Do people want a ‘fairer’ electoral system? An experimental study in four countries

When judging how ‘fair’ voting rules are, a fundamental criterion used by both scholars and politicians is their ability or inability to produce proportional results – that is, the extent parties’ seat distribution after the elections accurately reflects their vote shares. How about citizens? Do citizens care about how proportional the outcome is? Or do they judge the outcome solely on the basis of how well (or poorly) their party performed? Taking advantage of a uniquely designed survey experiment, this article investigates the causal effect of proportionality on voter support for voting rules in four countries: Austria, England, Ireland and Sweden. The results show that proportionality drives support for the voting rules not above, but beyond party performance. There is little cross-country variation, which suggests that proportionality is appreciated in different contexts with little status quo bias. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the causal mechanisms linking electoral rules to voter support.     

民事诉讼预决事实效力理论基础之选择

关于预决事实在后诉中的效力理论基础,主要有三种:既判力、争点效和事实证明效理论。我国应当采纳哪种理论,学术界分歧严重。《关于民事诉讼证据的若干规定》《关于适用〈中华人民共和国民事诉讼法〉若干问题的解释》《关于审理环境民事公益诉讼案件适用法律若干问题的解释》《关于审理消费民事公益诉讼案件适用法律若干问题的解释》充分反映出制定主体在上述三种理论间摇摆不定、难以抉择的心态。鉴于三种理论各有所长、各有所短,且无法将各种理论优点集于一身,综合权衡,我国未来立法还是应采纳争点效理论为佳。     

关于城市道路交叉口公交优先方法的研究

随着城市机动车数量的日益增多,城市道路渐进饱和、道路交通流不断增大,城市公交车的通行也受到很大阻碍。文章基于公交优先的理念,结合大连市道路状况,针对交叉口处的公交优先问题,从静态控制和动态控制两方面提出一些解决办法,其中包括：公交优先的车速设计、交叉口的车道设置、公交优先信号控制、港湾车站设置等。通过这些方法,在一定程度上可以缓解交叉口的拥堵状况,公交车的通行相对通畅。     

哈耶克:自由的两条理路和两种法律观的混淆——对《自由秩序原理》一书的文本分析

在对哈耶克<自由秩序原理>一书的文本分析中,哈耶克混合了自由的道德论证和自由的社会论证这两种不同的论证理路;而正是在这两种论证路径之难以融合的重大张力下,哈耶克最终混淆了两种不同的法律规则观,从而导致了哈耶克法治理论的内在矛盾.     

证据法的法域范围

法庭科学家和证据法学者所处的是两个不同的世界,就像英国和美国一样,由一种共通的语言划分开来。虽然在一些重要方面彼此关联,但法庭科学和证据法学作为两个独立的学科,有着各自独特的构造和演进,关注不同的问题并运用各具特色的认识论。因此,这两个学科之间存在着自说自话的重大风险。该风险的迹象体现在了法庭科学家与证据法学者之间时常沟通不畅。“证据法”的概念对于法庭科学和证据法学而言均至关重要,且在这两个学科中均被高频地运用。本文通过聚焦“证据法的法域范围”之基础概念讨论,希望造成该学科间冲突的个别成因能够明朗化,并诚挚地期盼这样做能有利于法庭科学与证据法学学科之间更有效地交流。     

路径依赖视角下中越两国权力监督改革比较

基于路径依赖的微观视角分析,中越两国在权力监督改革方面呈现出三个方面的异同。即,在正式规则方面,两国在改革的深层动力与实践取向上具有共同性,而在宪政制度、国家治理模式、法律规制等方面由于历史传统不同而表现出了差异性;在非正式规则方面,两国改革的共同障碍来源于权力崇拜与服从型政治文化的影响,而意识形态与文化信仰的差异则导致各色监督学说亲疏有别并使得两国权力监督改革表现出不同的变数;既得利益群体在体制变迁惯性推动力方面,其共同性表现为态度认知与风险成本使得内发式监督几无可能,而差异性则表现为由权力红利的积累速度、总量及对社会分配的影响而导致不同的改革难度与压力。从本质上看,中越两国权力监督改革能否成功,关键取决于执政党对改革是否保持有效的控制力。     

法律实证主义与规范理论——规范性的三个难题

在现代法律理论中,规范性既意味着法律对行为的影响,也用以表达有别于事实的另一世界。有关法律规范性的争议可分解为三个相互关联的理论难题:制裁与义务是否具有同样的规范作用?是否只有一般性的法律规则才具有规范性?哲学实证主义与法律实证主义对规范性的理解是否相同?通过思考这些难题可以得出结论:规范问题不同于价值问题,法律实证主义能够在探讨规范问题时坚持价值无涉的立场;法律的规范性不能化约为唯一一种规范作用,对此有必要进行更加精致的研究。     

双重国籍及其法律实践--兼论我国《国籍法》的立法改进

近年来海外华人强烈呼吁我国政府恢复承认双重国籍,这在国内外广大有识之士中也引起了极大的反响.双重国籍法律问题的产生有其历史的渊源,其冲突解决也是世界各国极为重视的法律实践问题.从当今国际法发展趋势来看,有条件地承认双重国籍乃是吸引高层次人才和广大海外华人积极参加我国的经济建设、从法律上保护全世界华人华侨根本利益的有效手段,应当引起我国政府的高度重视,并根据国际法的基本原则灵活处理双重国籍问题,在恰当的时机修订《国籍法》,以适应我国经济建设和社会发展的实际需要.     

Welfare improving ignorance and negligence rule

The literature considers that the ignorance of activity levels by the courts is a major source of inefficiency to minimize the social costs of accidents. In this paper, we show that the inefficiency of the negligence rule based on a standard of care (and correlatively ignoring the activity level) is not established if certain dimensions of care are not verifiable. In other words, if care and activity levels are the only relevant variables of the injurer's set of actions to reduce the risk of accident, it is true that inefficiency arises when the court ignores one element of this set. But, considering that some dimensions of care are in practice not verifiable, it can be efficient for the judge not to take into account the activity level of the defendant. We propose a simple model with three variables: observable and unobservable precautionary measures and activity level.

Decision rules,membership and political centralization in the European Union

The decision to enter the European Union is based on a comparison of the costs of staying out and going it alone, and the costs membership. The latter depend on the degree of preference heterogeneity between prospective members and the Union as well as the decision rules employed for “constitutional” decisions. The same calculus guides the decision, by member states, to shift policies up to the Union level, only now the decision rules refer to centrally assigned policies. Preference heterogeneity makes more inclusive rules optimal in either case while at the same time reducing the attractiveness of membership or the centralization of policies to the EU level, respectively. The analysis complements and extends both traditional fiscal federalism literature as well as the more recent political economics literature on federalism.