Legislating community‐based management: Lessons from the venezuelan freshwater fishery

Abstract

The linkage between legitimate local participation and institutional/legal openness was demonstrated by an evaluation of the current freshwater fishery regulatory system in Venezuela as explicated in the 1944 Ley de Pesca (Law of the Fishery). By examining the current efficacy of Venezuela's freshwater fishery laws and government openness to local input, this case‐study illustrates barriers to community‐based management (CBM) created by top‐down management paradigms and hierarchical legal frameworks. Analysis of a proposed CBM project in Venezuela indicates that enabling institutions and legislation are necessary for effective long‐term, decentralized freshwater fishery management. Social learning is considered as an approach for making the political and legal climate more amenable to local input. The intent is to further clarify how the union of what is legal and what is civil in a society can enhance the capacity and potential of management devolution and therefore bring us closer to achieving sustainable natural resource use.     

论转型期地方政府社会管理职能转变路径——基于组织人事结构的考察

转型期地方政府社会管理职能转变是地方行政体制变革的重要内容,它本质上也是对地方政府政治职能回归式的重新界定。地方政府的组织人事结构体系的主体性功能的有效配置与合理调适正是社会管理职能转变的路径。因此,地方政府社会管理职能转变可以通过地方政府结构体系的公共治理行动网络化形态来实现。     

Rapid Assessment Procedures

SUMMARY

Given the racialization of subjective, material and historical realities in South Africa, psychological training and practice in community raise crucial and often thorny ethical, epistemological and methodological questions. This article appraises the strengths and limitations of using Rapid Assessment Procedures (RAP) (Afonja, 1992) in the field training of postgraduate students in community-counseling psychology. Rooted in an activist participatory action research framework (Lykes, 1997), RAP provide a framework for the collective exploration of locally constructed representations of a community's needs and resources; joining the ‘community’ (negotiating a dialogical form of communication and a respect for the insider-outsider dialectic); working through one's ‘situated otherness’; and deracializing psychological training and practice.     

我国地方政府创新的实践与评价

我国地方政府创新活动在学术界、媒体和公众的共同推动下,呈现出日益蓬勃的发展态势。地方政府创新的实质是公共治理创新,目的是提高公共服务质量和政府自身的管理能力。目前,地方政府创新存在的主要问题是创新动力不足、创新环境不佳和创新成本较高。文章从国家制度建设、地方政府的层级节制和社会评价机制建设方面对促进与规范地方政府的创新行为进行了思考。     

基于模糊综合评价法的地方政府依法行政监督实施效果评估

地方政府依法行政监督实施效果评估研究是行政监督领域的一个新的研究视野,它注重对行政监督依法、实施效果等进行定量分析和研究。文章阐述了地方政府依法行政监督实施效果评估指标体系构建的思路、维度设计、指标选取、有效性统计检验、权重确定等过程,分析了模糊综合评价法应用原理和构建步骤,并将其运用于湖南省依法行政监督实施效果评估的实证研究中。     

WHAT SHAPES CITIZENS' EVALUATIONS OF THEIR PUBLIC OFFICIALS' ACCOUNTABILITY? EVIDENCE FROM LOCAL ETHIOPIA

In this article, we study which institutional factors shape citizens' views of the local accountability of their public officials. Our departing assumption is that evaluations of local accountability reflect not only citizens' poltical attitudes and beliefs but also whether local institutions contribute to an environment of mutual trust, accountability and ultimately democratic legitimacy. Combining public opinion data from a large‐N citizen survey (N = 10 651) with contextual information for 63 local governments in Ethiopia, we look at access to information, participatory planning and the publicness of basic services as potential predictors of citizens' evaluations of local public officials. Our findings suggest that local context matters. Jurisdictions that provide access to information on political decision making are perceived to have more accountable officials. Moreover, when local governments provide public fora that facilitate citizens' stakes in local planning processes, it positively affects citizens' evaluations of the accountability of their officials. Our study adds to the empirical literatrure by showing that establishing local institutions that can foster citizen–government relations at the local level through inclusive processes is crucial for improving public perceptions of accountability. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Political Advertising in Greek Municipal and Prefecture Elections of 2002

Abstract

Since the restoration of democracy in 1974, Greek politics have undergone a serious transformation, exemplified by the increase in political participation that strongly affected political advertising at the national and local level. The major claim of the paper is that political campaigns in major cities in Greece are “modern” while in the periphery of the country political campaigning is based more upon direct forms of interpersonal relations. Our claim is based upon an examination of the role of political advertising in the major metropolitan city of Thessaloniki (around 1.000.000 inhabitants), and the semi-peripheral city of Kastoria (around 17.000 inhabitants), both situated in Northern Greece. The primary objective of this study is to establish a strong factual foundation that can be used by policy makers, opinion leaders, and citizens in order to understand the role of political advertising in national and municipal elections in Greece.     

Independent Candidacies in Greece

Abstract

This article has as its main purpose to demonstrate that three main factors considered as keys to a successful political campaign remain the same around the globe. These basic factors are: (a) that campaign methods drawn from and designed in the USA can be adapted to needs of campaigns implemented in foreign countries; (b) the importance of polling; and, (c) that successful strategy planning and implementation depends on the candidate's attitude and cooperative spirit. The relevance of these factors is exhibited through a case study, the successful campaign strategy of an independent candidate for the post of the mayor in the city of Serres in Northern Greece during the 2002 Greek municipal elections.     

A Feminist Approach to Hybridity: Understanding Local and International Interactions in Producing Post-Conflict Gender Security

Recently, the concept of hybridity has become popular within critical peacebuilding scholarship to explain the interplay of power between local and international actors in post-conflict contexts. However, a nuanced gender lens has often been missing from these analyses. This article develops a feminist critique and approach to hybridity in order to achieve a deeper sense of the effects that experiences and perspectives of international and local actors have upon peacebuilding initiatives. It begins to develop a feminist approach to hybridity via a case study of a gender security initiative concerned with challenging the prevalence of small arms and light weapons (SALW) abuse in domestic violence in Serbia. The article concludes by highlighting how this feminist perspective allows a richer understanding of the power relations shaping local and international interactions.     

乡村经济社会转型期农民政治思维变化的新趋势

乡村经济的市场化发展带来农村社会整体结构的深刻变革和全面变迁,这一社会背景和发展体制的根本性转换影响了乡村民主政治的体制结构和农民的日常政治生活。农村市场机制的运行和发展使农民的民主思维、政治理念、法治观念、权利意识等开始萌芽并逐步稳固化,对乡村社会具体事务管理和政治运行的参与意识越来越强烈。农民的政治思维逐步变化,呈现出政治态度由封闭僵化走向开放,政治人格由较强的人身依附性走向独立性,政治精神由保守落后走向积极进取,政治信念由视政治为特权转为民众享有的民权等趋势。