美国和东盟地区论坛——多边主义的视角

本文从多边主义视角对美国对待亚太多边安全合作的态度、动机与行为进行了分析.冷战后亚太地区多边安全合作最重要的成果是东盟地区论坛,它是该地区成员安全利益需求的结果.亚太地区的安全多边主义主要依靠规范的力量发挥作用,缺乏有效的物质能力和制度保障来解决美国所关切的地区安全问题.况且,美国只是将多边主义作为服务于安全利益的工具性手段,而不是秩序目标之一,这决定了美国不大可能对亚太多边安全合作寄予较高的期望.     

菲律宾对东盟政策中的美国因素

在菲律宾对外政策中,对美国和对东盟的政策是其中最重要的两大组成部分.这其中,美国对菲律宾东盟政策的影响是巨大的.本文考察了菲律宾建国以来,在其制定和实施对东南亚(东盟成立前)/东盟政策时,美国所起的巨大作用以及同时期的菲美关系.     

俄罗斯国家身份定位与认知视角下的俄美关系困境

苏联解体近二十年来,俄罗斯与美国的关系经历了几次较大的波动,而每次波动都伴随着俄罗斯对自己国家身份定位的变化.叶利钦时期的俄罗斯没能融入西方,普京与美国在反恐行动中的合作也没能使其成为西方的一部分.俄罗斯东西方身份定位的不断摇摆和对大国身份一味地过度追求,对其国家利益建构和对外战略选择产生了重大影响,并在一定程度上阻碍了俄美关系良性互动的形成.同时,美国对俄罗斯身份定位的认同与否,也影响着俄美关系.     

美国警察临战公共关系体系及其启示

面对日益繁重的警察临战任务,为了树立警察的良好形象,美国警方在加强警察临战指挥与战术功效的同时,十分注重构建警察临战公共关系体系,通过有效的沟通和传播来改善临战环境,提高警察临战效能,其经验和做法非常值得我们思考与借鉴。     

People Trafficking: Conceptual issues with the United Nations Trafficking Protocol 2000

This paper examines the UN 2000 Trafficking Protocol in the context of international responses to the issue of people trafficking. Attention is drawn to the conceptual flaws in this new instrument regarding the failure to address domestic trafficking, not incorporating the purchasing and selling of people as defining characteristics of trafficking, and the lack of clarity around issues of prostitution. Framing the discussion within feminist theory, the essay concludes that women’s campaigning will continue to be crucial to putting issues such as human trafficking on the international political agenda. This is extended to affirm that people’s struggle against oppressive circumstances will lead the tackling of the underlying causes of trafficking.     

Trustworthiness: the Commentators

Mark Thompson deplores the decline in the public trust of government and of public service institutions such as the BBC. But there has also been a decline in another form of trust: government's trust in the ability of professionals such as doctors and teachers to deliver high quality public services. And, unlike Thompson's type of trust, this decline was inevitable, because it was based on untenable assumptions concerning professional motivation. The author discusses the importance of trust in an unwritten constitution, including trust in the use made of public resources, trust that appointments are being made on merit, trust that the civil service is ‘speaking truth unto power’ behind the scenes and ultimately trust that it retains the ability to serve future governments. In a world where trust in institutions is diminishing, there are still surprising levels of trust in the world of private philanthropy. The public are only too ready to give donations without seeking to question, especially in the wake of major disasters. Yet the nature of aid agencies has changed dramatically in the past thirty years into major global enterprises with sophisticated media and marketing operations. In this case a greater degree of scepticism from those who donate and paradoxically less trust might actually result in better outcomes from aid and better use of funding. Trust is critical to the mission of the FCO. The public needs to trust the competence and sound judgment of the professional diplomats. The diplomats themselves need to be able to rely on the commonsense of their fellow colleagues. Ministers and diplomats need to trust each other. And other governments need to have confidence in the discretion of their British counterparts. This is an increasing challenge in the world of instant news. Trust can be quickly lost by indiscreet or self‐serving revelations. But the key is to be as open and transparent as possible about the processes of diplomacy. A new survey commissioned by the British Journalism Review demonstrates that public confidence in journalism has collapsed over the last five years. This is particularly true for the commercial broadcasters ITV and Channel 4, whose journalism has traditionally commanded as much public esteem as the BBC. Trust in the BBC and print journalists has also declined, and journalism suffered more than any of the other 16 occupational groups being assessed. This is partly due to the cumulative effect of various “fakery” scandals that have afflicted broadcasters over the last 18 months and partly down to a more widespread cynicism directed at those in authority.     

Market Demand for Civic Affairs News

This paper uses time series methods to test the relationship between civic affairs content and audience share for the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news in the mid-1990s. Because these programs competed in the same market, but varied the amount of their civic affairs coverage, they present an excellent opportunity to analyze this relationship. The study uses hand-coded news abstracts and O.J. Simpson murder trial coverage as separate measures of news content. The study finds that lower levels of civic affairs content and higher levels of O.J. news are associated with greater audience share.     

Mutual and Self Perceptions of Opposing Advocacy Coalitions: Devil Shift and Angel Shift in a German Policy Subsystem

In political conflicts, actors tend to assume that opponents behave maliciously. This phenomena is part of the “devil shift,” which was introduced in advocacy coalition framework research. We present a multivariate analysis of the perceptions of motives and actions of opposing coalitions in a political conflict and thereby analyze a major dimension of the “devil shift” and of its antonym “angel shift.” The conflict concerning the German infrastructure project Stuttgart 21 serves as a case study. We show that the radicalness of policy‐specific beliefs is the most important predictor for the intensity of mutual misperception in the researched conflict. The results further point to a more systematic inclusion of an actor's deep normative core beliefs in future analyses of distorted perception. Another central finding relates to the importance of the personal environment: actors in the subsystem share the same policy core beliefs with the majority of people in their personal environment.     

Power Sector Reforms and Technical Performance: Good News from an Instrumental Variable Analysis

Over the past three decades, various power sector reforms have overhauled the governance of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution in almost a hundred countries. Have these reforms produced benefits? Using instrumental variables, we improve upon earlier studies and demonstrate that power sector reforms enacted between 1982 and 2008 have both had large positive effects on the availability of generation capacity and reduced transmission and distribution losses. We also show that the positive effects on generation capacity are pronounced in developing countries and that hybrid reforms falling short of privatization and free competition are effective in improving generation capacity in particular. Overall, the results show that these reforms are an effective tool to remove an important constraint on economic growth.     

The Extent,Nature, and Consequences of School Victimization: A Review of Surveys and Recent Research

ABSTRACT

The authors present a comprehensive overview of the current literature on the extent, correlates, and consequences of school-based incidents of victimization in the United States. The primary sources of data on crime and victimization in schools, including periodic, nationally representative surveys, are reviewed. These data are used to describe the scope and types of victimization most frequently encountered by students while in school, as well as historic shifts in trends. The authors also summarize the main correlates of school victimization both at the individual and school levels; describe the health, psychological, behavioral, and peer-network consequences of school victimization; and discuss the factors that can mitigate its consequences for youths. The discussion concludes by outlining future directions for this important line of research.