Negotiating normative premises in democracy promotion: Venezuela and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

ABSTRACT

This article analyses negotiations on democracy promotion by looking at the case of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It argues that Venezuela contested the concept of representative democracy during the Charter negotiations, advancing the notion of “participatory and protagonist democracy” and that, even if it was unsuccessful in its demands, the country contributed to deepening the debate on the concept of democracy, on which there is far from worldwide consensus. The article suggests that the main drivers of the negotiation process and the final agreement were domestic political changes in Venezuela, specific features of the negotiations, and the structural position of Venezuela in the field of democracy promotion in the global and regional contexts, which were, at the time, favourable to a compromising attitude to conclusion of the Charter, even if not to the concept of democracy.     

耕地集约化租赁的纠纷审视与司法应对

耕地集约化租赁虽对实现农业的转型升级具有积极作用,但也出现了一些损害农村土地权益的负面现象,并逐渐演化为诉讼纠纷。其所凸显出的发展与有序的问题不容忽视,需要司法实践积极回应,并进行利益平衡上的思考。     

The Woman Victim in a Country in Crisis: A Reading of Tagwira's The Uncertainty of Hope

The article is based on my reading of Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope as a feminist text that portrays female victimhood in the context of a failing postcolonial state. Tagwira writes about the experiences of a woman against the background of Murambatsvina, officially termed ‘‘Operation Clean Up.’’ The Zimbabwean Operation Clean Up of 2005 was condemned worldwide; and in her novel, Tagwira gives an often-ignored dimension of a woman’s experience of it, in the general context of a country facing serious political, economic and social challenges. For Tagwira, the challenges faced by Onai, as well as those around her, do not have links to their racial identities. Thus, Tagwira redefines the enemyvictim trope of the Third Chimurenga by subverting the state’s interpretation of the struggle discourse of the Third Chimurenga. In the state’s discourse, the victim trope is racial, the state enemy is the former colonial master (in support of the opposition political party) and the victim is the previously colonised black. In my analysis, I have used Susan Wendell’s theory on oppression and victimisation as contained in her article Oppression and Victimization: Choice and Responsibility (1990).     

Two sides of the same coin: can campaigns generate support for both human rights and retributive violence?

ABSTRACT

Do framing strategies that are effective at encouraging pro-social behavior, such as participation in human rights campaigns, also mobilize support for violence within the same subjects? We use an experimental research design to examine individuals’ reactions to personal, humanizing narratives about past victimization. Participants are randomly assigned to one of eight treatment groups, which variously highlighted the humanity of the subject, the intensity of the past violence, and/or an evocative photograph of the subject that underscores her loss and vulnerability. We expect narratives that emphasize the subject’s humanity will encourage the audience to see the subject as innocent and as a victim, but also to feel angry about her experience. As a result, individuals will be more likely to defend the subject’s human rights, and to condone her use of retributive violence. We find that humanizing narratives lead respondents to simultaneously support a human rights appeal on the subject’s behalf and her use of retributive violence. Perceiving the subject in the narrative as innocent or as a victim mediates these effects, but anger often does not.     

刑事被害人获得社会援助权之论纲

刑事被害人的获得社会援助权是指被害人在遭受犯罪侵害后能够得到有关社会组织或成员的支援和帮助的一种法律权利.它是社会人道主义的法律化和制度化的表现,也是减轻被害人所受犯罪损害的现实需要.被害人获得社会援助权已纳入国际刑事人权保障的范畴,发达国家和地区较早地建立了完善的社会援助体系,为被害人实际享有获得社会援助权提供了现实保障.我国目前尚未从法律上确立刑事被害人的获得社会援助权,也缺乏援助被害人的社会工作体系,只是部分被害人获得了某些"边缘性的援助"或者司法经济救助.因此,立法上明确被害人的获得社会援助权,规范社会援助被害人的方式和内容,是被害人获得有效社会援助的制度保障.     

It's Only Made Things Worse: A Critique of Electoral Reform in Britain

Since it came to power, New Labour has introduced a range of new electoral system into the British political system, implicitly accepting the argument that Britain's traditional electoral system - first-past-the-post (FPTP) - has been a cause of voter disenchantment with Britain's representative democracy. In this article, it is asserted that Labour's reforms have merely compounded this problem, while demonstrating that all electoral systems have significant flaws. Indeed, it is argued that the flaws of the new systems are more serious than those of FPTP and threaten an even greater disconnection between UK politicians and the people they represent."     

国家权利·国家被害·国家护卫需求

国家权利是国家就维持其存在和履行职能所应有利益而享有的一种支配自由。国家也会受到犯罪的侵害 ,国家被害的客体是国家权利。国家权利也有防御犯罪和利益补救的护卫需求。     

Intergovernmental Grants and Public Expenditures: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

The relationship between intergovernmental grants and public expenditures is one of the most studied phenomena in the local public finance literature. However, little is known about whether the impact of unconditional grants is fundamentally different from that of other sources of municipal revenue. We study this question by means of a large-scale randomised survey experiment among Danish local politicians, which allows for a comparison of the impact of changes in various sources of municipal revenue. Our findings challenge the conventional conception in the public finance literature that money works differently depending on which sector they are generated in. Instead, ideology plays an important role in explaining how local politicians want to allocate resources when faced with changes in local government revenue.     

刑事诉讼中被害人的诉讼权利保护

随着法制观念的深入人心和人权思想的发展,刑事诉讼中的人权保障备受各方关注,被害人作为刑事诉讼中的当事人,与犯罪嫌疑人、被告人有平等的诉讼地位,也应当享有相同的诉讼权利。但在我国《刑事诉讼法》中,被害人的诉讼权利受到限制并缺乏保障。应从立法上完善被害人的诉讼权利,建立被害人诉讼权利保护机制,以保护被害人的合法权利。     

The next steps in academic integrity — education,awareness, norms,duty and law

We conducted and analyzed several internet surveys in order to understand the profile of global research integrity and ethical awareness, encompassing global population distribution. These were (1) the global distribution of Committee of Publishing Ethics (COPE) membership; (2) the global distribution of “Integrity” or “Ethics” journals; (3) the level of academic integrity awareness in European higher education institutions and (4) awareness of academic integrity in the top universities of Asia and Africa. The results of this survey series highlight seriously imbalanced awareness of research integrity and publishing ethics across the world, especially in developing areas with the highest population density. We therefore propose a new index, the “Academic Integrity Awareness Index” for future discussions across the linked spheres of publishing and research.