Does moral rhetoric fuel or reduce divides between parties and non-copartisan voters?

Political parties at times use moral appeals to voters outside of their support base, i.e., non-copartisan voters. Yet, morality is typically considered a divisive force in politics. Does moral rhetoric actually alleviate or exacerbate divides between parties and non-copartisan voters? The paper addresses this question by focusing on non-copartisans’ attitudes towards the party. Insights from previous work on moral persuasion and attitudinal bias suggest a conflicting picture. On the one hand, moral rhetoric is likely to make morally aligned non-copartisans more favourable towards the party. On the other hand, moral rhetoric is unlikely to make even the morally aligned favourable towards the party. In fact, moral rhetoric may further push away non-copartisans with pre-existing hostility. Using original, representative survey experiments from Britain, the paper finds that moral rhetoric can increase favourable attitudes and that it does not further promote hostility. Morality in party competition does not necessarily fuel division.     

What is bad about clientelism? Citizen perceptions in poor communities in South Africa and Tunisia

The literature regards clientelism as a negative practice because of its particularism, informality, inequality, and inefficiency. At present, we know little about whether citizens in communities where clientelism is prevalent share this assessment. However, their evaluations are the ones that are critical for the persistence of clientelism. We explore the attitudes of citizens towards clientelism with conjoint experiments administered with respondents from two poor communities in South Africa and Tunisia, and a sample of academics that we use as benchmark. On average, Tunisian and South African respondents evaluate clientelism more favorably than academics. All groups see particularism and inequality as negative features but only academics care about informality. Clients are evaluated much more positively than patrons in the exchange. Our findings suggest that clientelism persists not only because communities fail to coordinate around a programmatic candidate but because clientelism is considered as a legitimate strategy to access resources.     

In their own eyes: an empirical examination of police self-legitimacy

In their paper Beyond Procedural Justice, Bottoms and Tankebe specified two interrelated dimensions of legitimacy: audience legitimacy and self-legitimacy. Criminologists have given considerable attention to audience legitimacy, but police officers’ belief in their own legitimacy remains understudied. This paper extends Bottoms and Tankebe’s theory and reports findings on some of its key propositions, using survey data from a UK police force. Three key findings emerge. First, contrary to previous studies, feelings of recognition by supervisors and clientele did not predict self-legitimacy; self-legitimacy was found to depend on feelings of peer recognition and acceptance. Second, self-legitimacy predicted officers’ commitment to external procedural justice but not their moral orientations towards crime victims. Finally, perceived police effectiveness but not supervisor recognition – that is, internal procedural justice – was the key predictor both of external procedural justice and of normative orientations towards crime victims. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

公司法的合同路径与公司法规则的正当性

新古典主义经济学的公司合同理论认为,公司是一组合约的联结,多方博弈的结果将创造出内生性合理秩序,不应强行加入外生性制度安排。然而,与普通合约迥然相异的是,公司合同是长期合同和关系合同,存在着诸多漏洞,仅靠合同法并不足以保障各方预期。作为公司合同的模本机制和漏洞补充机制,公司法补充而不是代替了公司参与方的合约安排。因而,立法者只有按照合同的规则和市场的路径来进行公司立法,公司法规则才能获得正当性。     

公共性控制:政府环境责任的省察与实现路径

政府环境责任以公众环境利益为指向,以公共性为价值追求。政府环境责任的确立是行政伦理道德、政治合法性与权力合法性的客观要求。我国目前的政府环境责任一方面缺少法律规范的支持,另一方面表现出一些与环境善治不符的病症。完善政府环境责任,要求责任理念回归公共性、公共环境利益明晰化,并从具体制度规范上予以配合。     

全球治理的法律渊源及其合法律性问题

全球治理的重要特征是多元规制,这一特点对全球化时代的法律的概念和法律渊源问题提出了挑战,针对这种挑战的三种解决途径即由约束力的区别来确定硬法和软法、按照法律制度化的程度来区分各种法律渊源、依据世界民主公法来界定各层次的法律渊源都要求对全球治理的法律渊源提出某种规范性要求。相对于这种规范性要求的实质性方面,通过合法律性这个概念来表述这种规范性要求是更适当的,并且在此意义上,合法律性也呈现了全球治理法治化这种规范性主张的必要条件和相应的局限性。     

转型期地方政府合法性危机与重塑

政府合法性探讨的是政治系统如何赢得公众广泛信仰、支持和认同的问题。在社会变迁过程中,任何一种政治体系都不同程度地面临着合法性危机的问题。弘扬公共精神,坚守公共性,推进公共行政,是人类社会治理模式历史演进视野下解决地方政府合法性危机的根本之道。     

Electoral losers revisited – How citizens react to defeat at the ballot box

The paper seeks to reconcile insights from winner-loser gap research with mainstream understanding of election legitimacy. The paper acknowledges that winning and losing elections creates differential incentives for citizens to remain supportive of their political system, but it argues that losers nevertheless have enough reasons to remain supportive in absolute terms. Drawing on democratic theory, the paper develops a rationale for why citizens are willing to accept electoral defeat voluntarily, and suggest a new way to conceptualize citizen reactions to election outcomes. It presents findings from a sample of election studies in established democracies to show that winners typically become more supportive whereas losers at minimum retain their level of support from before the election. It concludes that elections, when reasonably well executed, as they most often are in established democracies, build system support rather than undermine it.     

Dual citizenship and theories of democracy

Dual/multiple citizenship has become a widespread phenomenon in many parts of the world. This acceptance or tolerance of overlapping memberships in political communities represents an important element in the ongoing readjustment of the relationship between citizens and political communities in democratic systems. This article has two goals and parts. First, it evaluates dual citizenship from the perspective of five normative theories of democracy. Liberal and republican as well as multicultural and deliberative understandings of democracy deliver a broad spectrum of arguments in favour of dual citizenship. Only communitarians fear that dual citizenship endangers national democracies. Nevertheless, empirical evidence and national policies largely contradict these fears. The second part of the article reverses the perspective and shows that most theories of democracy do not only legitimate and facilitate the acceptance of dual citizenship – the phenomenon of multiple citizenships induces innovation in democratic theory in turn. A second look at the relationship between dual citizenship and theories of democracy reveals that dual citizenship stimulates refinements, expansions and reconceptualisations of these theories for a transnationalising world.     

从辛亥之殷鉴到“三大法宝”——中国制宪特征探析

一次革命之后的政治体制建设,应该有效回应革命之前各种危机的挑战。辛亥革命因首义仓促,未能回应晚清社会的政治危机,之后的国民革命和新民主主义革命,则直接借鉴了辛亥革命以来的经验教训,依从中国的政治文化,接受马克思主义——列宁主义的指导,找到了中国革命和政权建设中政党建设、武装力量与民主形式的制度连接。这种政治体制的关键要素,被毛泽东概括为“三大法宝”。