协商民主制度与中国特色社会主义政治发展

健全社会主义协商民主制度，是党的十八大提出的一个重要新概念．是推进中国特色社会主义政治发展的战略谋划。协商民主的概念虽然提出于西方，但在涵义上与中国政治协商相通。提出健全社会主义协商民主制度，不仅具有中国意义，而且有着为人类政治文明提供世界经验的价值。民主是政治发展的核心问题，人民代表大会制度与多党合作和政治协商制度体现的选举民主与协商民主，构成我国社会主义民主的两种重要形式。在中国特色社会主义政治发展道路上，选举民主与协商民主都是不可或缺的重要资源．从一定意义上说，中国特色社会主义民主政治建设的更大优势在协商而不在选举。中国社会主义协商民主制度具有系统构造，其深刻性在于将协商民主从社会覆盖、工作向度、普遍要求和运作规范等方面得到提升．协商民主不再是一种单向度、窄渠道、小口径的实践形式，而成为社会政治生活和政治关系中具有全方位的制度系统和工作机制。协商民主作为一种形式载体，其政治生活的覆盖面、民意吸纳的包容性、参与范围的广泛性，需要得到有效的制度供给，需要形成规范运作的机制。     

规范网络政治参与：现代民主政治发展的新思路

网络在中国的迅猛发展,深刻地影响着公民的政治参与程度和热情,推进了现代民主政治的发展进程。本文从网络政治参与的内涵和特点入手,客观地分析了网络政治参与给我国民主政治建设、政治稳定等方面带来的双重影响,并提出规范网络政治参与的对策。     

政治道德建设中领导干部政绩观问题探讨

当代中国正处于现代化建设的伟大历史时期,中国的社会主义现代化事业必须在中国共产党的领导下才能取得成功;党必须加强自身建设,提高和完善领导水平和执政能力,才能应对危机,迎接挑战。而加强政治道德建设是坚持和改善党的领导的重要条件之一,也是迫切需要予以重视的问题。因此,当务之急是通过政治道德建设,引导领导干部树立正确的政绩观。     

浅谈我国政治体制改革的必要性

自改革开放以来,中国政治体制改革已经取得许多成果,如社会主义基本政治制度的进一步完善,依法治国方略的有效实施,尊重和保障人权写进宪法,"一国两制"的成功实现等等。在社会转型与政府机构改革交织的关键时期,必须继续深化政治体制改革,才能更好地巩固改革成果,从而顺应我国经济和社会发展的需要。     

Canada and the Honduran Coup

The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras before and after the military overthrow of democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on 28 June 2009. It draws attention to the neglected role of the Canadian state's efforts to protect the interests of Canadian capital in Honduras and Latin America more generally through the constant undermining of Zelaya's attempts to return to his legitimate office, and in the ultimate consolidation of the coup under Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo in early 2010. The article simultaneously develops a critique of what has become the standard account of the Honduran coup of 2009. We show how Zelaya was neither a puppet of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, nor an autocrat seeking to entrench his power indefinitely through illegal constitutional reform when he was violently tossed out of government.     

Risk of Structured Transfer of Non-Performing Assets of Commercial Banks and Its Prevention

China implements license management for AMC and strictly controls the license in limited quantities. Under the influence of the declining economy, non-performing assets increase sharply, which causes an oversupply of non-performing assets in the transaction market. If commercial banks directly transferred the assets to AMC, the price is relatively low,which may result in great losses to banks. To relieve the dilemma, commercial banks should work out methods for treating the non-performing assets. By fully utilizing the structured financing model and the bank’s own financing advantages to broaden the actual purchaser of non-performing assets, transfer incomes should be raised and direct capital losses should be reduced. Structured transfer of non-performing assets as a new mode of disposing non-performing assets to ordinary investors or the bank’s own investment funds via all kinds of AMCs, trusts, funds, brokerages, SPV (such as LP)and other institutions contains four business risks, including channel operation risk, pricing risk, recovery risk and tax risk and three legal risks, such as regulatory compliance risk, the ambiguous orientation of bank legal subject and the ambiguous orientation of return rights. These risks require in-depth study into their causes for proper prevention.     

Political Parties and Grassroots Clientelist Strategies in Urban Turkey: One Neighbourhood at a Time

Both principal Turkish political parties make extensive use of patron–client networks, but in very different ways. The CHP relies on competing local brokers and synchronous vote buying. The AKP is at the centre of a network of public and private funding turning social policy to clientelist ends. Socially anchored AKP activists link the party to voters, allowing it to target social assistance for political advantage and take credit for improvement in local conditions. The case presented in this paper provides a natural experiment suggesting that this distinction is an important explanation for the AKP’s electoral success in low-income urban areas.     

Development as recolonization: the political ecology of the Endosulphan disaster in Kasargod,India

This paper examines the Endosulphan pesticide disaster in Kasargod, Kerala, India. The paper argues that the pesticide disaster was the culmination of an agrarian modernization project implemented in the region by the state-owned Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK). An exploration of the political ecology of the disaster shows the recolonization of residents and nature by PCK through neocolonial forms of centralized and exclusionary spatial and resource control mechanisms. In this context, the paper questions the glorification of the “Kerala model” of development from the standpoints of environmental justice and resource rights, relying on the lived experiences of the people of Kasargod.     

From rural rebellions to urban riots: political competition and changing patterns of violent political revolt in Uganda

Violent political revolt has been common in independent Uganda. For a long time, such revolts were exclusively expressed as rural-based rebel groups fighting the government. Since the mid-2000s, however, this seems to have come to an end. Instead, urban riots, very rare in the past, have become much more common. This article analyses these changing patterns of types and location of violent political revolt in Uganda under the National Resistance Movement government. It argues that the earlier prevalence of rural rebellions can be explained by the combination of a coercive and militarised state, and weak and ethnically factionalised political forces who took their violent resistance to rural regional bases. Over time, however, government counter-insurgency became more effective and the conditions for insurgency were undermined by withdrawal of external support. Furthermore, the reintroduction of multi-party politics in 2005 opened up new avenues for political expression. The changes to the political system were, however, more nominal than real in many respects. While the rebel option had become less attractive and feasible, a series of social, economic and political grievances remained which were only partly channelled through party politics. They also found expression through sporadic urban violent revolt.     

Legislative Transparency and Credit Risk

Open governance requirements are designed to improve accountability, which implies that transparent governments are more trustworthy stewards of their publicly invested power. However, transparency may also reduce institutional effectiveness and inhibit political compromise, diminishing the capacity to manage resources responsibly. We assess empirical support for these competing perspectives in the context of American state legislatures, many of which have become exempt from state sunshine laws in recent decades. We leverage variation in the timing of these legislative exemptions to identify the effect of removing transparency in a crucial governing institution on investors’ risk perceptions of states’ general obligation bonds. Our analysis of these data during the period 1995–2010 suggests that removing legislative transparency reduces state credit risk. We conclude that while openness in government may be normatively desirable, shielding legislative proceedings from public view may actually be better for states’ debt repayment capacity, improving their overall fiscal health.