Polls,coalition signals and strategic voting: An experimental investigation of perceptions and effects

Polls and coalition signals can help strategic voters in multiparty systems with proportional representation and coalition governments to optimise their vote decision. Using a laboratory experiment embedded in two real election campaigns, this study focuses on voters' attention to and perception of polls and coalition signals. The manipulation of polls and coalition signals allows a causal test of their influence on strategic voting in a realistic environment. The findings suggest that active information acquisition to form fairly accurate perceptions of election outcomes can compensate for the advantage of high political sophistication. The theory of strategic voting is supported by the evidence, but only for a small number of voters. Most insincere vote decisions are explained by other factors. Thus, the common practice to consider all insincere voters as strategic is misleading.     

我国民众名誉权感知度的实证研究与完善——以辽宁省海城地区为调研对象

名誉权关涉个人的精神满足和人格尊严而受到法律的保护,有关其法律认同的形成与认知度密切相关,实践中人们主要通过媒体宣传了解名誉权,对于其有一定认识,不趋向于选择诉讼的方式维护自己的名誉权,更注重精神损害的补偿,从道德角度去判断死者名誉权、法人名誉权以及新闻自由与名誉权冲突问题。反映出名誉权的总体认知多来自道德判断,名誉权具体法律规定认识模糊,救济上趋向选择非诉讼方式,不同学历的居民认知程度有所差异的问题。而产生问题的原因主要是关于名誉权的法律知识图式尚未形成、立法缺乏体系性、权利认识上存在偏差及法律宣传方式单一。由此,可通过建立名誉权法律保护体系、培养社会成员正确的权利意识以及建立多元化的法律宣传方式来提高名誉权认知度。     

Toward Cultural Analysis in Policy Analysis: Picking Up Where Aaron Wildavsky Left Off

To generate policy alternatives and offer policy advice, the policy analysis and planning literature counsels analysts to assess the values and beliefs of policy actors, as well as the organizational and political contexts in which an analyst's proposed solution will have to be enacted and implemented, but does not further specify what these values, beliefs, and contexts might be. Analysts can anticipate the kinds of political values and the kinds of beliefs about human nature, the environment, and the economy that are likely to be associated with different forms of social organization by relying on Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky's theory of culture. Additionally, this form of cultural analysis will allow analysts to deduce which policy problems are most likely to arise, which policy solutions are most likely to be feasible, and which policy advocacy coalitions are most probable in different cultural contexts.     

Pragmatic relevance/strength of lexico-grammar choices in EU legal documents

The present study focuses on the communicative relevance of lexical choices in the documents of the European Union Committee of the Regions （CoR） and of other related bodies within a pragmalinguistic perspective. The function of the Committee of the Regions is to issue opinions on proposals for Community legislation which are closest to the citizen interests - education, youth, culture, health. It is thus a voice at the heart of the EU which aims at increasing the participation of European regions in community life. Our corpus consists in 100 documents （Proposals and Opinions） whose lexico-grammatical aspects and communicative/ rhetorical strategies are here investigated. Our hypothesis is that such texts aim at creating a holistic we to construe a common ground of interests, within the constraints of legal intercourses, shared by both the sender and the receiver of the messages. Frequently occurring lexical items are： welcome, ensure, strengthen, aid. To stress urgency, generate empathy, emphasize needs and endorse value-positions are the recognizable perlocutionary effects of such semantic/pragmatic choices. Tools for analysis were taken from the domain of pragmalinguistics, from Evaluative/Appraisal Frameworks and, also, from social sciences. Particularly relevant appeared the notion of＇advocacy＇ （i.e., when researchers are asked to use their expertise to defend the subjects＇ interests in healthcare, education, political rights, and cultural autonomy）. This study will provide both qualitative and quantitative data to support our hypothesis, and will offer suggestions for further research.     

Institutional constraints on cabinet formation: Veto points and party system dynamics

Research on government formation in parliamentary democracies has presented contradicting evidence on the role of political veto institutions and parliamentary polarization on the formation of cabinet types. Institutional rules may either provide significant leeway for political parties or seriously constrain them when forming sustainable coalitions. In contrast to previous studies we argue that the effect of political institutions is conditional on the degree of polarization in parliament. We test our hypotheses using original data on 842 cabinet formations in 33 advanced democracies between 1945–2018. In line with previous research, we find that the institutional rules have a pronounced effect on the type of cabinet formed, but that institutional rules moderate the effect of party system polarization. Thus, our findings provide important new insights on cabinet formation which are particularly relevant for today's increasingly polarized parliaments.     

Trichobezoar in Vagina: Assessment for Child Sexual Abuse and Diagnostic Result of Forensic Science

Vaginal discharge and bleeding in children require a through and thoughtful evaluation to diagnose the underlying problem including infections, sexual abuse, and vaginal foreign bodies. We report a 6‐year‐old girl presenting with bloody vaginal discharge, carefully evaluated for sexual abuse, and finally diagnosed as a vaginal foreign body after vaginoscopy. A rolling hair ball was extracted from the vagina and was diagnosed as trichobezoar pathologically without any endo–ecto‐mesodermal residual tissue. The hair ball was genetically detected and diagnosed to belong herself by containing no foreign structure. Child sexual abuse was ruled out by forensic interview at CAC and report of forensic science that reported genetic structure belonging to the child. Medicolegal assessment helped in final diagnosis to exclude child sexual abuse.     

现代辩护制度的宪政根基与实证考察

宪政的本质是对国家权力的限制,以保障个人的基本权利。人的基本权利通过宪法和法律来表达,也需要宪法和法律予以保障。在限制和剥夺人的基本权利的种种方式中,刑事惩罚最为严重。因此,一方面,在宪法上明确个人基本权利的同时,需要设定无罪推定等保障机制,奠定辩护权的根基,另一方面,需要在刑事诉讼法中规定辩护权的具体行使方式,保障辩护权的行使效果。在现代宪政国家,辩护制度在宪法和刑事诉讼法中力求良性互动。因此,我国辩护制度的完善,不能局限于刑事诉讼法,还必须关注宪政化进程。     

An Ecological Study of Nonresidential Services for Battered Women Within a Comprehensive Community Protocol for Domestic Violence

This paper is an ecological study of services provided to 392 battered women under a comprehensive domestic violence protocol. It focuses on microsystemic interactions between battered women and battered women's services and legal systems. We examine the relationships between women's receipt of services from a battered women's agency, receipt of protective orders, and completion of prosecution of batterers. We also explore the associations between women's receipt of services and protective orders and their partners' subsequent arrests and police contacts. We use open-ended interviews with battered women and with staff of the battered women's agency to expand and illustrate the quantitative data. The analysis shows that when a woman received battered women's services or had a protective order, a completed court case was more likely and numbers of arrests rose. We found that these associations were strongest when women received both battered women's services and at least one protective order.     

Squaring the Virtuous Circle: Exploring the Potential of the ‘Five Cs’

During his May 2014 visit to Australia Pascal Lamy, former Director General of the World Trade Organization, urged ‘public institutions, civil society, and global businesses’ to forge ‘creative coalitions’ for the purpose of engaging constructively and positively with the complex problems standing in the way of achieving social and economic sustainability. Lamy's visit was but the first of several occasions during 2014 in which intense public discussion erupted about the need for government, business, and civil society to pool their capacities in boundary‐spanning efforts to address complex policy problems. This article investigates whether the public discussion portends a heightened policy focus on the ‘five Cs’: co‐production, co‐design, corporate social responsibility, collective impact, and Lamy's creative coalitions.