Politicians,Scandals, and Trust in Government

In this paper we examine the role that political scandals play in eroding regard for government and political institutions in general. We know that scandals can lower regard for individual politicians and government leaders. Yet, less is known about how scandal influences attitudes toward institutions and the political process. It has been widely assumed that such attitudes are influenced by factors that lie largely beyond the control of individual politicians. Using data from the U.S. and the U.K. we show that scandals involving legislators can have a negative influence on their constituent's attitudes toward institutions and the political process. One consequence of this finding is that, instead of looking for scapegoats in Hollywood or among the failings of voters themselves, politicians should first get their own House in order.     

论英国社区警务战略思想的形成与推进

20世纪70年代末,英国人在犯罪预防问题上陷入了一种悲观情绪之中,似乎没有任何一种措施可以抑制犯罪的增长。随即世界范围内的“社区警务”思想带来第四次警务革命。在经过20多年的实践后,在有效维护了社会治安秩序的同时,英国政府认为目前的警察组织效能与社区警务战略,也需要与时俱变、与世俱变,为了迎接全球化治安形势演变的挑战,必须采取全国性的警务改造策略与行动,为此提出了“警察改革法草案”(Po1iceReformBill)。这也是英国政府对公众提供优质的警察服务、减少违法犯罪、降低犯罪恐惧感,增进公众对警察信任感而推动警务改造的承诺和宣言,亦为英国政府推动政府公共服务改革的整体政策之一。     

英国青少年司法体系的改革及启示

最近几年,英国政府进行了青少年司法改革。改革后的青少年司法体系独立,特点鲜明,内容有针对性,既有一些专门的基本性法律,又有对基本法的具体落实和进一步阐释。这一司法体系加大了对青少年犯罪的处罚力度,成为预防青少年犯罪工作的重要环节。这对于我国青少年司法体系的建立和完善具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Constitutional Change: A Note by the Bedside

The British constitution is undergoing major change although it tends to be carried out piecemeal and is often ignored. There are contradictory trends in what is happening. Some changes are deliberate major reforms which tend to disperse power and strengthen the rights of the individual against the State. Other changes are incidental by-products of other government policies, and tend in the other direction, towards the greater concentration of power in, and within, central government, for instance by the weakening of local government and the treatment of individual rights in legislation against terrorism. This second trend makes it all the more important that the checks and balances on the exercise of power by central government are effective. The main responsibility for ensuring this must rest with Parliament, backed up by the courts. A Civil Service Bill and perhaps a code of governance for central government would in their different ways be useful.     

通过一典型案例谈案后足迹的运用

提取现场足迹,是寻找案后足迹的先决条件、是同一认定的基础;准确划定侦查范围,是寻找案后足迹的关键。如何运用案后足迹侦破案件,则依赖于技术人员对现场足迹的正确认识和灵活超常的扩展思维能力的培养。文章阐述了案后足迹运用的基本方法,并指出了利用案后足迹应注意的问题。     

Young British Partisan Attitudes to Negative Election Campaign Advertising: A Tri-Party Perspective

This article presents an empirical investigation of young partisan first-time voter attitudes toward the use of negative attack advertising in a British general election. Partisanship, particularly in relation to negative advertising and third-party effects, is significantly under-researched, yet it advances understanding of youth electoral interaction. Our study confirms that young British partisans are not passive recipients of information, but are actively involved in information processing, interpretation, and counter arguing. Our findings also highlight a third-party effect among young partisans in their evaluation of the attack advertising. Overall our young partisans broadly reject image-attack election ads, which raises a “health warning” on its use in future election campaigning. The findings of this study are of significant interest to election campaign strategists in their planning for future elections and to political researchers striving to advance understanding within the field of political marketing.     

The Plants of Empire: Botanic Gardens,Colonial Power and Botanical Knowledge

In this article, the multifaceted relationship between colonial power and scientific knowledge is analysed. The specific focus is on untangling the contested and symbiotic connections between colonialism and the emergence and consolidation of aspects of botanical science. Colonial imperatives and the social consequences of colonial rule in India constituted the context for the idea and project of botanical gardens that facilitated the global transfer of a variety of plants to India. It was in the process of dealing with the problems of the transfer of plants across very diverse ecological and social contexts that natural history was eventually transformed into formal botanical science both in India and in Europe. Particular forms of scientific knowledge and institutions were indispensable for the consolidation of empire even as they facilitated new imperial concerns and projects that constituted the structural context for the development of new forms of scientific knowledge, practices, institutions and power. Without reducing science to nothing more than an appendage of colonial power and imperatives, the significance of empire in the rise of botany as a formal science is analysed in this article.     

论利用影响力受贿罪的犯罪构成要件

利用影响力受贿罪是在我国刑法修正案七中新增加的一个罪名。由于法律对近亲属和关系密切的人这一主体的范围没有明确规定,在法律适用上,容易产生分歧,本文将依据我国相关的法律规定并结合国情对利用影响力受贿罪的犯罪构成要件加以论述,并重点探讨犯罪主体的界定问题。     

Policy responsiveness to all citizens or only to voters? A longitudinal analysis of policy responsiveness in OECD countries

A close connection between public opinion and policy is considered a vital element of democracy. In representative systems, elections are assumed to play a role in realising such congruence. If those who participate in elections are not representative of the public at large, it follows that the reliance on elections as a mechanism of representation entails a risk of unequal representation. In this paper, we evaluate whether voters are better represented by means of an analysis of policy responsiveness to voters and citizens in democracies worldwide. We construct a uniquely comprehensive dataset that includes measures of citizens’ and voters’ ideological (left–right) positions, and data on welfare spending in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries since 1980. We find evidence of policy responsiveness to voters, but not to the public at large. Since additional tests suggest that the mechanism of electoral turnout does not cause this voter-policy responsiveness, we outline alternate mechanisms to test in future research.     

Does public broadcasting increase voter turnout? Evidence from the roll out of BBC radio in the 1920s

There is reason to believe that exposure to public broadcasting can positively affect voter turnout, but these effects are hard to empirically disaggregate. This paper examines the geographically delimited roll out of BBC radio in England, which coincided with successive off-cycle general elections in the 1920s. Combining spatially interpolated census data with constituency-level electoral returns, a matched difference-in-differences design finds that turnout increases with radio exposure. This finding is supported by qualitative examination of the roll out alongside a range of robustness checks. The study makes a contribution to the literature on media and voting behaviour, while enhancing our understanding of how the BBC shapes electoral behaviour in Britain.