Across time and space: Explaining variation in news coverage of the European Union

News about the European Union (EU) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This study investigates explanations for cross‐national and over‐time variation in news media coverage of EU affairs drawing on large‐scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in the EU‐15 (1999), EU‐25 (2004) and EU‐27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament (EP) elections. The analyses focus in particular on explanatory factors pertaining to media characteristics and the political elites. Results show that national elites play an important role for the coverage of EU matters during EP election campaigns. The more strongly national parties are divided about the EU in combination with overall more negative positions towards the EU, the more visible the news. Also, increases in EU news visibility from one election to the next and the Europeanness of the news are determined by a country's elite positions. The findings are discussed in light of the EU's alleged communication deficit.     

Natural resource rents and elite bargains in Africa: Exploring avenues for future research

This article explores the recent debate over the quality of Africa's growth episode of the past decade, specifically insofar as it pertains to the pitfalls of commodity-dependent growth and the hypothesised ‘resource curse’. In addition, the article focuses on why political and economic institutions are important, and why they are indicators for the likely development impacts of Africa's evident mineral and hydrocarbon wealth. Third, it suggests a useful theoretical framework for understanding these indicators, especially with regard to the differing constraints under which foreign investors operate and interact with host countries. Developing on the latter points, the article looks at the nature of Chinese foreign investment in Africa's extractive industries. Finally, the article suggests an agenda for future research that could better inform development policy for the purpose of promoting high-quality growth in Africa.     

Challenges to the elite exclusion–inclusion dichotomy — reconsidering elite capture in community-based natural resource management

The community-driven, decentralised approach to natural resource management has reached a crossroads. The good governance agenda in the water, forestry, fishery and biodiversity sectors has generated limited success in achieving pro-poor outcomes. In many cases, local elites are to blame for capturing the benefits from the process of democratising decision-making processes. This paper examines two approaches in the literature which both aim to address elite domination, namely elite exclusion and elite inclusion. The former is a deliberate act to reduce the influence of elites by excluding them from the decision-making process in natural resource management. The latter, in contrast, is a conscious strategy to integrate elites into the use of natural resources in an attempt to redistribute the benefits to poor people via the ‘trickle down’ effect. This paper argues that the dichotomy of elite inclusion and exclusion is inadequate in understanding the complex local power dynamics in natural resource management. In particular, the binary division fails to address the multiple locations of elites, overlapping institutions and the paradoxes of ‘controlled’ participatory processes. This paper argues that any strategies to tackle elite capture need to pay attention to the historical, socially embedded and negotiated nature of resource governance arrangements.     

Reassessing the Role of Civil Society Organizations in the Transition to Democracy in Spain

Spain's democratization process has mainly been described as a settlement between political elites in which civil society organizations played little part. Yet the literature on Eastern European democratization sets great store by the role of civil society, both for transition and consolidation. Does this different treatment reflect the approach adopted by analysts or the actual contrasting presence of civil society organizations in the relevant periods? The question prompts this re-examination of the role of civil society organizations in the Spanish transition. It finds that the answer depends in part on definitions of civil society, but mainly on the approach taken by authors in presenting their accounts. It finds that the elite settlement perspective silences or removes agency from the Spanish civil society organizations active in the transition.

An alternative view is developed through an in-depth review of the events following the death of the dictator General Franco in 1975 and a textual analysis of Spain's actual definitive settlement, the 1978 Constitution. The research demonstrates that civil society organizations were responsible for disrupting the dictatorship's intention to maintain an authoritarian regime, leaving it no option but to negotiate with civil society organizations such as political parties and trade unions, which were pursuing their own strategic goals towards co-construction of a socially advanced democracy. The article's approach bridges the gulf between top-down and bottom-up accounts of political change in Spain at the end of the Franco regime.     

独立前缅甸民族主义精英对国家发展道路的探索

独立前缅甸民族主义精英对缅甸独立后的总体发展道路以及国家的政治制度、经济发展战略和具体政策、宗教与政治关系、民族问题与国家结构、对外政策等重大问题进行了比较全面的探索,在此过程中形成的观点和暴露出的特点对缅甸独立后的现代化进程产生了较为深刻的影响。     

士绅阶层衰落化过程中的乡村政治——以20世纪二三十年代的浙江省为例

士绅阶层是影响乡村政治的一支重要政治力量。在晚清科举废除过程中,其作为社会文化重心的独特地位逐渐被动摇。随着民国时期新教育的不断扩张及新知识阶层离乡步伐的加速,乡村士绅出现了严重的侵蚀化现象。优秀分子的离开及乡村管理者的食利倾向使得士绅群体迅速劣质化,整个乡村政治处于破产和崩溃边缘。     

论审判阶段的补充侦查——以2021年《刑诉法解释》第274条为切入

审判阶段的补充侦查因引起审判活动中断、诉讼程序倒流等法律后果,背离控审分离、控辩平等,特别是以审判为中心的诉讼制度改革的基本要义而备受疑义。立足于2021年《刑诉法解释》第274条的规范语义,审判阶段补充侦查的分析、研判不应继续囿于以往刑事立法的框定内容,不能以此前规范可能形成的不利后果作为制度诟病的必然论据,而是应当通过更为多元、适恰的论理方法,将此议题的分析、阐释置于刑事法律规范与刑事诉讼制度变革的现实语境之中,用以有针对性地回应审判阶段补充侦查制度项下的诸多疑义,并以此为基础演绎归纳出此议题之下以完善制度本体与优化配套机制为导向,以明晰同意补充侦查申请的条件标准、依据刑事诉讼客体同一性理论限缩补充侦查之缺失证据范围、恢复庭前实质性审查,以及强化对于根据在案证据进行裁判的释法说理为具体内容的渐进式改革路径。     

Social Structure and the Typical Career of the Swiss Diplomatic Elite

This Research Note analyzes the origins, the social structure, the typical career and the patterns of promotion of the Swiss diplomatic elite. The results highlight the fact that the diplomatic elite has well‐differentiated career patterns which point to a high degree of professionalization. The average Swiss diplomat has spent two decades within the diplomatic service and more than 60 percent of his career on assignments abroad before having been appointed ambassador. But the typical career pattern of Switzerland's diplomatic elite seems to change partially. On the one hand, the percentage of lawyers within the elite has been constantly decreasing, and on the other the young ambassadors have been spending much more time in Bern than their older colleagues. These are some indications of a pluralization and differentiation of the diplomatic elite. In respect to the typical career of an ambassador, one has to emphasize the fact that most ambassadors start their careers on the foreign policy periphery before they are promoted to more prestigious posts and that they are until the very end of their careers subject to mandatory transfers which lead to a continuously high regional mobility.     

生态消费行为及其制度构建

生态消费把人类的消费纳入生态系统之中,使之与生态系统协调统一。生态消费是可持续发展思想在消费领域的具体体现,是人类消费模式的根本变革。由于存在所谓理性"经济人"假设,经济主体主动选择生态消费的内动力不足。因此,构建全方位的制度体系,是实现由传统消费模式向现代生态消费模式转变的根本保证。     

Monetisation of electoral politics and the challenge of political exclusion in Nigeria

This paper argues that money has become the deciding factor in Nigerian politics. It has served the purposes of consolidating elite rule as well as the political exclusion of the non-elite. A discernible ‘ritual of money politics’, has enabled the power elite to remain in power, and new comers to develop the elite character. This paper concludes that money politics is at the heart of the general crisis of democracy and governance in Nigeria, and unless this is mitigated, reforms aimed at bringing about good governance and curbing other anomalies in the political system may not produce the desired results.