‘Lovers of liberty’?Prostitution and the Politics of Choice in Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin

This article explores the way in which Emma Donoghue’s novel Slammerkin (2000) reflects long-standing feminist debates surrounding prostitution. We argue that not only does Donoghue’s portrayal of prostitution resist the pro versus anti dichotomy in which feminist perspectives on sex work are so often narrowly situated, but Slammerkin also foregrounds the complexity with which the politics of choice intersects with women’s decision to sell their bodies.     

The communicative policy maker revisited: public administration in a twenty-first century cultural-choice framework

In recent years, public administration thinking shifts the focus from the internal public organisation behaviour towards cross-boundary operation that is, operation across governments and sectors. Public bureaucrats become agents in a multiple-interest political environment within which not only technical management issues are discussed, but also dynamic public values are shaped through a dialogical process. In a cultural choice framework, governments operate different service portfolios and the source of allocation problems occurs due to interdependencies between these functions and variation in public preferences. Beyond service production costs, there exist variable characteristics, such as citizen interest, market competition, and managerial structure and operating behaviour in the aggregate responsibilities governments take. Progressive public administrators need to respond to a threefold challenge: The global versus local challenge to define cultural variability; the leadership challenge to interact with citizens; and the cross-boundary challenge to develop a collaborative rather than a competitive future.     

Too much choice,too little impact: a multilevel analysis of the contextual determinants of preference voting

Abstract

Despite the rich and growing body of research addressing how turnout and party choice depend on the institutional context, far less is known about the impact of the political environment on voters’ propensity to vote for candidates – not parties. Recent single-country studies have focused almost exclusively on individual-level resource- and identity-based differences in preference voting. Combining data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and Participation and Representation in Modern Democracies (PARTIREP) election studies in six countries, this article provides the first comprehensive, cross-national test of the impact of macro-contextual factors on a voter’s decision to indicate a candidate preference, instead of simply casting a party list vote. It demonstrates that both the failure of preference votes to affect the allocation of seats and choice overload dissuade voters from marking a candidate name on the ballot. These contextual factors affect informed and uninformed voters differently, moreover. The findings have important implications for electoral scholars and political practitioners when designing electoral systems.     

地方政府公共服务创新：驱动机制与路径选择——中国情境下的分析框架和经验证据

不断推进地方政府公共服务创新是破解当前公共服务供给困境,构建我国治理体系和治理能力现代化的重要组成部分。在对国内外相关文献分析的基础上,从政治制度、社会需求和资源支撑等视角出发,构建了中国情境下地方政府公共服务创新驱动机制的分析框架,通过模糊集定性比较分析的方法,对"中国地方政府创新奖"下公共服务创新类项目进行了系统比较分析。研究发现,在中国情境下,晋升激励是引致地方政府创新成功的充分条件,领导支持是驱动地方政府创新成功的必要条件;而在创新的代表性路径中,公民参与和媒体报道也发挥着重要作用,经济发展水平和改革本身的难度对创新工作的影响有限;行政主导型、需求诱发型和多方互动型的创新模式是我国地方政府公共服务创新时选择的主要路径模式。未来中央应更注重从制度层面激发地方政府公共服务的创新热情,降低社会公共服务需求的政府进入门槛,同时应注重激发公共服务创新要素组合的叠加效应。     

Inside Lobbying on the Regulation of New Plant Breeding Techniques in the European Union: Determinants of Venue Choices

In July 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union decided that new plant breeding techniques (NPBTs) fall within the scope of the restrictive provisions on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Previously, various actors had lobbied in order to influence the European Union’s (EU’s) regulatory decision on NPBTs. This study examines the venue choices taken by Cibus, a biotech company that promoted NPBT deregulation. It shows that the firm bypassed the EU level and that it lobbied competent authorities (CAs) in certain member states to gain support for the deregulation of NPBTs. Cibus chose the CAs because their institutional “closedness” reduced the risk of the debate over the deregulation of NPBTs becoming public. However, the CA’s specific competences and their influence on EU decision making were of likewise importance. The firm lobbied CAs based in Finland, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Two factors appear to have influenced Cibus’ choices for these countries: high‐level political support for agribiotech and the high relevance of biotech sectors. In contrast, public support for GMOs turned out to have hardly any influence, and virtually no association could be observed for the agricultural application of biotechnology in the past nor for the weakness of domestic anti‐GMO lobby groups. Finally, the in‐depth study on Germany affirms that “closedness” was important for Cibus’ choices and reveals that technical information served as a venue‐internal factor that influenced the firm’s choices.     

台商对大陆投资区位选择的影响因素分析——基于偏最小二乘回归方法的最新考证

台商对大陆投资的区位选择,受地区市场规模及其增长潜力、对外开放水平、基础设施完备程度、集聚经济状况、人力资源质量与生产成本等多方面因素的影响。针对2007年台商投资的偏最小二乘回归结果表明：除效率工资和税负水平外,其余区位因素对于台商投资有正向影响;东、中、西部地区的区位因素影响力表现出一定的差异,反映在经济发展水平不同的区域,台商亦有不同的区位决策过程;在经济转型时期,大陆各省区的集聚经济与市场发育程度最受台商关注,市场规模和潜力的影响作用尚未有足够体现,而劳动力因素对于台商投资区位选择的影响较小。     

我国“大部门体制”的理论内涵和改革路径

建立职能整合、机构协调的大部门体制是我国行政管理体制改革的必然要求。我国的大部门体制是在借鉴西方成功经验的基础上,各项改革不断深化的结果,它围绕政府职能的整合与重组,贯穿决策权、执行权和监督权的分立协调,有利于政府流程再造和现阶段诸多问题的解决。由于国情不同,大部制在我国的顺利推进需要选择与西方截然不同的改革路径。     

个人选择:现代社会秩序正当性的基础——评《选择的共和国:法律、权威与文化》

自现代化以来西方社会面临深刻的社会转型,伴随而至的不确定性对当今西方社会的法律、制度和秩序的正当性构成了严峻的挑战.弗里德曼以权威与自治,制度、秩序与自由权利的悖论为理论线索.以表现型个人主义价值观为理论基础,以个人选择和法律文化的基本概念为核心展开了对不确定性的消解和对选择的共和国的建构.但是他的这种建构却在事实上预设了个人与社会的分离.这表现在他的个人选择理论的建构没有考察社会场域中诸多因素的相互作用.这使他在对古典自由主义的个人主义观的批判之上建立的以表现型个人主义为基础的理论又回到了古典自由主义的起点之上,从而使自己的理论具有不可克服的内在紧张.     

The choice of electoral systems in new democracies: a case study of South Korea in 1988

Most theories about electoral system choice are based on the experiences of Western European countries, many of which shifted from majority/plurality rule to proportional representation (PR) at the turn of the twentieth century. This article aims to explain the choice of the South Korean legislative electoral system in 1988 as an example of electoral institution choices in new democracies, which may be different from those in the Western European countries. Through analysing multiple steps leading to the choice of a single-member district plurality voting system, this article suggests three potentially generalizable findings. First, in new democracies, labour parties can only induce old parties to shift to a proportional representation system if they have mobilized the working class prior to democratization. Secondly, parties in the developing world at times face unusual systems that are neither majoritarian nor fully PR. Under such unusual systems, party size would not be a reliable predictor for the party's preference over electoral institutions. Finally, when parties choose a legislative electoral institution in a presidential system, parties tend to prefer an institution that helps them in the subsequent presidential election even though the institution might harm them in the upcoming legislative election.     

城市住宅小区业主维权问题初探

提高业主的自治能力从而增强以业主为代表的社会力量,使之能够对市场力量形成制衡,是解决业主维权问题的基本对策。