From discourse to policy: US policy communities’ perceptions of and approaches to climate change and security

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, a diverse set of policy communities, including those with defence, development and environmental mandates, frame climate change as a security threat. Most often this discursive formation labels climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’. This framing, however, is vague, linear and leaves many questions unanswered regarding how institutions can develop and implement policy that addresses the joint challenges of climate change, conflict and security. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, and grounding data collection in US policy communities, this article examines how policy actors and institutions integrate climate-security discourses into policy processes. The objective of this research is to provide direct insight into how the discourses and technical understandings of climate-security transition into policy priorities and implementation realities. This research identified three common approaches to climate-security: (1) A challenge of adaptation and resilience; (2) A potent political argument; and (3) An issue of limited importance and feasibility. These approaches, however, are inconsistent across sectors and within organisations, suggesting a lack of cohesion and considerable challenges in identifying and responding to climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’.     

构建和谐社会要努力搞好社会保障工作

构建和谐社会,需要搞好社会保障工作。共产党对构建和谐社会与搞好社会保障工作进行了理论探索,我们研究社会保障工作实践中的问题,提出解决问题的思路、对策,有助于构建和谐社会。     

坚持和发展职代会制度的几点思考

职代会制度是推进企业实行民主管理和民主监督的基本制度。企业改制后,同样应该得到坚持和发展。工会应当适应形势,充实和调整职代会的职能,正确处理与股东大会、董事会、监事会的关系,切实发挥职代会的应有作用。     

THE EVOLUTION—OR END—OF MARRIAGE?: REFLECTIONS ON THE IMPASSE OVER SAME‐SEX MARRIAGE

The debate over legalizing same‐sex marriage implicates the question of whether doing so would signal the end—or destruction—of the institution of marriage. The appeal to preserving a millennia‐old tradition of marriage against change fails to reckon with the evolution that has already occurred. Invocations of gender complementarity between parents as essential to child well‐being also conflict with growing recognition in family law that children's best interests can be served by gay and lesbian parents. Canada's path toward same‐sex marriage suggests that impasse need not be inevitable. In the United States, this impasse stems in part from the problem that same‐sex marriage serves as an emblem of everything that threatens marriage.     

A LOG‐MULTIPLICATIVE ASSOCIATION MODEL FOR ALLOCATING HOMICIDES WITH UNKNOWN VICTIM‐OFFENDER RELATIONSHIPS*

This research note critically evaluates conventional methods for allocating homicides with an unknown victim/offender relationship to meaningful categories, and it proposes an alternative approach. We argue that conventional methods are based on a problematic assumption, namely, that the missing data mechanism is “ignorable.” As an alternative to these methods, we propose an imputation algorithm derived from a log‐multiplicative model that does not require this assumption. We apply this technique to estimate levels of homicides disaggregated by victim/offender relationship using the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) data for 1996 and 1997, and we compare the resulting estimates with those obtained from the application of conventional procedures. Our results yield a larger proportion of stranger homicides than are obtained from the conventional methods.     

治安状况评价的价值及其原则

治安状况评价是运用社会评价的原理,依据一定的指标体系和统计调查资料对治安秩序状况进行评估的活动。它是准确把握治安状况的基本方法,是确定治安目标、制定治安对策、进行治安控制的重要基础。治安状况评价不能脱离社会发展水平,应以原有治安秩序为基础和参照物,着重考察治安秩序破坏力与控制力的动态平衡状态,将客观现象与主观感受、整体评价与具体分析相结合进行综合测评。     

简论公安院校学管工作中的柔性管理

柔性管理是相对于刚性管理而提出来的。在公安院校警务化管理中,多重视刚性管理而轻柔性管理。其实,柔性管理思想也有其独特的效用。在公安院校学生管理中应亦刚亦柔,刚柔并济。     

PUNCHING THE PARENTING TIME CLOCK: THE APPROXIMATION RULE,SOCIAL SCIENCE,AND THE BASEBALL BAT KIDS*

The American Law Institute proposes that in contested physical custody cases the court should allocate to each parent a proportion of the child's time that approximates the proportion of time each has spent performing caretaking functions in the past. Examined through the lens of child development research, the approximation rule is unlikely to improve on the best interests standard. It is difficult to apply; is perceived as gender‐biased; creates a new focus for disputing parents; renders a poor estimate of parents’ contributions to their child's best interests; overlooks parents’ intangible, yet significant, contributions to their child's well‐being; and miscalculates the essence of how a child experiences the family. A preferable alternative is a better defined, contemporary best interests standard that accommodates new knowledge and reforms that encourage nonadversarial, individualized resolutions of custody disputes.     

论行政征收的公共利益判断

公共利益需要是行政征用的首要原则,公益性的有无是判断征用合法与否的重要要件.我国的行政征收制度忽视区分公共利益的应然层面和实然层面的两层含义,侧重于维护"绝对的公共利益".关于公共利益的讨论,应当着眼于支撑着公共利益应然性表达的实然性表达,即行政和司法审查的制度结构和运作过程.从这种角度出发,应当重点考虑公益界定向程序化和技术化的界定模式转化.     

中国传统和谐思想概要

中国传统和谐思想极为丰富,主要包括民本执政理念、富民经济战略、公平分配定律、社会救助体系、民主决策模式、中庸治国方法、和平邦交策略等。这些思想都是中国古代社会治理实践的理论精华,对于加强社会主义和谐社会建设,仍具有积极意义。