谈新农村社区警务改革的特点

中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十一个五年规划的建议中明确指出,新农村建设将是党中央的工作重点。新农村社区警务工作的成效将直接关系到整个建设的进程。新农村建设的要求与当今世界警务改革的理念不谋而合,“乡风文明、村容整洁”正是社区警务所倡导的通过改变环境预防犯罪的现代警务理念。文章从新农村建设可能产生的变化着手,分析农村警务的特点,提出未来新农村社区警务建设的基本思路。     

Quality Reform in Malaysian Higher Education Governance: “Identity Formation” or “Knowledge Shopping”?

In line with its Vision 2020, Malaysia has been implementing a series of ‘quality’ reforms in its higher education sector (Sirat, 2010). For critics, these reforms are driven by an ideological shift from the idea that knowledge is a “public good” (Dzulkifli, 2011, p. 28). This study explores whether the use of ‘standards’ as governance forms would lead Malaysia towards “identity formation”, i.e. the creation of a culture-based knowledge society, or direct it towards “knowledge shopping”, i.e. the commodification of higher education. This article concludes that Malaysian higher education governance is more oriented towards “knowledge shopping” than “identity formation.”     

Democratic Innovations to the Rescue? Political Trust and Attitudes Toward Democratic Innovations in Southwest Finland

It is difficult to govern when citizens are unsupportive of the political system. This problem is relevant for municipalities formed through municipal mergers since new political entities need to build political trust. Democratic innovations provide possible solutions to increase citizens’ confidence, but it is unclear whether distrusting citizens demand these opportunities for involvement. This study examines the link between political trust and support for democratic innovations in Southwest Finland with a survey of 2000 respondents in 14 municipalities. The results suggest that distrusting citizens are less supportive of democratic innovations; hence it is unlikely that they increase political trust.     

Intermunicipal cooperation,municipal amalgamation and the price of credit

In many countries, local government size is increasingly thought to be insufficient to operate efficiently. Two possible solutions to this problem are amalgamation and intermunicipal cooperation. This paper applies a novel methodology to shed light on the efficiency implications of this choice. Using a unique and rich micro-level dataset, we find that intermunicipal organisations (IOs) in the Netherlands consistently pay higher interest rates than municipalities, while there is no economic reason to do so. We interpret this as a form of inefficiency. Municipal amalgamation, on the other hand, does not result in higher interest rates. Our analysis eliminates one possible explanation, dispersed ownership of IOs, as the number of partners cooperating in an IO does not affect interest rates (no ‘law of 1/n’). This leaves the introduction of extra hierarchical layers as a result of cooperation, and the ensuing reduction in monitoring, as the most probable explanation.     

Justice,democracy, and future generations

Proposals for how to redesign democracy so as to better secure the demands of intergenerational justice can be divided into three broad families: (1) representative proxies; (2) differential voting schemes; and (3) counter-majoritarian devices. However, these proposals suffer from a fundamental weakness: namely, they all assume that despite the fact that democracy is by its very nature ill-equipped to secure intergenerational justice, it is nevertheless possible to rely on democracy to solve this problem in the first place. But that, to put it colloquially, is like thinking that one can pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps. This paper sketches the shape and contours of a solution to this problem that is better able than the alternatives to escape this objection. This solution draws upon the strategy of a so-called ‘non-reformist reform.’     

Municipal Democratisation in Rural Latin America: Methodological Insights from Ecuador

As municipal governments in Latin America acquire greater responsibility for public goods and services and the promotion of economic and social development, and play a greater role in local citizenship, questions about the quality of municipal democracy also need to be taken much more seriously. This article proposes a 'relative power approach' that examines the distribution of social power at the microregional level and its impact on municipal governance as the starting point for the analysis of municipal democratisation in Latin America. The approach lays particular emphasis on historical changes in the distribution of local productive assets, the political organisation of local social actors, coalitions between and divisions within local social sectors and the ways in which local power relations are shaped by global and national forces. The article then explores the practical application of the relative power approach to three municipalities in rural Ecuador.     

Sub-state diplomacy and the foreign policy-development nexus in South Africa

This article examines the role of sub-state diplomacy, defined as the transnational linkages of sub-national governments, in bridging the gap between foreign policy and the domestic development agenda in South Africa. It argues that, as territorial sub-state actors, provinces and municipalities are strategically positioned to use their international relations to make foreign policy more responsive to domestic socio-economic priorities. In the South African case, however, this potential is yet to be fully realised, mainly because of institutional fragmentation of the foreign policy apparatus, but also owing to enduring challenges in the foreign activities of sub-national governments. The article concludes by making the case for a new diplomatic paradigm in South Africa, one that actively promotes and harnesses the foreign activities and capacities of different national stakeholders, including those of sub-national governments, in the interest of the domestic development agenda.     

反就业歧视的法律思考

作为国际社会的重要成员,我国批准、加入了一系列禁止歧视的国际公约,但由于种种原因,就业歧视已成为我国当前一个突出的社会问题。解决这一问题,除了传统观念的更新、相关制度的变革外,主要还得从法律制度上着手,借鉴国际反歧视立法之成功经验,构建适合中国国情的反就业歧视法律制度。     

对公安院校射击教学课的思考

射击课是公安院校的一门必修专业技能课。结合多年的各种教学改革尝试,对比教学效果,加强学习目的教育,提高学生学习的自觉性,使学生切实认识到掌握射击技能再实际工作中的重要性,提高教学质量。     

儿童福利视野下的少年司法路径选择

经过近三十年的探索与发展,我国少年司法制度在维护未成年人合法权益及预防未成年人违法犯罪上取得较大成绩。随着少年司法改革的进一步深化及与国际接轨的沉重压力,当前迫切需要以儿童福利理念、机制与政策全面贯彻少年司法始终,逐步建立、健全少年司法与刑事司法双轨制,并提升少年刑事司法、少年民事司法及少年行政司法一体化建设,推动青少年事务局等专门性、专业性政府协调机构的建立。