两岸经济合作的政治效应问题探讨

推进两岸经济合作与一体化发展,形成日益紧密的经济共同体,可以巩固和深化两岸关系和平发展的经济基础,有助于推进两岸和平统一,但并非两岸和平统一的充分条件。而且,发挥两岸经济关系对两岸和平统一的促进作用需要相应的主客观条件,至少需要两岸双方的共同政治意愿与积极行动,以便在共同利益不断增进的基础上建构国家认同。民调显示,近年来的两岸经济合作,在“反独”中起到一定的积极作用,但因施行时间较短且尚未充分展开等因素而不足以证实或证伪其在“促统”方面的作用,并面临制约因素。而国家认同的形成,乃是两岸和平统一的关键。因此,必须确立正确的合作理念,坚持特定的推进原则,选择适宜的推进方式,以提升两岸经济合作的政治效应。     

Rejecting representation? Party systems and popular support for referendums in Europe

Under what conditions do citizens favor deciding political issues by popular vote? Models of support for popular vote processes usually consider the influence of individual attitudes such as political trust and interest in politics. But much less is known about the effect of institutional variables on support for popular vote processes. This article builds on research showing that disaffection with elected officials shapes support for referendums by considering the influence of the party system. First, an analysis of multilevel data from twenty-four European democracies indicates that individuals are more supportive of referendums in countries with fewer effective political parties. Second, a mediation analysis provides evidence that the number of parties influences referendum support through individual-level political trust and external efficacy. Where there are fewer viable parties, feelings that elected officials are unresponsive tend to increase popular support for referendums. These findings suggest a trade-off between available representation by political parties and support for direct influence over public policy.     

Regime type versus patronal politics: a comparison of “ardent democrats” in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Kazakhstan is home to the longest serving ruler in post-Soviet Eurasia while Kyrgyzstan is among the region’s most competitive polities. Do these regime differences correspond to divergence in political attitudes, as an extensive body of literature posits? Are Kyrgyzstanis more likely to strongly support democratic ideals? Are Kazakhstanis less likely? Contrary to expectations, data reveal the two populations to be attitudinally indistinguishable when it comes to strong support for practices associated with democracy. Whatever country differences we find are minor or statistically insignificant. We explain this convergence by shifting focus away from the political features that distinguish the two nascent democracy versus consolidated authoritarianism to those that they hold in common. Notwithstanding major constitutional reform in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, politics there, as in Kazakhstan, remains fundamentally patronal, or patronage- based. Mass attitudes, we argue, align in many ways with the countries’ shared patronal politics, rather than with their contrasting regime types.     

Revisiting Transnational European Consociationalism: The European Union a Decade After Lisbon

This article discusses the notion of consociationalism as applied to the EU and assesses whether the institutional and procedural changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) and by the management of the Euro and refugee crises still warrant considering the EU as a case of consociational democracy. Our contention is that the changes introduced by the ToL bore the promise to strengthen the consociational structural traits of the Union but that the further institutional and procedural changes engendered by the management of the Euro and refugee crises have made the behavioral dimension of consociationalism all the more necessary just as the accommodating orientation of the political elites had begun to evaporate. We support this argument by looking at empirical evidence which allows us to offer a set of propositions on the effects of the recent crises on the attitudes of the European elites towards the future of EU democracy.     

Gender Differences in Political Knowledge: Distinguishing Characteristics-Based and Returns-Based Differences

This study assesses whether gender-based differences in political knowledge primarily result from differences in observable attributes or from differences in returns for otherwise equivalent characteristics. It applies a statistical decomposition methodology to data obtained from the 1992–2004 American National Election Studies. There is a consistent 10-point gender gap in measured political knowledge, of which approximately one-third is due to gender-based differences in the characteristics that predict political knowledge, with the remaining two-thirds due to male–female differences in the returns to these characteristics. The methodology identifies the relative contribution of the predictors of political knowledge to each portion of the gap, and then uses this information to elucidate the underlying sources of the political knowledge gender gap and its prognosis. Education is the characteristic that most clearly enlarges the gap, with men receiving significantly larger returns to political knowledge from education than women. Group membership reduces the gap as women obtain gains in political knowledge from belonging to organizations that do not accrue to men. However, these gains are not sufficient to significantly reduce the gap.

The Attitudes of the Chinese Middle Class Towards Democracy

Little has been done to quantitatively establish the connection between the middle class and a specific regime type. In an effort to fill in the gap, this study uses Asian Barometer survey dataset to examine the attitudes and orientation of China’s rising middle class. We find that the Chinese middle class does show higher democratic orientation than those we categorize as lower class, but only if class is defined by occupation or by self-identification, and not by income level. We interpret this result to mean that economic development offers new life experiences with the creation of new types of professions and enhances people’s agreement with modern democratic values by arousing people’s consciousness of their new social class status.

试论构建“东亚共同体”的思想文化基础——从历史启迪与未来追求的视角

创建共同合作、协同发展的“东亚共同体”,业已成为不可抗拒的发展趋势。历史事实证明:东亚地区是世界历史上最早“一体化”的区域;它既有成功的、进步的古代“东亚文化圈”,也有反动的、失败的近代“大东亚共荣圈”,还有设想中的“东亚共同体”。然而,现实中的“历史认识问题”,是直接关系到“东亚共同体”能否迅速建立的前提条件。为促进未来“东亚共同体”区域内的沟通和交流,需要在汉字的基础上创建共通文字,这不是复旧,而是与时俱进的创新。当人们思考构建“东亚共同体”时,在普遍关注经济协作的情况下,尤应重视思想文化观念的问题,因为东亚各国间的政治的、经济的、外交的问题,不能光靠政治的、经济的、外交的手段来解决,而确实需要从思想文化观念方面去寻求解决问题的办法。     

传衍 嬗变 融合——满族文化对北京文化的影响

满族作为中国五千年文化的集大成者之一,挟带着"国语旗射"文化,与农耕型的汉族京师文化在冲撞的过程中,相互调适、相互吸纳、迅速交融。基于对京师汉文化的倾慕,满族大举入关后,并未采取历代国君对待前朝宫殿或焚烧或拆毁或废弃的做法,而是将明朝故宫完整地保存下来并加以利用;但满族统治者极为重视并竭力保持和发扬满族文化,甚至把这些文化视为巩固清代统治的重要国策,因此,在北京城强制推行满族文化,使得满族文化对北京的人文民风等产生很大的影响。     

论公民文化视野下少数民族地区民主政治建设

民主政治建设是少数民族地区现代化建设的重要内容,不仅包括制度建设内容,而且也包括政治文化建设的内容。然而,少数民族地区民主建设面临着各少数民族成员民主制度、机制缺乏,民主意识淡薄以及注重宗教信仰、法治意识缺失。要培育少数民族地区民主型政治文化的基础和条件,就不得不建立和完善现代民主制度和机制,充分开发利用各种政治社会化手段。     

民族文化与民族教育互动发展的助推工程——对贵州省民族文化进校园活动的思考

在实现民族社会快速发展的同时,如何防止民族优秀传统文化的遗失是一个社会性问题。在民族文化生态系统中,民族文化从多方面影响和制约着民族教育,民族教育作为民族文化的重要组成部分,既是民族文化的一种特殊表现形式,又是民族文化传承和发展的基本途径。依据民族文化与民族教育相互关系原理,贵州省实施了民族文化进校园活动。实践表明,这一活动是一项民族文化与民族教育互动发展的助推工程,为我们提供了一条保护和传承民族优秀传统文化的可选道路。