网络舆论与我国民主政治的良性化发展

互联网技术的普及运用带来显著的民主政治效应,表现为打破了信息垄断和旧的话语权力格局,为民意提供了一个自由表达的场所。以互联网为公共载体的网络舆论成为信息时代我国最活跃的民主政治场域。但技术是把双刃剑,网络也不例外。网络舆论的特性决定了它可能造就"优质"民主,也可能带来"劣质"民主。要使网络舆论促进民主政治良性发展,政府需要健全网络舆情监测预警机制,加强网络舆论监督的道德建设与法治建设,提高对网络舆论的回应能力,正确引导网络议题,培养公民精神。     

试论网络参与下的政府决策

公民参与政府决策是公共决策科学化、民主化的客观要求。随着网络技术的发展,网络参与作为公民参与政府决策的一种新方式,越来越成为公民政治参与的有效途径。因此,探索在网络参与环境下如何趋利避害,使公共决策更加科学、合理、民主并符合社会全体成员的需要,具有重要的现实意义。本文以政府决策为研究对象,以网络参与为研究视角,通过案例实证分析,探讨了网络参与和政府决策之间从冲突走向协商的可能性和途径,以期引起学术界对此问题的进一步研究和思考。     

ETHNIC THREAT AND SOCIAL CONTROL: EXAMINING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR JUDICIAL USE OF ETHNICITY IN PUNISHMENT*

Research on social inequality in punishment has focused for a long time on the complex relationship among race, ethnicity, and criminal sentencing, with a particular interest in the theoretical importance that group threat plays in the exercise of social control in society. Prior research typically relies on aggregate measures of group threat and focuses on racial rather than on ethnic group composition. The current study uses data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents to investigate the influence of more proximate and diverse measures of ethnic group threat, examining public support for the judicial use of ethnic considerations in sentencing. Findings indicate that both aggregate and perceptual measures of threat influence popular support for ethnic disparity in punishment and that individual perceptions of criminal and economic threat are particularly important. Moreover, we find that perceived threat is conditioned by aggregate group threat contexts. Findings are discussed in relation to the growing Hispanic population in the rapidly changing demographic structure of U.S. society.     

政府应对网络空间的舆论危机及其治理

政府网络空间的舆论危机是网络社会中政府面临的一个新挑战和新课题,政府部门及各级领导干部必须努力适应时代要求,充分发挥网络空间的优势和作用,为政府和公众之间对话与互信提供契机,从而科学地应对和处置危机,稀释危机风险,以在信息时代重塑政府形象,提高政府公信力。     

PUBLIC OPINION AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE JUVENILE COURT*

Over 100 years ago, juvenile courts emerged out of the belief that juveniles are different from adults—less culpable and more rehabilitatable—and can be "saved" from a life of crime and disadvantage. Today, the juvenile justice system is under attack through increasing calls to eliminate it and enactment of statutes designed to place younger offenders in the adult justice system. However, little evidence exists that policy makers have taken the full range of public views into account. At the same time, scholarly accounts of calls to eliminate the juvenile justice system have neglected the role of public opinion. The current study addresses this situation by examining public views about 1) abolishing juvenile justice and 2) the proper upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction. Particular attention is given to the notion that child‐saving and "get tough" orientations influence public views about juvenile justice. The analyses suggest support for the lingering appeal of juvenile justice among the public and the idea that youth can be “saved,” as well as arguments about the politicization and criminalization of juvenile justice. They also highlight that the public, like states, holds variable views about the appropriate age of juvenile court jurisdiction. We discuss the implications of the study and avenues for future research. Why is it not just and proper to treat these juvenile offenders, as we deal with the neglected children, as a wise and merciful father handles his own child whose errors are not discovered by the authorities? Why is it not the duty of the state, instead of asking merely whether a boy or a girl has committed a specific offense, to find out what he is, physically, mentally, morally, and then if it learns that he is treading the path that leads to criminality, to take him in charge, not so much to punish as to reform, not to degrade but to uplift, not to crush but to develop, to make him not a criminal but a worthy citizen.     

The reception of Bryant’s Unfinished Victory: insights into British public opinion in early 1940

Griffiths describes how, after its publication in January 1940, Unfinished Victory, a clearly pro-Nazi and antisemitic book by the historian Arthur Bryant, could arouse little adverse comment from the majority of its reviewers, and positive en­thusiasm from a good number of them. This examination will cause us to revise some of the usual presumptions about public opinion in relation to Nazi Germany in the period of the ‘phoney war’, and to reinforce others about the British public’s basic unconcern in relation to manifestations of antisemitism. Moreover, the belief, widely held until now, that the British public reacted violently against Bryant’s book, and that he himself immediately realized his mistake, is shown to be untrue. Bryant’s reactions to some of the few critical reviews of his book, and his correspondence with his publisher, show him to have been confident of the rightness of his attitude, as does his decision, some time after the book’s appearance, to send complimentary copies to the royal family and the prime minister. It was only after the fall of Chamberlain and the advent of ­Churchill, and the arrests of ‘fellow travellers’ in May 1940, that Bryant appears to have realized his mistake; he then bought up copies of the book, and started to write those patriotic works for which he is far more famous. An interesting aspect of the subject is Bryant’s relationship with his publisher Harold Macmillan. Surprisingly, given his anti-appeasement attitudes, Macmillan positively encouraged Bryant to produce the book, and seems to have been little affected at that time by its attitudes to Nazi Germany or by its antisemitic flavour. Given the reactions of some of his anti-­appeasement colleagues, however, he soon swung against it after its publication. His correspondence thereafter with Bryant, as he tried under various pretexts to remove him from the Macmillan list, is very revealing, as are Bryant’s knowing reactions.     

互联网涉警舆情长效引导机制建设研究

在互联网高度发达的今天,几乎警察的所有执法行为都显露在社会大众面前,但当下的网络涉警舆情却出现了警察群体"妖魔化"的趋势,这对警察的公共形象建设形成了严峻的现实挑战。针对这一现象,为消除互联网时代涉警负面舆情,建立良好的警察公共关系,本文分析了当前涉警舆情引导存在的四方面的突出问题,并以"基础研究、应用谋略、及时读判、快速反应、主动引导、慎用警力"二十四字方针为核心,提出了建立涉警舆情引导工作的五个设想,最终得出建立互联网涉警舆情引导机制是现代公安工作的必然选择的结论,以期对今后的理论研究和实践工作提供一些参考和借鉴。     

Determinants of Arab public opinion on the Caliphate: Islamist elites,religiosity and socioeconomic conditions

Abstract

What are the determinants of public opinion on the issue of the Caliphate in the Arab world? My answer to this question outlines the key role played by Islamist elites, religiosity and age in influencing Arab opinion on the issue of the Caliphate in three countries during the early Age of Islamism (1980s–1990s). I do so by using Binary Logistic Regression Models on observations that I found in survey data collected in 1988 in Egypt and Kuwait, and an Ordinal Logistic Regression Model for data collected in Palestine in 1995. My results suggest that elites play a key role in spreading Islamist ideas in Egypt and Palestine, while age and religiosity are most salient in Kuwait.     

Power,Popular Opinion,and the Latvian National Communists

This paper explores the attempts by Latvian national communists to develop and consolidate authority using both traditional and unconventional means. Of particular interest was their strategy of generating, then drawing upon, popular support to further their program. It is this author’s contention that the goal was to remove as many non-Latvians from the local Party as possible and replace them with Latvians. By comparing the newspaper Rīgas Balss with archival documents, interviews of participants, and memoirs, one can piece together the national communists’ agenda, the public response, use of public opinion, and finally, ascertain their level of success.     

The social context of violent victimization: A study of the delinquent peer effect

Haynie's (2001) work on the structural dimensions of peer networks demonstrated how the characteristics of networks may influence individual delinquent behavior. This study extends the network approach to the prediction of violent victimization. The National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is used to examine how the friendship-network characteristics of centrality, density, and popularity affect vulnerability. The findings indicate that central and popular members of dense conventional groups experienced lower levels of violent victimization, while the opposite was true of similarly situated members of delinquent networks. Implications for victimization and research related to the specification of how delinquent peer associations promote vulnerability are discussed.