The Future of Northern Ireland: the Role of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement Institutions

Since the 2016 Brexit referendum a series of crises has gripped Northern Ireland's politics. This has had a destabilising effect across society, which has arguably been felt most acutely by political unionism. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (B/GFA) of 1998 created a series of institutions to deal with political conflict in Northern Ireland, manage cross-border cooperation and normalise relations between the UK and Ireland. However, many aspects of it have been sparingly and ineffectually deployed, most notably the second and third strands dealing with north/south and east/west relations respectively. In this article, the authors argue that regular use of the institutional arrangements created by the Agreement would help to deal with the challenges currently facing Northern Ireland and help address unionist anxieties over the Protocol. Use of the North-South Ministerial Council (NSMC), the British Irish Council (BIC) and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC) should be prioritised. The unresolved issues arising from Brexit require a recommitment to the intergovernmental logic at the heart of the 1998 Agreement, despite the obstacles.     

Does moral rhetoric fuel or reduce divides between parties and non-copartisan voters?

Political parties at times use moral appeals to voters outside of their support base, i.e., non-copartisan voters. Yet, morality is typically considered a divisive force in politics. Does moral rhetoric actually alleviate or exacerbate divides between parties and non-copartisan voters? The paper addresses this question by focusing on non-copartisans’ attitudes towards the party. Insights from previous work on moral persuasion and attitudinal bias suggest a conflicting picture. On the one hand, moral rhetoric is likely to make morally aligned non-copartisans more favourable towards the party. On the other hand, moral rhetoric is unlikely to make even the morally aligned favourable towards the party. In fact, moral rhetoric may further push away non-copartisans with pre-existing hostility. Using original, representative survey experiments from Britain, the paper finds that moral rhetoric can increase favourable attitudes and that it does not further promote hostility. Morality in party competition does not necessarily fuel division.     

The local party voter: A localist anti-establishment voter?

In several countries, local parties have increased their share of votes in local elections. This development has received limited scholarly attention compared to the immense interest paid to the fates of national level anti-establishment parties. Against this backdrop, we ask if something distinct characterizes those who choose to vote for genuinely local alternatives compared to other anti-establishment voters. Sweden is taken as the case in focus, a country where local parties have grown in numbers and strength throughout the past three decades. We view local parties as a part of a broader ‘anti-establishment’ family, and we explore if their voters a) are similar to those who vote for the most pronounced anti-establishment party in Sweden (Sweden Democrats), or b) if local party voters are a distinct anti-establishment category in their own right. Drawing on a survey data from 49 Swedish municipalities, we find that local party voters indeed distinguish themselves from both Sweden Democrat's voters and voters for the old and established parties, thus making them a distinct anti-establishment voter category of their own. These voters distrust their local politicians but at the same time are civically engaged.     

The Danish legislators database

Elections determine the composition of legislatures, but the study of legislative representation has long been hampered by limited individual-level data on legislators. Recent innovations have vastly increased opportunities for studying legislators, but often have limited historical coverage. We introduce the Danish Legislators Database (DLD), a database of members of Denmark’s parliament, Folketinget, for every electoral term since its inception in 1849. Relative to most existing databases, the DLD is rare in covering the entire history of a parliamentary body going back more than 170 years. The DLD thus enables analyses of parliamentary representation with full temporal coverage. We describe the development and content of the DLD and present a set of analyses illustrating the potential uses of the database in the study of representation.     

Electoral colorism: Candidate skin color and list placement in Ecuador

To what extent does candidate skin color influence party list placement in proportional representation systems? While candidate skin color is increasingly understood to play an important role in politics, the extent to which it shapes electoral opportunities and outcomes remains unclear. In this paper, we investigate whether party elites in list proportional representation systems place darker-skinned candidates in lower, less advantageous list positions than their lighter-skinned copartisans. Drawing on party lists from Ecuador’s 2021 National Assembly elections and an original measure of candidate skin color, we find evidence that candidate skin color is a significant determinant of list placement. This finding indicates that party lists reinforce color-based inequalities in political representation and reveals that a candidate’s skin color shapes their chances of winning elected office.     

网络传播对青年民警思想政治工作影响的新思考

网络正在以巨大的信息容量和快速同步的传幅方式对社会、经济、政治、文化等诸多领域造成影响。网络具有散布性、全球性、开放性、即时性、综合性等特点,也给新时期青年民警思政工作带来难得的机遇和严峻的挑战。利用网络的特性,以“网络政工”为触手,发挥技术优势,采用灵活多样的手段,可以提高青年民警政治思想工作的科技含量。遵从网络发展客观规律,从科技化、信息化和建立现代队伍管理制度的高度出发,以建设精干、高效政工队伍为理念,可以造就出符合时代特点的新型政工网络。     

Understanding Political Knowledge and its Influence on Voting Preferences in the 2007 Federal Election

In this article we propose a model to explain how voters’ perceptions of their ideological proximity to a party affect their propensity to vote for that party. We argue that political knowledge plays a crucial moderating role in the relationship between party proximity and voting propensity. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between institutional knowledge (information about the political system) and party knowledge (information about the parties’ left–right positions). An analysis of survey data from the 2007 Swiss federal elections supports our main hypothesis that party knowledge enhances the link between party proximity and voting propensity. Institutional knowledge may have additional influence, but clear evidence for this effect was obtained only for propensities to vote for the Swiss People's Party (SVP). Overall, the impact of political knowledge was found to be substantial, even after controlling for the outstanding influence of party identification and other predictors of voting propensities.     

困境与出路:领域法理论下的警察法学发展

警察法学属于我国法律体系中不可或缺的板块,也是提升社会安全法治能力的理论抓手。遗憾的是,当前我国警察法学的发展深陷概念模糊化、体系碎片化、研究边缘化、教学粗浅化的困境,若不及时矫正,势必将警察法学的研究、教学和实践引入歧途。领域法是近年来新兴的法学理念,强调问题导向与解决策略,能有效融合法教义学与社科法学的思维特点。在领域法学的指引下,研究者需明确警察法学的领域概念,厘清警察法学的法律体系,夯实警察法学的理论体系,增加警察法学的实践色彩,强调在完善警察法学理论体系的同时,提升警察法学的实践与教学效用。     

新型政党制度所蕴含的中国智慧

中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度是从中国土壤中生长出来的新型政党制度,充分汲取了中国传统民本智慧、和合智慧、包容智慧,展现出了无与伦比的内在优越性,实现了群众根本利益与群体特殊利益的有机统一、实现了政党关系的非对称性和谐、实现了通过政党协商进行科学民主决策、实现了集中力量办大事,从而克服了垄断型一党制和竞争型两党制、多党制的固有弊端。作为和谐型多党制的新型政党制度充分展现了中国智慧,为世界政党制度发展与进步提供了新方向和新选择。     

中国法史学基础问题反思

中国现代法律史学是在传统法律史学和外来法律史学的双重基础上建立起来的。正确认识中国法律史学的学科性质,对完善这门学科的独立品格,促进这门学科的进一步发展具有重要意义。运用现代法学理论,特别是运用部门法理论去分析中国传统社会的法史材料,是中国现代法史学研究方法形成和发展的主要标志。但不应简单地用部门法理论、现代法理学的一般概念去比附评论中国传统法史材料,使中国法史学研究带上过分浓厚的现代色彩。应重视法史学研究的学术批评问题,提倡既非庸俗吹捧也非恶意贬低的高水平的独立评论。