What comes first,democracy or human rights?

Minimalists about human rights hold that a state can have political legitimacy if it protects a basic list of rights and democratic rights do not have to be on that list. In this paper, I consider two arguments from Benhabib against the minimalist view. The first is that a political community cannot be said to have self-determination, which minimalists take to be the value at the heart of legitimacy, without democracy. The second is that even the human rights protections minimalists take to legitimize institutions cannot be had without democracy. These rights can only be adequately interpreted and specified for any social context if the interpretations and specifications result from democratic processes. Here, I bring out some important problems with these arguments and so conclude that they do not represent a robust case for rejecting minimalism.     

What price fairness when security is at stake? Police legitimacy in South Africa

The legitimacy of legal authorities – particularly the police – is central to the state's ability to function in a normatively justifiable and effective manner. Studies, mostly conducted in the US and UK, regularly find that procedural justice is the most important antecedent of police legitimacy, with judgments about other aspects of police behavior – notably, about effectiveness – appearing less relevant. But this idea has received only sporadic testing in less cohesive societies where social order is more tenuous, resources to sustain it scarcer, and the position of the police is less secure. This paper considers whether the link between process fairness and legitimacy holds in the challenging context of present day South Africa. In a high crime and socially divided society, do people still emphasize procedural fairness or are they more interested in instrumental effectiveness? How is the legitimacy of the police influenced by the wider problems faced by the South African state? We find procedural fairness judgments play a key role, but also that South Africans place greater emphasis on police effectiveness (and concerns about crime). Police legitimacy is, furthermore, associated with citizens' judgments about the wider success and trustworthiness of the state.     

高职院校“基础”课教学考核与评价方式改革研究

《思想道德修养与法律基础》作为高职院校思想政治理论课的入门课程,承担着对大学生进行思想政治教育的重任。目前,该课程在教学实践中存在着教学形式僵化、考核评价方式死板等问题。为改变这一现状,可以在推行课堂教学改革、落实课程实践环节的基础上,通过完善考核内容、调整分数比例、设置教学评价等级等方式,进行考核与评价方式的改革。     

PUBLIC COOPERATION WITH THE POLICE IN GHANA: DOES PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS MATTER?*

Recent criminological emphasis on the salience of normative concerns, such as procedural fairness and legitimacy, in understanding public law‐abiding behavior has been based on evidence from Anglo‐American studies. This article examines these issues in the African context based on general survey data from Accra, Ghana. The results show a lack of empirical validity, in the Ghanaian context, of the Sunshine–Tyler legitimacy scale. The results also show that public cooperation with the police in Ghana is shaped by utilitarian factors such as perceptions of current police effectiveness infighting crime. It is argued that the importance of perceived police effectiveness to public cooperation is a result of police legitimation deficits and the public's alienation from the Ghana police, which in turn are traced to the colonial history of the police and current poor police performance.     

排污权及存在的正当性

排污权作为一种新型权利,是社会发展带来的权利结构变迁的结果。排污权的确定开拓了用市场机制来解决日益严重的环境污染问题的新思路,有利于协调环境保护与经济发展的关系,促进人与自然的和谐。     

利己利他双重人性论

从利益角度,人性可分为利己人性和利他人性,利己和利他是同一个人人性的两个方面。但利己性和利他性在现实中的行为表现随着历史条件和社会环境的变化而变化,取决于社会制度和各种环境。塑造以利己利他双重人性为基础的“道德经济人”是社会主义市场经济发展的必然要求。     

试论北京奥运会志愿服务的德育功能

当前,高校德育的实效还没有达到社会的期望。提高高校德育实效性的重要环节就是要改变传统“灌输式”的德育模式,结合时代背景和社会热点,构建大学生德育教育体系。奥运会具有国际化和全民性的特征,是高校开展德育的重要契机,奥运期间及奥运后的大学生志愿服务活动具有特殊的德育功能。     

版权扩张:一种合法性的反思

通过对美国外交版权政策、中国法律文化传统、版权文化功能、国外有关学者对版权扩张的态度的梳理 ,笔者认为中国在满足有关国际公约的最低要求的前提下 ,无须跟随这种潮流。     

Exploring officer views of community policing in counterterrorism

Abstract

Recently there has been increased emphasis on actionable intelligence in counterterrorism. Building from the process-based model of regulation, police chiefs and scholars generally agree that community policing has promise in this regard. Yet, it is not clear the extent to which police officers concur. Since officers are in a position to implement community policing practices, it is important to understand variants in officer-level support. Using data collected from 741 officers in three departments, this project explores officer-level views of community policing’s utility to address terrorism and more common crimes. Overall, officers view community policing as appropriate to address both common crimes and terrorism. Results suggest that department-level policy itself is not the key driver of support. Rather, an officer’s own experience with community policing and support for the practice in general determine views on community policing in counterterrorism. Results also highlight the importance of comparative research across departments.     

A mission-driven research program on solar geoengineering could promote justice and legitimacy

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade or so, several commentators have called for mission-driven research programs on solar geoengineering, also known as solar radiation management (SRM) or climate engineering. Building on the largely epistemic reasons offered by earlier commentators, this paper argues that a well-designed mission-driven research program that aims to evaluate solar geoengineering could promote justice and legitimacy, among other valuable ends. Specifically, an international, mission-driven research program that aims to produce knowledge to enable well-informed decision-making about solar geoengineering could (1) provide a more effective way to identify and answer the questions that policymakers would need to answer; and (2) provide a venue for more efficient, effective, just, and legitimate governance of solar geoengineering research; while (3) reducing the tendency for solar geoengineering research to exacerbate international domination. Thus, despite some risks and limitations, a well-designed mission-driven research program offers one way to improve the governance of solar geoengineering research relative to the ‘investigator-driven’ status quo.