协商民主的理论及其实践：对人权保障的贡献——以协商民主的权力制约功能为分析视角

作为当代西方民主理论和实践的最新发展，协商民主强调公民通过自由而平等的理性对话、辩论、推理和审议等方式来参与公共生活，赋予立法和决策以合法性，从而保证公民自治和真实民主的实现，推动民主政治的发展。协商民主的价值理念契合了当代宪政国家人权保障的核心追求，其宪政功能突出表现在通过制约和监督国家权力以整合多元社会共识，赋予立法和决策以正当合法性，凸显宪政国家人权保障的终极目标。当前各国的乡村社会和地方城市产生了许多新的协商制度形式，为人权保障事业作出了独特贡献。     

小城镇发展进程中的治安问题及防控构想

小城镇治安形势日益严峻.其影响因素主要有人口结构的显著变化、人、财、物的可侵害性增大、治安管理模式相对落后、治安基础设施建设滞后和利益格局复杂等.数据分析显示小城镇在区域中的治安影响力正逐渐增大;交通贸易型、旅游型、工业型等不同特点的小城镇,其治安情况各有特色;小城镇的治安问题兼具城市和农村的特征.据此,公安机关应着眼于长远和大局,将小城镇治安工作摆上重要位置,借鉴城市治安工作经验,建立相匹配的公安运行机制,处理好打、防、管三者之间的关系,逐步提高控制小城镇治安的能力.     

Insurance strategic considerations in coalition-oriented systems: A consideration set model approach

During a vote-decision process, citizens elect between some of the parties – not all of them. In this paper, we explore a potential strategic reason to include an additional alternative in the consideration set. Drawing on research from the field of strategic voting, we study incentives to defect to a party at risk of falling below an electoral threshold in order to elect a winning coalition (”insurance”). Our argument is that these types of strategic considerations occur already in the campaign, but do not always translate into choice. Using the so-called consideration set model approach (CSM), which focuses on how voters select fewer alternatives among a larger number of parties, we model vote choice over an election campaign using panel data from the Swedish National Election Studies of 2014. In line with our argument, we demonstrate that the insurance strategy was prevalent earlier in the decision-making process, when forming the consideration set.     

Taxing Fracking: The Politics of State Severance Taxes in the Shale Era

States producing gas and oil have long levied severance taxes at the point of extraction, commonly placing most revenues into general funds. These taxes have assumed new meaning in many states amid the expansion of gas and oil production accompanying the advent of hydraulic fracturing. We reviewed all major statutes and constitutional amendments related to severance taxes that were enacted at the state level during the first decade of the “shale era” (2005–14). There have been only modest adjustments in statutory tax rates and some evidence that states have attempted to reduce these rates, possibly in response to growing national production. In turn, there is also evidence that states have begun to pursue more targeted strategies for revenue use, including some expanded focus on responding to the negative externalities linked to drilling, expanded revenue sharing with localities, and increased long‐term protection of resources through state trust funds.     

Korruption und Kleinstaat. Elemente einer Theorie

Abstract: Der Aufsatz beschäftigt sich vorwiegend aus einer theoretischen Perspektive mit Korruption als einer bestimmten Form von Devianz in Kleinstaaten, insbesondere Mikrostaaten: Weisen sie Besonderheiten im Hinblick auf Korruptionsanfälligkeit, das Kosten‐Nutzen‐Verhältnis von Korruption sowie die Korruptionsbekämpfung auf? Zunächst wird eine grobe Kosten‐Nutzen‐Analyse für Kleinstaaten im Hinblick auf Korruption skizziert. Es folgt ein Versuch, darüber hinausgehend strukturelle korruptionserhöhende oder korruptionsreduzierende Einflussfaktoren für das Korruptionsniveau in kleinen politischen Systemen zu benennen. Daraufhin wird anhand eines Stufenmodells diskutiert, wann und gegebenenfalls in welcher Weise Kleinstaaten aktiv Korruptionsbekämpfung betreiben. Einige der in den verschiedenen Abschnitten entwickelten Überlegungen werden am Beispiel Liechtensteins punktuell veranschaulicht. Der Beitrag versteht sich als theoretische Vorstudie für weiterführende empirische Analysen.     

中小企业集合票据发行之可操作性探析

中小企业是我国经济发展的重要力量,但一直以来中小企业融资难始终是一个难以解决的问题,而集合票据作为中小企业融资新途径,就是为中小企业＂量身定做＂的融资工具。通过集合发行,引入信用增进和代偿机制等结构设计,可以在一定程度上克服中小企业单体发行债务融资工具规模较小、信用级别低、融资担保难等缺陷,对于拓宽企业的融资渠道,降低企业的融资成本,提升企业的资本市场等级等方面具有积极意义。     

Uhlin,Anders. Post-Soviet Civil Society: Democratization in Russia and the Baltic States. London and New York,Routledge, 2006, ISBN: 0-415-36804-9.

The Baltic German politician and political thinker Paul Schiemann (1876–1944) is widely recognized as the most prominent defender of liberalism in the Baltic states during the interwar period. However, his liberal ideas have rarely been interpreted in their own right. This article explores the main presuppositions of Schiemann's liberalism: his conceptions of individual freedom, democracy, and cultural development. Although Schiemann's main intentions are liberal, his theory of the anational state includes significant Marxist elements, which call into question the potential of the democratic state. In my conclusions, I will argue that Schiemann's ideas still have theoretical relevance, which must be further explored in the context of contemporary liberal theory.     

The Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics

This essay works through some of the necessary preliminary questions in thinking about Soviet colonialism in the Baltics. It opens by tracing the prehistory of critical thinking about Soviet colonialism in the 1960s and considers why the topic of Soviet colonialism has not (or not yet) become a dominant way to understand Soviet history. The central question posed by the article is whether one can speak about the Soviet invasions of the Baltic States as ‘colonization’. It proposes that, initially, communist Russia did not in fact seek to colonize the Baltic States and instead ‘occupied’ them; however, this initial period of occupation later developed into a period of a colonial rule.     

T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land in Lithuanian translation

Small states, argued Peter Katzenstein a quarter of a century ago, were different. Faced with the fluctuations of world markets, they adopt democratic corporatism and domestic compensation, thus ensuring political legitimacy and successful economic adjustment. The Baltic countries are an interesting case study for this framework, because in many ways they are “smaller” than the seven countries analyzed by Katzenstein. This article finds that, on a broader level, Katzenstein’s framework is very helpful in highlighting the key developments in the Baltic countries. On the other hand, the specific causal mechanism that can be drawn from this framework running from smallness, to democratic corporatism, to political legitimacy, as well as domestic compensation, has not developed in the Baltics.     

Baltic Studies in North America: A Survey of Academic Dissertations 1911–2006

ABSTRACT

The article argues for an extended delineation of increasing Western cultural hegemony in the reconstituted Baltic states. An initial idiom of postcolonial studies is revisited in order to complement their dominant scope in the Baltics, focused primarily on a retrospective cultural study of Baltic/Soviet relationships. The argument elaborates on the urgency of the expanding research agenda regarding the Baltic/European research framework. By pointing out the frequent occurrence of the superiority or inferiority value scale in cross-cultural references sampled from press releases of the Art Museum of Estonia, the article concludes that mainstream cultural self-reflection in Estonia is nowadays subjected to the supremacy of the imagined West European viewpoint.