社会主义协商民主制度的完善与发展

社会主义协商民主制度是中国特色社会主义政治制度的重要组成部分。它适合中国国情,有利于保障中国人民当家作主,充分反映了我国政治制度的特点和优势。今后我们要继续坚持这一特色政治制度,并根据形势变化和现实需要,进一步拓宽国家机关、政协组织、党派团体、基层组织、社会组织的协商渠道,丰富协商民主形式,深入开展立法协商、行政协商、民主协商、参政协商、社会协商,特别是要更加重视发挥爱国统一战线与人民政协的重要作用,推进其朝着广泛、多层和制度化方向发展。     

能动司法:型构“善政”政治图景的司法哲学——从沃尔夫《司法能动主义》的民主与善政谈起

理性的司法制度应当排除行政及权力的肆意干预,但不应拒绝对国家政治生活方式的深刻思考。探寻能动司法的政治意涵,追求司法的政治愿景和保持司法内在规定性之间并不矛盾,司法的理性是对司法权的属性和司法技术的描述,而追求政治愿景则是表达了司法对文明秩序和国家理性政治生活的诉求。     

推行厂务公开 加大民主参与力度 --兼谈黑龙江省推行厂务公开的现状、问题及对策

推行厂务公开,首先必须统一思想,统一认识;在推行厂务公开的过程中,必须突出重点,抓职工群众反映强烈的热点问题;推行厂务公开要在健全制度、突出实效上下功夫.     

浅析当前职工民主管理的制约因素

当前对民主管理的制约因素可以归结为 :一个大环境———基层民主政治建设的不完善 ;两个不协调———规范职工群众和规范经营者的立法、职工主体意志的增强与其主人翁地位的失落不协调 ;三个不到位———政企分开的改革、工会地位及工会自身改革的不到位     

试论英格兰盎格鲁-撒克逊时期的原始民主遗风

英国是宪政文明的发祥地。在英国宪政形成的诸多因素中，盎格鲁一撒克逊时期的原始民主遗风是人们关注的焦点之一。盎格鲁一撒克逊时期英格兰国家的起源方式的特殊性使“王在法下”、政治协商和珍视个人自由权利等日耳曼原始遗风得以保留。更为重要的是，英格兰原始民主遗风的保留使王权没有发展成为压倒一切的力量，有力地推动了日后英格兰宪政的生成。     

政治发展:社会和谐的动力之源

和谐社会的目标已经成为当前中国社会的共识,在此前提下,如何切实推进这一进程就成为最重要的议题。在我国,政治发展与和谐社会能否顺利构建之间有着极大的内在关联性。政治发展既是和谐社会构建的动力之源,又是和谐社会实现的基本前提条件。     

Mapping silent citizenship: how democratic theory hears citizens' silence and why it matters

Democratic theory hears silent citizenship as disengagement or disempowerment. Normatively, silent citizenship evokes the specter of civic passivity – of democratic citizens variably characterized by apathy, disaffection, selfishness, or a lack of political knowledge. Empirically, silent citizenship is linked to deficits of democracy – including voter turnout rates, the quality of political representation, and overall government responsiveness. One problem with these conclusions, however, is that we lack any systematic conceptualization of the range of different attitudes democratic citizens might hold in silence. This article seeks to fill in this conceptual gap by mapping the range of possible motivations for citizens to remain silent in developed liberal democratic systems. The key to doing so, I argue, is to distinguish between two measures of democratic citizenship: empowerment and communication. Separating these two measures reveals an entire spectrum of motivations for silence, which I organize into five distinct degrees of silent citizenship.     

Iron Houses in the Tropical Heat: Decentralization Reforms in Africa and their Consequences

Abstract

Decentralization reforms introduced to Africa have not always delivered the intended outcomes. Through interaction with the broader historical, political, social and economic context, reforms seem to have engendered political consequences beyond decentralization itself. Most of the literature on decentralization and development emphasizes questions of institutional design and policy, but here we expand the focus of analysis and incorporate the harder-to-pin-down political patterns marking the workings of decentralization in Africa. Through the case-studies of Ghana, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ethiopia and Uganda we seek to connect the debates on development with the scholarly literatures on comparative federalism, comparative decentralization and local democracy. The conclusion that emerges is that no magic formula which can turn countries into peaceful, stable and prosperous democracies overnight exists. And, importing formal institutions without regard to the local historical, political, social and economic context risks leaving us with elegant but dysfunctional iron houses in the tropical heat.     

Morphing the Demos into the right shape. Normative principles for enfranchising resident aliens and expatriate citizens

In this article I criticize, first, democratic inclusion principles that are indeterminate with regard to democratic boundaries and indifferent towards the structural features of polities. I suggest that a democratic stakeholder principle passes these critical tests and can be applied to democratic polities of different kinds. Second, I compare birthright-based and residence-based membership regimes at state and local levels and consider how they can accommodate international migrants. Third, I argue that these two regimes are not freestanding alternatives between which democratic polities have to choose, but are combined in a multilevel architecture of democratic citizenship, in which the inclusion and exclusion dynamics of birthright and residence mutually constrain each other and every individual is included as a citizen in both types of polities.     

The political value of languages

A theory of linguistic justice needs to take into account the three distinct values of language as a medium for communication, as a source of individual identity and as an instrument for political self-government. Doing so would undermine Van Parijs’ claim that political borders and peoples should be downgraded to a purely instrumental role for purposes of social justice. But it would widen the scope of egalitarian global justice by including a universal right of individuals to membership self-governing polities and it could provide more solid theoretical foundations for his defence of coercive territorial language regimes.