Post‐conventional Political Cultures via Processes of Direct Democracy: Theoretical Considerations Based on Jürgen Habermas and Lawrence Kohlberg

In this article, it is proposed to differentiate political cultures in two dimensions. First, inspired by Habermas' distinction of the contents of discourse, a distinction is suggested between moral, ethical‐political and pragmatic elements of political culture as well as of an element of culture of balancing interests. Second, inspired by Kohlberg's stage models for the development of the individual moral consciousness and for moral culture, a distinction is similarly suggested between two pre‐conventional, two conventional and two post‐conventional collective stages of political culture. It can be shown that from a normative point of view, only deliberations made in a post‐conventional political culture can produce reasonable or at least fair results. Conceptual considerations indicate processes of direct democracy as the method for promoting post‐conventional political cultures. The more liberty that the citizens have to formulate and trigger processes of direct democracy, the more one can expect from them to generate post‐conventional political cultures.     

扩大政治参与与政治和谐

政治参与是社会主义政治文明建设的重要内容,政治和谐是政治文明建设所要达到的理想目标,在一般情况下,扩大公民政治参与有助于政治和谐,但是二者的关系是复杂的。必须正确地处理二者的关系,才能形成扣谐的政治局面,为构建社会主义和谐社会打下坚实的政治基础。     

印尼山口洋的客家人——海外客家人的社会变迁之一

印尼是海外华人最多的一个国家。在印尼的华人中,客家人约占了30-40%,因此,也可以说印尼是海外客家人最多的一个国家。印尼的客家人,尤其是聚居在印尼外岛地区的客家人,虽然在海外已经生活了几代人甚至十几代人,但仍然保留了比较浓重的客家人特征,或者叫客家特性。本文主要探讨居住在山口洋市的客家人的社会变迁和文化适应,探究他们的生活方式,研究这里的客家人与其他华人的差别。     

动员与整合:群众路线实践的政治过程

群众路线是共产党的根本工作路线和组织路线的统一,是被经验证明正确的党的认识路线。中国共产党与人民群众的互动过程即群众路线的实践过程,这一过程主要包括政治动员和政治整合两个层面。政治动员是群众路线实践的政治基础,政治整合是群众路实践的政治目标,有效的政治动员和政治整合过程共同推动群众路线的丰富和实践。为推动群众路线实践的丰富发展,关键在于群众路线中的政治动员和政治整合在党的执政水平、群众的政治参与、机制实践的路径拓宽和道德规范及意识形态的构建这些方面应得到进一步完善和发展。     

Legitimacy and institutional purpose

ABSTRACT

Institutions undertake a huge variety of constitutive purposes. One of the roles of legitimacy is to protect and promote an institution’s pursuit of its purpose; state legitimacy is generally understood as the right to rule, for example. When considering legitimacy beyond the state, we have to take account of how differences in purposes change legitimacy. I focus in particular on how differences in purpose matter for the stringency of the standards that an institution must meet in order to be legitimate. An important characteristic of an institution’s purpose is its deontic status, i.e. whether it is morally impermissible, merely permissible, or mandatory. Although this matters, it does so in some non-obvious ways; the mere fact of a morally impermissible purpose is not necessarily delegitimating, for example. I also consider the problem of conflicting, multiple, and contested institutional purposes, and the different theoretical roles for institutional purpose. Understanding how differences in purpose matter for an institution’s legitimacy is one part of the broader project of theorizing institutional legitimacy in the many contexts beyond the traditional context of the state.     

A political economy for social movements and revolution: popular media access,power and cultural hegemony

Abstract

One key marker of mass social movements transitioning to participatory democratic governance is popular media access. This essay argues that democratic media access by public constituencies becomes a site for constructing social revolution and simultaneously a manifest empirical measure of the extent of democratic participation in the production, distribution, and use of communication with new cultural possibilities. The participatory production practices (with citizens producing and hosting their own programs) and the democratic content (of oral histories, local issues, critiques of government and business, and everyday vernacular) reflect the hegemony of emerging ‘Bolivarian’ twenty-first century socialism expressed as popular participation in media production. Bolstered by constitutional changes and public funding, popular social movements of civil society, indigenous, women, and working class organizations have gained revolutionary ground by securing in practice the right of media production. Findings indicate that public and community media (that move beyond alternative sites of local expression and concerns) provide a startling revolutionary contrast to the commercial media operations in every nation. Popular media constructions suggest a new radically democratic cultural hegemony based on human solidarity with collective, participatory decision-making and cooperation offering real possibilities and experiences for increased equality and social justice.     

Party brand hate in political market: antecedents and consequences

ABSTRACT

Brand hate is defined as a severe dislike for a product or service by the consumer. Although brand hate has been recognized as a critical element, in the political market, there is a lack of understanding of the impact of brand hate on voters. This study is an attempt to examine the antecedents and consequences of brand hate in the political market. The study reveals that unmet expectations, symbolic incongruity, and ideological incompatibility of electorates have a significant positive impact on brand hate intensity. The result shows that political product involvement significantly mediates the relationship between unmet expectations, symbolic incongruity, and ideological incompatibility and brand hate intensity. The study further reveals that as an outcome of political brand hate, electorates put emphasis on either brand avoidance and/or brand extremism. The outcome of this study may help political parties gain knowledge about the impact of political brand hate.     

美国等西方国家对华“分化”策略的新变化及对策思考

基于政治制度和意识形态的冲突、地缘政治的竞争和战略的不信任,以美国为首的西方国家对华实施"西化""分化"的战略图谋一刻也没有松懈。近年来,中国的快速发展迫使美国调整了对华实施"分化"战略的策略;同时,由于中国正处于社会转型、改革深化的关键时期,社会矛盾的增多、社会冲突的加剧为美西方的"分化"活动提供了诸多契机和借口。面对美国等西方国家的"分化"活动出现的新形式与新特点,为了维护国家的政治安全,中国不仅要在策略方面进行应对,还需要在战略层面提出适应国家整体发展的"顶层设计",更为重要的是在"软实力"上构建一套让全世界都信服且能与西方相抗衡的价值体系。     

Evaluating the cross-national comparability of survey measures of political interest using anchoring vignettes

Making cross-groups comparisons by using survey instruments has raised substantial scholarly concerns due to the potential risk of incomparability resulting from differential item functioning (DIF). However, not every survey item necessarily suffers from DIF. In this paper, we argue that, unlike many other survey items (e.g., political efficacy), the usual question used to measure political interest is likely to be largely immune to DIF. Our theoretical argument centers on the relative specificity of the item and a corresponding cultural homogeneity (at least in advanced democracies) in what it means to be politically interested or not. Utilizing the anchoring vignettes technique (King et al., 2004; King and Wand, 2007) in our original surveys in the UK, France, and the Netherlands, we demonstrate the size of DIF is small for the standard political interest question.