对建立刑事诉讼专家辅助人制度的思考——以全国首例专家辅助人参与刑事案件为视角

新《刑事诉讼法》中明确了专家辅助人制度的雏形,但是条文的规定简单概括。有关专家辅助人的资格、介入诉讼的方式、权利和义务、启动方式和其意见的可采性等相关问题都没有详细的规定,使其在司法实践运作环节出现许多障碍。构建专家辅助人制度前应准确理解其概念,明确专家辅助人的法律地位,充分认识构建专家辅助人制度的必要性,并建立配套的专家辅助人援助制度。     

Capturing ethnicity: the case of Ukraine

Abstract

Building on past survey-based studies of ethnic identity, we employ the case of Ukraine to demonstrate the importance of taking seriously the multidimensionality of ethnicity, even in a country that is regarded as deeply divided. Drawing on relational theory, we identify four dimensions of ethnicity that are each important in distinctive ways in Ukraine: individual language preference, language embeddedness, ethnolinguistic identity, and nationality. Using original survey data collected in May 2014, we show that the choice of one over the other can be highly consequential for the conclusions one draws about ethnicity’s role in shaping attitudes (e.g. to NATO membership), actions (e.g. participation in the Euromaidan protests), and the anticipation of outgroups’ behavior (e.g. expectations of a Russian invasion). Moreover, we call attention to the importance of including the right control variables for precisely interpreting any posited effects of ethnicity, making specific recommendations for future survey research on ethnic identity in Ukraine.     

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.     

Making them pay: Using the norm of honesty to generate costs for political lies

Recent literature finds that, although lies politicians spread to achieve partisan goals can be corrected, politicians who spread misinformation rarely pay a price for lying. We argue that the cost of lying should be greater when the norm of honesty is salient. Using three survey experiments that feature both a well-known politician (Donald Trump) and a fictitious member of Congress, we examine the cost politicians pay when they are caught in a lie. We find that many citizens, regardless of partisanship, will recognize a lie when one has been told. And although citizens punish unknown politicians for lying, they do not punish Trump similarly unless the norm of honesty is made salient. This effect, however, is limited to the narrower measure of situational approval; individual lies do not affect overall measures of job approval regardless of honesty salience. These results demonstrate the difficulty of getting citizens to update their views on well-known politicians, even when those politicians are caught in an obvious lie. Yet our findings suggest fruitful paths toward creating a disincentive for politicians to distort the truth.     

How to estimate the policy preferences of party supporters: Disaggregating data from voting advice applications versus modeling survey responses

Valid and reliable estimates of the policy preferences of political parties' supporters are essential for the study of political representation. However, such estimates are not directly available from standard surveys of public opinion, which are typically representative by design only at the national level and rarely ask questions about public support for specific policies. In this article, we explore the possibility to use data from voting advice applications (VAA) to estimate the policy preferences of party supporters. To do that, first, we identify 10 questions on preferences towards issues of public policy that were asked around the same time and with similar wording in traditional surveys of public opinion and in VAAs fielded in Germany and in the Netherlands. Then we compare the VAA data disaggregated by political affiliation of the respondents to the survey data adjusted via multilevel regression modeling with poststratification (MRP). We find strong positive correlations between the estimates derived from both methods, especially after weighting the VAA data. Yet, point estimates are not always very close, and the match is sensitive to the treatment of neutral and ‘don't know’ answers. Overall, our results bode well for the validity of using VAA data in empirical research on political representation.     

Economic voting in multi-level contexts: Evidence from Kerala and West Bengal in India

What determines electoral support for national incumbent parties and state-level challengers in sub-national pro-poor contexts? Based on survey data from the Indian states of Kerala and West Bengal, collected prior to the 2019 national election, we find that voters were more (less) inclined to vote for the sub-national incumbent relative to the national incumbent if their household economic conditions were perceived to have improved (deteriorated) relative to national economic conditions. Our findings indicate that voters in these settings correctly assume that the sub-national incumbent cannot be held responsible for changes in national economic conditions, but, at the same time, the existence of a strong welfare state at the sub-national level creates expectations that the sub-national government is responsible for personal welfare. Hence, the national election is used to assess the economic performance of both the sub-national and the national incumbent.     

Degrees of influence: Educational inequality in policy representation

Education plays an important role in the political, social and economic divisions that have recently characterised Western Europe. Despite the many analyses of education and its political consequences, however, previous research has not investigated whether government policy caters more to the preferences of the higher educated than to the preferences of the lower educated. We address this question using an original dataset of public opinion and government policy in the Netherlands. This data reveals that policy representation is starkly unequal. The association between support for policy change and actual change is much stronger for highly educated citizens than for low and middle educated citizens, and only the highly educated appear to have any independent influence on policy. This inequality extends to the economic and cultural dimensions of political competition. Our findings have major implications for the educational divide in Western Europe, as they reflect both a consequence and cause of this divide.     

论“网络”信息时代的公安舆论引导

由于公安工作的特殊性,广大群众对涉及公安题材的报道尤为关注,由此产生的网络舆论,其作用也日益突出。公安部门无论是在思想观念上,还是在工作措施、工作机制上,都存在诸多不相适应的问题。为给公安工作创造一个良好的舆论环境,公安部门必须解放思想,转变观念．加强网络舆情控制,建立公安舆论的引导机制,同时还要加强与国内主流媒体和各大网站的联系沟通,强化公安宣传队伍建设．加大执法力度,才能真正保障网络舆论宣传的健康、安全。     

Wealth Taxes: Stories, Metaphors and Public Attitudes

Wealth taxes are currently high on the policy agenda in Britain. These taxes will not be political sustainable without public support. However, evidence exists that indicates substantial public opposition to wealth taxes. For example, inheritance tax appears to provoke hostility among the public. Some observers have suggested that the way that wealth taxes are presented - particularly using stories and narratives - could enhance public support. This paper summarises focus group evidence on this suggestion. I report that using narratives and stories can have an impact, although this should not be overstated and much depends on how the narratives are shaped.     

对诉讼时效的新思考

我国《民法通则》规定的诉讼时效制度空间属消灭时效还是取得时效 ,学界看法不一。本文作者认为 :诉讼时效属于消灭时效。文章针对我国民事立法上规定诉讼时效过短的缺陷 ,提出作者的“三项改进意见”。