农村基层党组织先进性建设效益探析

农村基层党组织先进性建设效益的内涵包括农村基层党组织政治上的成熟、思想理论水平和执政能力、领导水平的提高,以及作风的改善等多方面。要通过提高人的素质、依法从严治党、建立科学的农村基层组织体制、投入必要的人力、财力和物力等途径,来提高农村基层党组织先进性建设的效益。     

反恐怖劫持应急指挥系统构建和程序研究

突发事件应急指挥,是协调各级应急处置力量“有效行动”的关键,是处置行动的核心和灵魂。科学合理的反恐怖劫持应急指挥系统是实现高效、稳定指挥的重要保证。对恐怖劫持人质事件的处置,必须针对我国恐怖活动的特点、反恐怖武装力量体制的特点及反恐怖斗争方针政策的特点,建立固定的、强有力的、权威性的、能集中统一指挥和协调各方力量的反恐怖组织机构和指挥体系。反恐怖劫持处置是一个人工控制系统,处置过程必须通过系统工程方法进行调控,以公安指挥中心为平台,按照接警、出警、应急启动、救援行动等程序进行。     

人口密集场所恐怖事件处置研究

爆炸和人质劫持是人口密集场所恐怖事件的主要类型,对人口密集场所恐怖事件的处置应遵循正确的危机管理过程方法:建立实时的动态指挥体系及格式化的处置模式,采取妥当的现场处置与救援措施,加强对媒体的正确管理与引导,实现与媒体的良性互动,充分凸现人本理念,正确把握紧急状态下的人权保障问题。     

Globalization,International Organizations,and Telecommunications

Since the 1990s over 158 countries established pro‐market reforms in telecommunications—a fast pace for such a drastic change. For example, Sweden and Botswana, two nations vastly different across multiple dimensions, both liberalized their telecom sectors. Why did so many countries adopt liberal reforms in such a short period of time? Conventional wisdom highlights the role of global markets and technology, powerful states, global diffusion, and domestic politics. I argue that contrary to these claims, diffusion through key international organizations is the critical and overlooked factor in explaining rapid global convergence of pro‐market telecom reforms. Using an original dataset for 189 countries between 1970 and 2003 and event history analysis, I demonstrate that membership in key liberal trading organizations, especially the WTO and the OECD, increases the likelihood that countries will adopt liberal pro‐market reforms in telecommunications. These results speak directly to current public policy debates about the reregulation of global markets and bridges the literatures of policy diffusion, institutional design, and regulatory regimes.     

To be or not to be Charlie Hebdo: ritual patterns of opinion formation in the social networks

The social sciences have mostly focused on the formation of social opinions from a semantic point of view: given a certain semantic field, interviews, statistics, and other analytical instruments are commonly deployed in order to map the distribution of views, their evolution, their conflicts and their agreements. Socio-semiotics, social semiotics, and the other semiotic branches that bear on social inquiry have contributed to the effort by providing semiotic grids of categorization. These grids too, however, have been mostly related to semantic contents circulating through societies and their cultures. The present article pursues a different hypothesis. After briefly recalling the events of 7–9 January 2015 in the Parisian area, the article seeks to survey and map the syntax of progressive differentiation of opinions circulating in the social networks about such events. Some patterns are identified and semiotically described: (1) cleavage; (2) comparative relativizing; (3) blurring sarcasm; (4) anonymity; (5) unfocused responsibility; (6) conspiracy thought. A new semiotic square is created to visually display these patterns, their positions, their relations, and their evolution.     

Failures,downsizings, and mergers among community development corporations

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, community development corporations (CDCs) have become increasingly important actors in low‐ and moderate‐income communities. One prominent view of CDCs is that they have experienced uninterrupted growth since the 1970s. Despite their growth and productivity, however, many are facing serious challenges to their continued viability. When confronted by such challenges, CDCs are likely to respond in one of three ways: go out of business, downsize, or merge with one or more other groups. The major goal of this research was to assess the causes of these failures, downsizings, and mergers.

First, we found that these changes do not appear to be isolated instances; rather, they are prevalent across the country. Second, we identified a number of contextual and organizational factors leading to CDC failures, downsizings, and mergers. Finally we suggest a series of actions CDCs, support communities, and policy makers can take in response.     

Beyond Civil Society: An Organizational Perspective on State–NGO Relations in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

This article discusses the transformations in terms of participation brought about by the change of tides in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The key focus will be an analysis of the interaction between states undergoing reformulation and the social movements in these countries. To this end, the article first presents some theoretical and analytical frameworks. In what follows, it refers to the experiments of participative and direct democracy in these societies carried out amidst the above-mentioned process of refoundation, with a particular emphasis on state–society relations.     

Who governs? Delegations and delegates in global trade lawmaking

Who governs in the international organizations (IOs) that promulgate global norms on trade and commercial law? Using a new analytic approach, this paper focuses on previously invisible attributes of a global legislature – the state and non‐state delegations and delegates that create universal norms for international trade and commercial law through the most prominent trade law legislature, the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Based on ten years of fieldwork, extensive interviews, and unique data on delegation and delegate attendance and participation in UNCITRAL's Working Group on Insolvency, we find that the inner core of global trade lawmakers at UNCITRAL represent a tiny and unrepresentative subset of state and non‐state actors. This disjunction between UNCITRAL's public face, which accords with a global norm of democratic governance, and its private face, where dominant states and private interests prevail, raises fundamental questions about legitimacy and efficacy of representation in global lawmaking.     

Constraining Political Transformation: The Two Faces of Activist Religious Organizations in the Search for a New Constitution in Kenya

Abstract

Religious organizations are key structural components of Kenyan civil society that have played or continue to play a critical role in socio-political developments. In the last two and half decades especially, religious institutions have been among the principal actors shaping the mechanics and trajectories of Kenya's political order. But religious organizations’ political behaviour, especially in the country's search for a new constitution, was contentious and remarkably inconsistent. There were moments of progressive actions but also behaviour that imperilled progress. This article probes this ambivalence of Kenyan faith groups in the struggles for a new constitution. It is argued that their political behavioural inconsistencies largely reflect an ethnic, class and, to a lesser extent, instrumentalized doctrinal or denominational schism that is ever present in the wider Kenyan society. By analysing how religious leaders and their organizations challenged political elite domination while remaining amenable to its influence, this article illustrates the contradictions of elite pacts in these struggles and how they constrained progressive transformation.     

Challenges to the Recruitment and Retention of Volunteers in Traditional Nonprofit Organizations: A Case Study of Australian Meals on Wheels

Australian Meals on Wheels (MoWs) is a well-known, traditional nonprofit organization operating for over 60 years in a mixed economy of welfare, where it is positioned between the increasingly complex demands of state regulation and market efficiency. These contextual challenges cause critical tensions to an organization reliant on humanitarian principles and a large volunteer workforce. Findings show that this organization is experiencing conflicting and multiple identities which are having a significant impact on volunteer recruitment and retention. Specifically, data highlight the external challenges that threaten volunteers relating to regulation and funding, and internal challenges that tend to ignore volunteer value and instead picture volunteers as ageing and resistant to change. Findings suggest that the organization needs to work with all stakeholders to develop a shared organizational identity that blends humanitarianism with managerialism. New inclusive processes can enable better recruitment and retention practices, enabling the organization to “unfreeze” its traditional ways of operating to build a sustainable future for this much-needed organization.