recently started to initiate civil litigation against polluters. It finds that prosecutorial civil litigation in China has only a limited regulatory effect or potential. Prosecutors in China are influenced by conflicting incentive structures that reward one‐off lower level test cases with an innovation bonus, while structurally stimulating a focus on general crime fighting. Ironically, as a result of such incentives, the recent legal reform, toward providing standing for prosecutors in public interest litigation, will, in contrast to Brazil, decrease rather than increase the regulatory effect of these cases. These findings have implications for understanding how the interaction between regulatory independence, legal reform, and regime type shapes possibilities for regulatory innovation in the Global South.     

Family Policy Past As Prologue: Jimmy Carter,the White House Conference on Families,and the Mobilization of the New Christian Right1

The White House Conference on Families both exemplified the contested nature of “family policy” since the late nineteenth century and inaugurated the latest phase in the venerable invocation of “family values” as a tactic for political mobilization. In 1976 presidential candidate Jimmy Carter proposed a White House Conference on the American Family in order to shore up support among cultural conservatives, especially Roman Catholics. Four years later, after much debate within the Carter administration as well as in the country at large about what constituted a legitimate family, three sessions of a White House Conference on Families were held. Cultural moderates, feminists, gays rights activists, devout Catholics, and evangelical Protestants disagreed vehemently about policies ranging from legalized abortion to family leave. Following a long though little known tradition, women were especially active among grassroots conservatives. Ultimately conservatives mobilized much more effectively than their liberal and moderate opponents, and they quickly made restoration of family values an effective wedge issue for the new Christian right and the Republican party. In many ways, the debate over family policy in the early 21st century still echoes that of the 1970s—or the 1930s or the 1910s.