What's the point of voting advice applications? Competing perspectives on democracy and citizenship

Voting advice applications (VAAs) are interactive online tools designed to assist voters by improving the basis on which they decide how to vote. Current VAAs typically aim to do so by matching users' policy-preferences with the positions of parties or candidates. But this ‘matching model’ depends crucially on implicit, contestable presuppositions about the proper functioning of the electoral process and about the forms of competence required for good citizenship—presuppositions associated with the social choice conception of democracy. This paper aims to make those presuppositions explicit and to contrast them with two possible alternative perspectives on VAAs, associated with deliberative and agonistic conceptions of democracy and citizenship.     

解读民主：一种人性的视角

民主作为一种制度和文化，它的发展有许多原因。但从根本上来看，应归囚于它与人性之间有着密不可分的联系．本文即从人性的角度入手，对民主的实质进行了深刻地剖析，从而揭示民主体现人的自然属性与社会属性、集体主义与个人主义平衡的本质特性．     

以科学发展观重要思想为指导 加强党内民主建设

党内民主建设是当前全面推进党的建设伟大工程的一项重要课题。针对党内民主目前存在的一些问题,如何以科学发展观为指导加强党内民主建设,对于建设社会主义民主政治和构建社会主义和谐社会有着重要的理论和实践意义。     

论民主转型烈度

把烈度的概念引入到民主转型过程的比较研究之中，提出民主转型烈度这一概念，是对比较政治学方法论的一个重要贡献，它使对民主转型的国别比较更具有可操作性，大大增加了结论的说服力。民主转型烈度是由一系列具体的可执行的指标体系构成的。通过对民主转型烈度的测评，我们就可以对不同国家和地区的民主转型进行级别划分，从而进行深入的研究。     

Executive–Legislature Relations in Foreign Policy: A Case Study in Incipient Regional Integration

This article explores the role of the Argentine and Brazilian parliaments during the formative years of Mercosur with the aim of assessing how the specific model of ‘limited democracy’ may have had an impact on the course and shape of Mercosur. Although that integration process was essentially a governmental exercise, with only a marginal role for congresses, this article argues that this does not constitute in itself either a violation of constitutional provisions in the member states or a geographical anomaly compared to other constitutional traditions or to incipient integration processes elsewhere. Yet, perhaps ironically, the conclusion suggests that democratic limitations have fostered, rather than hampered, integration in the Southern Cone of Latin America.     

自由主义宪政观评析——兼论宪政的核心价值

上世纪90年代中期之后,自由主义宪政观理论被大量介绍进中国,为相当部分学者接受。自由主义宪政观否定宪政的核心价值是民主,主张宪政的核心价值是国家权力的有限性,是保护个人自由。他们所说的个人自由的核心权域是私有财产自由,他们所说的国家权力有限性实质是以私有财产制度为基础的经济活动自治性,自由民主政体也不是所谓共和政体而具有鲜明利益色彩,当代自由主义者将个人自由的制度保障寄托于给司法注入政治功能。我们坚持民主是宪政的核心价值,实质就是要坚持大多数人民的利益至上,规范、限制国家权力只能主要依靠民主进行,违宪审查也只能在民主制度的大框架内运作。     

试论政府制度创新成效的价值性准则

政府制度创新的成效是考量政府制度设计成功与否的标准。如何衡量政府制度创新的成效及衡量的标准一直是学术界关注的问题。本文认为,价值性标准是衡量政府制度创新的重要标准之一,其中,公正、民主、法治与以人为本成为判断政府制度创新成效最主要的价值标准。     

Civilization and international society: the case of European Union expansion

Joining a society of some kind requires the fulfillment of certain standards. In international society, states acknowledge the need for certain collective standards of international conduct if international order is to be maintained. The first truly global application of international norms took place during the nineteenth century through the process of the expansion of the European society of states and its gradual transformation to the contemporary global international society. In this process, the standard of ‘civilization’ played an essential role in determining which states would join the expanding European society and which ones would not. Despite the major changes that have occurred, the standard of ‘civilization’ has remained an international practice as well as a benchmark against which the attitudes and policies of states are assessed. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the EU policy of ‘membership conditionality’. Although many explanations for EU expansion have been put forward rather absent from debate has been the civilization dimension which is embedded in membership conditionality and which should be given more emphasis.     

动荡的多党制——土耳其共和国政治民主化一瞥

土耳其共和国的政体在由一党专制向多党民主制的转变过程中,不断激起巨大的社会波动,甚至在上世纪60至80年代曾先后三次导致军队发动政变干政,社会秩序才得以恢复.当年,土耳其国内有不少人对多党民主制抱有一种不切实际的期望,以为只要有了它,就能够解决改革过程中遇到的一切困难,保证国民经济快速发展.然而,作为一种运行逻辑十分复杂的现代政治体制,只有具备了一系列重要的社会条件后,它才能够发挥建设性的作用.否则,贸然实行多党制,反而不利于国家稳定和经济发展.     

利益：党内民主发展的内在动力

利益是人类社会生活中一种重要的社会现象,正是由于利益的需要,产生了人类社会的一切政治现象,可以说利益问题是一切政治运动和政治发展的起点、目的和归宿.作为代表中国工人阶级、农民阶级以及中国最广大人民的根本利益的执政党--中国共产党,和其他一切组织一样,也有自己的利益.党内的利益关系与利益矛盾,社会利益及相关因素的变动对执政党的影响等决定了利益是发展党内民主的内在动力.