Leaders, voters and activists in the elections in Great Britain 2005 and 2010

Discussion of the relationship between parties and the electorate is often based on the notion of partisan constituencies, that parties adopt policy positions that correspond to the average position of the party supporters. In contrast, the Downsian “spatial model” assumes that parties are purely opportunistic and maneuver to gain as many votes as possible. A third, more empirical model, based on the early work of Stokes, assumes that voter choice is based on the evaluation of each of the party leader’s competence or ability to deliver policy success. Such an evaluation can be provided by individual voter overall assessment in terms of the leaders’ character traits.This paper attempts to relate these three classes of models by examining the elections in Great Britain in 2005 and 2010. Using the British Election Study, we construct spatial models of these elections in Great Britain as well as in the three regions of England, Scotland and Wales. The models incorporate the electoral perceptions of character traits. We compare the equilibrium vote maximizing positions with the partisan positions, estimated by taking the mean of each of the parties voters’ preferred positions. We define an equilibrium to be a stable attractor if the vote share at the equilibrium exceeds the share at the partisan position by a significant proportion (determined by the implicit error of the stochastic model). We infer that none of the equilibria are stable attractors, and suggest that the partisan positions are also preferred by the party activists, the key supporters of each party.     

中国式离婚现象透视

我国婚姻法规定的＂离婚自由原则＂,反映了当代世界离婚立法的发展趋势,体现了我国立法的日趋完善和人性化,但同时也带来离婚率上升等一系列社会问题。面对目前离婚的特点,我国应健全婚姻立法和执法体系,以适当控制离婚,达到促进社会和谐发展的目标。     

我党民族区域自治的伟大实践和历史经验

我党历来高度重视民族问题和民族工作,正确运用马克思主义民族理论与中国的民族实际相结合,确立我国国家政权建设实行民族区域自治的政治制度;推进民族区域自治法律化的进程;落实民族区域自治法和党的一系列民族政策;不断丰富和发展了马克思主义民族理论。     

高职高专实用英语口语教学研究

培养学生的英语应用能力是教育部高教司对高职高专教育英语教学的战略定位。本文分析了高职高专学生英语口语能力现状与《基本要求》教学目的之间存在的差距及产生这一差距的原因,并提出应从教、学、考三个方面来提高高职高专学生的英语口语能力。     

我国村民自治积极探索中的困境及成果

村民自治在推行过程中丰硕的成果,诸如“海选”、“村名公决”、“预选”、“两票制”等制度创新,新的法律的推行包括“大学生村官”等政策扶持,使得村民自治的推行前景广阔。但是,农村强大的“宗族势力”对村民自治的挑战、以及如何处理与村党委和乡镇政府的关系等都是村民自治面临的难题。     

我院新生英语现状分析与教学对策

笔者以2009级新生两个专业、83名学生作为教学对象,通过问卷调查等形式,对学生的英语基础知识水平等情况作了充分的了解,制订出教学对策,并在教学实践中着重培养学生自主学习能力,收到初步成效。     

浙江畲族宗法制度初探

浙江畲族宗法制度独具特色,表现为畲族妇女在宗族、家庭中的地位较高,畲族家法族规以训诫为主、惩罚为辅,畲族婚姻礼仪中保留了古代婚俗的特点。它既存在着维持畲族的生存和繁衍,维护畲族团结、增强民族凝聚力,促进畲族经济发展,有利于畲族村民自治的积极作用,同时也存在着一些消极的作用。     

伪满洲国“地方自治”的虚伪性——以特别市与市制为中心的考察

为了标榜殖民统治的正当性,日本侵略者刻意鼓吹在伪满洲国实行所谓的"地方自治"。在实行的特别市和市制中,设置了"自治委员会"和"咨议会"等议决和咨询机关,为其蒙上了一层"进步"的色彩。然而当我们深入对其进行考察后发现,伪满洲国所设计的"地方自治"充满了虚伪性,它无法掩盖日本侵略者对伪满洲国统治的侵略本质。     

Armed,but too dangerous? Factors associated with citizen support for the militarization of the police

Images of police officers riding in armored vehicles and carrying military-grade weapons have become part of the public consciousness following the events in Ferguson, Missouri and several other high-profile police–citizen encounters. Although a great deal of research has investigated how and why US citizens perceive the police in various ways, almost no empirical work has asked how citizens perceive the militarization of the police. The current study analyzes data from a survey of 1005 US citizens to identify characteristics that are related to support for the use of military weapons and vehicles by local police departments. The results indicate that several demographic factors and perceptions of crime and the police are significantly related with citizen support for the militarization of the police. The implications of this research are discussed.     

TESTING THE TRANSITIVITY OF REPORTED RISK PERCEPTIONS: EVIDENCE OF COHERENT ARBITRARINESS

An often implicit assumption of perceptual deterrence tests is that the elicited values pertaining to arrest risk reflect stable underlying beliefs. But researchers in other disciplines have found that reported expectations are highly susceptible to exogenous factors (e.g., anchors and question ordering), indicating that such values are somewhat arbitrary responses to probabilistic questions. At the same time, reported expectations are coherent within persons, such that respondents rank order them rationally. For deterrence, then, absolute values reported on arrest risks are likely not stable but individuals still rank order specific crimes in meaningful ways. We examine the interpretability of reported arrest risk for three possibilities: 1) Reported risks are stable probabilistic values; 2) reported risks are arbitrary and uninformative for deterrence research; or 3) reported risks display “coherent arbitrariness” with unstable values between individuals but stable rank ordering of crimes within individuals. Through the use of three random experiments of college students, our results indicate that elicited risk perceptions are arbitrary in that they are influenced by the presentation of anchors and question ordering. Nevertheless, the rank ordering of crimes within and across conditions is unaffected by the presentation of anchors, suggesting that reported risks are locally coherent within persons.