当前环境群体性事件的发展态势及其化解的法治路径

当前,频发的环境群体性事件已成为社会关注度极高、影响社会稳定的重大问题.环境群体性事件高发的主要原因在于公众环保意识迅速增强但环保知识缺乏,公众环境参与程度不足,环境信息公开制度存在诸多局限,环境影响评价制度效果甚微等.本文认为,要通过实现维稳方式由“堵”到“疏”、环境行政治理模式由“压制型”到“回应型”、公众环境参与由“叶公好龙”到“与龙共舞”的三个转变为环境群体性事件的化解寻求法治路径.     

自媒体时代公共参与的多元图景与路径选择--从地方危机信息管理的视角

基于互联网技术的自媒体不仅对公共管理产生了深刻影响,而且呈现出与公共参与互动式发展的态势。自媒体在一定意义上重构了信息生产与传播的格局,吸引着传统媒体环境下的边缘阶层更多地参与到公其生活中来,与变革迟缓的公共管理发生了碰撞,这一冲突迅速和直观地体现在地方危机信息管理中。面对信息技术革命带来的特定时代诉求,地方危机信息管理应当顺应社会转型与信息生产和传播规律,完善危机信息管理机制,提升公共治理水正.     

Economic grievances and political protest

How do economic grievances affect citizens’ inclination to protest? Given rising levels of inequality and widespread economic hardship in the aftermath of the Great Recession, this question is crucial for political science: if adverse economic conditions depress citizens’ engagement, as many contributions have argued, then the economic crisis may well feed into a crisis of democracy. However, the existing research on the link between economic grievances and political participation remains empirically inconclusive. It is argued in this article that this is due to two distinct shortcomings, which are effectively addressed by combining the strengths of political economy and social movement theories. Based on ESS and EU-SILC data from 2006–2012, as well as newly collected data on political protest in 28 European countries, a novel, more fine-grained conceptualisation of objective economic grievances considerably improves our understanding of the direct link between economic grievances and protest behaviour. While structural economic disadvantage (i.e., the level of grievances) unambiguously de-mobilises individuals, the deterioration of economic prospects (i.e., a change in grievances) instead increases political activity. Revealing these two countervailing effects provides an important clarification that helps reconcile many seemingly conflicting findings in the existing literature. Second, the article shows that the level of political mobilisation substantially moderates this direct link between individual hardship and political activity. In a strongly mobilised environment, even structural economic disadvantage is no longer an impediment to political participation. There is a strong political message in this interacting factor: if the presence of organised and visible political action is a decisive signal for citizens that conditions the micro-level link between economic grievances and protest, then democracy itself – that is, organised collective action – can help sustain political equality and prevent the vicious circle of democratic erosion.     

Of ordinariness and citizenship processes

This paper explores the relations between ordinariness and citizenship processes along two different lines. It first aims at empirically exploring certain uses of ordinariness as a political category. While it is often used as a depoliticisation tool, the two case studies analysed here underline on the contrary its politicising potential. In a second, briefer, part, it proposes a discussion of the gains to be obtained in citizenship studies, from using ordinariness as a category of analysis. Approaching citizenship processes ‘from the ordinary’ is a fruitful perspective from which the political dimensions of usually unseen or unheard practices and sites can be grasped. What connects the two discussions presented here is the complex and paradoxical relationship the two categories of ordinariness and politics entertain, both empirically and analytically.     

The 2015 Regional Election in Italy: Fragmentation and Crisis of Subnational Representative Democracy

In May 2015, voters in seven Italian regions went to the polls to elect new regional councils and governments. The final election result was apparently similar to that of 2010: centre-left coalitions won in five out of seven regions, as in the previous election, leaving the remaining two to the centre-right. Yet behind this picture of stability, dramatic changes have occurred in the internal composition of regional coalitions, cross-party equilibriums and levels of participation. Generally, regional party-based democracy seems to be experiencing increasing fragmentation and a crisis of representation and legitimacy.     

Lived citizenship as the locus of political agency in participatory policy

Participatory policies seeking to foster active citizenship continue to be dominated by a territorial imagination. Yet, the world where people identify and perform as citizens is spatially multifarious. This article engages with the tension between territorially grounded perceptions and relational modes of practicing political agency. Studying empirically the Finnish child and youth policies, we address jointly the participatory obligations that municipalities strive to fulfill, and the spatial attachments that children and young people establish in their lived worlds. To this end, we introduce the concept of lived citizenship as an interface where the territorially-bound public administration and the plurality of spatial attachments characteristic to transnational living may meet. We conclude by proposing a re-grounding of lived citizenship in both topological and topographical terms as an improvement in theoretical understanding of mundane political agency and as a step towards more proficient participatory policies.     

Mechanisms for popular participation and discursive constructions of citizenship

In the past decade, Latin America has witnessed the emergence of a political discourse that links popular participation to citizenship accompanied by an explosion of participatory mechanisms. Yet there is little qualitative research that looks at how participatory experiences affect people's perceptions of their role as citizens or to what extent the discourse transmitted through these institutions encourages participation or compliance. This article examines conceptions of citizenship among individuals who engage in participatory mechanisms in Venezuela, Ecuador and Chile. Using discourse analysis, it finds that participants in Venezuela and Ecuador have developed a ‘radical’ conception of active citizenship that differs from the liberal interpretation in Chile. Regardless of the preferred model, however, state discourse establishes parameters around citizenship. Furthermore, the discursive repertoires of citizen participants align with those produced by state institutions, suggesting that participatory mechanisms act to socialize people into participating in ‘legitimate’ and acceptable ways.     

中国政治现代化的动力:公民政治参与

中国政治现代化的基本目标是民主政治。民主政治的实现,和公民政治参与息息相关。中国政治现代化的过程离不开公民的政治参与。公民政治参与是中国政治体制改革的动力,是加强执政党能力建设的重要基础,是实现公民各项权利的重要基础。在中国政治现代化的过程中,需要规范公民政治参与,促进国家政治体制改革;推动公民政治参与,促进党的执政能力;保障公民政治参与,实现公民的各项权利。     

群体性事件的原因与防范:协商民主的分析视角

社会转型时期以利益矛盾为主的群体性事件呈现上升趋势。群体性事件频发暴露出公民利益表达渠道的不畅通和公共政策的局部失衡,也反映出政府在利益协调、协商治理方面能力的不足。产生群体性事件的深层次原因是公民权利保障机制不完善,公共参与缺失造成的制度供给不足、应得权利失衡和权力缺少有效监督。从协商民主的视角看,扩大公共参与和实现协商治理是解决社会冲突的适宜选择。     

公共对话式政策执行及其支持性维度分析

顺应当前的行政民主化浪潮,政策执行中引入对话协商,即公共对话式政策执行,代表了政策执行领域的一种对话性转向,具有重要的理论与现实意义。公共对话式政策执行的支持性维度包括:动机性维度——利益偏好,保障性维度——行动与信任合作,政治性维度——话语民主,情境性与能动性维度——社会建构。这些支持性维度与公共对话式政策执行之间存在着双向的促进作用,共同推动实现政策执行过程的合法性与有效性。公共对话式政策执行这一议题是一个初始性研究,存在诸多有待进一步思考与分析的问题,但公共对话本身所蕴含的巨大潜力,表明其将有着良好的发展前景。