世博会期间大学思想政治工作的机遇和挑战

百年世博会为大学生思想政治工作带来了新的机遇。原因在于世博精神与大学精神具有内在的一致性。同时,世博会也是对大学生进行思想政治工作教育的生动课堂。世博期间广大大学生志愿者和志愿者背后的志愿者通过参与世博、服务世博、奉献世博,使他们的爱国热情得到升华,服务社会的意愿得到践行。     

Shooting the fox? UKIP’s populism in the post-Brexit era

Abstract

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has moved from being a single-issue party par excellence to a broader party of protest, taking advantage of wider feelings of discontent and disconnection. However, the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the EU fundamentally challenged its development and operation, by removing a core part of the party’s rationale and identity, and radically shifting the overall political landscape. This paper considers the re-positioning through the referendum period, both rhetorically and organisationally. Drawing on party press releases and media coverage, the paper argues that UKIP has become caught in a set of multiple transformations, pushing it in the longer term towards a more conventionally populist position in a way that carries important resonances for other Eurosceptic parties across the continent.     

Participatory innovations and maxi-publics: The influence of participation possibilities on perceived legitimacy at the local level in Finland

Participatory innovations (PIs) have been introduced as one possible cure to democratic malaises. Empirical research on these mechanisms for citizen participation has, however, focused on their effects on individuals and policy outcomes, leaving aside their consequences for the wider public. This article fills part of the gap by examining the effect of PIs on perceived legitimacy. The article acknowledges that citizens value not only outcomes but also the inclusiveness of decision-making processes, and defines procedural fairness and outcome satisfaction as the key evaluative criteria behind perceived legitimacy. Both total number and type of PIs are considered as possible factors shaping legitimacy evaluations. By analysing data from 9,022 citizens in 30 Finnish municipalities, the article reveals that introducing PIs is not a simple fix for legitimacy of local governments. The type of participation matters, with discursive participation generating the strongest effects on procedural fairness. However, attention should also be paid to citizens’ awareness of participation possibilities.     

新马克思主义空间批判范式及当代意义

20世纪60年代末兴起的新马克思主义城市学派，以资本主义生产方式分析为主要入口，探讨“空间的生产”在资本主义体系形成和发展中的重要意义。其贡献不仅在于从政治哲学视角揭露当代资本主义的空间政治经济矛盾，把社会关系再生产的故事完整地叙述出来，从而完成了对资本“空间生产”的价值批判；更在于其坚持了解放政治的宏大目标——通过揭示人类社会变迁的空间路径，寻求重新定位“乌托邦想象”的可能性。这种历史唯物主义的空间化努力使马克思主义在新的时代条件下焕发出新的活力，为我们寻求马克思主义政治哲学的“当代出场路径”提供了一种理论启示。     

Local participatory innovations and experts as political entrepreneurs: The case of China's democracy consultants

This study is concerned with understanding the dynamic behind participatory innovations in China. The case of China provides a contrast to the literature on participatory innovations in democracies. While participatory innovations in democratic countries are seen as a way to deepen and improve democracy, in China these innovations are to some extent developed in order to provide an alternative to electoral democracy. In this article I introduce the concept democracy consultant to describe expert political entrepreneurs involved in the development of participatory innovations. Research on local participatory innovation in China is abundant but the role that experts play in this process has previously not been analysed. Based on in-depth interviews with democracy consultants and local officials, the study finds that democracy consultants frequently act as bridges between central and local levels of government by providing expertise, information, legitimacy, and connections. This is especially true in localities where local leaders want to gain the attention of the central level but lack the required expertise and connections.     

Value is Simple. Valuation is Complex

Value can appear so complicated that it is not only a terribly intimidating topic, but actually fruitless to pursue. That is, the concept of value is either a dead end or best left to the experts. We disagree. At the most general level, having value can be understood as having the capacity to be measured and compared against another thing (or a standard). This is consistent with Marxian concepts (which are elaborated with special reference to the capitalist value form), but it is also simple and general enough to provide a transportable frame for discussing the role of value and measurement in any context imaginable, whether it be a discussion of spiritualism, collective action, economic data, or physical science. Marx directs our attention to the political constitution of systems of measure on the very first page of Capital, and there is now a great deal of work in geography and in science and technology studies on the social constitution of systems of valuation. We believe a crucial topic deserves an accessible approach that reveals unities rather than barriers, and thus supplement them with the moral and critical political-economic critique made possible by Marxian value theory.     

Militarizing civilians in Singapore: preparing for ‘Crisis’ within a calibrated nationalism1

The Singaporean polity has created the ‘militarized civilian’. This policy phenomenon beckons the question: How is this cross-fertilization carried out in Singapore's civil–military relations? Militarization is in the first sense meant to inculcate a calibrated dual personality within the civilian whereby being an effective soldier requires indulging in simulated military suffering as a badge of pride; at the same time, the citizen soldier has to believe that military and civilian values are perfectly interchangeable and contribute equally to the maintenance of peace. In a second sense, militarization is equally about permanently ritualizing sacrifices for a communitarian defence. We argue that while mostly successful, militarization also produces the tension arising from the need to appear pugnaciously vigilant while avoiding the casualties that must logically arise from heightened simulated combat. This tension is explained through two dimensions of ongoing crises: the parameters of a politically dramatized National Service ritual; and the constant propaganda of geopolitical dangers threatening the Republic.     

Protecting people's livelihoods,restarting nuclear reactors: ‘risk recalibration’ in Prime Minister Noda's 8 June 2012 national address

Given popular concerns about nuclear accidents in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese state shut down the last of its fifty-four reactors for inspections on 5 May 2012, the first time the country had been without nuclear energy since May 1970. However, on 8 June 2012, in a nationwide address, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko justified a resumption of nuclear power generation at the Oi nuclear plant in Oimachi, Fukui Prefecture. This article examines Noda's speech as an example of ‘risk recalibration’. The first section outlines the underlying theoretical assumptions, while the second section provides the context behind the speech. This involved the input of political, economic and social actors as they vied for policy influence. The third section then analyses the risk rationality used in the speech itself. The argument is that while the speech is an important example of risk rationality operating through discourse as a medium of power, the overall ‘recalibration’ runs contrary to what recent studies have shown in other areas. In short, it is held that the speech follows a more traditional paternalistic logic of centralized risk management rather than a neoliberal logic of ‘individual responsibility’.