Hong Kong's political influence over China: institutional,informative, and interactive dynamics of sovereignty

Abstract

This article explores how Hong Kong has exercised political influence on China since the transfer of sovereignty in 1997, and tries to comprehend such seemingly impossible influences by reinterpreting the concept of sovereignty. It argues that the British Hong Kong existed as a ‘reference society’ for China's modernization and helped to change Chinese perceptions of capitalism. As this resulted in Chinese recognition of the legitimacy of Hong Kong's colonial institutions, which were featured with political legacies of civic freedom and the rule of law, it also reveals the institutional dimension of sovereignty. Secondly, the information flow from Hong Kong to China reflects a communicative (in contrast to coercive) nature of sovereignty, which highlights Hong Kong's central position in the Chinese world of information. Thirdly, Hong Kong's ongoing democratization challenges Chinese authoritarianism through societal interactions that are beyond state control. Conceptually, in this article, state sovereignty is argued as being something fluid and constantly reshaped in everyday practice with institutional, informative, and interactive dynamics; practically, it attempts to find some remaining ‘silver lining’ to the growing authoritarian Chinese clouds above Hong Kong as reversing the logic of examining external factors in democratization.     

Revisiting the Character of Congress

SUMMARY

This article examines how character assessments affected the electoral fortunes of incumbent members of the U.S. House of Representatives during the period from 1966-1996. The findings of several linear regressions suggest that party affiliation constrains both when voters react to allegations of scandalous behavior and how they react to different kinds of allegations. The electoral cycle assists incumbent members who have engaged in scandalous behavior escape retribution from their constituents, allowing the majority to be reelected. Also reviewed are findings from the 1998-2002 timeframe. It concludes that voters do concern themselves with character issues, but that the party affiliation of the member and the type of scandal work in concert with the electoral process to mitigate the negative impact on the vote.     

The British general election of 2010 under different voting rules

The 2010 British election resulted in what the British refer to as a “hung Parliament” for the first time in over a generation. This result further heightened the debate over the fairness and utility of the nation’s centuries-old first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. Survey data are used to simulate the election outcome under four different electoral systems beyond FPTP: round-robin pair-wise comparisons, the Borda count, the alternative vote, and Coombs' method. Results suggest that in 2010, the Liberal-Democrats were Condorcet preferred to all other parties and would have won a national election under every tested method except the alternative vote, the method supported by the Liberal-Democrats during the referendum in May 2011 and, of course, FPTP as actually used.     

Realising the Public Person

In response to a crisis of representative democracy in many Western countries, (local) governments have introduced instruments to circumvent political parties in order to establish more direct links between citizens and governments. One of these instruments is rendering electoral systems more personal, that is by giving more weight to preferential voting. Preferential voting is important since it constitutes a major element of the personal vote and it determines whether parties or voters are the main decision-makers in designating representatives. We have investigated, in relation to the local elections in Flanders (Belgium), in what kind of municipalities voters are most likely to cast a preferential vote, whether the electoral reform granting voters more power has had an effect, and if it has had an effect, in what kind of municipalities. We have put forward five groups of explanatory variables: socio-demographic, political, social capital, geographic and ballot form variables. Our analysis shows that variables from each group correlate significantly with the percentage of preferential votes, with population density and electronic voting as most important variables. A comparison between the 1994 and 2006 elections often yields the reverse picture: characteristics of municipalities that have a positive effect on the percentage of preferential votes cast have a negative impact on the evolution of preferential voting and vice versa (electronic voting being an exception). This results in the only obvious effects of the electoral reform being seen in urban municipalities, because elsewhere local politics was already to a large extent personalised by politicians being locally known. We could conclude that in these rural municipalities the electoral reform was superfluous.     

Not all election winners are equal: Satisfaction with democracy and the nature of the vote

It is well known that individuals who voted for the winning party in an election tend to be more satisfied with democracy than those who did not. However, many winners deviate from their first choice when voting. It is argued in this article that the mechanisms that engender satisfaction operate less forcefully among such winners, thereby lessening the impact of victory on satisfaction. Results show that the gap in satisfaction over electoral losers among these ‘non‐optimal winners’ is, in fact, much smaller than that of ‘optimal winners’, who voted in line with their expressed preferences. A win matters more for those who have a bigger stake in victory. The article further explores how the effect of optimal victory on satisfaction varies across electoral systems.     

Capturing vote-seeking incentives and the cultivation of a personal and party vote

Electoral rules establish incentives that encourage candidates to strike a particular balance between cultivating their own personal reputations and cultivating shared party reputations. Higher levels of intraparty competition stress the need for an individual reputation and minimize the usefulness of a shared, party reputation. We develop a new indicator of intraparty competition that addresses shortcomings pointed out in previously used indicators. We also identify new, particularly intuitive indicators of ”personal” and ”party” vote seeking. Using within-system and across-system variation in parliamentary elections in Japan, we find that candidate manifestos contain more frequent uses of first-person pronouns and candidate names and fewer references to political parties when intraparty competition is stiffest.     

The conditional effect of personal vote-seeking behaviors on MPs electoral performance: Evidence from an open-list PR system

Considerable research argues that voters reward personal vote-seeking behaviors. The expected electoral gain would be the primary driver of MPs' action. Nevertheless, empirical evidence is scarce, and the findings do not always match the theoretical expectations. This article examines the electoral impact of personal vote-seeking behaviors, arguing in favor of integrating party electoral performance into the models. I also propose a new measure of electoral performance based on the evolution of MPs electoral results. Drawing on data from Finland, the findings globally support the theoretical arguments. MPs benefit from personal vote-seeking behaviors, primarily when their party improves its results. The findings have important implications for our knowledge of the personal vote and, more generally, the personalization of politics.     

论绑架案件侦查与人权保障

当前,刑事案件侦查中是否尊重人权成为社会关注的热点问题,绑架案件侦查中涉及到多方人员基本人权保障问题,引人注目,尤其公开绑架人质案件的接连发生,使人们对绑架案件的人权问题极为关注。人权观念在绑架案件侦查中的确立与发展包括三方面内容:一是“人质安全第一”观念的提出和实践;二是从一元安全观到多元安全平衡价值观的思辩;三是可持续性侦查策略与措施的凸现。     

论一国两制下特区司法管辖权的限制性与完整性——纪念香港回归祖国9周年

在一国两制下,限制性是特区司法管辖权的基本特征,完整性欠缺是特区司法管辖权的现实状态。特区司法管辖权具有国家性、授权性、独立性、冲突性、限制性与完整性的统一等法理属性。特区司法管辖权的限制来自立法、行政、管辖权排除、基本法解释、特别情况、法院自我约束等方面。影响特区司法管辖权完整性的原因有制度建设滞后、法律冲突和协调机制不健全等。一国两制法治实践中出现的“管辖权僭越”违背了特区司法管辖权限制性原则,而制度和机制构建的滞后,也制约了特区司法管辖权完整性的实现。在现有特区基本法法律架构下,防止“管辖权僭越”和保证特区司法管辖权的完整性,应与国家法治建设同步,在既有制度建构中加以改善,需要首先解决一些比较容易解决、对一国两制可能的冲击和震荡较小的制度性、机制性问题,保护和保证特区司法管辖权的完整性,以期用较小的法律和政治代价,换取最大的一国两制效益。     

论王阳明“致良知”思想的逻辑环节及其研究的方法论缺陷——以王门“四句教”为核心的考察

四句教是王阳明晚年的教法。但此教法一经提出,便引发旧时代学者对这一思想的不同理解和诸多纷争。当代新儒家学者刘述先以两行之理为理论预设对四句教以及这些纷争予以阐释和裁定,并在此基础上将四句教定位为阳明思想的最后定见乃至宋明理学思想的总结。这样的定位是不合理的。因为阳明思想的最后定见和终极宗旨是致良知方法论原则思想,这是理解这一问题的关键。理解了这一点,不仅能为解决四句教问题之争以及评价刘述先的思想得失提供理论依据,而且对把握阳明哲学乃至中国哲学的精神实质以及解决合理的知识形态形而上学观念何以可能的哲学问题都具有重要意义。