建立民主党派的核心价值观——民主党派树立和践行社会主义核心价值体系的切入点

民主党派建立社会主义核心价值观,是增进思想认同、强化角色定位、弘扬优良传统的必然选择。民主党派社会主义核心价值观的内涵是由我国国家政治体制的特点、民主党派的性质定位以及时代发展的要求共同决定的,主要体现在参政为民、协商为本、合作共赢、发展进步四个方面。民主党派树立和践行社会主义核心价值观,必须处理好自成体系与换位思考、应然与实然、局部与整体、共性与个性四对关系。     

Party competition over decentralisation: The influence of ideology and electoral incentives on issue emphasis

Under what conditions is decentralisation a salient issue for state‐wide political parties? It is argued in this article that the extent to which state‐wide parties emphasise decentralisation depends on their strategic considerations: on their overall ideology, on the electoral incentives created by the context in which they compete, and on the interaction between the two. The results of the analysis of party manifestos in 31 countries since 1945 are as follows. First, parties that pay greater attention to cultural matters relative to economic matters tend to talk more about decentralisation. Second, the systemic salience of decentralisation also encourages parties to talk more about decentralisation. Third, the larger the regionally based ethnic groups within a country, the more salience all state‐wide political parties will attach to decentralisation. Finally, only parties that put greater relative emphasis on cultural matters tend to respond to the electoral threat of regionalist parties. The influence of territorial diversity on the salience of decentralisation thus works through two channels and is partly conditioned by political parties’ ideological profile.     

Does moral rhetoric fuel or reduce divides between parties and non-copartisan voters?

Political parties at times use moral appeals to voters outside of their support base, i.e., non-copartisan voters. Yet, morality is typically considered a divisive force in politics. Does moral rhetoric actually alleviate or exacerbate divides between parties and non-copartisan voters? The paper addresses this question by focusing on non-copartisans’ attitudes towards the party. Insights from previous work on moral persuasion and attitudinal bias suggest a conflicting picture. On the one hand, moral rhetoric is likely to make morally aligned non-copartisans more favourable towards the party. On the other hand, moral rhetoric is unlikely to make even the morally aligned favourable towards the party. In fact, moral rhetoric may further push away non-copartisans with pre-existing hostility. Using original, representative survey experiments from Britain, the paper finds that moral rhetoric can increase favourable attitudes and that it does not further promote hostility. Morality in party competition does not necessarily fuel division.     

The local party voter: A localist anti-establishment voter?

In several countries, local parties have increased their share of votes in local elections. This development has received limited scholarly attention compared to the immense interest paid to the fates of national level anti-establishment parties. Against this backdrop, we ask if something distinct characterizes those who choose to vote for genuinely local alternatives compared to other anti-establishment voters. Sweden is taken as the case in focus, a country where local parties have grown in numbers and strength throughout the past three decades. We view local parties as a part of a broader ‘anti-establishment’ family, and we explore if their voters a) are similar to those who vote for the most pronounced anti-establishment party in Sweden (Sweden Democrats), or b) if local party voters are a distinct anti-establishment category in their own right. Drawing on a survey data from 49 Swedish municipalities, we find that local party voters indeed distinguish themselves from both Sweden Democrat's voters and voters for the old and established parties, thus making them a distinct anti-establishment voter category of their own. These voters distrust their local politicians but at the same time are civically engaged.     

‘Friend or Foe?’: Brexit and French Bashing in the Conservative Parliamentary Party (2016–2022)

This article explores the extent of anti-French rhetoric in Conservative parliamentary discourse since 2016. It argues that up to the end of Liz Truss's extremely brief period of power, a fair number of Conservative MPs embarked on an escalation of tabloid-like anti-French bashing after the election of Boris Johnson, in an attempt to mimic the dramaturgy staged by their leader, while those who tried to provide a more positive discourse were left crying in the wilderness. Moreover, positive attempts to renew the relationship essentially came from MPs who had specific interests to defend, either in terms of representation of French residents in their constituencies or out of loyalty to family connections. Post-Johnson, a more realistic and sensible discourse is anticipated, but damaging traces of this populist drift are likely to continue.     

Congressional Arts Caucus Legislative Summary 99th Congress

Abstract

The following legislative summary is an unusual choice for the journal to print, but we feel it summarizes a number of disparate and important facts that our readers might value in a single source. Like a previous report of the Institute of Museum Services some issues ago, this summary is more an internal document than an article in the traditional sense. We feel it could use a broader dissemination.

Of particular interest are the changes in legislation for the Arts and Humanities Reauthorization FY 1986–1990 since they reflect policy-related decisions that are perhaps a microcosm of some of the major issues emerging during the twenty-year history of our National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. These changes also reflect problems that practitioners—in particular, arts managers—will be dealing with on a daily basis and in very specific terms over the next half decade. These include access to the arts and humanities for those people in rural areas and in underrepresented groups, greater restrictions for those who sit in judgment on their peers, either on the National Council or as panelists, and a mandate for stronger reporting procedures both before and after grant awards.

The summary of the 1986 Tax Reform Act Provides a quick review of a Subject that is already emotionally chrged, especially since, in the name of “tax simplification,” confusion seems to have increased in the minds of all but a few seers and interpreters. The public laws section and the list of pending legislation will give the reader a broad view of the kinds of advocacy concerns the arts community can rally around. From the National Anthem to copyright to issue of violence on television, the Congressional Arts Caucus has provided us with an important overview of legislation in the field.     

Setting the Post War Australian Policy Agenda – Causes and Content

What are the origins of policy agendas and what determines agenda setting? The one robust theory in the literature associates different agendas with different moments in the evolution of the broader party system namely mass, catch‐all and most recently cartel patterns. This article explores Australian evidence for this thesis. It also argues the cartel moment has recently mutated. Agenda setting is now circumscribed by a mismatch between the needs of policy making and the political incentive structure. The media have become primary tissue connecting political elites to their publics. But this traps the system in short term, primarily populist stances. Systemic capacities to mediate agenda setting have thus been corrupted.     

Parties,Recruitment and Modernisation: Evidence from Local Election Candidates

Using pooled data from four separate nationwide surveys of local election candidates conducted from 2006–09 the paper assesses the role and importance of parties in the recruitment and selection of candidates. In many respects candidates are similar to councillors with men outnumbering women in a two to one ratio, with very few non-white candidates coming forward for selection and an age bias towards older rather than younger people. Candidates are found generally to have higher educational qualifications and to be employed in professional and managerial populations than in the public at large. Although a majority of candidates are resident in the ward that they contest a large fraction live elsewhere, suggesting that local parties cast the net widely during the recruitment process. The data suggest that the recruitment networks used by parties are relatively closed with many candidates reporting prior experience as local party officer holders or as members of charitable organisations and local public bodies. For two-thirds of candidates the initial decision to stand follows from a request by someone else, often a fellow party member. Women are more likely to be asked than men. Although candidates are aware of the current under-representation of some social and ethnic groups they are generally against using affirmative action measures to redress any imbalance. Although local parties are sometimes seen as contributing towards the problem of under-representation of some groups on council benches the data suggest than an increase in independent candidates would be unlikely to improve the situation and could perhaps cause it to deteriorate still further.