The Contribution of Donor Support Programs to Decentralized Development: Learning from the District Level in Ghana

Donor aid has over the years turned out to be a very decisive development component for most developing nations, but aid is often criticized for ineffectiveness. This article seeks to share perspectives on the relevance of direct project or program support and the need to refrain from homogeneity in aid research by assessing the contribution of the Government of Ghana/European Union (GoG/EU) Micro-Projects Programme in the Nadowli District of Ghana from 1997–2009. The findings acknowledge positive impacts of the program in the district. There are sector consistencies between the donor interest and local development priorities in health, education and the water and sanitation sectors. However, selectivity of project within and among sectors brings potential conflicts of interest and tradeoffs between the program and local community needs. The results imply a reexamination of decentralized development through a lens of new partnership between donors’ interest and local needs. Stepping up community awareness to ensure full participation in project design, execution, operation, and maintenance could serve as a start-up platform for new partnerships. It is imperative to align donor interest with local realities, which prompts a rethinking of adoption of new project approaches such as co-development, design, and implementation.     

Institutional reform and public attitudes toward EU decision making

In the face of the discourse about the democratic deficit and declining public support for the European Union (EU), institutionalist scholars have examined the roles of institutions in EU decision making and in particular the implications of the empowered European Parliament. Almost in isolation from this literature, prior research on public attitudes toward the EU has largely adopted utilitarian, identity and informational accounts that focus on individual-level attributes. By combining the insights from the institutional and behavioural literature, this article reports on a novel cross-national conjoint experiment designed to investigate multidimensionality of public attitudes by taking into account the specific roles of institutions and distinct stages in EU decision making. Analysing data from a large-scale experimental survey in 13 EU member states, the findings demonstrate how and to what extent the institutional design of EU decision making shapes public support. In particular, the study finds a general pattern of public consensus about preferred institutional reform regarding powers of proposal, adoption and voting among European citizens in different countries, but notable dissent about sanctioning powers. The results show that utilitarian and partisan considerations matter primarily for the sanctioning dimension in which many respondents in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Sweden prefer national courts to the Court of Justice of the EU.     

论不追究刑事责任

我国《刑法》和《刑事诉讼法》用三个不同的概念对不追究刑事责任作了规定。《刑事诉讼法》第16条所规定的不追究刑事责任可分为三种情形,但《刑法》第201条第4款中规定的不予追究刑事责任并未归属其中。现行刑事立法在不追究刑事责任的规定中概念不统一,《刑法》在规定不追究刑事责任方面不当缺位,已有的规定也较为粗糙,《刑事诉讼法》缺乏特赦令执行的程序规定,我们有必要完善不追究刑事责任的刑事立法规定。     

European Union civil society support and the depoliticisation of Turkish civil society

Despite growing critical literature on external funding, the link between EU funding to Turkish civil society organisations (CSOs) and their depoliticisation remains understudied. This article fills this gap. This article explores EU funds in Turkey and shows the incentives it creates for a depoliticised civil society. Drawing on an original set of interviews with 45 CSOs, this article analyses how Turkish CSOs interact with EU funding and how this support impacts on Turkish civil society. This article argues that EU funding’s short-term, activity-based, measurable outcome and visibility-oriented structure contributed to the depoliticisation of those CSOs benefited from EU funds.     

Canadian Concerns of a Different Kind of Brexit: Britain’s First Application to the EEC and Canada’s Commonwealth Appeal

Recent debates on Brexit have made several attempts to connect the current situation with Britain’s first attempt to gain entry to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1961. In both 2016 and 1961, questions were raised about what role the Commonwealth would take and how the relationship with Britain would adapt to their then-entry and current exit of a union with Europe. This article seeks to examine how Canada reacted to Britain’s decision to enter the EEC and sheds light on the vociferous opposition it raised within the Commonwealth. Using both British and Canadian cabinet minutes and Commonwealth memoranda, the article follows the Canadian campaign against British entry to the EEC and its fervent defence of the Commonwealth as an economic-focused community. Ultimately, the Canadian-led protest against British entry into the EEC derived from a fear that Britain would drift from the Commonwealth towards Europe, leading to the complete dissolution of the economic bonds that tie the community together.     

Revisiting Transnational European Consociationalism: The European Union a Decade After Lisbon

This article discusses the notion of consociationalism as applied to the EU and assesses whether the institutional and procedural changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) and by the management of the Euro and refugee crises still warrant considering the EU as a case of consociational democracy. Our contention is that the changes introduced by the ToL bore the promise to strengthen the consociational structural traits of the Union but that the further institutional and procedural changes engendered by the management of the Euro and refugee crises have made the behavioral dimension of consociationalism all the more necessary just as the accommodating orientation of the political elites had begun to evaporate. We support this argument by looking at empirical evidence which allows us to offer a set of propositions on the effects of the recent crises on the attitudes of the European elites towards the future of EU democracy.     

论公民平等权意识

平等权意识包括平等权认识、平等权主张和平等权要求三个层次。在当代中国,公民的平等权意识极为淡薄,有其历史和现实的原因。强化公民平等权意识意义重大,有助于建立与WTO规则相一致的市场经济体制和民主政治体制。     

欧盟非正规就业对工会的挑战

欧盟国家非正规就业的迅速发展,使工会面临着严峻的挑战。非正规就业的增加直接冲击了传统工会的基础,使工会会员的绝对和相对人数都有很大降低;同时,工会领导的劳工运动长期忽略对非正规就业的权利保护,非正规就业工人难以获得与正规就业平等的待遇。因此,欧盟国家工会需要在增加非正规就业会员和就业监管策略两方面做战略性调整,以应对非正规就业的挑战。     

壮族末伦文化现存状况调查及原因试析——以广西靖西县为个案

20世纪70年代之后,壮族末伦文化呈现出了明显衰落的迹象,其传承者势单力薄,受众形单影只。文章认为,导致这一现象的产生主要有现代化生活方式的影响与冲击;特殊历史文化背景的制约与束缚;对民族民间文化的错误定位;对原始宗教问题的片面认识和对文化保护的“静态”做法等五个方面的原因。     

What Limits for Government Control? Civil Liberties and Anti‐terror Measures after the Heathrow Bomb Plot

The threat posed by transnational terrorism has excited debate about how best to calibrate relations between government, the courts and parliament: how can the provision of internal security be facilitated, whilst respecting freedoms and ensuring that policies enjoy broad legitimacy? Attention has focussed primarily on the power of the courts. Sections of the government have mooted a curtailment of judicial competencies; by contrast, a broad range of actors calls for ‐ at the least ‐ the maintenance of current judicial powers as the best means to prevent government from exploiting its already large scope for manoeuvre, as well as to overcome public scepticism. Yet the current debate misses the point that relations between government, courts and parliament have already been altered. Government has gained extra political resources thanks to its participation in forms of international counterterrorist cooperation. This shift of power, and associated problems, were clear during the recent ‘Heathrow bomb plot’.