证据制度的调整对我国侦查制度的影响——以新《刑事诉讼法》为视阈

新《刑事诉讼法》对证据制度进行了较大幅度的修改。证据裁判理念正深入人心．侦查人员应强化证据意识、更新侦查理念。非法证据排除规则已经确立,取证行为规范化将成为关注的焦点。证据的概念、种类和范围的调整,行政证据的合法化,以及立法对过去侦查实践的肯定,使得侦查办案模式惯性发展不可避免：明文规定侦查人员有出庭作证的义务,对侦查人员的素质提出了新挑战;不自证其罪和如实供述的矛盾并存,侦查机关需要尊重和顺应法律价值变化的潮流。切实保障人权。     

Measuring error for adjacent policy position estimates: Dealing with uncertainty using CMP data

Careful users of CMP party position data should take the uncertainty of position estimates into account. We compare and evaluate two current approaches that provide error estimates for party positions. Researchers of the CMP group identify measurement error in quantitative content analysis as the cause of uncertainty about position estimates, whereas a second approach by Benoit et al. (2009) attributes the uncertainty of position estimates to a stochastic generation of election programs. We illustrate the commonalities and differences of these approaches and provide two empirical applications, the identification of the left–right order of parties and of policy shifts by parties, using CMP data for 25 countries. Despite conceptual differences, results in these applications are surprisingly similar.     

The Politics of Universalisation: Establishing National Health Services in Southern Europe

Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain have enacted reform laws during the last 20 years with the intention of turning their health insurance systems into national health services. Universalisation of access to public health care was at the centre of the political debates which led to the passing of the reform laws. This article analyses the policy-making processes that allowed for such institutional change, as well as achievements and shortcomings of the implementation processes that followed. The analysis draws on the insights of the actor-centred neo-institutionalist approach in the policy sciences.     

Problems and opportunities in Polanyian analysis today

Abstract

The three books under review in this article all demonstrate the beginnings of a shift in the tone of literature on or derived from the work of Karl Polanyi. On one hand, the authors all show a willingness to admit a variety of problems and weaknesses in his work. But on the other hand, it is precisely this degree of critical introspection that enables the authors under review to identify some of the most important and contemporarily relevant aspects of Polanyi's thought. In the two main sections of this article – on Polanyi's concepts of ‘embeddedness’ and ‘double movement’ – I define the problems highlighted in previous iterations of Polanyian literature, moving on to examine how the texts under review address those problems, laying particular emphasis on the ideational components of Polanyi's thought. I conclude by suggesting future directions for Polanyian scholarship, mooting the possibility of a distinctively ‘post-Polanyian’ perspective in which ideas, discourse and framing are placed centre stage.     

From a ‘terrorist’ to global icon: a critical decolonial ethical tribute to Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela of South Africa

This article examines Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s political life and legacy from the perspective of critical decolonial liberation ethics, which privileges a paradigm of peace, humanism and racial harmony and opposes the imperial/colonial/apartheid paradigm of war, racial hatred and separation of races. This system emerged in the 15th century and was driven by the desire to conquer, dispossess, colonise, exploit and segregate people according to race and, alongside imperatives of primitive accumulation, it informed the colonisation of South Africa and the imposition of apartheid. Mandela was a liberation fighter who provided an antidote to the colonial ideology of racial profiling and hierarchisation. What distinguished him from other freedom fighters was his commitment to the cause of human rights as early as the 1960s, long before it attained its status as a constitutive part of global normative order. When Mandela became the first black president of a democratic South Africa, his practical and symbolic overtures to whites and his reconciliatory politics aimed to call them back to a new inclusive humanity. Critical decolonial ethics logically enables a tribute to Mandela that privileges his commitment to a post-racial society and new humanism.     

A Review of: “Audrey Kurth Cronin and James M. Ludes, (eds.). Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy.”

Because of its dynamic nature, those confronting the al-Qaeda threat must follow its evolution very closely. As demonstrated here, this task is particularly challenging when counterterrorism is carried out under the aegis of international organizations. This article explores the threat identification function of the al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee (also known as the 1267 Committee) charged with supervising the UN sanctions regime against al-Qaeda and its associates. Examination of the role of threat identification in the committee's work, and of the content of the threat analysis presented in the periodic reports of its subsidiary monitoring team, suggests the marginality of strategic threat assessment and underscores the constraints created by bureaucratic and political factors. The article also demonstrates the failure of the Committee and the monitoring team to thoroughly engage in central questions regarding al-Qaeda's nature, objectives, and organizational strategy.     

Measuring Governance in Urban Innovation

Abstract

The international political science literature is ambiguous on the point if the involvement of a plurality of external actors (citizens, economic and social groups, NGOs and CSOs, Universities and experts, different public authorities at the same or at different territorial level, etc.) in governance processes is an end in itself (because it increases democracy) or it is useful in order to achieve better results in the production of public goods.

This article espouses the latter hypothesis and tries to understand if a governance perspective brings about a higher level of innovation in metropolitan areas. In order to test this hypothesis, two metrics are designed: ? In measuring innovation, the ideas are that there are four dimensions in urban innovation (agenda innovation, process innovation, product innovation and innovative communication) and that a metropolitan city has to score high in most of them in order to be considered really innovative.

? As far as governance is concerned, the analytical proposal is that the ideal governance network is at the same time complex (bringing together actors from different territorial levels and from different societal and institutional domains), dense (favouring direct interaction between the actors) and ‘focused’ (showing one or few actors able to act as focal points of the network).

Drawing from a research done in four Italian cities (Turin, Milan, Florence and Naples) through the reconstruction of 120 urban innovation processes, the article illustrates the analytical steps taken and the conclusions that can be reached.     

Islam and Attitudes toward U.S. Policy in the Middle East: Evidence from Survey Research in Lebanon

This study examines the impact of religious orientation on attitudes toward U.S. Middle Eastern policy among Muslim Lebanese. The data came from a stratified random sample, consisting of 262 Sunni and Shi'i respondents of both genders, conducted in the Greater Beirut area during February and March of 2002. Consistent with the literature about Islamism, the present analysis reveals an empirical distinction between personal and political dimensions of religion in Lebanon. Specifically, support for political Islam is associated with unfavorable attitudes toward U.S. policy in the region, but personal religiosity is unrelated to attitudes toward foreign policy. The study findings contribute in clarifying the debate that has been raging since the September 11 attacks, pitting Islam against the West and associating Islam with political violence.     

International news as a reflection of cosmopolitan ideology: Coverage of the Ivorian crisis by CNN and the BBC

Abstract

International news discourse is often framed with ideological underpinnings. Ideology as a system of ideas or beliefs or ways of thinking not only helps, defines and explains, but also makes value judgements about that world (Croteau 2012; Van Dijk 1995). The author 's aim was to find out to what extent international news discourse reflects a cosmopolitanist ideology. The article looks at the extent to which the discourse of international news meets Tomlinson's (1999) postulation that cosmopolitanism should involve an intellectual and aesthetic stance of ‘openness’ towards people, places and different cultures – especially those from different ‘nations’. Using framing theory and critical discourse analysis as the theoretical basis for examining international news, the aim is to determine whether international news encourages or discourages a cosmopolitanist outlook during periods of political crisis. The author argues that Western media reportage on events in Ivory Coast to a large extent reflected a cosmopolitanist outlook.     

Two Faces of Media Attention: Media Storm Versus Non-Storm Coverage

A media storm is a sudden surge in news coverage of an item, producing high attention for a sustained period. Our study represents the first multi-issue, quantitative analysis of storm behavior. We build a theory of the mechanisms that drive media storms and why the “anatomy” of media storms differs from that of non-storm coverage. Specifically, media storm coverage should change less explosively over time, but be more sharply skewed across issues, compared to non-storm coverage. We offer a new method of operationalizing media storms and apply our operationalization to U.S. and Belgian news. Even in these two very different cases, we find a common empirical storm anatomy with properties that differ from those of non-storm coverage in the predicted fashion. We illustrate the effects of media storms on the public through discussion of four key examples, showing that online search behavior responds strongly to media storms.