Enhancing Information Sharing in Family Drug Courts: A Lean Six Sigma Case Study

Given the variety of stakeholders involved in cases within family drug courts, efficient communication and information sharing, which are needed to support decision‐making, can be quite challenging. Through a case study in one family drug court system, this research employed an action research approach to improve the information sharing process following the Lean Six Sigma methodology. The solutions implemented through this study contributed to improving the quality of the services provided by this court system and its overall productivity. In addition, this research extends our knowledge about methods for improving court systems from which others can learn to guide future improvement efforts.     

Orthodox Identity as Traditionalism: Construction of Political Meaning in the Current Public Discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church

This article reviews the articulation of traditional political values in the contemporary discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). As an empirical basis, the article takes the ROC’s official documents reflecting its position on social and political issues, the statements of various Synodal departments and Church hierarchs, as well as the statements of those representatives of the Orthodox intelligentsia, who promote an alternative agenda for Church-state dialogue. The author analyses the discursive forms deployed for the use of two key concepts, related to two markers of traditionalist worldview (opinions about liberalism, and positions taken with regard to the rights of sexual minorities), and studies the context in which these confessional ethical norms are politicized. This allows the author to move from interpreting Orthodox identity as merely a confessional/religious affiliation, expressing itself in a range of practices (attending services, etc), to an interpretation of Orthodox identity as traditionalist in the political sense of that word, involving the formation of a distinctive political theology and the politicization of confessional ideas of morality.     

Preferences and agreement in legislative parties: testing the causal chain

This research note focuses on two specific dimensions of legislative cohesion: the homogeneity of preferences within a party and party agreement. Although these two dimensions have often been considered as synonyms, it is argued that these two concepts refer to different realities. The authors therefore develop distinct measurements for these two concepts. The authors then examine their statistical relationship, putting to the test the widespread assumption that heterogeneous preferences increase the probability of disagreement. The authors do so by testing the effect of different measures of a member of parliament’s ideological distance to her/his party on her/his self-reported frequency of disagreement with her/his party. It is demonstrated that the causal chain linking both concepts is only verified in the case of a conscious ideological distance. The results have crucial theoretical and methodological implications for future research on party cohesion and party unity.     

关于《邮政法》修改若干问题的探讨

随着国内各项改革的深化及法制环境的变化,《邮政法》的修改问题日益受到社会各界的关注。就邮政法的效力与适用、普遍服务与补偿机制、邮政专营与垄断等问题进行深入分析,并提出自己的观点和一些建议。     

全球化视野下的政治生态伦理问题初探

进入工业文明以来,人类对自然环境展开了大规模的前所未有的开发利用,人类在创造极大丰富的物质财富的同时,也引发了深重的环境灾难。环境问题具有了与以往完全不同的性质,已经上升为从根本上影响人类社会生存和发展的重大国际问题,迫切要求人类从政治的高度来探讨“环境与道德”、“环境与政治”的关系。     

中国清末的政治思潮与西学翻译

清朝末期(1840-1911年),思想界、翻译界空前活跃。本文从历史的角度解析了这一时期具有代表性的经世致用、洋务运动、变法维新等政治思潮与西学翻译之间的关系,指出翻译的选材和数量受到主流政治思潮的控制和影响,而翻译的发展又反过来促进了主流政治思潮向更高阶段演进。     

台湾政党政治的腐败与政治转型

近二十年来,金钱政治以一种看似矛盾和不自觉的方式,破坏着台湾执政党和政府及官员的政治形象、权力结构和统治基础,以一种潜在的力量推动着它们的政党政治和政治体制由一元的模式向多元的模式变化,从而加快了多元政治的发展;同时,在巩固民主的过程中,它以一种瓦解体制的形式阻碍着民主制度的形成和稳定.进一步来说,这种腐败在政党政治和政治发展的不同阶段可以产生不同的作用,它或是在巩固政治转型阶段推动政治转型和民主化,或是在巩固民主的阶段推动或阻碍民主的发展,但其总的表现形式都是瓦解体制.     

从白小保校运动看马来西亚华人的政治参与形态

马来西亚华人有着积极的政治参与的传统,近些年来更是利用各种途径来最大限度地表达与维护其利益.2001年来持续四年的白小保校运动主要通过政治选举、政治结社、政治表达、政治接触等方式来维护子女接受母语教育、文化传承的权利.这一典型事例体现了马来西亚华人政治参与的基本模式.     

劳资和谐是社会和谐的基石

构建和谐社会,就是要理顺优化社会主义市场经济中的各种社会关系。劳资关系作为一种核心的社会关系,对社会的经济关系、政治关系、文化关系等具有直接的对应性影响。在构建和谐社会中,必须在理论和实践上对劳资关系的和谐问题给予足够的重视。     

蒙古国政治转型与新政府的走向

蒙古国政治与经济转型同步,这对处于民主改革进程中的国家具有借鉴意义。蒙古国政治与经济的发展对于东北亚区域经济合作的发展无疑具有重要影响。