EQUALITY,DIGNITY, AND SOCIAL HARMONY: EXPLORING THE RATIONALES AND MODELS FOR RECOGNIZING SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS IN LAW

One of the major changes that has taken place over the past twenty to thirty years has been the extension of the legal recognition and protections for same-sex relationships in a wide range of countries. A number of jurisdictions, including China, are considering the approach that they will adopt. This article seeks firstly to consider the justifications for the legal recognition of same-sex relationships by the state. Three main, compelling rationales are identified which are rooted in notions of the equality of all persons, the dignity and liberty of individuals to form close personal relationships, and the social benefits of recognizing close, personal relationships of same-sex couples. The second part of this article then turns to consider the manner in which same-sex relationships should be recognized. Four models are identified: a “Partial Rights” model; a “Civil Partnerships” model; a “Marriage Equality” model, and a “Diversity of Relationships” model. Reasons for and against these particular models will be examined. In the conclusion, it shall be argued that the choice of model that has been adopted can be seen to depend on a number of factors: the manner in which equality is conceived in that society; the understanding of same-sex relationships therein, and the religious and cultural opposition to same-sex relationships in that society. The models are also not states of affairs that are fixed for all time and many countries have progressed from less extensive forms of recognition to wider recognition over time. Ultimately, it shall be argued that the rationales underlying the recognition of close personal relationships in the law support the “Marriage Equality” model or the “Diversity of Relationships” model. This article thus seeks to provide an understanding of the rationales and models for recognizing same-sex relationships that have been adopted around the world: Its focus is thus comparative but may, in this way, be useful to lawmakers and advocates for legal reform in this area in China and other jurisdictions around the world.     

THE IMPACT OF BRITISH COUNTERTERRORIST STRATEGIES ON POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN NORTHERN IRELAND: COMPARING DETERRENCE AND BACKLASH MODELS*

Since philosophers Beccaria and Bentham, criminologists have been concerned with predicting how governmental attempts to maintain lawful behavior affect subsequent rates of criminal violence. In this article, we build on prior research to argue that governmental responses to a specific form of criminal violence—terrorism—may produce both a positive deterrence effect (i.e., reducing future incidence of prohibited behavior) and a negative backlash effect (i.e., increasing future incidence of prohibited behavior). Deterrence‐based models have long dominated both criminal justice and counterterrorist policies on responding to violence. The models maintain that an individual's prohibited behavior can be altered by the threat and imposition of punishment. Backlash models are more theoretically scattered but receive mixed support from several sources, which include research on counterterrorism; the criminology literature on labeling, legitimacy, and defiance; and the psychological literature on social power and decision making. In this article, we identify six major British strategies aimed at reducing political violence in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1992 and then use a Cox proportional hazard model to estimate the impact of these interventions on the risk of new attacks. In general, we find the strongest support for backlash models. The only support for deterrence models was a military surge called Operation Motorman, which was followed by significant declines in the risk of new attacks. The results underscore the importance of considering the possibility that antiterrorist interventions might both increase and decrease subsequent violence.     

Overlapping polarization: On the contextual determinants of the interplay between ideological and affective polarization

Previous literature has distinguished two types of polarization: ideological and affective. However, little is known on how the interconnection of these two polarizations (which we call overlapping polarization) varies depending on the political context. Is affective polarization always associated with ideological polarization? What is the role of the institutional framework (i.e., democratic age and popular election of the head of state) and the party system (i.e., elite polarization and number of parties) in determining how wide this overlap is? This article examines the contextual determinants of overlapping polarization by using information from the four first CSES waves. According to our analyses, the individual-level positive effect of ideological polarization on affective polarization is stronger when the party system is ideologically polarized and in older democracies, and is weaker in presidential democracies and when the number of parties is higher.     

Generational replacement and Green party support in Western Europe

Over the past decades, electoral support for Green parties has gradually increased in Western Europe, especially among young people. This begs the question whether there are systematic differences between generations in support for Green parties, and whether there are also life-cycle effects. We answer this question by separating age, period and cohort effects on Green party support using CSES data covering 40 elections in 11 Western European countries. We find that when controlling for period and age, each new generation is more supportive of the Greens than the generation before. We also find negative age effects. While Green parties can expect to benefit in the future from generational replacement, the consequences of aging societies are to their disadvantage.     

几种"社会主义"模式的比较和科学社会主义在中国的实行

介绍西方在一百多年来探索优于资本主义制度的几种社会主义模式的情况,并阐述了他们寻找到的科学社会主义的模式,这种模式被中国的知识分子接受并广为传播,而最终成为中国共产党人的选择.     

The role of mitigation and strengthening cognitive operations in brand names design: a case study of Spanish and American wine brands

Despite the relevance of powerful brands in the present-day market, research on the process of brand name design from a cognitive perspective focuses almost exclusively on the effects of the use of conceptual metaphor, and to a lesser extent, metonymy, overlooking the role played by other cognitive strategies. This paper analyzes the potentiality of mitigation and strengthening cognitive operations as tools for the systematic, risk-free design of new brand names with highly predictable and felicitous connotations. In particular, it focuses on their role in the systematic generation of axiologically positive brands in both Spanish and American wine labels, thus largely reducing the need for the costly and time-consuming cultural checks that branding companies need to run on new brand names before their commercial launching. In so doing, the interaction of the two aforementioned cognitive operations with a number of pragmatic principles and cultural models of social interaction, and their subservience to other cognitive operations, like those of comparison, correlation, and domain expansion and reduction, are also considered. The results of the study offer new insights on the semantics of commercial brand names which should prove useful for branding professionals, as well as data of interest to linguists dealing with inter-linguistic issues and cognitive modeling alike.     

Female Officers and Community Policing: Examining the Connection between Gender Diversity and Organizational Change

This study aimed to evaluate the temporal relationship between gender diversity and the adoption of community policing. The results from three separate structural equation models suggest that gender diversity is the stronger temporal predictor. The findings highlight the potential importance of gender diversity in organizational change. In theory, increasing the number of female officers may increase organizational agility through the creation of an alternative cultural ethos. More research is needed to understand how gender diversity affects police agencies, as well as how calls to reform the institution of policing affect women in law enforcement.     

Moderate,extreme, or both? How voters respond to ideologically unpredictable candidates

Candidates and parties often face a choice between endorsing policies that appeal to their core constituencies or generate support from more diverse groups of voters. While the latter strategy may make overtures to a wider set of citizens, existing literature says little about how the overall mix of issue positions affects electoral support. We argue that candidates who endorse diverse sets of policy positions appear unpredictable to voters and incur subsequent electoral penalties. Using data from the 2006 congressional elections, we find that ideological predictability substantially increases electoral support at both the individual and aggregate levels and that voters perceive greater ideological congruence from more predictable candidates. Our results have important implications for candidate and party strategies and suggest that voters are responsive to the mean and the variance of candidates’ policy stances.     

Earnings prospects,matching effects,and the decision to terminate a criminal career

This study represents an effort to investigate the age pattern of criminal involvement from an economist's perspective. It presents a dynamic stochastic model of sequential search and match evaluation which is used to explain the reasons for, and the timing of, the decision to terminate a criminal career. The behavioral implications derived from the theoretical model are tested using individual National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data. Estimation results strongly support the prediction of a negative relation between theoption value of retaining a criminal career and desistance decisions. More specifically, the effects of current and future expected criminal earnings are shown to be negative, substantial, and statistically significant in determining desistance probabilities. Retiring behavior is also significantly responsive to variables measuring personal costs of punishment and the availability and attractiveness of a legal income-generating activity in ways consistent with theoretical expectations.     

加入WTO后西北地区产业技术选择的可能模式初探

本文较为系统的分析了我国加入WTO后 ,西北地区所面临的来自发达国家和地区的产业挤压 ,西北地区难以按常规模式发展的原因 ,以及西北地区重新进行技术选择的原则和可能条件。初步探讨了西北地区技术选择的模式。