Queering the Pashtun: Afghan sexuality in the homo-nationalist imaginary

A certain, pathologised image of the Afghan man now dominates the mainstream Western imaginary. This article interrogates representations of Pashtun males in Anglophone media, arguing that these representations are embedded in an Orientalist, homo-nationalist framework. Through a specific focus on the construction of the Taliban as sexually deviant, (improperly) homosexual men, the paper underscores the tensions and contradictions inherent in the hegemonic narrative of ‘Pashtun sexuality’. It also revisits the debate about homosexuality as a ‘minority identity’, arguing that the act versus identity debate is deployed in this context simultaneously to make the Pashtun Other legible and to discredit his alternate ways of being.     

比例制:当代中国性别平等参政的效力抉择

今天,绝大多数国家都已认同,两性参政的平等程度是衡量一国民主政治发展程度不可或缺的一项重要指标。虽然自建国以来中国的主流意识形态极力倡扬男女平等,并在正式制度中对女性参政采取保护性的政策,但传统社会性别制度排斥女性参政的惯性作用力在当今中国社会仍牵制着人们的思想观念和行为。因此,以强制性的制度安排保证女性一定的参政比例,虽然由此引起褒贬不一的争论,但仍不失为实现性别平等参政的一种效力抉择。     

District magnitude and the personal vote

In spite of widespread interest in the effects of electoral institutions, research has largely missed, or misspecified, the ‘theoretical link’ tying legislators' behaviour to the rules' formal properties. District magnitude, in particular, can operate through the number of candidates running under the same party label and the number of votes required to win (re)election. Using data from the PARTIREP cross-national legislator survey in 15 European democracies, the article demonstrates that district magnitude is a proxy of different processes in closed-list and open-list systems. The findings contribute to a better understanding of how the mechanical effects of electoral institutions translate into incentives on the part of legislators to cultivate a personal reputation.     

对于加强党外代表人士队伍建设的若干思考

加强新形势下党外代表人士队伍建设,是中国共产党领导的多党合作得以“长期共存”的题中之义,其关键在于共产党要对各级党组织及其领导干部加强统一战线、多党合作和政治协离基本政治制度的教育,使各级党组织及其领导干部都能与中共中央保祷政治上高度一致。同时,民主党派也要学习、借鉴执政党建党成功经验,建设符合执政党要求、人民期待、社会需要的高素质参政党。     

Check Out My Moves

Building on earlier assessments of visual representation in air and missile defenses, and on investigations of the role of representation and perception in warfare more generally, this article offers a semiotic analysis of the signifying practices and processes that are a necessary part of America's Ballistic Missile Defense systems. The argument is made that missile defense – a range of projects aimed at protecting the United States by intercepting enemy missiles in flight – provides a recurrent site of contestation of the image. To illustrate this, examples of the use and testing of missile defense technology to date are analysed from a broadly social semiotic perspective, with specific emphasis on the concepts of signs, codes and modality. Taking this approach indicates that, in the supposedly routine process of representing “threats” in a visual format, even the most sophisticated missile defense systems in use today still encounter severe difficulties, with potentially deadly consequences. This potential for misperception is itself an inherent part of the process of coding and decoding spatial data, represented in a visual format involved herein, which raises significant questions about the vision of nuclear security promised by ballistic missile defense.     

公章抗辩的类型与处理

公章的意义在于使特定的意思表示与特定的主体相联结,是书面法律行为的重要标识方式。因经济活动中存在真公章无权使用和假公章冒用等现象,公章名义人因此或借此对公章真假及使用效力提出抗辩。但实践中对公章效力的判定却常有偏差,其重要原因之一就是对公章抗辩缺乏系统有效的处理规则。公章抗辩包括公章确认抗辩和公章效力抗辩,公章效力抗辩又可分为真公章效力抗辩和假公章效力抗辩。不同类型的公章抗辩在抗辩事由、举证责任等方面,均有不同的规则内容与处理要点。实务中对公章抗辩的处理与认定,应当有效把握不同公章抗辩类型的基本规则与特殊情形,并妥当辨识及运用公章效力与表见代理或表见代表之间的互证关系。     

Diversity recognition and minority representation in Central and Southeast Europe: a comparative analysis

The need to handle ethnocultural diversity and the external pressures of Euro-Atlantic integration have led to the development of complex minority rights regimes in Central and Southeast European states. The aim of this paper is to perform a comparative analysis of the political representation dimension of these regimes, and to investigate how the regulations in this domain are related to the more general attitude of states toward diversity recognition and registration. For this purpose, we classify the states according to a series of variables concerning the manner in which ethnocultural diversity is recognized and portrayed, as well as the regulations concerning the representation of minorities, and identify patterns of their incidence. The formal-legal analysis of the constitutions, minority protection laws and of the electoral legislation of the included countries reveals a clear connection between the general attitude of the state toward diversity and the incidence of autonomies, and a less unequivocal, yet strong relationship in the case of minority representation in the national polity.     

China's Creative Industries: Copyright,Social Network Markets and the Business of Culture in a Digital Age

This article analyses the decline of Japanese labour unions and their struggles for revitalisation from a power resources perspective. It demonstrates first that the power resources of labour unions declined in the neo-liberal political process of labour-market deregulation as a result of lower union density, the intensified conflicts of interest among unions and their reduced access to policy-making. Although this situation induced labour unions to change their interest representation to some extent and organise an increasing number of non-regular and marginalised regular workers, the article claims that they are still concerned about protecting the vested interests of regular workers in large companies and their efforts to organise non-regular and marginalised regular workers have been insufficient. In addition, although community unions have aimed to organise these workers extensively, their human and financial resources are too small to do so and revitalise the labour movement.     

Public Opinion and Representation of Women in National Legislatures: An Analysis of Cause and Effect

Studies of female representation in national legislatures have claimed that the gender attitudes of a country's population have an effect on female representation in that country's parliament. This claim is based on the assumption that there is a unidirectional effect of public attitudes on female representation. This article tests that assumption, and hypothesises that in countries with multi-member electoral districts the effect is likely to flow in the opposite direction. When women are nominated, and to some extent elected to parliament, their presence in national politics affects public attitudes towards women in that role. Granger tests of causality in eight European countries and in the United States generally support these hypotheses. The effect flows from public attitudes to female representation in countries with single-seat districts, and in the opposite direction in countries with multi-member districts.     

Protesters,Parliamentarians, Policymakers: The Experiences of Australian Green MPs

This article details the distinctive style and political commitments that Green members of parliament (MPs) bring to representative democracy in Australia. Based on in-depth interviews with 16 sitting federal and state Green MPs, it examines the extent to which the political culture, grassroots organisation and values of this left-libertarian party influence the parliamentary role orientations and legislative behaviour of its MPs, and how this fits with existing research on parliamentary representatives. The analysis reveals mixed results: while the legislative priorities and representative focus of MPs appear to be influenced more by previous social movement and parliamentary experience rather than overarching party orientations, the party's culture has had a strong impact on MPs' views regarding issues of conscience and their style of representation. Drawing on the comparative experience of Green parties throughout Western Europe, this article utilises the prism of role orientations to assess the conflicting imperatives Australian Green MPs face in staying true to their movement origins while their party becomes increasingly professional and influential in the parliamentary arena.