Citizens’ Initiatives: How Local Governments Fill their Facilitative Role

In the context of drastic cutbacks many Dutch municipalities consider citizens’ initiatives (CIs) as an attractive alternative for municipal policies aimed at improving the livability and safety in neighbourhoods, simultaneously building responsible citizenship. In this paper we combine different theoretical perspectives to analyse the institutional settings in which CIs are being realised, and how municipalities try to facilitate such initiatives. Municipalities can do this by either trying to structure the relevant networks or by various forms of process management. This analysis sheds light on how municipalities use a variety of instruments to mobilise citizens to participate in CIs. In using such instruments they can influence various factors (like motivations, personal resources, social capital and expected responsiveness; cf. Lowndes et al.’s CLEAR model) that increase the likelihood of civic engagement.     

Anti-Immigrant Parties,Local Presence and Electoral Success

Abstract

Does the local organisational presence of anti-immigrant parties affect their chances for electoral success? In order to answer this question, the article explores the potential of a supply-oriented explanation to anti-immigrant party success by examining the electoral advancements the Sweden Democrats (SD) made in the 2006 and 2010 elections. Our results indicate that traditional demand-side explanations to anti-immigrant party success can be successfully complemented by an ‘internal supply-side argument’ to make the electoral fates of these parties more intelligible. Whether the SD had a local organisational presence had a substantial effect on its results in the national election and on the probability of gaining representation in local councils. Thus, the party’s fate in the national as well as local elections was largely determined by whether or not it had a local organisational presence in Swedish municipalities.     

Local Politics Online: The Influence of Presumed Influence on Local Politicians’ Online Communication Activities in Germany

Abstract

How extensively local politicians use online media to communicate with others and the factors that influence their online activities have rarely been examined. In particular, it is unknown whether local politicians use online media more extensively when they believe that online media has a strong political influence on others. To examine this, a standardised survey among German local politicians was conducted (n = 608). The results showed the following: The stronger the politicians perceive the influence of facebook and Twitter on journalists to be, the more extensively they spread information via these social media networks. However, the presumed influences on the public or on other politicians do not affect those online activities. Thus, local politicians apparently do not pursue a disintermediation strategy – they do not try to bypass journalism by directly addressing the public. Rather, journalists seem to be an important target group for local politicians’ online communication efforts.     

Aviation security and terrorism

Abstract

The author asserts that a sophisticated sabotage threat to U.S. international civil aviation has been well known to the U.S. government and air carriers since the early 1980s. He believes that both the U.S. government and air carriers have failed to do enough to counter this sabotage threat. He cites the findings of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (May 1990), and the enactment of the Aviation Security Improvement Act (Nov. 1990) to support his beliefs. The author concludes by providing a recipe for corrective action.     

Toward a measurement tool for the monitoring of media diversity and pluralism in South Africa: A public-centred approach

Abstract

This article responds to recent debates within South African media politics regarding the diversity and transformation of the print sector in the country, by suggesting a necessary refocus of previously used methods of measuring media diversity and proposing a more audience-centred approach. This audience-centred method is discussed with regard to meeting the demands of the normative understanding of media diversity, where the media are viewed as central to an individual's formulation of opinions and ideas, thus rendering the media – and particularly the news media – vital in fostering an enabled and informed citizenry. The argument proposes a bottom-up instead of a top-down methodology for measuring media diversity, by placing the primary focus on the public as the starting point, rather than the end point of the analysis, and validating this position through the normative view of the media's role in assisting citizens to formulate personal views. The article concludes by listing four key areas in which current debates on media diversity in South Africa should be realigned and refocused, including at a parliamentary level.     

Universities and the teaching of forensic sciences to lawyers—a note *

This article presents the findings of the survey conducted among business and accountancy students of the Nanyang Business School, Singapore, on the teaching of business law. The article is organised in three main sections. Section 1 formulates the framework for the research by outlining the three basic approaches adopted across many jurisdictions for the legal education of business students—the traditionalist ("black‐letter law"), the environmentalist and mixed approaches. Section 2 briefly describes the survey questions drawn up in the light of four principal objectives that, according to legal educators, the teaching of business law should achieve. Section 3 presents and examines the findings. The article concludes that law teaching at the Nanyang Business School conforms to the traditional approach. The author accordingly makes recommendations for the transformation of current teaching and assessment medthods: an injection of a great deal of “environmental” content and context‐based education; more use of actual and current cases, practical examples and a link to the business environment.     

构建全息指挥与协同应急新模式

全息指挥是对传统应急指挥模式的突破,它基于应急效率对于应急信息的直接依赖性,利用成熟的网络技术和音频与视频技术,开发具有立体全面、实时直观、信息共享、准确高效等特点的全息指挥平台。借助这个技术平台,应对突发灾难事件的有关各方可以更容易建立联合指挥与协同应对的合理机制,克服应急过程中越级指挥、多头指挥和无序指挥等较为普遍的问题,促进资源整合,优化应急流程,提高应急水平。     

公共行政研究方法及其走向评析

纵观百年公共行政发展过程的方法论,个人主义的理性思雏与经验的实用分析方法是其显著特征。本文认为,公共行政的研究方法,在保持现有研究方法的基础上,应引入哲学的形而上的反思与批判的研究方法,以提高公共行政方法研究的层面与视角;引入理性与非理性相统一的研究方法．以克服单一的理性思维与正向思维的研究方式与方法;引入伦理的研究方法,在尊重科学性的基础上,打破行政的以个体为核心价值理念的结构,调整好个人与个人、个人与组织、政府与社会的关系,建立良性的社会导向机制。     

浅议辽宁省装备制造业创新能力问题

辽宁装备制造业经过多年的培育和发展,已成为辽宁省实力雄厚的第一产业,在国民经济中一直发挥着重要作用。但是,辽宁装备制造业的创新问题一直困扰其可持续发展,主要体现在基础制造、智能制造和重点装备等领域。该文提出从创新经费渠道、自主创新能力、协同创新能力、开放式创新体系等领域进行创新,构建可持续发展的创新体系。     

Making a difference: On the constraints of consensus building and the relevance of deliberation in stakeholder dialogues

This article illuminates the contribution of stakeholder dialogues to environmental policy making. It makes a distinction between stakeholder dialogues as consensus building and stakeholder dialogues as deliberation. Although consensus building seems to be the dominant approach in participatory environmental policy making, this article questions the merits of consensus building and it uses the experience of the Dutch stakeholder dialogue project Climate OptiOns for the Long term (COOL) to explore, in a deliberative design, the shortcomings of a consensus-building approach and how they are possibly dealt with. The article presents the results of two deliberative methods that have been used in the COOL project – the repertory grid analysis and the dialectical approach – to demonstrate how a deliberative design can help policy makers to critically assess arguments in favor of and against a broad range of policy options, and deal with stakeholder conflict in an early phase of the policy process.