官德建设的误区及其对策

官德建设是在反腐败斗争中群众关注的焦点,官员的道德价值趋向和道德表现,具有示范效应和导向作用。当前存在着官德建设过分依赖人性而忽视理性的看待人和分析人;过分依赖自律而忽视他律和制度建设的误区。在官德建设中,要避免官德建设的超前性与社会道德的现实性相混淆;要避免把个人道德置于制度道德建设之上。     

Political Corruption and the End of two-party system after the May 2015 Spanish Regional Elections

The autonomous elections held on 25 May 2015 took place simultaneously in 13 of the 17 Spanish autonomous communities (CCAA), leading to the most profound change in the autonomous party system seen in Spain in the last 20 years. A significant number of Spanish citizens hold the two main parties—the PP and the PSOE—responsible for being unable to solve their economic problems and for having pursued their austerity policies and containment of social expenditure to the extent of giving rise to the greatest inequality experienced in Spanish society in history. Furthermore, and as important as the economic crisis, support for the new parties, Podemos and Ciudadanos, has been linked to the emergence in Spanish public debate of party regeneration and the corruption scandals that tainted the main parties and most institutions in the years prior to the elections on 25 May 2015.     

Efficient compensation for employees' inventions

We analyze a legal reform concerning employees' inventions in Germany. Using a simple principal-agent model, we derive a unique efficient payment scheme: a bonus which is contingent on the project value. We demonstrate that the old German law creates inefficient incentives even if litigation cost is zero. However, the new law (concerning university employees) and the pending reform proposal (concerning other employees) also fail to implement first-best incentives. With suboptimal incentives to spend effort on inventions, the government's goal, an increase in the number of patents, is likely to be missed. A part of this research was done while I enjoyed the hospitality of the University of California in Santa Barbara (Economics Department) and Berkeley (Law School). Financial aid by the Thyssen Stiftung is gratefully acknowledged. classification K 12 . J 33 . C 72     

Noncompetition Clauses: Unreasonable or Efficient?

Generally, legislators and courts look upon noncompetition agreements unfavourably. This paper questions the assumptions underlying the traditional theories on noncompetition clauses and advances two theories that have previously not been found in the legal literature. It is argued that noncompetition clauses are used as a device to self-select employees who desire a long-term contract with the firm. Furthermore, employees agree to these clauses to guarantee that the employer will make specific investments in the employment relationship. The noncompetition agreement protects the creation and distribution of the surplus of the employment relationship. Legal restrictions on noncompetition clauses have the danger of decreasing the ex ante value of the employment relationship. The result will be lower investments and lower wages.     

加强德育实践性，探索德育新途径

从德育的内容、途径、方法上对德育的实践性进行了深入的探讨。大学生全面素质的提高最终是通过各种有益的社会实践来实现的,取决于他们日常的积累和养成。德育工作者要认真设计活动的内容,使学生在活动中积极思考,能动的选择并逐步达到自我完善的过程。     

加速乡镇企业发展推动全面建设农村小康社会进程

我国要在本世纪头20年全面建设小康社会，农村是重点，应把加速乡镇企业发展作为主要增长点。乡镇企业的发展，能够较好地解决农民就业问题，使农村经济充满活力。同时，发展乡镇企业，也为建设农村小康社会作出了贡献。进一步加速培育乡镇企业成长必将有效地推动我国全面建设农村小康社会进程，但目前依然存在诸多制约因素。为加速培育乡镇企业成长，应该从企业和政府两方面着手，采取一系列对策，从而推动我国全面建设农村小康社会。     

Government accountability and voting choice in Italy, 1990–2008

Between 1996 and 2008 Italy has experienced four government alternations in as many consecutive elections. It could be argued that after the dramatic party change that occurred in the early 90s the Italian system is in a state of constant flux and voters appear rather bewildered. This paper presents an opposite argument, showing that voters' choice reflects the greater importance of valence politics – performance, the economy – acting as a cue to voting behaviour, interacting with a long-term political predisposition. In turn, this promotes parties' responsiveness and accountability since the overall performance of a government – even of a coalition government – appears as a goal to be shared by all partners, under the threat of defeat for all. The analysis is carried out employing the Italian National Elections Studies series.     

Post‐conventional Political Cultures via Processes of Direct Democracy: Theoretical Considerations Based on Jürgen Habermas and Lawrence Kohlberg

In this article, it is proposed to differentiate political cultures in two dimensions. First, inspired by Habermas' distinction of the contents of discourse, a distinction is suggested between moral, ethical‐political and pragmatic elements of political culture as well as of an element of culture of balancing interests. Second, inspired by Kohlberg's stage models for the development of the individual moral consciousness and for moral culture, a distinction is similarly suggested between two pre‐conventional, two conventional and two post‐conventional collective stages of political culture. It can be shown that from a normative point of view, only deliberations made in a post‐conventional political culture can produce reasonable or at least fair results. Conceptual considerations indicate processes of direct democracy as the method for promoting post‐conventional political cultures. The more liberty that the citizens have to formulate and trigger processes of direct democracy, the more one can expect from them to generate post‐conventional political cultures.     

Dealigned or Still Salient? Religious-Secular Divisions in Chilean Presidential Elections

With countries like Chile facing secularisation, some research predicts religious-secular cleavages will ‘dealign’, while other research suggests these cleavages will persist so long as religious-secular divisions are reflected among presidential candidates. Using surveys of first-round voting intentions in the five most recent presidential elections in Chile, the analysis shows that religious-secular divisions in voting appear when candidates are divided clearly along religious-secular lines (and not when divisions among candidates are blurred). These findings suggest researchers need to account for the impact candidates' positions have on the appearance of religious-secular divisions before declaring that dealignment has occurred.