Women seafarers in Taiwan: survivors during the evolution of the special shipping relationship between China and Taiwan

The first Taiwan women seafarer appeared on a container ship as a training deck officer in 1998, but so far only a handful of Taiwan shipping companies are willing to provide female navigational students with on-board internship opportunities. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the career development of women seafarers in Taiwan. The author has adopted the qualitative research approach, conducted in-depth interviews with women seafarers and representatives of shipping companies, and sailed on an LPG carrier for 14 days to conduct on-site observations. This study discovers that, in the seesaw battle between occupational gender-equality awareness and the shipping market mechanism, the dominant power remains in the hands of employers who demonstrate gender bias towards women seafarers. A noteworthy finding in this study is that the political forces, which include the evolution of the special shipping relationship across the Taiwan Strait as well as the domestic regulations limiting the employment of foreign seafarers, have had a non-negligible positive impact on the seafaring career prospects of Taiwanese women.     

Partisan bias and redistricting in France

Decided by the executive, redistrictings in France have been claimed to have substantial partisan bias in favor of the right. We examine the evidence for this claim in terms of France's left bloc versus right bloc politics, combining information from both the first and the second round of France's two round electoral system. We also examine data at the constituency level to look at factors, such as malapportionment, that can affect bias. As France is characterized by a pattern of a limited number of redistrictings, population inequalities have grown in legislative constituencies between plans. Although the procedures used to draw constituency boundaries for the French Assembly are rather opaque, and under the control of political authorities, partisan bias appears as minuscule.     

强镇扩权背景下县镇权力配置、运行的偏差与优化--对于浙江省N市强镇扩权案例的实证分析

强镇扩权的核心内容是通过放权赋予试点镇与县级政府相同的经济社会管理权限,但从其权力下放过程来看,县镇之间的权力配置和运作与现实需要、制度文本之间均存在着偏差。引发权力下放中县镇权力配置、运行偏差的原因不仅有放权的法律限度、更有其利益动机及其所契入的地方治理权力架构等。优化强镇扩权背景下县镇两级权力配置及其运行,是一项系统工程,应以完善的分权制度安排为主要手段,以必要的监督约束机制为补充,改善包括分权逻辑、放权原则、考核体制机制在内的整体性制度设计。     

Partisan turnout bias and district magnitude

This article examines how the partisan turnout bias (i.e. turnout rate differences across districts that are linked to the partisan vote shares in those districts) changes over time in PR districted electoral systems. We argue that the bias after the founding election is the unintended consequence of parties and voters' strategic behaviors when they respond to the incentives provided by the electoral system. By looking at the case of Portugal, one of the countries with the largest variation in district magnitude, we find that the increasing asymmetry in turnout rates across districts makes the bias more severe as time goes by.     

Selection biases in Voting Advice Application research

This paper focuses on methodological aspects of Voting Advice Application (VAA) research. Self-selection into the treatment and self-selection into the sample need to be controlled for if the aim is to deduce causal effects from VAA use in observational data. This paper outlines omnipresent endogeneity issues, partly imposed through unobserved factors that affect both whether individuals use VAAs and their subsequent electoral behavior. Some research on VAAs has acknowledged the problems associated with selection biases, but practically none have taken steps towards improving these shortcomings. This paper introduces various approaches for handling selection biases and applies them to VAA data from Switzerland. These methodological considerations are of outmost importance for the relevance and validity of VAA research.     

Distributive justice attitudes in Ukraine: Need,desert or social minimum?

This paper presents research findings based on a factorial survey study of attitudes toward the justice of income distribution in Ukraine. The factorial survey design was used for the first time in a representative large-scale survey in Ukraine and provided an opportunity to investigate the effect of multiple factors concerning individual, family and enterprise characteristics in complex subjective evaluations of just earnings. The focus within this study lays on three fundamental principles, according to which the just income is assessed: equality, desert and need principles. Empirical results of the study show that Ukrainian respondents pay attention to almost all characteristics used in the vignettes, a fact which empirically supported the basic idea of the multiprinciple justice theory. Some generational differences in justice perception were uncovered and discussed. The analyses also revealed an overall domination of the need principle in the judgments on income justice. However, the need criterion loses its relative significance at the expense of the desert principle, as soon as rather large income amounts are treated. This finding leads to the reflection that the need considerations appear to be popular in the post-Soviet countries to the extent to which they find support among low-income population and not because of the Soviet ideological heritage.     

紧急状态下的守法难题——以决策心理为视角

法治社会具有日常状态与紧急状态两幅面孔。当社会进入紧急状态,公民的行为策略会改变,遵守法律将变得困难。这是由人类的思维机制与认知倾向决定的。人类拥有快速但不准确的“系统一”与缓慢但可靠的“系统二”两套决策机制,在面对紧急状态时大量的情绪刺激会让“系统一”控制决策支配权,而信息过载也会限制“系统二”的监督与预警作用。因此,紧急状态下的个体决策者总是运用“系统一”进行行为选择。“系统一”采用启发式判断,有限时间内的决策往往存在各种认知偏差,导致人的行为与守法的要求背道而驰。正视这些违法行为背后的心理过程,通过事前建立完善应急措施与事中规范宣传报道,按照认知规律办事能够较好地减少违法行为。     

Crime,time, and punishment: An exploration of selection bias in sentencing research

The sentencing decision reflects the culmination of a long series of processing and, thus, selection decisions, with cases leaving the system at each decision point. Accordingly, the substantive implications of bias due to sample selection are of particular concern for sentencing research. In an effort to assess the existence and manifestations of selection bias, the sentencing decision is modeled for three samples, each of which was selected from different stages of the justice process. Event-history data on felony arrests in the State of California over a 3-year period are used, along with a relatively simple analytic technique which reduces such bias. Results indicate that biasis introduced when censored observations are excluded from the analyses. Also, the effects of certain exogenous variables on sentence length differ, depending upon the selection criteria. Of these, the influence of pleading guilty rather than going to trial is especially interesting. Overall, our findings are consistent with the possibility that selectivity bias has concealed effects of sentence bargaining in some earlier studies.The data utilized in this study were collected and made available by the State of California Department of Justice, Bureau of Criminal Statistics. The Department of Justice bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here.     

总结民警大练兵工作探索集约型训练机制

通过设计、组织关于大练兵问题的民警个人问卷调查,较真实地掌握了民警的素质、能力状况和警务训练工作存在的主要不足和问题,在此基础上探索警务训练机制,其目的是实现向训练要素质,向素质要警力的目标.     

艺术类大学生思想道德素质状况解析——以江苏高校为例

在问卷调查的基础上,从思想政治、理想信念和道德素养三个方面对艺术类大学生思想道德素质状况进行了较为全面的调查与分析结果显示,艺术专业大学生思想道德素质的总体状况是健康向上和积极进取的,同时,值得重视的是,随着我国社会的经济成分、组织形式、就业状况、利益关系和分配方式日益多样化的态势也给一部分艺术专业大学生思想道德发展带来了不少负面影响,为此,我们应大力加强理想信念教育和爱国主义教育,进一步充实法制、诚信与合作意识教育的内容,积极建构和努力推进心理健康教育的新模式.