SEX EDUCATION LEFT AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE SCHOOL DOOR: STRICTER REQUIREMENTS FOR PARENTAL OPT‐OUT PROVISIONS

Current state law creates the risk that, if sex education is not provided to a child in public school, no similar instruction will be given to the child. Legislatively enacted opt‐out provisions give parents broad control over their child's education by granting them the option to have their child excused from any sex education requirements within a public school's curriculum. Through public school sex education, professionals provide youth information aimed at protecting them from the dangers of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). A stricter statutory opt‐out provision should be enacted by state legislatures that only allows parents to excuse their child from sex education after a parent attends a 90‐minute STD prevention course and receives the instructional material used in the school's sex education curriculum. Parents should be provided up‐to‐date information and a structural framework designed by the school to encourage them to discuss with their child the many sexual issues addressed within a school's sex education curriculum.     

财产权制度的存在基础

民族性、目的性和当代性是民法制度设计的根基,财产权观念不仅是一种单纯的法律确认,同时也是一种伦理升华和哲学判断。财产权制度的产生与流变既是人类理性思维的结果,而且也有其赖以存在的充分的哲学依据,财产权制度的设计和改革必须以效益观念为指导。作者认为伦理基础是财产权制度民族性的体现,哲学基础决定了财产权制度设计的目的,而经济基础则是财产权制度时代性的必然要求。通过对财产权制度存在基础的综合分析,力图在前人已取得的丰硕成果上,重新观察财产和财产权这样一个开放的权利体系,对其做出正本清源的概括和梳理,以期对我国民法典和物权法的制定提供一种带有基础性的研究基点和研究思路。     

论作品标题的法律保护

作品标题的纠纷不断发生 ,有关法律规定却是空白。作品标题的版权性虽然争议较大 ,但从有关国际公约和大陆法系国家著作权法的规定看 ,并不排斥著作权法保护作品标题。保护作品标题的最佳法律模式是应根据作品标题是否具有独创性、知名度或显著特征的不同情况 ,决定是否对其分别给予著作权法、反不正当竞争法或商标法保护。     

加强党在民族工作方面执政能力建设的基本要求

加强党在民族工作方面的执政能力建设是提高党的执政能力的重要方面,也是党在新世纪解决好民族问题的现实要求。按照新时期党的建设的战略部署,党在民族工作方面的执政能力建设也需要从五个方面来不断提高和完善。     

中国制造业走出国门的知识产权保护问题

入世后,中国产业尤其是制造业面临着专利技术侵权的严峻考验,在国际大企业不断的侵权诉讼中,寻找问题的关键和突破重围成为国内企业走出国门的当务之急。本文结合2003年里发生的中国制造业在国内外所受的专利侵权案件,分析其产生的原因,以江苏省制造业为例,试对我国制造业在WTO大背景下出口的知识产权保护问题提出相应的解决方案。     

试论公权力与私权利之间的法律平衡--关于制定《传染病隔离法》的思考

2003年春夏之际,一场始料不及的瘟疫——“非典型性肺炎”席卷了我国大江南北。通过各级政府和全社会公民的良性互动,目前疫情已经得到了阶段性的控制。回首抗击“非典”的日日夜夜,少数人借“非典”之机大发不义之财;而更多的公民则为了控制疫情积极配合政府采取的应对措施。有法可依,依法办事,切实保障每一位公民的基本权利,这是法治国家政府在防治严重传染病过程中面临的重要问题。这场瘟疫不仅考验了科学,而且也考验着政府的应急能力及其法律是否完善。在我国缺乏《紧急状态法》的前提下,政府为了应对突发性公共卫生事件而采取了(包括“隔离”等限制公民人身自由在内的)一系列行政强制措施。政府行政权力的底线是尊重和保障人权,而不能随意压制公民、法人和其它组织的私权利。“塞翁失马,焉知非福。”尽早出台《传染病隔离法》等相关法律,从立法和执法中寻求公权力和私权利之间的动态平衡未尝不是抗击“非典”给我们带来的启示。     

Why Right‐Leaning Populism has Grown in the Most Advanced Liberal Democracies of Europe

Immigration and new class divisions, combined with a growing anti‐elitism and political correctness, are often used as explanations for the strong gains for right‐leaning populist parties in national elections across Europe in recent years. But contrary to what we might assume, such parties have been very successful in the most developed and comprehensive welfare states, in nations—such as the Nordic countries—with the best scores on economic equality and social inclusion and long established political and judicial institutions enjoying a high degree of popular legitimacy. As argued in this article, this seems to happen because a duopoly of the centre‐left and centre‐right political establishment has kept issues such as immigration and new class divisions off the public agenda and hence paved the way for right‐leaning ‘disruptor’ populist parties with an anti‐immigration agenda in times of increasing immigration.     

The Quiet Revolution? The Labour Party and Welfare Conditionality

Labour's 2017 general election manifesto contained a pledge to ‘end the punitive sanctions regime’ in the British welfare state. Whilst the specific implications of this pledge were not elaborated, such a policy would nevertheless constitute a profound break with a welfare consensus spanning over twenty years. The depth of the suggested changes on welfare are also evident in the scale of reform proposed to disability benefits, as well as plans—confirmed in August 2018 by the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell—to pilot universal basic income. Collectively, these policies would seemingly be deeply at odds with public opinion on the benefits system, which over the course of the last two decades has significantly hardened. Yet despite the seemingly radical and controversial nature of the policy, it received very little media or public attention during the election campaign. This article explores Labour's ‘quiet revolution’ on welfare, examining whether Labour's new welfare approach is indeed a bold attempt to reshape public opinion on welfare or, alternatively, a mostly pragmatic reaction to changing social attitudes. The argument presented is that whilst there are persuasive explanations that Labour is responding to a change in the public mood, there is also evidence of a more ambitious goal at stake: the aim of reshaping, not simply responding to, public opinion on the welfare state.     

‘Austria First’ revisited: a diachronic cross-sectional analysis of the gender and body politics of the extreme right

ABSTRACT

In this paper, Rheindorf and Wodak provide a discourse-historical analysis of extreme-right cultural politics in Austria, ranging from the blatant racism in the speeches of Vienna’s former Deputy Mayor Johann Gudenus (now MP in the Austrian parliament) to the construction of an idealized national body in the election campaigns of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), its programmatic agenda in handbooks and pamphlets, and the performances of far-right pop singer Andreas Gabalier. Rheindorf and Wodak argue that such cultural politics use a wide spectrum of discursive strategies both inside and outside established party politics and that the accompanying production of an ideal extreme-right subject is informed by nativist ideology. The cross-sectional analysis demonstrates that the cultural politics of the Austrian extreme right ranges from appropriated national symbols to coded National Socialist iconography. These politics pervasively construct a gendered and racialized national body, policed by a ‘strict father’ and nurtured by a ‘self-sacrificing mother’, vis-à-vis an apocalyptic threat scenario identified with migration, intellectual and political elites, cosmopolitanism and progressive gender politics.     

So far away from me? The effect of geographical distance on representation

Legislators face numerous trade-offs with regard to how to spend their time. One factor is, however, beyond their control: the distance between their constituency and the legislature. A more distant constituency implies increased travel, which decreases the time available for activities within the legislature itself, while also raising the possibility of centre–periphery dynamics in representation. Previous work has found that as distance between constituency and legislature increases, so does constituency focus, but it has not established why this is. This article explores the impact of geographical remoteness on representational activity, analysing a dataset of parliamentary activity in the British House of Commons (2005–2015), showing that the more remote an MP’s constituency, the less likely that MP is to attend votes, while being more likely to sign Early Day Motions. The article further shows that this is most likely driven by a centre–periphery dynamic rather than simply being a response to longer travel time.