Citizenship status and social exclusion in Estonia and Latvia

Abstract

Findings from the Norbalt living conditions surveys in Estonia and Latvia are used to examine whether persons without Estonian and Latvian citizenship are at greater risk of social exclusion than citizens in these two countries. the level of integration into the labor market, participation in civil society and political life, degree of social isolation, and the level of economic resources among the two groups are analyzed. In Estonia non-citizens are more at risk of social exclusion compared to Estonian citizens, while in Latvia one finds no statistically significant difference between the groups. In both countries educational level is much more important than citizenship status in explaining social exclusion.     

浅析市民社会对当代中国政治发展的战略意义

市民社会是一种独立于政治国家的由各类自主、自治、合法、非政治的民间组织和团体构成的社会力量,它是现代世界的产物。现代民主政治又是随着市民社会的发展而发展起来的。改革开放以来,随着政府行为的规范化及市场经济体制的逐步建立,我国的国家与社会关系发生了巨大的变化,市民社会作为一支相对独立的社会力量正在我国形成。市民社会的兴起与发展有利于型塑现代国家,有利于国家的民主建设,有利于政治文化的转型,有利于社会的稳定发展,并且对当代中国政治发展有重要的战略意义。     

坚持维护主权,建立多极化世界的国际政治经济新秩序──兼论我国三代国家领导人国际关系观

当今世界有诸多的世界论──单极、三极、五极,无论前述任何一种,都没有完全代表世界绝大多数国家和人民的利益。在维护国家主权、尊重各国权利基础上,应建立多极化世界的国际政治经济新秩序。建立多极化世界的国际政治经济新秩序最重要的有两项原则、三大政策和三项措施。两项原则是：尊重各国主权的原则;不干涉别国内政的原则。三大政策是：奉行独立自主的和平外交政策;奉行国际法准则;奉行民族自决原则。三项措施为：联合世界各种力量,反对霸权主义和强权政治;摒弃旧的国际政治经济秩序,确立平等、公正、合理的国际政治经济新秩序;依靠联合国的力量,推动世界格局向多极化转换。     

自然资源统一确权登记改革的立法纾困

自然资源统一确权登记是通过重识各具体资源要素间的生态功能关联而展开的空间维度的整体性登记,其蕴含了使登记客体呈现生态性革新和空间性扩张的新趋势。确权登记改革对以保障交易安全为主线的传统物权登记功能定位形成动摇,并进一步冲击了取向于自然资源财产属性的"物的区隔化经济利用"的物权客体特定性规则。对此,有必要回应自然生态空间这一独立登记单元的程序性设置对自然资源国家所有权客体形态所产生的实体性回射影响。一方面,应确认登记功能主义对登记客体的革新效果,从公示物权秩序扩至实现生态管护,登记治理效能的扩充使其呈现空间治理的新向度;另一方面,应在引入"生态物"的物权客体判定标准的基础上,对自然资源国家所有权在客体形态和权能构造方面进行"绿化"解释。以此为依托,释明支撑自然资源统一确权登记改革的"空间治理"和"生态文明"双线逻辑。     

工人职业健康的理论模式及其重构

工人职业健康问题非常重要,但缺乏系统性和理论性的论著。研究旨在通过梳理国内外已有研究,归纳工人职业健康的理论模式,并提炼出理解工人职业健康问题的内核,进而搭建分析工人职业健康问题的系统框架,以期推动工人职业健康研究的系统化与理论化。研究认为,工人职业健康状况实际上是劳动关系三方主体之间博弈的结果,工人职业健康问题的内核在于对劳动关系三角结构的把握。基于保障工人基本劳动权益的理想,劳动关系形态应是工人、资本与国家三者两两之间均能达成制约与反制约的均衡状态。因此,均衡劳动关系可以成为判断工人职业健康状况的重要指标。     

Classical Marxism and Maoism: A comparative study

The issue of the Marxist character of “Mao Zedong Thought” has never really been resolved. The present work is a comparative analysis of the classical Marxism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and the ideology of Mao Zedong. The argument is made that whatever Marxism there was in Maoism was the “creatively developed Marxism” of V. I. Lenin—which allowed for socialist revolution in retrograde economic circumstances—something that had been specifically rejected by Marx and Engels. That led to the theoretical idiosyncrasies that characterized Maoism throughout its history, and ultimately resulted in the form rejected by Deng Xiaoping and post-Maoist China.     

Climate Change and Marx in the Twenty-First Century,Part II

This paper comes in two parts. Part I, published in the June 2018 issue of this journal, opened with an examination of the relationship between Marx’s characterization of the centrality of commodity production to capitalism as a system, its destructive results on Nature and the global scale of the climate crisis confronting the 21st century. Following a discussion of these issues, Part I moved on to critically examine three models of political economy: Hayekism, Keynesianism and State Socialism. Part II takes the argument further by critically examining a fourth model, Green Keynesianism, currently being manufactured in response to the crisis of climate change, in order to show the inability of all four models to resolve the existential threat posed to humanity in the 21st century and beyond. I then proceed to posit, as a thought experiment, a now-necessary fifth model of political economy, Green Socialism, along with the building blocks important to its evolution as a coherent system. The paper concludes with a brief mention of both the ends and means that demand serious consideration if Green Socialism is to be realized.     

The changing relationship between the state and the voluntary philanthropic sector: special reference to Singapore

There has been a significant proliferation of voluntary philanthropic organizations to deliver basic services in the current context of anti-welfare neoliberal policies pursued by the state. While there are numerous studies and publications on these voluntary organizations, the nature of their relationship with the state remains relatively under-researched. This article attempts to explore this issue in the case Singapore where, in the absence of an active welfare state, the voluntary philanthropic organizations—especially the Voluntary Welfare Organizations (VWOs)—have played a crucial role in serving citizens’ welfare needs. In evaluating the nature and determinants of this state-VWO relationship, the article examines some relevant theoretical models and applies them to the Singapore case.     

Predicting Revolt: Fragility Indexes and the Level of Violence and Instability in the Arab Spring

This article is one of the first to systematically assess the ability of state fragility measures to predict violent protests and adverse regime changes in countries. We focus on the Arab Spring as an example of a situation that such measures ought to predict. Through a variety of analyses, we find that none of the measures are predictive. We then create a simple model using the literature of protest and revolts to predict both the level of violence and the extent of regime change in the Arab Spring countries. This simpler model does a better job of predicting the level of involvement in the Arab Spring than any of the complex State Fragility Indexes. Thus, the goal of this article is not to explain the causes of the Arab Spring, but to add to the discussion of the predictive value of measures of instability.     

Building foundations for the comparative study of state and non-state terrorism

In this article, we argue that a comparative study of state and non-state terrorism that uses the minimal foundationalist definition of terrorism as its central analytical framework offers a unique and instructive approach for answering the question: “what is terrorism?” To date, most recent comparative case study analyses of terrorism focus on ideologies, political/governance models, structural/contextual enablers, practices, organisational structures, and/or the basis of issues such as trust, belonging, and membership. We uniquely contribute to the growing literature on comparative terrorism studies by comparing and contrasting state and non-state terrorism on the basis of strategic communication vis-à-vis the preparation, execution, and outcomes of political violence (the “terrorism attack cycle”), the instrumentalisation of victims, and fear management. We argue that state and non-state terrorism are co-constituting and co-enabling phenomena, possibly best conceptualised as two bounded and coiled strands of the political violence DNA.