Community Safety and Social Policy

This article examines community safety policy. In many countries community safety has become a replacement discourse for situational crime prevention, although in some countries such as the UK, it too is threatened with replacement by the narrower concerns of crime reduction. Community safety represents the apparent merging of the concerns of criminal justice and social policy, specifically over questions of social inclusion and exclusion. Focusing in the main upon UK policy, but also drawing upon experience elsewhere, this article scrutinises the policy of community safety, arguing that while it offers an inclusionary vision of crime control, its practice may be something rather different. More specifically, and in common with the trajectory of much advanced liberal social policy, in practice community safety may have an exclusionary effect. Thus, while community safety may represent the convergence of social and criminal justice policies, it does so on neoliberal rather than welfare liberal terms. It also means that community safety has a closer connection to policies of punitive sovereignty – particularly sentencing policies of mass incarceration – than might often be assumed.     

“亚细亚生产方式”概念历史演变的考察之一

马克思、恩格斯作中的“亚细亚生产方式”概念是一个历史性概念,在他们的社会形态理论形成的四个不同的时期,即1853年以前的时期、19世纪50年代中后期、以《资本论》为代表的时期、摩尔根《古代社会》一书发表以后的时期,涵义并不完全相同。本对1853年以前的时期马克思、恩格斯的“亚细亚生产方式”概念作了考察,认为马克思、恩格斯在当时把“亚细亚生产方式”实际上是看作一种与欧洲社会完全不同的、独立的地域性的社会形态。     

Community Influence on Adolescent Obesity: Race/Ethnic Differences

Using a sample of 20,000 adolescents (Add Health data), this study examined the influences of community poverty and race/ethnicity on adolescent obesity. Multilevel analyses revealed strong evidence for the unique influences of community poverty and race/ethnicity on adolescent obesity net of family characteristics. The prevalence of obesity is significantly higher in poor communities than in affluent communities; and it is higher among African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans than among Whites. The interaction between race/ethnicity and community poverty indicates that race/ethnicity moderates the influence of community poverty on the prevalence of obesity. Although the prevalence of obesity is higher among minorities than among Whites, the influence of community poverty is stronger for Whites than for minorities, suggesting that unlike Whites, most minority groups may not accrue benefits of structural community advantages. The state of being overweight as the outcome variable provided essentially the same findings. The practical implications are discussed.     

电视频道的专业化与节目的本土化

电视观众分众化的趋势,要求电视节目必须对象化,于是,频道专业化应运而生。而节目内容的本土化,是电视媒体发展到一定阶段,最大限度满足观众需求,在市场竞争中赢得主动的必然产物。这两方面的变革,给处在夹缝中的地方电视台提供了难得的发展机遇。各地方电视台要以频道专业化为契机,更新节目生产、编播观念,改变原来综合频道千台一面的模式,对节目进行本土化运营。     

Between governance-driven democratisation and democracy-driven governance: Explaining changes in participatory governance in the case of Barcelona

Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top-down “closed” spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice-versa, the mechanisms through which bottom-up, open spaces can be co-opted through institutionalisation. This paper seeks to unpick dynamic interactions between different spaces of participation by looking specifically at two forms of participatory governance, or participatory forms of political decision making used to improve the quality of democracy. First, Mark Warren's concept of ‘governance-driven democratization’ describes top-down and technocratic participatory governance aiming to produce better policies in response to bureaucratic rationales. Second, we introduce a new concept, democracy-driven governance, to refer to efforts by social movements to invent new, and reclaim and transform existing, spaces of participatory governance and shape them to respond to citizens’ demands. The paper defines these concepts and argues that they co-exist and interact in dynamic fashion; it draws on an analysis of case study literature on participatory governance in Barcelona to illuminate this relationship. Finally, the paper relates the theoretical framework to the case study by making propositions as to the structural and agential drivers of shifts in participatory governance.     

社区股份公司的发展困境:逆向嵌入与信任消解——基于深圳市L区的实证研究

社区股份公司是城市集体经济的重要组成部分,对于城市的经济发展与空间拓展具有重要意义。面对现阶段我国多样的市场机会,社区股份公司却长期固守低端物业和租赁经济,经济发展模式单一,发展处于停滞状态。基于深圳市L区31家社区股份公司的实证研究,发现股民通过“出身”股权和宗族网络逆向嵌入社区股份公司,严重束缚了社区股份公司管理层的自主性。由于社区股份公司与地方政府缺乏有效的正式沟通渠道,以及过往合作质量较低等因素,极大地消解了双方的信任,社区股份公司不能很好地回应地方政府的扶持政策。未来需要从做实集体股份、完善公司治理、调整股权结构、重建信任机制以及提高政府服务质量等方面入手,破解社区股份公司的发展困境。     

Interviewing retired cigarette smugglers

Based on my experience of conducting an ethnographic study with the Kurdish community in a town in the North East of England I offer a reflection on interviewing three retired cigarette smugglers, who operated in Greece in 2002 and 2003. A reflection on my experiences in this research process is provided with a reference to the absolute and relative value of the (data from the) interviews conducted.

Going Local. Voting for independent local Parties in the Netherlands 1986-2010

ABSTRACT

This paper examines why the support of independent local parties has grown substantially in the Netherlands. These are parties that run in municipal council elections, but do not run in elections at higher levels, specifically the national level. Such parties saw their support double in the Netherlands between 1986 and 2010. Parties of this type have also grown in other Western European states. This paper examines two possible explanations: declining political trust on the level of voters and, on the supply side, the rise of parties that are not rooted at the local level. The evidence shows that the rise of independent local parties reflects the rise of national political parties that do not run in many municipal elections. This article examines the case of the Netherlands, pooling five surveys from the 1986–2010 period.     

Economic resilience after the Great Recession: an examination of unreserved fund balance in Michigan counties

ABSTRACT

This paper examines fiscal slack, in the form of unreserved fund balance, as a tool used by local governments to enhance economic resilience. It adapts ecological, engineering, and organisational definitions of economic resilience and investigate their relevance to local financial management in the United States after the Great Recession in 2008. Using group-based trajectory modelling, we identify different strategies of fund balances used by Michigan counties. The change of fund balance does not delineate any pattern theorised by the resilience concepts. We also find different factors that motivate local officials to manage their fund balances differently. The study suggests a nuanced understanding of fiscal slack used by local governments for economic resilience that goes beyond unreserved fund balance.     

行政“圈层”社会：新兴社会组织的三种类型及其比较

转型期情境下，由于成立背景、角色功能、结构规模、职业形态、运作机制、资源依附度等的不同，在基层社会治理领域产生了三种新兴社会组织类型：枢纽型社会组织、专业性社会组织和社区社会组织。这三类社会组织分布于“行政性”和“社会性”的两端，呈现出一种渐进赋权、双向汲取、互惠共生、此消彼长的连续统，形成了一种介于行政“吸纳”和“借道”之间的，类似于“圈层”而又边界模糊的开放性政社关系图谱。这一关系图谱的实质在于，国家借助更为弹性、迂回、柔和的社会控制手段，构筑了一个行政与社会之间需求满足和利益表达的“缓冲带”与“减压阀”。