从“支部建在连上”到“支部建在会上”——江西省信丰县加强农村新经济组织党建工作的有益探索

为了加强农村新经济组织中的党建工作，江西省信丰县将毛泽东在“三湾改编”时提出的“支部建在连上”的创举灵活运用到基层党组织建设中，摸索出了“支部建在会上”的做法，创造性地把党支部建在农业产业协会上，实现了党组织对农村各类专业合作经济体的全覆盖。这一成功实践，有力地推动了农村新经济组织党建工作的开展，并对推动全国其他地区农村发展和农村党建工作具有一定的启示和借鉴作用。     

当前劳教工作中影响"首要标准"落实的主要问题和对策研究

中央提出监狱劳教工作的“首要标准”，是依法治国的必然要求，为教育改造工作指明了方向。当前劳教工作贯彻“首要标准”应从创新管理模式、教育内容和手段、加强劳教人民警察队伍建设、加大财政保障、科学评估劳教人员改造效果等方面入手，解决“首要标准”落实过程中存在的问题。     

社会主义初级阶段促进共同富裕的理论思考——为纪念邓小平诞辰110周年而作

在马克思著作中,共同富裕是指在生产资料社会所有制基础上劳动者通过按劳分配实现的生活资料平等占有状态。邓小平共同富裕思想是马克思共同富裕思想在中国的创造性实践和政策性发展。共同富裕在共产主义社会第一阶段和高级阶段具有不同的特性,在社会主义初级阶段也有其特殊的规定性。社会主义初级阶段的共同富裕是在公有制为主体的所有制结构基础之上的橄榄型收入分配格局。实现社会主义初级阶段的共同富裕,必须从社会主义初级阶段的经济现实出发,在发展社会生产力的基础上进一步完善市场初次分配机制和政府再分配调节机制。     

对邓小平改革观的几点再认识

邓小平从社会主义初级阶段的实际出发，从中国人民的根本利益出发，从当今历史时代的特征出发，运用辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义的基本观点和方法，对中国改革的一系列重大的理论和实践问题，作了科学的创造性的回答和解决，形成了他的马克思主义改革观。本文主要是对邓小平改革观的总依据、邓小平对中国改革发展的最顶层设计、邓小平改革具体设计的社会发展辨证法几个问题的再认识。     

Support and Opposition for Invading Iraq: Did the President's Speech Make a Difference?

Utilizing data from the annual San Antonio Survey, this research addresses the issue of support and opposition to invading Iraq among respondents randomly selected from Bexar County, Texas. Data were collected prior to and after President Bush addressed the nation on October 7, 2002, seeking broad citizen support for his plan, allowing us to ascertain whether or not his speech impacted the attitudes of potential voters. Our results indicate that the President's speech, along with the extensive media coverage about it, was effective in gaining support for his proposal to invade Iraq. A multivariate logistic regression analysis also displayed that the speech still had a significant impact even after controlling for confidence in the president, political orientation, race, ethnicity, nativity, and socio-demographic context. The findings suggest support for earlier research indicating that the impact of presidential speeches could boost the approval of a policy, in particular, if the speech occurred during his first term of office, was considered a “major” speech, was devoted to one important topic, and its primary focus was on foreign policy. Under these conditions, such a speech portrays the president as a strong leader.     

A Counterterrorism Strategy for the Obama Administration

This article assesses the scope and nature of the current terrorist threat to the United States and suggests a strategy to counter it. Al-Qaeda continues to pose the most serious terrorist threat to the U.S. today. If the September 11, 2001 attacks have taught us anything, it is that al-Qaeda is most dangerous when it has a sanctuary or safe haven from which to plan and plot attacks. Al-Qaeda has acquired such a sanctuary in Pakistan's Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and its North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and surrounding environs. Accordingly, the highest priority for the new American presidential administration must be to refocus our—and our allies'—attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan, where al-Qaeda began to collapse after 2001, but has now re-grouped. This will entail understanding that al-Qaeda and its local militant jihadi allies cannot be defeated by military means alone. Success will require a dual strategy of systematically destroying and weakening enemy capabilities—that is, continuing to kill and capture al-Qaeda commanders and operatives—along with breaking the cycle of terrorist recruitment among radicalized “bunches of guys” as well as more effectively countering al-Qaeda's effective information operations. The U.S. thus requires a strategy that harnesses the overwhelming kinetic force of the American military as part of a comprehensive vision to transform other, non-kinetic instruments of national power in order to deal more effectively with irregular and unconventional threats. This article first discusses the scope and details of the terrorist threat today and then proposes a counterterrorism strategy for the new presidential administration. It focuses first on creating a micro approach to address the deteriorating situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It then considers the requirements of a broader macro strategy to counter terrorism and insurgency.     

Crises of confidence: Rhetorical constraints for incumbent party successors

Crises of confidence have plagued the American presidency since the introduction of television into the political sphere. Recognizing from previous research that unpopular incumbents use rhetoric in an effort to regain their credibility, this study looks at these rhetorical choices to see how they constrain or provide opportunities for the incumbent party's successors. Specifically, the study looks at the rhetoric surrounding instances where presidents have dropped 20 points in Gallup approval ratings within the last two years of their terms.

The study reveals that an unpopular incumbent's interest in regaining the public's faith is frequently at odds with his successor's interests. Incumbents need to remove themselves as the cause of the crisis, convince the public that they have the solution to the problem, and bide enough time to affect the situation. These choices tend to constrain the simplicity, flexibility, and timeliness of the successor's choices for rhetorically resolving the crises.     

A Review of: “Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers,by Pablo J. Boczkowski”

This study examines the way in which USA Today used tracking poll data in its strategy‐oriented coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign. Scrutiny of the methodological features of tracking polls suggests the news media's potential misuses of them. Studies on media polling lead to the general hypothesis that tracking polls serve the mass media as a device for generating news accounts that focus on candidate strategy. Using the ARIMA modeling technique, I conclude that as changes in the margin of difference between Bush and Clinton in the Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll increased, USA Today cited the poll results more frequently. The increase in the number of tracking poll references corresponded to an increase in the number of strategy‐oriented words in USA Today's campaign coverage. I discuss the implications within the context of the 1992 election campaign coverage.     

Presidential Leadership on Foreign Policy,Opinion Polling,and the Possible Limits of “Crafted Talk”

The strategy of “crafted talk” (or framing) suggests that a politician uses public opinion to anticipate the most alluring, language to convince the public to follow a politician's own preferred policy (Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000 Jacobs, L. R. and Shaprio, R. Y. 2000. Politicians don't pander: Political manipulation and the loss of democratic responsiveness, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  [Google Scholar]). This manipulatory behavior by presidents has important consequences in the realm of constructing foreign policy, especially if the policy involves military service personnel, international prestige, or foreign conflict. However, no scholar has investigated White House archival data to examine the theoretical nuances of presidential “crafting” talk when constructing arguments for foreign policy. This article examines three case studies using internal polling memoranda and focus group results concerning the Vietnam War under President Johnson, the signing of the INF Treaty with the Soviet Union under President Reagan, and the Gulf War under President Bush. In each of the three cases, public opinion places serious constraints on presidential framing of foreign policy. Implications for the effectiveness of political framing and the limits of presidential persuasion are discussed.     

The Agenda-Setting Impact of Major Presidential TV Addresses

New media dramatically increase citizens' access to information and decrease governments' ability to control the flow of communication. Although human rights nongovernmental organizations have advocated that access to independent news media will improve government respect for human rights, recent empirical studies have shown this is not always the case. We posit that media independence and the presence or absence of democratic characteristics, in particular political competition, have substantial effects on government repression because these factors determine the degree to which the government is vulnerable to public pressures. The model developed here includes three equations that encompass the impact of interaction between and among the news media, citizens, and government. The first equation specifies the influences on the news media's decision whether or not to perform a “watchdog” role regarding government repression. The second equation represents public reaction to the news media's coverage of government repression (i.e., protest). Here access to news media via traditional and new media is an important factor. The third equation represents government repression. Solutions to the system of equations are derived for four scenarios (a) Democracy and media independence are both present, (b) democracy is present but media independence is absent, (c) democracy is absent (autocracy) and media independence is present, and (d) democracy is absent (autocracy) and media independence is absent. We then consider interesting properties of the anticipated behavior from the government, media, and general public through case illustrations for the Netherlands and Myanmar/Burma.

[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resource: two additional case illustrations (Tanzania and Brazil).]