Developing a peace course in police studies: how a culture of peace can enhance police legitimacy in a democratic society

This paper reflects my experiences developing a course within the Criminal Justice Technology Associates of Science degree program at Valencia College that fuses topics unique to peace and police studies. The key challenge in developing this course was in confronting the paradox of the police as instruments of both peace and conflict. In dealing with this paradox, students examine the role of the police in a democratic society and the authority of the police to use coercive force. Key topics covered in this course include defining peace, the police role in peace movements, the history, structure and strategies affecting the police, causes of violence, conflict analysis and conflict intervention, and ethical foundations for peace. In addition, this course examines occupational, organizational, institutional factors that contribute to the development of a unique police subculture that values crime fighting as its core responsibility and the impact of that orientation on police attitudes and behaviors toward the public. Throughout the course, students are challenged to envision a new paradigm for policing that emphasizes a culture of peace rather than a culture of conflict.     

Securing the nuclear nation

In 1946, in the Southern Urals, construction of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics first plutonium plant fell to the GULAG-Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD). The chief officers in charge of the program – Lavrentii Beria, Sergei Kruglov, and Ivan Tkachenko – had been pivotal figures in the deportation and political and ethnic cleansing of territories retaken from Axis forces during WWII. These men were charged with building a nuclear weapons complex to defend the Soviet Union from the American nuclear monopoly. In part thanks to the criminalization and deportation of ethnic minorities, Gulag territories grew crowded with foreign nationals and ethnic minorities in the postwar years. The NKVD generals were appalled to find that masses of forced laborers employed at the plutonium construction site were members of enemy nations. Beria issued orders to cleanse the ranks of foreign enemies, but construction managers could not spare a single healthy body as they raced to complete their deadlines. To solve this problem, they created two zones: an interior, affluent zone for plutonium workers made up almost exclusively of Russians; and anterior zones of prisoners, soldiers, ex-cons, and local farmers, many of whom were non-Russian. The selective quality of Soviet “nuclearity” meant that many people who were exposed to the plant's secret plutonium disasters were ethnic minorities, people whose exposures went unrecorded or under-recorded because of their invisibility and low social value.     

Teachers as Builders of Respectful School Climates: Implications for Adolescent Drug Use Norms and Depressive Symptoms in High School

Positive school climates have been found to have favorable effects on adolescent health risk behaviors and mental health outcomes. However, the mechanisms by which teacher behavior may promote such effects in high schools have not been extensively studied. Based on social control theory and a social developmental-contextual model, it was predicted that by respecting students’ points of view and decision making capabilities, teachers can help build respectful school climates that encourage healthy norms of behavior. Structural equation modeling with a nationally representative sample of 476 youth ages 14–18 supported the model. Adolescents who reported higher teacher support and regard for student perspectives in their high schools were more likely to see their schools as having respectful climates and healthy norms of drug use which was associated with lower levels of personal drug use. Students in such schools also reported greater social belonging and fewer symptoms of depression.

论生态文化建设与科技进步之间的关系

生态文化建设和科技进步之间有着错综复杂的关系：从简单性思维的角度来看,发展科技和保护自然是矛盾的,偏重其中的一极;从复杂性思维的角度来看,科技进步引发了生态文化建设,生态文化建设对科技进步进行规制,二者之间是复杂的张力结构关系;从现实的角度来看,生态文化建设必须在科技进步的背景下进行,科技进步必须考虑生态的维度,二者必须并行发展。     

Promoting an Environmental Civil Society: Politics,Policy, and Russia's Post‐1991 Experience

In recent years the United Nations Environment Program, UN Conference on Environment and Development, and other international organizations have acknowledged the importance of civil society for engaging stakeholders in environmental change—especially at the local community level—and in promoting democracy. ¹ In Russia, efforts by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote reform since 1991 have aimed at achieving both objectives and face numerous political, legal, and attitudinal hurdles. This article examines these hurdles and the factors that facilitate development of an environmentally conscious civil society in Russia through analysis of the views of 100 representatives of environmental NGOs, news media, scientific community, corporations, and public agencies. We also investigate three abbreviated but illustrative vignettes that illuminate civil society impediments. Our thesis is that successful efforts to ensure adequate protection of Russia's environment require a strengthening of civil society.     

韩国清溪川的生态化整治对中国河道治理的启示

随着城市化进程的加快和人口规模的增大,大量生活污水、工业废水流入城市河道,严重污染了河流。目前中国河道整治方式单一,偏重于简单的河道硬化、裁弯取直等,缺乏生态的理念和经济的视野。针对这些问题,该文在总结韩国清溪川综合整治工程的成果及特点的基础上,提出了中国河道生态化整治的原则及主要对策。     

对内部控制的几点思考

上世纪四十年代以后,内部控制实践与理论得到了空前发展,内部控制完成了其主体内容的构建。进入20世纪80年代以后,内部控制理论的研究又有了新的进展。面对金融危机,企业在思考：如何建设好内部控制,以提升企业应对风险的能力。为此,研究内部控制理论的渊源和理论发展状况,分析内部控制在企业管理中的作用,有利于构建一个良好的内部控制制度,有利于企业的健康发展。     

对虚拟实验环境开发技术的探讨

虚拟现实技术作为新的教学媒体技术已经进入高校的教学。利用虚拟现实技术构建虚拟实验环境,可以大大增进教学效果。文章通过虚拟实验环境制作实例介绍的方式探讨了虚拟实验环境的开发技术。     

关于在各级党校开展环境及可持续发展教育的思考

环境及可持续发展教育是促进人与自然和谐相处,创造和谐社会的治本之举,在各级党校开展环境教育及可持续发展教育是形势所迫,大势所趋,也是对各级领导干部树立和落实科学发展观和政绩观的必然要求。     

我们需要什么样的生态环境问责制度?——兼议生态环境损害赔偿中地方政府的两难困境

我国的生态环境问责制度是一项以党内法规和生态环境政策为规范基础,并以《环保督察规定》、环保督察制度和问责依据为主体构成的制度。在实践中,它也拥有着基层性、广泛性和严厉性三大特点。这样的属性和特点使得生态环境问责制度一方面对督促地方党委和政府履行生态环境保护职责,解决重大生态环境问题上大有裨益。但另一方面,也给地方政府带来了较大的政治压力,并继而影响到了生态环境损害赔偿制度的实施。在这种压力的影响下,如何引导地方政府积极提起生态环境损害赔偿诉讼就成为了亟待解决的问题。为此,我们首先需要构建生态环保领域干部容错机制,并实现生态环境问责制度法制化的改造,最后完成生态环境问责机制多元化的转变,以此赋予生态环境问责制度新的功能和使命。