Frame Spillover: Media Framing and Public Opinion of a Multifaceted LGBT Rights Agenda

Between May and July 2003, a shift in how the US public viewed the legality of consensual homosexual sex occurred. While in May the largest percentage of respondents to date supported decriminalizing such activity, that percentage dropped eleven points two months later. Similar declines in support were evident in the same period over a range of gay and lesbian rights claims. The ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) decriminalizing homosexual sex is the obvious intervening event. To explain this pattern, coding of print and televised news coverage of the ruling throughout 2003 was undertaken. Coverage was not overtly negative in terms of antigay rhetoric or hostility toward the judiciary; rather, the dominant media frame focused on the implications of Lawrence for an entirely separate rights issue: marriage equality. This article examines the dynamic of frame “spillover,” or the idea that media focus on a distinct and not widely supported rights claim in a multifaceted rights agenda might depress support across the entire rights agenda. The findings call for further research, and they have implications for scholarship on public opinion, social movement framing, and ideational development and policy debate as studied within the broader field of American political development.     

Duverger's Laws: Between social and institutional determinism

Abstract. The purpose of this article is to relocate Duverger's Laws within the debate about the effects of electoral systems on the number of parties. Although Duverger's theory has always been seen as the best example of a purely institutionalist approach to the issue, it is possible to argue that this is only true if one overemphasises the meaning of the laws without considering Duverger's justification and explanations for them. However, if one takes into consideration not only the laws, but also Duverger's theories about the effects of electoral systems on the number of parties as a whole, one can argue that his theses do not have a purely institutionalist character and can therefore coexist with theories that try to take into account variables other than electoral rules.     

Civil Cases and Society: Process and Order in the Civil Justice System

It is not an exaggeration to say that we live in an era preoccupied with the problems and challenges of obtaining justice in civil cases. Concerns expressed about the civil justice system range from warnings that civil court dockets are clogged by disputants too litigious for their own good to complaints that the legal system is used too rarely in civil cases.
The authors approach their analysis with a sense that this subject area is in need of more and better theory. It is an unfortunate fact that discussions of civil justice—and suggestions for reform—have been marked by contradiction and confusion and have been engrossed with small matters that tend to obscure from view the system as a whole.
The first part of this essay focuses on what the civil justice system is and does. It presents a five-stage model of civil case processing and examines relationships between this model and the criminal justice system. The second part of the essay considers this model in a broader context. Here the authors examine two paradigms of civil case processing and their implications for the implementation of legal norms and the pursuit of justice in society.     

Cases, Conflict, and Accommodation: Patterns of legal Interaction in an American Community

This article provides an overview of an empirical study of a civil trial court and the environment of indigenous law and conflict resolution in which the court operates. The article combines an analysis of civil cases and litigants with an investigation of alternative nonjudicial approaches used by residents of the community. The first section of the article examines the emergence of legal conflicts from the fabric of social relationships in the community and compares cases and parties in the court with those that gravitate toward nonjudicial settings. The second section compares processes and outcomes available in the court with those that may be obtained nonjudicially. The article concludes that different categories of cases emerge from different kinds of social relationships and for this reason are associated with fundamentally dissimilar patterns of values, norms, procedures, and outcomes. It also emphasizes the benefits to be obtained from investigating the complex relationships and interchanges that link local level trial courts to their communities.     

中美关系新阶段中的战略“失语”与战略稳定探索

过去几年,中美关系从国际体系内的霸权国家与国际体系外的相对较弱国家之间的关系,演变为国际体系内的守成强国与崛起强国之间的关系。这种变化导致中美关系告别了过去四十余年的"接触—融入"战略框架。中美关系进入新阶段后,两国需要一个双方都可接受的、新的战略稳定框架,以确保中美关系的长期稳定。然而,由于种种原因,两国迄今尚未能形成可以为两国关系实践提供战略指导的新框架与新论述。美国方面出现了以亚太政策代替中国政策等问题;中国方面提出的"新型大国关系"概念也未能获得美方很好地理解与接受。因此,过去几年中美关系进入一个缺乏宏观战略共识指引的新时期。这是过去几年中美关系中的竞争面、消极面日益凸显的重要原因。让人鼓舞的是,中美两国领导人在危机管控、全球议题合作等领域,正在以逐案处理的方式,为两国摸索新的利益边界。这种探索或许能够导致中美两国形成新的稳定框架,其产生的"正能量"与中美结构性矛盾自然产生的"负能量"之间的"竞赛"将决定未来一段时间内中美关系的移动方向。不过,两国领导人的这种尝试未来也将面临美国政治周期变化等不确定因素的影响。     

No Sex,No Crime,No Shame: Privatized Care and the Seduction into Responsibility

The article reflects on the interrelation between neo‐liberal economy and sexuality. The neo‐liberal paradigm issues a paradoxical appellation of individualization and privatized responsibilities. The latter not only refer to personal well‐being and growth, but also demand for care relations, which substitute for the shrinking of the social system. The thesis is that homosexual lifestyles figure as avant‐garde positions, which promise to provide a “solution” to the paradoxical demands for individualization and care. Reading visual representations of lesbian and gay figures in media and advertisements the author argues that non‐normative genders and homosexual ways of existence gain access to the mainstream via the mechanism of “projective integration”. This mechanism stimulates a new hegemonic consensus via the disarticulation of the socio‐political contradictions of the global capitalist economy and the affirmation of not only new forms of intimacy, but also new forms of exclusion.     

中美在亚太地区的安全矛盾：演变与逻辑

近年来,中美在亚太地区的安全矛盾持续发酵,逐渐形成安全利益、理念和地区安全秩序构想的全面对立态势,成为影响中美和平共处的重要因素。秩序疑虑与热点问题的对立是中美在亚太地区安全矛盾的主要表现。中美亚太安全矛盾的全方位突显,根本上源于两国力量对比的变化以及由此引发的权力转移态势,是中美总体力量差距背景下局部力量平衡的表现。这种力量平衡表现为:中国作为地区经济中心与美国作为地区安全中心的“二元结构平衡”;中国作为陆权大国与美国作为海权大国的“陆海权力平衡”;在中国近海区域,中美权力均衡态势初步形成。在此过程中,中美对既有安全矛盾管理的失效以及彼此安全威胁认知的反复塑造,客观上增强了矛盾对立的烈度,安全困境逐步形成。随着权力消长和政策互动,中美在亚太地区的安全困境,逐步呈现出从经典安全困境转向“国家引导型的安全困境”加剧的趋势。未来,中美亚太安全矛盾仍然会受到结构性因素的影响,而经济相互依存趋势、技术发展引发的军事威慑变化、意识形态竞争以及非传统安全合作等因素,则将决定既有安全矛盾是否会走向冲突。