Clientelism and the classification of dominant party systems

The view of clientelism as an abuse of state power casts doubt on the democratic credentials of highly clientelistic political systems. The question is particularly relevant for the classification of dominant party systems that heavily rely on clientelism to elicit popular support and retain a relatively open structure of participation. Knowing that clientelism is a widespread practice in modern democracies too, how do we evaluate the impact of clientelism on political competitiveness in order to sort out the position of these regimes along the lines of democracy and authoritarianism? This task requires identifying the conditions under which clientelism becomes an essentially authoritarian practice and qualifies these regimes as such. The article puts forward two propositions about the circumstances under which clientelism infringes basic democratic standards under a thin and a thick definition of democracy. Clientelism under one-party monopoly engenders authoritarianism when it thwarts and punishes the contesting voice of citizens by effectively blocking exit from its incentives and sanctions.     

互联网企业市场支配地位认定的理论反思与制度重构

随着互联网市场的发展,我国司法实践中适用的判断经营者市场支配地位的方案受到了严峻挑战。在互联网市场上,市场份额的计算方法受到质疑,市场份额对衡量经营者市场竞争力的判断作用已经退化。在我国对市场份额证据严格限制的实证法背景下,我国司法实践中推行的"单一市场结构方案"既不能适用于互联网市场中的垄断行为规制,也不符合我国反垄断的立法规定,是必须摈弃的一种落后观念。因应互联网市场的形成,根据我国《反垄断法》的立法宗旨和基本精神,应当在反垄断司法实践中贯彻"综合标准方案",既不简单反对可以根据市场份额推定经营者的市场支配地位,又充分考虑市场进入壁垒、市场竞争状况等其他因素对经营者市场支配地位的影响。     

The Strategic Timing behind Position-taking in the US Congress: A Study of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act

Roll call voting by members of the US Congress has been frequently studied. In contrast, the various decisions leading up to roll call voting are relatively unexplored. This article analyses one of those decisions: when senators announce their final passage vote intention. The authors use the same set of variables to analyse both the timing of the announcement and the final passage vote. They find that different independent variables predict these two different decisions, though the constituency and the senator's institutional setting matter in both. Furthermore, this study corroborates an assumption in the rational choice literature that those members with the most information are the first movers.     

An Assessment of Recent Authors and Authorship Patterns in Taiwan's Public Administration Research

The public administration (PA) field in Taiwan has undergone a period of rapid transformation over the past two decades. The purpose of this study is to provide a more recent assessment of Taiwanese PA research. To that end, this study examines the characteristics of contemporary PA authors who published articles in five core PA journals in Taiwan between 1996 and 2007, assesses the journals' co-authorship/collaboration trends over the period, and identifies the publication and funding patterns of the 20 most-frequently published scholars. Implications of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed in the paper.     

Excavating Concealed Tradeoffs: How Russians Watch the News

Citizens in democracies are expected to make better decisions if they understand policy tradeoffs. However, politicians rarely have incentives to communicate them; citizens are uncomfortable choosing among valued outcomes; and devising a common metric is difficult. It is not surprising that in the United States the environment provides relatively little cuing or priming of tradeoffs in television news. Russian citizens, on the other hand, face a media environment in which tradeoff cuing is intentionally suppressed by owners' agendas, yet viewers detect concealed tradeoffs even in the absence of tradeoff priming and viewpoint diversity. Analysis of discourse among ordinary Russians in 16 focus groups convened in four cities, differentiated by political reform and media market environments, showed that when watching news in which tradeoffs are thoroughly concealed, viewers challenge stories by offering a broad spectrum of uncued tradeoffs. Tradeoffs come from diverse policy domains and represent a range of cognitive strategies, some of which are considerably more abstract than others and link elements of their observations and assumptions (together with what they can extract from the stories) into complex reasoning outcomes.     

商业贿赂的多层次内涵及其认定

治理商业贿赂是2006年我国政府廉政建设和反腐工作的重点之一。正确界定商业贿赂的内涵对于商业贿赂的惩治成效和司法资源的合理配置具有重要的意义。商业贿赂的多层次内涵的界定必须顺应和谐社会建设要求,采取在满足维护秩序最低要求的前提下,最大可能地保障经济自由的基本立场。     

浅谈新时期大学生思想政治工作的创新

随着社会经济的快速发展,大学生思想政治工作面临着许多新的问题和挑战,党的十六大提出的全面建设小康社会和四中、五中全会提出的建设社会主义和谐社会,对高校思想政治工作提出了更高的要求。高校思想政治工作要适应新形势、新任务,就必须坚持与时俱进,在教育观念、内容、方法和机制上实现创新,提高针对性和实效性。     

Market Domination: Tests Applied to the Danish Cement Industry

We propose an economic interpretation of the definition of a dominant position used by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Then we apply co-integration techniques to test econometrically whether the sole Danish producer of cement holds a dominant position. Import penetration tests show that its conduct is independent of import price and quantity, so it can act to a considerable extent independently of its competitors. We also test whether it can act independently of its customers and find that its demand is inelastic with respect to its price. It thus holds a dominant position on the relevant Danish market.     

居住权的理论问题

居住权,是指特定的自然人对他人所有的房屋及其附属设施享有的占有、使用的权利。居住权可以通过遗嘱、遗赠、合同等方式设立。居住权的内容主要表现为居住权人对房屋的使用权、对房屋有限的收益权、物权请求权以及房屋灭失后请求适当安置的权利,合理使用房屋的义务、保管房屋的义务、承担房屋的日常负担的义务以及居住权消灭后返还房屋的义务,等等。居住权因居住权设定的期限届满、居住权人死亡、混同、抛弃、滥用、房屋灭失等原因而消灭。     

法学研究中的价值处理

价值法学本身经历了重内容、重形式、重程序、程序与内容并重的进化路径。重内容的法学是价值法学的中坚 ,但是以启蒙理性为特色的片面的重内容的法学却极易走向自己的反面———价值独断与极权。法学研究中的形式转向是法的一般理论从法哲学中分化出来的前提 ,但极端形式主义最终导致价值相对主义甚至道德相对主义 ,是法律灾变的理论诱因。重程序的法理学是结合形式与内容的枢纽 ,但片面的重程序也会导致价值无涉。考夫曼的程序与内容并重的法理学代表了 2 1世纪法理学发展的方向