Mediterranean Security Revisited

At the dawn of the last century, the European and Mediterranean countries failed to reach a consensus on building a cooperative security system. This article is an attempt at revisiting the concept of the Mediterranean security system and assessing the conditions for restarting security dialogue in the region. Upon recognition of the need for taking into account the new dimension of risks along with the traditional dimension of threats, the article reviews the insecurity factors of the Mediterranean region and the lesson learned in the security dialogue of the Barcelona Process. Some proposals about rehearsing that dialogue are advanced in the concluding section.     

Predicting Peril or the Peril of Prediction? Assessing the Risk of CBRN Terrorism

Since the mid-1990s, academic and policy communities have debated the risk posed by terrorist use of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons. Three major schools of thought in the debate have emerged: the optimists, the pessimists, and the pragmatists. Although these three schools of thought draw on the same limited universe of data on CBRN terrorism, they arrive at strikingly different conclusions. Given the highly subjective process of CBRN terrorism risk assessment, this article analyzes the influence of mental shortcuts (called heuristics) and the systemic errors they create (called biases) on the risk assessment process. This article identifies and provides illustrative examples of a range of heuristics and biases that lead to the underestimation of risks, the overestimation of risks and, most importantly, those that degrade the quality of the debate about the level of risk. While these types of biases are commonly seen as affecting the public's perception of risk, such biases can also be found in risk assessments by experts. The article concludes with recommendations for improving the CBRN risk assessment process.     

Exploring Strategies and Implications of an Opportunistic Alliance: A Case Study of Pakistan and China

This article seeks to test the validity of ‘balance of threat’ theory as propounded by Stephen Walt that states react to imbalances of threat. It takes into account the factors enumerated by Walt to explore threat perceptions of Pakistan and the strategy they developed to cope with security threats. It attempts to take an overview of Pakistan's security dilemma its responses in twin time frames: the Cold War period (1980–1989) and the post-Cold War period (1990–2000) with relevance to the contemporary period. Pakistan's arms acquisition, upgradation in sophistication of arsenals, increase in fund allocation in defence have all been its tangible tactics to neutralize India's military superiority. Pakistan explored Pan-Islamism to bring the support of the Islamic states. Pakistan also resorted to an active alliance with China, to increase its competency. From a theoretical angle, this article adopts a realist viewpoint, focuses on security concerns of state actors.     

Perceptions and Reality: Ten Things We Should Know About Attitudes to Immigration in the UK

Immigration is one of the most frequently covered issues in opinion surveys—but the volume and type of questions asked has actually obscured many of the key facts about our attitudes. This article summarises a year‐long project to draw together as much of the published polling as possible in one place, in as neutral a way as possible. The overall picture is one of genuine concern about immigration among a large proportion of the population—but more nuance on specific aspects, and a number of important gaps between perceptions and reality. Also highlighted are the increasingly polarised views on immigration between generations and different class and education groupings. The lower level of concern among younger generations and the growing graduate class suggests that immigration may be less of a concern in the future—but that the electoral weight of the more concerned older generations means that restrictive rhetoric and policy on immigration will be a key feature of the 2015 general election.     

犯罪主体的认知差异及其实证研究

实证研究发现,人们对犯罪严重性及其惩罚的排序较为一致,支持了犯罪学领域中的共识模式。但受调查者的个体特征(年龄、性别、民族、宗教)显著影响他们对犯罪严重性及其惩罚的认知,具体表现在评分均值的差异。从个体的主体性角度看,后现代法学批判了意志自由和理性主体,强调人的实践性和有限理性。舒茨的主体间性理论和哈耶克的知识分散论表明,自我的意义确立过程和对他人经验的理解是两种完全不同的经验图式和解释图式,诠释了不同主体之间的认知差异。     

Do referendum results change norm perceptions and personal opinions?

Referendums are often seen as a means to legitimize the outcome as the new norm and increase acceptance of the outcome. Do referendums actually have these effects? More precisely, do voters recognize the referendum result as the new norm? And do voters go as far as to change their own minds in accord with the referendum result? We explore these questions using a panel survey that we conducted in Ireland before and after the abortion referendum that was held on May 25, 2018. We find that, after the referendum, voters updated their norm perceptions in the direction of the referendum result. However, we find inconsistent evidence that the referendum convinced voters to change their personal opinions about abortion. The findings provide insights on the power and the limit of referendums in increasing policy agreement among voters.     

梅影掩映窗前月——谈散文语言的形象性

文学是语言的艺术。散文作品需要描摹形象,创设意境,需要议论抒情,而这些应靠形象化的语言来传达。形象性的散文语言会增强作品的弹性与亮度,会拓展阅读者的想象空间,从而增强作品的感染力。作家在写作中经常运用比喻夸张通感等修辞手法,使描写的事物、表现的思想情感形象化。     

From CNOOC to Huawei: securitization,the China threat,and critical infrastructure

ABSTRACT

This article uses critical discourse analysis to examine how China has been constructed as an existential threat by the United States. Specifically, it explores how US reactions to the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in 2005 created precedent for similar reactions to Huawei a decade later. It uses these case studies to demonstrate how the interplay between the China threat and security discourses of critical infrastructure has worked to successfully securitize China within broader American discourse. These examinations demonstrate a deliberate and protracted securitization of China by US elites, and they support more critical approaches to securitization theory that emphasize cumulative and incremental aspects over a securitized/de-securitized binary. Discourse analysis of key texts allows the reader to uncover how security issues are socially constructed, and discursive examinations of CNOOC and Huawei illustrate how concerns about national security are now employed in everyday American political discourse so that the China Threat Discourse has become the primary reading of China by US observers.     

令人警醒的特权感知:当前领导干部对特权现象感知状况的实证分析

领导干部的特权感知是认识官场特权现象的特殊视角。调查显示,领导干部对于官场特权现象感知强烈,具体表现为:特权思想严重、特权行为多样、特权关系复杂、特权危害严重。特权现象具有寄生性、虚假性、垄断性、不平等性和扩张性等本质属性,在官场中呈现出特权群体广泛、"关键部门"和"关键环节"特权现象明显、制度性特权明显的特征。调查对象认为政治建设、法治建设的不足是滋生特权的关键因素,他们认同制度建设、思想教育和强化监督等治理措施,并对中央开展特权治理充满期待,但对治理前景持谨慎态度。     

Equity,relative deprivation,and the value consensus paradox

This paper addresses the question of why respondents, when asked to specify an income they would be willing to accept as just, settle for an amount that, in most case, does not deviate strongly from what they actually receive. The phenomenon is illustrated by data from West Germany. It is argued that relative deprivation theory must be extended to incorporate processes of social hierarchy perception because inasmuch as this perception is contorted it creates illusory justice evaluations. Empirical evidence of misperceiving social distributions is given by social grading studies based on large German samples. The structural causes of the distributional misperceptions are discussed, one of these causes being the value consensus paradox, i.e., the paradox that, in a stratified society, value consensus will produce different social perceptions.