Ambivalence About Equality in the United States or, Did Tocqueville Get it Wrong and Why Does that Matter?

Alexis de Tocqueville believed that “democratic peoples’... passion for equality is ardent, insatiable, eternal, and invincible.” This article examines whether and under what conditions residents of the United States demonstrate such a commitment to equality. I show that at many points in history, Americans have indeed chosen to move toward greater justice and less oppression; however, there are clear limits to their passion for equality. White Americans endorse less social, political, and economic equality than do African Americans, but even the latter often resist equality for groups that they perceive to be threats, or for behaviors that threaten strong social or moral norms. The article discusses implications for political activists of these patterns of support for and resistance to greater equality, and suggests strategies for overcoming oppression and promoting justice.     

专家、利益集团与公共参与

公共参与制度在行政决策中方兴未艾,而专家咨询机制也愈显重要。在公共参与背景下,公众与专家的角色定位及功能作用亟需反思。纷繁复杂的公共参与理论基础直接影响到专家咨询制度的定位、功能与运行。美国专家咨询制度的经验和教训,为完善我国专家咨询制度提供了借鉴。法治化、型式化、竞争化、公开化是完善我国专家咨询制度的应有取向。     

公民健康权利与义务立法研究——兼评《基本医疗卫生与健康促进法(草案)》第2章

综观世界各国的立法实践,公民健康权利与义务大致呈现出单独式、专章或专节式、分散式三种立法模式。在立法内容上各国更为侧重确立和保护公民健康权利,对公民健康义务的规定则相对粗疏简略,除医疗服务获得权、知情同意权、隐私权与尊重医务人员及他人的义务、支付医疗费用的义务等部分权利、义务类型没有较大争议之外,各国均保有较大的差异性。我国应当系统整理现有医疗卫生立法及其他相关法律文件,将公民健康权利与义务协调规定在未来的民法典和"基本医疗卫生与健康促进法"之中,同时借鉴国外的先进经验,增设投诉权、病历查阅权和复制权以及爱惜健康、支付医疗费用、遵守医疗机构规章制度等权利与义务,并对儿童等特殊群体提供特别保护。     

Local Social Ties and Willingness to Intervene: Textured Views Among Violent Urban Youth of Neighborhood Social Control Dynamics and Situations

Social control in urban neighborhoods has been studied for over a century in America, yet our understanding of the dynamic nature of social relations for exerting informal social control remains limited. The present study uses detailed reports from those most likely to be the target of local control efforts—violent youth in extremely disadvantaged urban locations—to re‐examine two features of this work: variations across different hypothetical scenarios widely used in this research, and connections between local ties and intervention type and likelihood in actual events. In‐depth qualitative interviews from 159 violent males aged 16–24 from two distressed New York City neighborhoods identify ways in which responses to commonly used scenarios of informal social control are age‐ and space‐graded. Reports on the transactional nature of social control in violent events show how local ties may undermine, rather than support, social control processes. It would appear that we need to consider more carefully general suggestions about local ties encouraging more informal social control, move to a more textured, multithreaded view of these connections, and incorporate age‐ and space‐graded dynamics into future studies of social control.     

群体性事件预警指标体系研究

在社会系统稳定因素及社会评价指标体系分析的基础上,构建群体性事件的预警指标体系,并通过建立指标权重模型,运用管理学定性、定量等研究方法,完善群体性事件预警机制。     

应对突发性群体事件的政府治理创新

积极预防和妥善处置人民内部矛盾引发的突发性群体事件,维护群众利益和社会稳定是社会转型期政府治理的必然要求。各级政府作为治理突发性群体事件的主体,首先必须树立现代治理理念,通过搭建制度沟通平台和建立预警评估体系,防止突发性群体事件的爆发,并以社会自组织为中介尽量减少突发性群体事件,最终建立高效完整的治理模式,提高社会管理和公共服务水平。     

广东省群体性事件多发的态势与防范对策

广东省群体性事件的高发是广东省处于社会转型时期的必然产物。社会发展的断裂、利益表达机制的缺乏、群体利益冲突的增加是群体性事件多发的根本原因。建立健全社会保障机制、利益表达机制、社会危机应对机制、全面的社会治安防控机制是解决群体性事件的有效措施。     

论群体性事件预防与治安基层基础建设

当前,我国正处于经济转轨的社会转型时期。在这样的背景下,一些社会矛盾经特定诱因激活,就可能引发群体性事件。政府应在群体性事件爆发之前做好矛盾的发现与化解、诱因的消除工作。公安机关要有效地预防群体性事件,就必须夯实基层基础,做好人员、经费、装备、信息和工作预案等五方面工作。     

Modeling Facts,Culture, and Cognition in the Gun Debate

Can empirical data generate consensus about how to regulate firearms? If so, under what conditions? Previously, we presented evidence that individuals' cultural worldviews explain their positions on gun control more powerfully than any other fact about them, including their race or gender, the type of community or region of the country they live in, and even their political ideology or party affiliation. On this basis, we inferred that culture is prior to facts in the gun debate: empirical data can be expected to persaude individuals to change their view on gun policies only after those individuals come to see those policies as compatible with their core cultural commitments. We now respond to critics. Canvassing the psychological literature, we identify the mechanisms that systematically induce individuals to conform their factual beliefs about guns to their culturally grounded moral evaluations of them. To illustrate the strength and practical implications of these dynamics, we develop a series of computer simulations, which show why public beliefs about the efficacy of gun control can be expected to remain highly polarized even in the face of compelling empirical evidence. Finally, we show that the contribution culture makes to cognition could potentially be harnessed to generate broad, cross-cultural consensus: if gun policies can be framed in terms that are expressively compatible with diverse cultural worldviews, the motivation to resist compelling empirical evidence will dissipate, and individuals of diverse cultural persuasions can be expected rapidly to converge in their beliefs about what policies are best. Constructing a new, expressively pluralistic idiom of gun control should therefore be the first priority of policy-makers and -analysts interested in promoting the adoption of sound gun policies.     

传媒研究的四重语境:一个本土化的视角

传媒研究中的功能主义范式不能对社会中动态的、冲突的部分给以把握,也不能对处于转型期的中国社会中的传媒的相关问题作出解释。应将传媒处身的“语境”视为一种问题视野,在其中对传媒现实给以观察与解释,并从中国的社会发展所处阶段、政治经济现实和传媒生存状况等多个维度出发,重视当前传媒研究的四重语境,即前现代的社会阶段、后现代的话语氛围与消费主义思潮、传媒的受控与工具性质、传媒的商业化倾向。