Citizen Participation in City Governance: Experiences From Vietnam

The radical political and economic reforms sweeping through former socialist countries during the last several decades have facilitated economic growth and urbanization. During this period of market reform and urbanization, citizen participation is greatly needed yet easily lost to other priorities. We employ stakeholder theory to examine whether citizen participation differs between large and small cities and between the poor and non‐poor people in Vietnam. Using data from a sample of citizens in five centrally managed cities, we found that citizens in large cities and citizens that belong to “unofficially poor” groups participate less. For policy makers, this implies that citizen participation should be of central importance in the management of current cities' expansions. In addition, the categorization of “poor households” needs to be closely monitored to minimize the risk of de facto poor households being excluded from the group. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Authoritarianism,socioethnic diversity and political participation across countries

It is argued in this article that threatening stimuli affect political participation levels among non‐authoritarians more than among authoritarians. Focusing on socioethnic diversity, which is known to be particularly threatening to authoritarians and to relate negatively to political participation in the general public, analyses of individual‐ and macro‐level data from 53 countries is presented which supports this thesis. Participation levels among authoritarians are largely static, regardless of a country's level of socioethnic heterogeneity, while non‐authoritarians participate considerably less in countries with relatively high levels of socioethnic heterogeneity. This suggests that authoritarians participate to a proportionately greater degree in the most diverse countries.     

Women in the driving seat: Eastern European immigrant women's citizenship,participation and educational inclusion in Portugal

This paper is a case study of Eastern European immigrant women's social inclusion in Portugal through civic participation. An analysis of interviews conducted with women leaders and members of two ethnic associations provides a unique insight into their migrant pathways as highly educated women and the ways in which these women are constructing their citizenship in new contexts in Northern Portugal. These women's accounts of their immigrant experience embrace both the public realm, in using their own education and their children's as a means of integration but also spill over into ‘non-public’ familial relationships at home in contradictory ways. These include the sometimes traditional, gender-defined division of labour within the associations and at home and the new ways that they negotiate their relative autonomies to escape forms of violence and subordination that they face as women and immigrants.     

Disability,right to culture and copyright: which regulatory option?

Access to knowledge and participation in cultural life for persons with disabilities has always constituted a tough challenge. Recent studies show that only 5% of published works are available in accessible format, and the number plummets to 1% in developing countries. Coupled with the high costs of production and distribution, and the full reliance on public funds and intervention of public or non-profit organizations, copyright has traditionally represented an additional obstacle on the path for a broader availability of accessible works. Recently, the situation has worsened with the tilting in the balance between rights and exceptions caused by the legislative response to digital threats, when the unprecedented opportunities offered by new technologies to foster accessibility have been largely trumped by copyright law. Still, the last decades have witnessed the beginning of a paradigm shift, originating from the human rights arena, and moving towards a new definition of the interplay between authors’ rights and the right to take part in cultural life, both at a general level and with particular regards to persons with disabilities. This article offers a diachronic overview of the path that, from the rediscovery of Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights through its General Comments to Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, has led to the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty. It then analyses, with a focus on the European Union and its Member States, the national and regional responses to the new human rights obligations, looking at the relations between legislative exceptions and model or collective license agreements. The assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the two main regulatory options lays the groundwork for proposals of further areas of intervention, necessary to fully comply with the international human rights obligations and to achieve the fullest access to and participation in culture possible for persons with disabilities, by using the tools offered by international and national copyright law.     

论程序参与原则在刑事诉讼管辖中的制度实现－兼论刑事诉讼管辖中的当事人权利保障

程序参与是诉讼主体理论在刑事诉讼中的贯彻与反映,是落实诉讼民主,维持诉讼结构平衡的现实需要。把握程序参与原则的内涵和实质要求并予以程序实现,也是管辖冲突的有效解决与管辖制度完善应予解决的问题。在管辖制度设置上应为当事人提供足够的程序参与机会,保证诉讼当事人及其代表对管辖事项的知情权,在管辖权确定过程中赋予诉讼当事人一定的异议权,在管辖权确定程序产生相关裁定或决定后,应该赋予诉讼当事人相关的救济途径。     

Promoting empowerment? The World Bank's Village Investment Project in Kyrgyzstan

This article examines the extent to which the World Bank's community-driven Village Investment Project empowered people to influence the choice of local investments (micro-projects) and to exact accountability from their leaders. It is based on qualitative interviews and group discussions in 16 rural communities. The research demonstrates that the project provided an effective mechanism for responsive infrastructure delivery to address local priority needs. However, it did not improve accountability either within or outside the micro-project boundaries. The project's bottom-up development model was not by itself sufficient to enable people to exercise power over local government officials and informal leaders in the absence of effective horizontal accountability institutions within the state.     

刑法教义学研究的中国主体性

刑法教义学既包括教义学方法,也包括教义学知识;教义学方法是无国界的,但教义学知识是对一国现行有效的法律所作的解释,因而是有国界的。德日刑法关于共同犯罪的规定表明,共犯的定罪与量刑均取决于正犯,因而决定了其共犯理论必须采取实质客观说以区分正犯与共犯;而中国刑法关于共同犯罪的规定表明,共同犯罪的定罪与量刑是截然可分的不同层次,因而在正犯与共犯的区分上采取形式客观说就足以解决问题。中国刑法和德日刑法对侵占罪规定的成立要件并不相同,"拒不退还"、"拒不交出"在中国的侵占罪中是一种客观处罚条件,是独立的行为要件,因而不能将其融入"非法占为已有"的含义之中。中国的刑法教义学研究必须清醒地认识到,要以中国刑法的规定为研究的逻辑起点并受其严格约束;要真正构建中国的刑法教义学,必须唤起研究者的主体意识。     

Silent citizenship among Asian Americans and Latinos: opting out or left out?

In his classic study, Who Governs?, Robert Dahl interpreted the patterns of political assimilation of ‘white ethnic’ immigrants and their children during the mid-twentieth century as a hopeful sign of the potential of democratic pluralism in the USA. While acknowledging that immigrant groups faced discrimination and structural barriers that might lead them to be silent, Dahl predicted that social mobility and assimilation would eventually erase these deficits in political participation among immigrants. Building from Dahl's analysis, we investigate the extent to which pluralism in the USA can and does work the same way for immigrants who are also racial minorities. We highlight factors that can lead these groups to become silent citizens, including lack of legal status, lower levels of political mobilization by institutions, and discrimination as structural impediments to minority participation. Our findings suggest that both resources as well as structural impediments structure the political behavior of Asian Americans and Latinos, determining whether they are vocal citizens or silent citizens.     

全面建设小康社会与弱势群体的政治参与问题

本文阐述了弱势群体政治参与的含义,探讨了在全面建设小康社会条件下发展和扩大弱势群体政治参与的途径和趋势。