Putting security governance to the test: conceptual,empirical, and normative challenges

Security governance has featured prominently in recent debates about fragmentation, informalization, and privatization in the increasingly diverse field of security policy. It has inspired much valuable research. Yet, there are not just very different conceptual understandings of security governance; there is also a lack of clarity regarding its empirical manifestations and normative connotations. After a decade of research, the special issue therefore puts security governance to the test and scrutinizes its analytical and political pitfalls and potentials. This editorial briefly reviews the rise of security governance, identifies central conceptual, empirical, and normative challenges that need to be addressed, and introduces the individual contributions to this special issue.     

论我国企业重组税收法律制度的改革与完善——韩国的法律实践及其借鉴

低税率和少管制是吸引国际投资者的重要因素。经过两次金融危机,韩国政府对企业重组税制进行了重大修改,降低了税率,减少了管制,从而提升了韩国企业的国际竞争力。我国企业重组税制存在缺陷,为应对金融危机、提高企业竞争力、引进外资等,我国应放宽跨国性企业重组、完善企业重组中的反避税政策、整合相关法律规定,简化和优化税制等。     

Marginalisation or legitimation? Mainstream party positioning on immigration and support for radical right parties

Abstract

Does mainstream party positioning contribute to marginalising or legitimising niche party positions? This article argues that voter perceptions of the legitimacy and credibility of niche party positions play a role in individuals’ propensity to vote for niche parties. It finds that the adoption of more restrictive immigration positions by mainstream parties increases the likelihood that those people who do not recognise the issue competence of radical right parties on immigration will vote radical right. However, for individuals who already perceive the radical right to be competent on immigration, mainstream party adoption of more restrictive immigration positions has no effect on propensity to vote radical right. In addition, the increase in the propensity of individuals to vote radical right is predominantly a function of mainstream left parties adopting more restrictive immigration positions. These results imply that mainstream parties risk fuelling radical right party support by adopting more restrictive immigration positions.     

The limits of agency: Emily Hobhouse’s international activism and the politics of suffering

Abstract

This article pieces together the activism of the British welfare worker and feminist-pacifist Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926) during two largely unrecorded episodes of transnational activism: firstly, her ministry of Cornish miners in Virginia, Minnesota, in the United States; and secondly, her interventions during the period of reconstruction following the South African War (1899–1902). The article endeavors to contextualize Hobhouse’s activism and offer a broader understanding of the limitations and restraints on her actions. Ultimately, her activism required a platform that was in the gift of political actors and establishment figures, and dependent on fluctuations within specific political and bureaucratic situations. Based on close inspection of undocumented material in both South African and British archives, the article investigates Hobhouse’s repertoire of missionary and philanthropic roles within a wider context of humanitarian politics. It demonstrates how women’s activism and their behind-the-scenes politicking informed political decision-making in modern imperial and international affairs.     

Conceptual Foundations of Citizen Competence

This article considers some of the challenges that attend efforts to assess citizen performance. We begin by demonstrating the often- unarticulated complexity of evaluating performance in any domain. To do this, we identify four distinct conceptual elements that comprise an evaluation—identification of task, selection of criterion, choice of empirical indicator, and explication of standard—and illustrate with an example that is relatively free of ambiguity: performance in basketball. Using this framework, we then review research in three general areas of study: mass belief systems and issue consistency, political knowledge, and the use of political heuristics. We find that no study articulates all four elements (or adequate substitutes associated with an alternative framework). As a result, problems arise. Most significantly, any particular study is likely to use criteria that are unsatisfactory in important respects or to employ empirical indicators that do not validly measure the criteria. Across studies, conclusions often vary as a function of unarticulated differences in assumptions, definitions, and measures. We conclude by drawing a few lessons for future research, while also recognizing the impressive progress that the study of public opinion and citizen competence has made over the last 40 years.     

The Implications of Framing Effects for Citizen Competence

Social scientists have documented framing effects in a wide range of contexts, including surveys, experiments, and actual political campaigns. Many view work on framing effects as evidence of citizen incompetence—that is, evidence that citizens base their preferences on arbitrary information and/or are subject to extensive elite manipulation. Yet, we continue to lack a consensus on what a framing effect is as well as an understanding of how and when framing effects occur. In this article, I examine (1) the different ways that scholars have employed the concepts of framing and framing effects, (2) how framing effects may violate some basic criteria of citizen competence, and (3) what we know about how and when framing effects work. I conclude that while the evidence to date suggests some isolated cases of incompetence, the more general message is that citizens use frames in a competent and well-reasoned manner.     

Only a Matter of Time? The Role of Criminal Competence in Avoiding Arrest

While prior research has shown that the probability of detection plays a role in the decision-making of many offenders, much less is known on offenders’ relative success in avoiding arrest. In this study, we draw from detailed criminal career data on 172 offenders involved in lucrative criminal activities to examine the role of criminal competence in the probability of being arrested in a given month. We examine a particular aspect of competence, criminal efficiency, which is defined as the ability to earn a relatively large amount of money for each crime committed. Our research design allows us to disentangle the effect of criminal efficiency as a static trait of offenders from the dynamic variations in efficiency that offenders experience over time. Results show that efficiency is a strong, negative predictor of arrest, both at the static and dynamic levels.     

国内商业银行发展中小企业业务的核心能力

在监管部门的推动下,2005年国内银行业的中小企业融资问题已经从过去的探索、讨论阶段进入到实质操作阶段.对商业银行而言,当前的核心问题是如何尽快形成和提升包括组织模式、产品和管理流程、定价和风险管理模式等中小企业金融服务的基本能力.     

新形势下的英语教育与培养跨文化交际能力

英语是跨文化交际的重要媒介。全球化新形势给我国的英语教育提出了新的挑战和更高的要求,培养学生的跨文化交际能力应成为英语教育的主要目标。在教学中,可以通过介绍文化背景知识、进行中西文化对比、创造英语学习的文化氛围等方法培养学生的跨文化交际能力。     

高校学生干部胜任力的初步研究

把胜任力研究引入教育领域,通过调查问卷及访谈,构建出学生干部胜任力的十六个维度,为进一步编制高校学生干部胜任力问卷打下坚实基础,为高校选拔、培训和考核学生干部提供客观依据。