Young Voters at the 2005 British General Election

Pronounced declines in the number of young (non‐) voters casting their ballots in 1997 and 2001 has raised the question: are we witnessing a generational disengagement with electoral politics? It is generally understood that voter turnout is strongly related to closeness of electoral competition. This research report examines the results of the 2005 election in the context of the debate on declining youth turnout at general elections. Did a closer competition in 2005 encourage young voters back to the polls?     

Managing the Hazard of Marine Oil Pollution in Alaska

This study examines the development of safeguards against marine oil pollution in Alaska since the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, in which oil spilled from the tanker Exxon Valdez polluted more than 2,000 kilometers of Alaskan coastline. Since 1989, a series of enduring institutional reforms have contributed to major enhancements in the safeguards against the continuing hazard of marine oil pollution in Alaska. This study is the first to comprehensively examine these new institutions and safeguards in two regions of Alaska with marine oil transportation systems. The major oil production streams of Alaska are transported through these two regions. In comparing the development of oil pollution safeguards in these two regions, this study finds a pattern of enduring yet unequal policy reforms.     

Experimentation,Behaviour Change and Public Policy

Citizens will need to change their behaviour in pro‐social ways if governments are to address current challenges in public policy. But how best to promote behaviour change? The argument in this article is that a decentralised rather than a top‐down approach is particularly suitable, which can encourage innovation in the public sector and involve citizens in the implementation of policies. As a method of evaluating interventions, randomised controlled trials have a unique role to play in improving the design of policies, particularly if carried out responsively and adaptively. A culture of experimentation would value curiosity, feedback and the continual testing of interventions. The article includes three examples of experimentation: young people's political attitudes, voter turnout and donations for charity. As the popularity of ‘nudge’ interventions grows—shown by the success of the UK government's Behavioural Insights Team—the practice of experimentation in the public sector could become the norm.     

Beyond (and Within) City Limits: Climate Policy in an Intergovernmental System

This analysis explores the role of city‐level and state‐level variables to explain why some cities make more progress on climate‐related policy implementation than others. Using multilevel modeling, we find little support for the influence of state factors on local government leadership among the 812 cities in the dataset, but local government institutional and community variables are strongly associated with climate policy initiatives. We argue for a rethinking of the notion of the limited and constrained city and suggest that, in the realm of climate protection and environmental policy, cities are leading a bottom‐up federalism. Moreover, where some political analysts and scholars have argued that climate protection and environmental policies may not be economically rational for cities to pursue, we theorize that cities are acting locally to further their self‐interest in an increasingly global economy.     

Apartisans and the changing German electorate

The concept of party identification is central to our understanding of electoral behavior. This paper builds upon the functional logic of party identification and asks what occurs when more Germans manage the complexities of politics without needing to rely on habitual party cues—what we label as Apartisans. We track the distribution of party mobilization and cognitive mobilization within the German electorate from 1976 until 2009. Then, we demonstrate the importance of these mobilization patterns by documenting strong differences in electoral commitment, the content of political thinking, and electoral change. The results suggest a secular transformation in the characteristics of the public has led to a more differentiated and dealigned German electorate.     

The Changing Faces of Contemporary Tourism

Tourism, a domain of considerable importance in the contemporary world, has long been overlooked by social scientists, but has recently become a field attracting a growing body of research. In sociology, the relation between tourism and modernity at first constituted the issue of principal interest, the discourse focusing on the extent to which modern Western tourists seek authentic experiences on their trip. The article discusses the changes in the terms of the discourse, contingent upon the growing similarity of the world in the wake of globalization, the emergence of the “post-tourist,” and the diversification in the composition of tourists, with the growth in the number of travelers from non-Western countries. The question of the limits of the future expansion of the tourist system is raised in conclusion.

浅析社会变革中的文化因素

改革开放以来中国社会进入变革时期。这种变革是社会整体的变迁,包括政治结构、经济结构和文化的变迁。笔者认为从某种意义上讲,文化是社会变革能否成功的根本问题。在社会变革中,许多最复杂、最艰难的问题都反映在文化上,文化所受到的冲击非常大,其剧烈程度远远超过社会的其他领域。因此,本文试图通过分析文化对政治、经济领域改革的重要影响,强调文化在社会变革中的重要作用。     

我国乡镇服务型政府对行政生态环境变化的回应——基于城镇化进程的视角

随着我国城镇化进程的推进,乡镇政府所处的行政生态环境发生了深刻的变化,突出体现在乡镇经济、政治、文化和社会环境的变化。其变化对乡镇服务型政府作用的方向、方式、范围和程度提出了挑战。乡镇服务型政府对此积极作出回应,以保持乡镇行政生态的动态平衡。