The culture of risk regulation: Responses to environmental disasters

Disasters challenge the equilibrium of regulatory regimes and make policy shifts more likely. Using an institutional theory of cultural biases and the concept of cultural “surprise”, this article analyses the direction and intensity of media argumentation in respect of policy shifts. Instead of assuming a demand for greater State intervention after dramatic focusing events, as suggested by other theoretical frames, cultural theory opens a variety of options that range from embracing regulatory responses from different cultural biases to the radicalization of current, but failing, instruments. The analysis of media reaction to the environmental disasters caused by the oil spills of Exxon Valdez (United States), Erika (France) and Prestige (Spain) shows that the demand for more hierarchy does not monopolize the overall argumentation. The change demanded often implies a radicalization of a particular prevalent view where the associated institutional setting is failing its supporters.     

Small winners and big losers: strategic party behaviour in the 2017 Dutch general election

Abstract

This article analyses party strategies during the campaign for the Dutch general election of March 2017, making use of issue-yield theory. It investigates whether parties strategically emphasise high-yield issues, by juxtaposing the issue opportunities provided by voters with parties’ issue emphasis during the campaign. More specifically, it asks whether parties strategically emphasised issues that were expected to reward them electorally. Analysing voter preferences and party campaign data, it is found that parties and most of their constituencies show high ideological consistency, that parties emphasise mostly positional issues and thus choose a conflict-mobilising strategy, and that most parties emphasise high-yield issues rather than following the general political agenda. Four small parties that won significantly behaved strategically while the social democrats – who severely lost – hardly did. The findings imply that the issue-yield framework can help to explain the election result in the fragmented Dutch multi-party context.     

Policy Adoption and Policy Intensity: Emergence of Climate Adaptation Planning in U.S. States

The United States is experiencing growing impacts of climate change but currently receives a limited policy response from its national leadership. Within this policy void, many state governments are stepping up and taking action on adaptation planning. Yet we know little about why some states adopt State Adaptation Plans (SAPs), while others do not. This article investigates factors that predict the emergence of SAPs, both in terms of policy adoption and policy intensity (goal ambitiousness). Applying the diffusion of innovation theory, I consider the relative influence of internal state characteristics, regional pressures, and test for conditional effects between government ideologies and severity of the problem. The results show interesting differences between predictors that influence policy adoption and ambitiousness. States are more motivated to adopt a policy when faced with greater climate vulnerability, have more liberal citizenry, and where governments have crossed policy hurdles by previously passing mitigation plans. The intensity of policies and goal setting, moreover, is more likely to be driven by interest group politics and diffuse through policy learning or sharing information among neighboring states in Environmental Protection Agency regions. These findings support an emerging scholarship that uses more complex dependent variables in policy analysis. These variables have the potential to differentiate symbolic from substantive policies and capture finer information about predictors of importance.     

“粤港澳大湾区”三地制度建设路径探索

2019年中央颁布《粤港澳大湾区发展规划纲要》,将粤港澳大湾区计划初步建设成为世界一流湾区。改革开放以来,广东与港澳的关系一直非常紧密,尤其在经贸合作领域,香港和广东的关系犹如“前店后厂”。与长三角、京津冀地区实践不同,粤港澳大湾区是“一国两制”下的一次重大探索式发展。粤港澳大湾区有其特殊地位,粤港澳三地三种不同的关税区具有不同的制度和法律,应在维护“一国两制”的前提下探索三地的深度融合。     

Is Everything Compatible? A Feminist Critique of Hearn’s Composite Approach to Men and Masculinity

ABSTRACT

Since its emergence in the late 1980s, research on men and masculinity has expanded considerably into an established area at the intersection of sociology, gender studies and related disciplines. There is now a wealth of empirical research but the theoretical debates have largely centred on Connell’s notion of hegemonic masculinity. This article focuses instead on the theoretical contribution of Jeff Hearn, arguably one of the central figures within critical studies on men and masculinities over the last few decades. The article identifies the main tenets of Hearn’s theoretical writing and tracks its development over time, and offers a critical discussion of Hearn’s theoretical position. The critique focuses on ambiguous treatments of central concepts and argues that tensions between perspectives such as materialist analysis, queer theory and intersectionality are not fully acknowledged in Hearn’s work.     

Inclusive Masculinity Theory: overview,reflection and refinement

In 2010, this journal published an early exposition of inclusive masculinity theory. Since then, the theory has been widely adopted within both the sport and masculinities literature. Furthermore, a large number of other scholars not using the theory have also documented and labelled new masculinity types. There has also been refinement of Inclusive Masculinity Theory, alongside theoretical critiques. In this article, we provide an overview of the genesis of the theory and its refinement, before considering and responding to published and unpublished critiques of the theory. We then suggest future directions for research.     

预告期性质研究 —— 基于劳动者和用人单位双重视角下的分析

预告期作为劳动者辞职或用人单位预告解雇的期限,其性质的阐明关乎实践中诸多问题的厘清。在肯定预告解除权为形成权的同时,认可预告期"始期说"的内在性质,在"程序说"与"条件说"的外在性质辨析,在法律、集体合同、劳动合同关于预告期规定的选择中不囿于现有学说,在适当倾斜保护劳动者利益以及增强劳动力市场灵活性的同时,提出区分预告解除主体,根据具体情况分别适用。     

雇员“吹哨”的正当性及其限度

雇员向媒体或有关监管部门"吹哨",可以及时制止公司违法甚至侵害公众利益的行为,起到减轻政府监管压力的作用。但是雇员的吹哨行为在维护公共利益的同时,却违背了对公司的忠诚义务。雇员"吹哨"的正当性源于行使宪法赋予的言论自由权利,并保护公众利益。如何规范雇员吹哨,控制雇员吹哨的副作用,是我国法制建设当前面临的重要课题。通过员工"吹哨"实现社会有效监督的关键在于依法明确各项权利行使的边界。雇员吹哨的动机及实现的社会效果都是衡量这一边界的重要因素。通过相关配套措施的构建引导雇员在边界内理性"吹哨",从而真正实现对公共利益的保护。     

Between Government and Governance: Opening the Black Box of the Transformation Thesis

The notion of going from government to governance, known as the transformation thesis, as depicted in early Governance Theory has been subjected to substantive critique. This paper explores two different stances of such critique. The first critical stance is represented by Jonathan S. Davies’ 2011 book “Challenging Governance Theory: From networks to hegemony” and entails a radical rejection of the transformation thesis. The second stance offers a more moderate reconfiguration of the transformation thesis and is represented by the recently co-authored work of several prominent governance theorists titled “Interactive Governance: Advancing the paradigm”. While both aspire to set new agendas for governance research, this paper argues that the latter reconfiguration carries a problematic preposition towards overemphasizing the separation between government and governance practices.     

The Public Management of Risk: The Case for Deliberating among Worldviews

This article argues that the public management of risk faces inherent "wicked issue" problems which are further accentuated in the context of the contemporary regulatory state. It is suggested that in order to overcome these limitations and inevitable trade-offs, there needs to be a more conscientious effort in setting out distinct components of any public management of risk, which should be considered and discussed through the lens of distinct worldviews contrasting interpretations and solutions, as well as potential "black-spots." It is only by acknowledging limitations of any one strategy and by considering plural solutions that there is less likelihood of disappointment when dealing with crises and disasters.