Smart and secure borders through automated border control systems in the EU? The views of political stakeholders in the Member States

The European Commission launched the “Smart Borders” policy process in 2011 to enhance border security in the European Union (EU) using technologisation and harmonisation. This includes the use of automated border control (ABC) systems. The Member States crucially shape the process, weighing security technologies and costs, privacy and rights, and further institutional choices. We examine the views of political stakeholders in four Member States by conducting a systematic empirical and comparative study unprecedented in the existing, political-theory-inspired research. In our Q methodological experiments, political stakeholders in Finland, Romania, Spain and the UK rank-ordered a sample of statements on Smart Borders, ABC and harmonisation. The factor analysis of the results yielded three main views: the first criticising ABC as a security technology, the second welcoming the security gains of automation and the third opposing harmonised border control. While impeding harmonisation, the results offer a consensus facilitating common policy.     

英美刑法中的犯罪行为及其启示

英美刑法中犯罪行为的概念具有不同于大陆法系刑法中犯罪行为概念的特色。文章通过对英美刑法中犯罪行为概念的展开,分析了犯罪行为的地位及其与犯罪构成的关系,并且进行了分类介绍。人们应汲取英美刑法中犯罪行为理论的合理内核,将持有视为与作为和不作为并列的第三犯罪行为形式。     

反垄断法视野下的中小企业保护分析

中小企业在市场经济中占有重要的地位。反垄断法通过保护竞争,为中小企业的发展创造一个自由和公平的竞争环境,从而对中小企业的发展起到促进和保护作用。我国《反垄断法》需要在中小企业界定标准、中小企业垄断协议豁免的监督制度和反垄断集团诉讼制度等方面加以完善,以更好地维护中小企业的合法权益,推动市场经济的健康有序发展。     

广东—东盟贸易投资存在的问题与对策研究

本文在全球金融危机的背景下,阐述了加强广东与东盟贸易、投资合作的必要性和迫切性;进而从广东经济结构调整需要的视角,分析了广东与东盟在贸易、投资合作中存在的问题及成因;并据此提出构建广东-东盟贸易投资综合平台的设想,论证构建该平台的基本条件,最后提出促进平台建设的相应政策建议.     

Conditioned Networking: Swiss–EU Relations in Transport

This article addresses the structural characteristics of the interactions between Switzerland and the EU in the transport sector, i.e. transport by air and land. More precisely, it is focused on two different aspects of this relationship: first the modes of coordination between Switzerland and the EU according to the concept of external governance and, second, those conditions that make inclusive patterns of interaction more likely. The central finding of this case study is an expansion of both the regulatory and organisational boundary in both cases. This shift finds expression in the incorporation of Swiss actors into a variety of networks that, at least in some cases, allow Swiss actors to shape EU policy making. The actual patterns of interaction are influenced by a number of factors, including the type of governance inside the EU that facilitates the inclusion of third parties in EU external governance and the problem structure that is characterized by coordination rather than enforcement problems.     

试论唐至清初潮州的海外贸易与海上走私

潮州与海外诸国的贸易往来很早就有,但在唐至清初这一时段里,潮州诸港从未成为官府承认的、合法的、正式的对外贸易港口。潮州通番走私贸易从内容上看,有非法地从事贸易与非法地从事违禁物品贸易之分;从形式上看又有下海通番与坐地通番之别。长期从事违禁贸易进一步助长了潮州人蔑视官府,视违禁为快速致富之路的不良风气,此种风气可以说是于今余绪犹存。     

WTO对跨国公司限制竞争行为的规制与中国反垄断法的完善

GATT/WTO多边贸易规则弱化了政府管理、干预贸易与投资的权力,推动了跨国公司的发展与壮大。但跨国公司实施的固定价格、数量与分割市场、滥用市场支配地位等限制竞争的行为,不仅对东道国的经济秩序与消费者利益有消极影响,而且会形成新的市场准入壁垒,损害各方通过WTO谈判而取得的市场准入的期待利益。各方利益冲突致使短期内WTO不可能形成统一、有效的竞争规则。中国应密切关注WTO框架内竞争规则的讨论,力求制订符合国际发展潮流的竞争规则。针对在华跨国公司限制竞争行为的形式与特点,中国在反垄断立法、执法中应建立完善的价格预警机制、并购报批程序、区别措施、宽大政策、国际合作机制等。     

Moving beyond ideas of laddism: conceptualising ‘mischievous masculinities’ as a new way of understanding everyday sexism and gender relations

Abstract

This article engages with current debates on ‘lad cultures’ by questioning how we understand the term in the specific context of everyday sexism and within groups of men varying in age. Further to this, using a feminist and critical masculinity studies perspective, the article will explore how men do not necessarily comprehend their behaviour within the framework of lad culture or within the continuum of sexual violence. Through discussion of ethnographic and interview data collected over a year at a site historically associated with lad cultures, that of a Rugby Union club in Northern England, an alternative way of conceptualising masculinity and everyday sexism, ‘mischievous masculinities’, is proposed. Men in the research practiced what I term mischievous masculinities, whereby they implemented ‘banter’ to aid in both the construction and de-construction of sexist ideas within the rugby space. Performing mischievous masculinity enabled men of all ages to both engage in and simultaneously challenge everyday sexism in ways they understood to be ‘innocent’. However, the continual framing of banter as ‘just a laugh’ demonstrated that this form of sexism can be construed as problematic, due, in part, to its subtlety, in relation to more overt and violent sexist practices. A key difference between the men in my research and previous theorising of ‘lad culture’ is the recurring theme amongst older participants that ‘I should know better’, demonstrating consciousness of the sexist and problematic connotations which could be drawn from this interaction. This notion of mischievous masculinities then, in the context of a life course perspective, can be seen to challenge more established notions of an unreflexive lad culture, thus affording a more nuanced understanding of everyday sexism amongst more diverse groups of men than currently exists, as well as allowing for men’s agency in a specific site.     

Administrative reform assistance and democracy promotion: exploring the democratic substance of the EU’s public administration reform principles for the neighbourhood countries

International donors, particularly the European Union (EU), vehemently endorse institution-building and public administration reform (PAR) in their work on democracy support. Still, the linkages between externally sponsored reform and advancement of democratic governance in beneficiary countries constitute a blind spot in our understanding of democratization. This article contributes to examining this relationship by exploring the democratic substance of the EU’s PAR portfolio for the neighbourhood countries. The aim of the article is to focus attention on the PA–democracy interface in the study of democracy promotion by elaborating a conceptual framework for exploring the nature of externally supported administrative reforms and the substantive content of democracy being advanced. By using the OECD/SIGMA’s (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development/Support for Improvement in Governance and Management) PAR framework for the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries as a case study, this article demonstrates how the EU’s approach to programming PAR accommodates elements from several formats of democratic governance while the conceptualization of the democratic effects of the PAR principles remains vague. The article concludes by highlighting the need for closer examination of the potentials and limits of external PAR strategies in democracy support, and for attuning the EU’s PAR design to its democratic implications.     

Experimentalism in transnational forest governance: Implementing European Union Forest Law Enforcement,Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreements in Indonesia and Ghana

Over the past decade, the European Union (EU) has created a novel experimentalist architecture for transnational forest governance: the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. This innovative architecture comprises extensive participation by civil society stakeholders in establishing and revising open‐ended framework goals (Voluntary Partnership Agreements [VPAs] with developing countries aimed at promoting sustainable forest governance and preventing illegal logging) and metrics for assessing progress toward them (legality standards and indicators) through monitoring and review of local implementation, underpinned by a penalty default mechanism to sanction non‐cooperation (the EU Timber Regulation that prohibits operators from placing illegally harvested wood on the European market). This paper analyzes the implementation of VPAs in Indonesia and Ghana, the two countries furthest advanced toward issuing FLEGT export licences. A central finding is the reciprocal relationship between the experimentalist architecture of the FLEGT initiative and transnational civil society activism, whereby the VPAs’ insistence on stakeholder participation, independent monitoring, and joint implementation review, underwritten by the EU, empowers domestic non‐governmental organizations with local knowledge to expose problems on the ground, hold public authorities accountable for addressing them, and contribute to developing provisional solutions.