现阶段两岸政治关系问题探析

当前,两岸关系和平发展已实现由开创期转人巩固深化期的阶段性跨越,两岸在经济、社会、文化、民间交流等领域的合作规模与深度不断提升,但在政治领域,双方关系仍处于低层次的增进了解、累积互信阶段。为让两岸政治关系发展满足两岸形势变化的需要,本文拟在探索当前两岸关系阶段性特征的基础上,寻求解决两岸政治难题的着力点。     

两岸政经互动：理论探索与路径选择

2008年5月以来,两岸双方在反对“台独”、坚持“九二共识”的政治基础上,开创了和平发展的新局面。两岸政治关系有所改善,经济关系突飞猛进,然而两岸政治关系的相对滞后已明显妨碍到两岸经济关系的进一步深化。在两岸关系步人“深水区”之后,两岸双方应积极采取有效措施,维护巩固“一中框架”,加强法律制度建设,开启政治对话进程,深化媒体交流合作,努力推进两岸政治关系与经济关系的良性互动,为巩固与深化两岸关系和平发展提供有力保障。     

论群体劳动争议的现实表现与治理对策

我国现实中经常发生的劳动者群体与用人单位之间发生的冲突,具有群体性、无预期性、程式失序、争议内容混杂等特点。对于这些冲突和纠纷,不能简单等同于群体性事件,当然也不是严格意义上的集体劳动争议,可概括称之为“群体劳动争议”。群体劳动争议本质上属于经济纠纷,而非具有政治目的或者社会目的的群体性事件,不能以维稳思维和手段予以应对,而应通过法律对策予以解决。     

试论和谐警民关系规范化建设的公共关系途径

和谐警民关系建设成果丰厚,但由于历史和现实的原因,实践中存在规范化不足、制度化缺失的问题,这与警民关系建设没有规范的顶层设计、未能建立稳定独立的组织领导体系有很大关系。从各地公安机关警民关系建设的实践出发,以国外警方的先进经验和全球行政改革的理论为依据,当前警民关系建设应转入规范化建设阶段,应从目前较为粗放的管理方式转入精细化管理阶段,从而实现警民关系建设的组织管理系统化、工作任务具体化、工作机制常态化。     

Tackling invisible frontiers of global justice: an extension of Sen’s ‘Comparison View of Justice’ into IR

A central challenge of Amartya Sen’s comparative view of justice is to bring cultural diversity to bear on conceptualizing global justice, which includes building bridges across cultures that enable effective action, and rendering compatible the most beneficent of Rawlsian (or transcendental) intentions with irreducible cultural diversity. For social scientists meeting this challenge requires, first, taking account of variation of social practices in the social construction of meaning, and second, uncovering invisible frontiers of global justice that remain hidden due to conceptual or empirical oversight. The latter is especially true for contemporary International Relations (IR) theory, which assumes state actors to be the main interlocutors in the global realm, and thus precludes consideration of micro-level forms of inter-national relations (understood as interaction among all types of actors that takes place across country borders and that bears traits of national identity). Alternatively, Sen’s micro-perspectival approach offers a welcome support for pluralist approaches that both appreciate non-state access to contestation in the international arena, and account for the meaning-in-use of fundamental norms (democracy, rule of law, human rights) in different cultural and inter-national contexts.     

Communicative Diplomacy for the 3rd Millennium

Abstract

In today's world of revolution in communications and information as well as of global interdependency, a medialised politics became a general reality. One can observe such a trend specifically in the field of international and foreign affairs where state and other actors use communication channels and public relations to a large extent to improve on the content and in particular, on the image of their policies. Here one can also argue that a major share of bilateral and multilateral relations among states is shaped by the international media, or vice versa, that all major “wars” are “fought” through the media.

This article explores the increasing inter-relation between state foreign affairs on one side, and media and public relations, on the other. The article starts off with basic concepts of a “new/democratic diplomacy” (Nicholson, 1988) and a “public diplomacy” (Signitzer in Combs, 1992), and compares them with definitions of “international public relations” (Kunczik, 1997). It attempts to build the general analytical framework on the basis of comparative case studies of developed countries with an established diplomatic tradition and of new democracies still proving themselves on the international fora. In this context, particular attention is given to communication in relation to international organisations like NATO and the EU.     

The muslim experience in the Balkan states, 1919‐1991

This article analyzes the effects of nationalizing policies of the state, processes of democratization, and uneven socio-economic development on the rise of Kurdish ethno-mobilization led by the PKK terrorist organization since the 1980s in Turkey. Three features of the Turkish modernization context are identified as conducive for the rise and continuation of Kurdish ethno-mobilization: a) a nation-building autocratic state that resisted granting cultural rights and recognition for the Kurds; b) democratization with the exclusion of ethnic politics and rights; c) economic regional inequality that coincided with the regional distribution of the Kurdish population. It is argued that autocratic policies of the state during nation-building accompanied the development of an illiberal democracy and intolerance for cultural pluralism. These aspects of Turkish democracy seem to be incompatible with both the liberal and consociational models of democracy that accommodate ethnicity within multiculturalism.     

Integration or separation? Nationality groups in the US and the Republican Party's ethnic politics, 1960s–1980s

Using examples of American Latvians, Estonians and Ukrainians in the states of Minnesota, New Jersey and New York this article explores the ambiguous nature of integration of nationalities groups inside the Republican Party during the 1960s–1980s. Based on the analysis of available archival information, it is shown that the Republican Party intentionally brought in the ethnics during the discussed period and created the Nationalities Sections within specific electoral campaigns, Nationalities Divisions inside the state party organizations and the National Republican Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council within the Republican National Committee in order to recruit the ethnics and engage in the partisan struggle with the Democrats. Consequently, the nationalities were given a sense of importance, but little real power to actually influence the internal processes inside the party. At the same time, the nationalities eagerly responded to the invitation to join the Republican national and state-level organizations specifically designed for the ethnics. Yet in doing this they perceived themselves primarily as ethnics with a distinct, mainly anti-communist, agenda and only secondarily thought of themselves as Americans dedicated to Republican politics. Consequently, the Republican political strategy of creating Nationalities Sections and Divisions seemed to integrate the ethnics on the surface, while in reality intensifying political separation and even ghettoization of the ethnics in American politics. This research initiates a larger project, which will compare the Republican and Democratic strategies of directly involving ethnic groups and minorities inside the party organizations in the second part of the twentieth century.     

From domestic to international: the politics of ethnic identity in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia

This paper examines two contrasting cases of ethnic-group political activism in China – the Uighurs in Xinjiang and the Mongols in Inner Mongolia – to explain the former's political activism and the latter's lack thereof. Given similar challenges and pressures, how can we explain the divergent patterns in these two groups' political behavior? This paper forwards the argument that domestic factors alone are not sufficient to account for differences in the groups' political behavior. Instead, international factors have to be included to offer a fuller and satisfactory explanation. The paper illustrates how three types of international factors – big power support, external cultural ties, and Uighur diaspora community activism – have provided opportunities and resources to make the Uighur political activism sustainable. In Inner Mongolia, its quest for self-determination reached the highest fervor in the early half of the twentieth century, particularly with the support of imperial Japan. However, since the end of WWII, Inner Mongolia has not received any consistent international support and, as a result, has been more substantially incorporated into China's geopolitical body.     

Electronic media and popular discourse on Russian nationalism

This article analyzes electronic letters to the editor on the coverage of the riot in Kondopoga (2006) and the bombings in the Moscow subway (2010). Letters to electronic media are used for the first time as a source for popular opinion on nationalism and ethnic conflicts in Russia. The first argument of this study is methodological: a comparison between the polls and the letters suggests that letters to electronic media represent public opinion on nationalism even though Internet users still constitute a minority of Russian citizens. This study also claims that the letters under examination indicate a move from extreme nationalism to so called “banal nationalism,” the term coined by Michael Billig, during the period between 2006 and 2010. Finally, the article argues that the concept of the civic nation is not yet well understood or accepted by Russian citizens. Although this concept, expressed in Russian by the newly coined word rossiane, became somewhat more popular in 2010 than it had been in 2006, the ethnic understanding of Russian still prevails. The basis for the new identity rossiane, as it is presented in the letters, lacks common memories, myths and traditions that would resonate strongly in popular imagination.