浅析选举民主

民主是人类共同的价值观,选举民主是一种民主实现形式;选举民主是指人民通过自由、公正、广泛、定期、平等、竞争性的选举来选择政府及其治理方式,或者说政府通过竞取人民手中的选票而获得作出决定的权力;选举民主的基本功能有合法性功能、选择和监督功能、稳定和抚慰功能、纠错和矫正功能、培育公民意识功能、扩大公民参与功能。     

An assessment of sexual health risk behaviors among female youth in juvenile detention

This study investigated the association between risky sexual behavior and drug use among female youth sentenced to a regional juvenile detention center. Preincarceration behavioral health risk data were collected from a modified version of the Youth Risk Behaviors Surveillance Survey completed by respondents. Almost all of the 105 participants had been detained before their current sentence, more than half of them were sexually active before the age of 13, and 70% had smoked marijuana or drank alcohol by age 14. A regression analysis was conducted to determine if preincarceration sexual health risk behaviors were significant enough to predict continued risk behaviors related to pregnancy, disease prevention, and substance use. Findings indicate that youth detention-based prevention programs should emphasize sexual and drug-risk reduction strategies as a means to reduce risky behaviors for this population.     

Lessons from “Around the world with Oprah”: Neoliberalism,race, and the (geo)politics of beauty

On 6 October 2004, viewers went “Around the world with Oprah” and received a rare glimpse inside the lives of 30-year-old women from 17 different countries. When Oprah turned her gaze (and that of middle-class American housewives) eastward, she highlighted South Korean women's penchart for plastic surgery. Oprah's “trip” to South Korea is emblematic of Western discourse surrounding South Korean Women's plastic surgery consumption, most of which focuses on cosmetic eyelid surgery or the sangapul procedure as it is called in South Korea. Given its widespread popularity, the sangapul procedure has come to signify South Korean women's acquiescence to not only patriarchal oppression but racial oppression as well. This essay goes beyond the psychologization of South Korean women in order to ask what such psychological musings obscure about the very political nature of beauty itself. Using “Around the world with Oprah” as a starting point, then, this essay examines beauty at the intersection of race, technology, and (geo)politics in order to show that, in an era of neoliberalism, plastic surgery is often rationalized as an investment in the self towards a more normal, if not better future. As this essay suggests, such a framing of plastic surgery is contingent on Oprah's production of neoliberal feminism based on liberal notions of choice. Given her global reach, these neoliberal feminist subjects are not produced equally, however, but are discursively constructed along a First World/Third World divide.     

The political economy of labor market deregulation during IMF interventions

This study examines the relationship between policy interventions by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and de jure labor rights. Combining two novel data sets with unprecedented country-year coverage – leximetric data on labor laws and disaggregated data on IMF conditionality – our analysis of up to 70 developing countries from 1980 to 2014 demonstrates that IMF-mandated labor market policy measures significantly reduce both individual and collective labor rights. Once we control for the effect of labor market policy measures, however, we find that collective labor rights increase in the wake of IMF programs. We argue that this result is explained by the impact of union pressure on governments which, in such a context, are imbued with the policy space to respond to domestic interest groups. The study has broader theoretical implications as to when international organizations are effective in constraining governments’ choices.     

民主逻辑的辩证法——西方错误民主逻辑的辩证唯物主义批判

"民主"一词是西方人的发明,西方几千年来的政治发展也一直自称遵循和沿袭了民主政治的思想传统。然而纵观西方民主理论与现实政治的发展,西方世界对民主的理解似乎也并非尽善尽美,甚至还存在着十分重大的逻辑漏洞。然而一些西方政客和学者们似乎不仅不急于纠正这些错误的民主逻辑,反而还"弄假成真",利用手中的意识形态宣传机器将这些错误逻辑装扮成了"民主的真理"。这不仅掩盖了民主的本质,让人们无法洞见民主的真相,了解民主发展的历史,还对一些正在自主学习与发展未来民主政治的国家造成了极大的困扰。因此,可借助马克思辩证唯物主义的分析方法与西方民主理论中一些符合唯物辩证法要求的民主逻辑,正确地认识民主的本质,辩证地理解民主同其他社会经济发展因素之间的互动关系,以还"民主"的本真面目。     

Civil Service Reform as National Security: The Homeland Security Act of 2002

The events of 9/11 have influenced policy making in public administration. The Homeland Security Act of 2002, which created the Department of Homeland Security, contained language that empowered the secretary of homeland security and the director of the Office of Personnel Management to establish a personnel management system outside the normal provisions of the federal civil service. Why did civil service reform succeed as part of this legislation when previous attempts at large‐scale reform had failed? A case analysis of the enactment of civil service reform in the Homeland Security Act points to theories of policy emergence and certain models of presidential and congressional policy making. In this case, civil service reform became associated with national security instead of management reform. An assessment of the rhetorical arguments used to frame this policy image offers a powerful explanation for the adoption of the personnel management reforms in the Homeland Security Act. This case has implications for understanding how policy makers might approach future management reform agendas.     

China: Administrative Corruption — Experience in a Comparative Context

As a new world economy emerges what is being learned about the accompanying phenomenon of administrative corruption? To probe this question we combine study of current developments in China with prevailing theories of corruption. The administrative corruption experience, as it has unfolded during the economic development thrust of the Deng reform era, is described and analysed in a comparative context. In specifically interjecting the American experience we suggest that a balanced control response to corruption —rather than an elimination focus—could be a fruitful avenue for policy and research, and that informal, social approaches to corruption control are pregnant with possibilities. China's experience offers a significant opportunity to push the margin of wisdom on these issues as they relate to economic and political development.