俄罗斯总统大选及今后4年的内外政策走向

在刚刚结束的俄罗斯大选中,现任第一副总理梅德韦杰夫获胜,普京的支持是梅德韦杰夫获胜的重要原因。新一届政府继续推行普京路线,但是在政治体制上将会出现事实上的调整。在对外关系中将继续以维护国家利益为中心,开展多极化的务实外交;在经济上,新一届政府面临的主要任务是确保经济增长、调整经济结构。     

论人民代表大会制度的改革和完善

改革和完善人民代表大会制度应从以下方面着手:改革选举制度,扩大直接选举范围,差额选举国家机关正职领导人,实行以竞争为中心的公开公正的选举程序;改革代表制度,人大代表要与企业家身份脱离,政府官员不宜兼任人大代表;调整人大及其常委会的功能,扩大常委会立法权,实行常委会的专职化;改革人代会的议事程序和议事方式,延长会期,由常委会全体会议审议法案;改革人大常委会工作机构的工作方式,为人大代表及常委会组成人员提供更全面有效的服务。     

全国人大常委会在宪法实施中的创制行为及其界限——以“辽宁贿选案”为例

“辽宁贿选案”发生后,该省人大常委会无法正常开会履职。对此,全国人大常委会决定成立辽宁省十二届人大七次会议筹备组,代行该省人大常委会的部分职权。这被认为是宪法上的创制性安排。全国人大常委会的创制超出了宪法文本,不是宪法解释行为,也不是宪法续造行为,而是宪法建造行为。政治主体在面对宪法僵局时主动实施宪法,建造出民主集中制原则的具体内容和人民代表大会制度的新内涵,有效解决僵局并发展宪法。这并非孤例。全国人大常委会还曾在“总理辞职案”中进行过创制。创制需要符合一定的条件,前提是出现了必须创制的环境、没有可直接适用的宪法规则,方法是按照法定程序作出政治选择,形式是发布决定而非立法。创制具有宪法法律界限和合理性界限。政治主体要选择恰当的宪法原则和制度进行创制,所创制的内容要符合比例原则。创制是全国人大常委会掌握的一种新宪法工具,表明我国宪法实施具有政治主体与宪法互动的特征。     

社区选举与民主化进程——选举制度及其变异

在推进民主化过程中,人们往往把遇到问题的原因归结为民众的参与不足和民主意识薄弱,其实,“不参与”和“没有意识”同样是民主的一种表现形式。调查表明,现在社区选举和民主自治的“走过场”现象,是民主制被形式化的证明,这是制度变异的结果。而只有符合居民利益需要的,从社区实际中设计出来的民主制度才是合适的,能够被居民接受和执行的民主。显然,在中国,基层社区的民主化是一个长期的、循序渐进的过程。     

An Alternative Approach to Estimating Who is Most Likely to Respond to Changes in Registration Laws

Scholars often seek to understand which individuals are most responsive to the change in some treatment. Such work inevitably faces issues of identification. When the dependent variable is binary, the assumption that the largest effect occurs where p = 0.5 is also encountered. I apply Manski’s [(1995). Identification problems in the social sciences. Cambridge: Harvard University Press] non-parametric Bounds approach, which relaxes the functional form and distributional assumptions found in traditional models, in an attempt to resolve the long standing debate on which types of individuals are most affected by changes in registration laws. Under the standard assumption that treats the selection of registration laws as exogenous, the results revise the current understanding. By exploring the power of various behavioral assumptions, new insights into the study of policy changes emerge, calling into question some of the assumptions that are standard in the literature.

Campaigns and the prediction of election outcomes: Can historical and campaign-period prediction models be combined?

There are two approaches to predicting election outcomes: (1) a historical approach, which uses past election results alongside macroeconomic and political variables to forecast election results up to a year in advance, and (2) a campaign-oriented approach, which uses current campaign trends to forecast vote shares at the end of the campaign. They are in some way at odds—one approach says the campaign doesn't matter, the other focuses entirely on the campaign. This article considers whether the two approaches might be usefully combined; it considers whether the prediction errors in historical models may be related to trends during the campaign. That possibility is tested here using 17 elections in the US, UK and Canada, combining historical predictions and automated content analyses of campaign-period media content. Results suggest that campaigns do not account for errors in the historical predictions; but there may be other ways in which campaigns matter in conjunction with historical models.     

We’ve got them on the list: contacting,canvassing and voting in a British general election campaign

Many voters are canvassed by British political parties in the months and weeks immediately preceding a general election – but many are not. The parties are selective in whom they make contact with, and where. They focus on those in marginal constituencies who are likely to vote for them – and having identified them early in the process they contact them again, seeking to sustain that support in the seats where the contest overall will be either won or lost. A large panel survey conducted immediately before and after the 2010 general election allows detailed insight into that pattern of canvassing, identifying who the parties contacted, and where, in the six months prior to the election being called, and then who were contacted during the month immediately preceding polling day, and in how many different ways. Each party focused on its own supporters in the marginal constituencies, and in the middle-class neighbourhoods within those constituencies, but whereas the Conservatives, expecting to win the election, campaigned most intensively in the seats they lost by relatively small margins at the previous contest, Labour and the Liberal Democrats fought defensive campaigns in the seats that they won then. Such tactics were successful; the more ways in which respondents were contacted by a party, the more likely they were to vote for it.     

British Campaigns for Solidarity with Argentina and Chile

The Chile solidarity movement persuaded British Labour governments (1974–1979) to introduce a range of measures against the Pinochet regime. But campaigners lobbying against the Argentine dictatorship (1976–1983) had less impact on policy. Neither these Labour governments nor the subsequent Conservative government imposed any sanction on the Argentine dictatorship, until the invasion of the Falkland Islands. This article explores why in Britain – and Europe – the Chile campaign had greater public appeal than the Argentina solidarity campaigns. It identifies a number of common factors across Europe which explain why the anti-Pinochet cause generated more support than the Argentina campaign.     

“完善‘一国两制’制度体系,落实‘爱国者治港’根本原则”专题研讨会综述

全国港澳研究会于2021年2月在北京举办"完善‘一国两制’制度体系,落实‘爱国者治港’根本原则"专题研讨会。夏宝龙同志在讲话中表示,习近平总书记关于"爱国者治港"的重要论述,是对香港回归以来"一国两制"实践经验的高度提炼,是对"一国两制"实践规律的深刻揭示,为推动"一国两制"实践行稳致远、保持香港长治久安指明了方向。"爱国者治港"是"一国两制"方针的核心要义,是推进"一国两制"事业的时代呼唤,要坚持"爱国者治港"的客观标准和要求,对相关制度进行完善。与会专家学者表示,"爱国者治港"是在香港特别行政区维护国家主权、安全、发展利益的重要前提。香港现行选举制度还不能为全面落实"爱国者治港"原则提供坚实的制度保障,需要尽快加以完善,修补漏洞。     

Confidence in an election authority and satisfaction with democracy: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of a failed election in Sweden

Contemporary research on electoral integrity has focused on the functioning, evaluation, and legitimacy of electoral processes in emerging democracies. By contrast, this study investigates whether a failed election in a well-established democracy can affect individuals' evaluations of the electoral management body, the Election Authority, and whether those evaluations affect satisfaction with democracy. Using the case of a Swedish regional election in 2010 that had to be rerun due to procedural mistakes in the vote handling, we found that, in the short term, individuals’ confidence in the Election Authority was reduced after it was announced that the election had to be rerun because of the mistakes. Subsequently, this decreased confidence was strongly associated with less satisfaction with democracy at the regional and national level. As good news for the authority, after a successful rerun election, confidence rebounded to the levels prior to the failed election.