PAKISTAN’S CRISIS OF GOVERNANCE AND THE RESURGENCE OF TERRORIST VIOLENCE SINCE AUGUST 2016

Fifteen years since joining the US-led anti-terrorism coalition, Pakistan’s response to the challenges of terroristic violence and extremist indoctrination and propaganda remain military-centric and kinetic. Since August 2016, after a brief lull, Pakistan has experienced a resurgence of terrorist activity and violence that has struck all of its provinces and placed its capital on high alert. The re-escalation in the level of terrorist violence began with the August 8, 2016, attacks in Quetta, which left over 70 dead and more than 100 injured. The lack of response from the provincial and federal governments to this carnage, led the Supreme Court of Pakistan to exercise its authority under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and establish an Inquiry Commission to examine the state of the investigation and report on the challenges faced in the struggle against terrorism and extremism. This inquiry assumed the form and substance of an audit of the performance of Pakistan’s institutions and exposed the link between the country’s crisis of governance and its incoherent response to terrorism and extremism at all levels of government. The implications of the inquiry report are both broad and deep, and reveal that Pakistan’s trajectory remains that of civilian administrative breakdown and institutional exhaustion. This indicates that Pakistan’s civilian-military balance continues to shift in structural terms in favour of the latter and that beneath a veneer of constitutional democracy, the arbitrary, unwise, and inefficient, exercise of power by the political class continues to hollow out the country’s administrative institutions.     

Civil society and state-centred struggles

This article is about civil society and state-centred struggles in contemporary Zimbabwe. I first identify and outline three current understandings of civil society. Two understandings (one Liberal, one Radical) are state-centric and exist firmly within the logic of state discourses and state politics. A third understanding, also Radical, is society-centric and speaks about politics existing at a distance from the state and possibly beyond the boundaries of civil society. This civil society-state discussion frames the second section of the article, which looks specifically at Zimbabwe. It details civil society as contested terrain (from the late 1990s onwards) within the context of a scholarly debate about agrarian transformation and political change. This debate, which reproduces (in theoretical garb) the key political society (or party) fault-lines within Zimbabwean society, has taken place primarily within the restricted confines of state-centred discourses.     

Is It Time to Reform the Dual-Track Pension System?

正Civil servants’pensions is an issue that has long been debated in China.In spite of the fact that pensions for enterprise employees have been rising continuously for the past seven years,their benefits are much lower than that of their civil servant peers.There exists an increasingly widening gap between civil servants’pensions and those of other workers.Recently,the microblog account of the newspaper People’s Daily published an article,which says that civil servants’pensions sur-     

中国地方治理中的政府与社会协商困境分析——基于民主化宏观策略的思考

一个国家民主化的宏观策略体现了该国民主化的根本方向与核心原则。中国民主化的宏观策略是一种可管理导向的积极民主化策略,这种策略给中国地方治理中的政府与社会协商实践造成了种种主客观困境,使得地方政府不能很好地举办协商活动,社会力量也不能有效地参与。为走出困境,就必须在坚持审慎而务实策略的同时,不断克服怀疑主义,建立和健全保证协商有效性的管理机制。     

香港民事诉讼制度改革之回顾与前瞻

香港的民事司法改革历时十年,彰显了民事司法理念的深度变迁,对民事司法制度的发展具有里程碑意义。新规则自2009年4月2日正式施行以来进展大致顺利,在克服诉讼拖延、促进和解、发展调解等方面取得了一定的成效,但改革终究不是一蹴而就的纸面化改造。在新制度与旧观念相互碰撞又各自发挥作用的时期,如欲推翻法律职业者乃至普通民众的思维定势,变革深埋于制度底层的文化样态,其中的困难同样是显而易见的。     

The Changing Spaces of Local Governance in Nicaragua

This article considers the new spaces for the participation of civil society organisations (CSOs) in local governance that have emerged in Nicaragua between 2000 and 2009, and how government and CSOs interact in these spaces. It discusses the significant changes that have taken place in Nicaraguan local governance during this period, and highlights the challenges for CSOs to engage with these spaces at different points in time. It finds that grassroots CSOs in Managua that based their engagement with the Bolaños government through these spaces on citizenship have been drawn into a more clientelist relationship with Ortega's government.     

法律行为基础瑕疵制度——德国法的经验及其对我国民法典的借鉴意义

法律行为基础瑕疵制度2002年被纳入《德国民法典》。法律行为基础瑕疵制度与我国现行民法中的重大误解制度、显失公平制度、附条件法律行为制度存在区别,并且具有独立的价值基础。因此,我国未来民法典应当引进此种制度,并对该制度实行分别立法的模式,将法律行为基础欠缺制度规定于总则编,将法律行为基础丧失制度规定于合同法编。     

我国公务员道德建设现状调查

公务员应当是道德的先行者,其德行操守对整个社会的精神文明建设起到至关重要的作用。本调查分析了我国公务员道德建设的现状,并提出了相关建议。建议包括:创新道德知识开发方法,加大政府信息公开力度,将平衡记分卡引入道德评价体系等。     

挑战民事主体二元结构的帝王之位

民事主体制度的历史演变在形式上主要经历了由家族到个人再到自然人与法人并存的发展过程.随着社会的发展变化,出现了许多新的市场主体.民事主体的传统判断标准也受到新标准的冲击.民事主体二元结构将面临前所未有的挑战.包括合伙在内的第三类民事主体的形成与发展适应了现实生活的需要,民法典应赋予其民事主体地位.     

如何保障我国《婚姻法》在少数民族地区的贯彻执行

在我国这样一个统一的多民族国家,各少数民族的婚姻制度和风俗习惯各具特点。这些特点与我们当前的婚姻立法不相适应的情况时有发生。在此情况下,就如何在少数民族地区确保我国婚姻立法的效力而又充分尊重各少数民族的婚姻制度和风俗习惯的问题进行探讨是十分必要的。