Cultivating Dialogue: From Fragmentation to Relationality in Conflict Interaction

This article builds on the tendency in recent decades in the field of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to analyze conflict and its transformation from a relational perspective. It surveys developments in twentieth‐century philosophy that support the ongoing quest to explore the self in ADR from a relational perspective. It then shows how the concept of dialogue provides a framework for understanding conflict transformation from a relational perspective, by exploring the relational foundations of dialogue. It also draws a connection between the growing use of mindfulness practices in conflict settings and the practice of dialogue, suggesting that Buddhist philosophy and practices can help cultivate relational awareness and dialogue. The article therefore suggests that incorporating dialogue and exploring its relational characteristics can assist ADR scholars and practitioners to develop further practices that can promote collaboration by shifting disputants from adversarial and fragmented orientations to more relational mindsets.     

政府与社会关系视角下的政府信用构成要素研究

政府与社会是一种契约关系。政府信用的实质就是在契约关系中政府的合法性问题。政府与社会的良性互动不仅构成政府信用建设的现实基础,也是政府信用要素研究的理论基础。在政府与社会关系的视角下,结合政府信用的基本原则,提炼出了七大政府信用构成要素,从系统、动态的角度分析了各构成要素所需要遵循的原则和建设目标。     

Patron-Client Politics and Its Implications for Good Governance in Bangladesh

Currently, good governance is a major concern of all politicians, administrators, academics, the international donor agencies and even common people. It is now increasingly being realized that without good governance, developing countries have little chance to progress. While its importance cannot be over-emphasized, many developing countries are facing difficulties in implementing the good governance agenda. Therefore, the factors constraining the good governance initiatives have to be carefully identified and analyzed. This paper identifies patron-client politics as a critical factor in the analysis of good governance initiatives in Bangladesh. In this paper, it is argued that patron-client politics is very much entrenched in Bangladesh and it has had a constraining effect on the institutionalization of good governance initiatives.     

What do prisoners want? Current concerns of adult male prisoners

Abstract

Recently, positive approaches to offender rehabilitation, focusing upon offenders’ strengths, have gained prominence. Proponents have criticized existing rehabilitation models as focusing too much on offenders’ deficits. Goal perspectives, which provide a structure for therapy, may unite these two approaches. The Personal Concerns Inventory: Offender Adaptation (PCI:OA) is a semi-structured interview that identifies offenders’ current concerns or goals. The goals identified by a sample of 129 convicted adult male prisoners are reported here. A range of positive, anti-criminal goals were expressed, including stopping offending, improving self-control, finding and keeping jobs, having stable accommodation, quitting drink and drugs, changing support networks, and finding new leisure pursuits. Furthermore, prisoners expressed life-enhancing goals, such as improving their lifestyle, gaining work experience, having good family relationships, gaining skills, and getting fit and healthy. The PCI:OA may prove useful as a motivational procedure, a basis for developing positive, goal-focused interventions, and a tool for outcome evaluation.     

政社互动：创新社会管理背景下的行政法新模式

在我国“全能政府”的传统治理模式难以满足社会发展需求的情况下,吸收公众的广泛参与和社会组织的协同治理成为公共行政改革的必然选项。同时,在加强创新社会管理背景下,社会管理的行政模式也由传统的“机关行政”向“公共行政”转变,政府与社会之间的关系也不再是一种领导和被领导、指挥和被指挥的关系,而应该是一种平等合作、政社良性互动的关系。现代行政法也是以民主行政和合作治理为基础的行政法。更强调社会的自治和参与。因此,当代公共行政社会化背景下的政府与社会的关系理应是一种合作信任关系,相应地公共行政模式也就是“政社互动”新模式。     

Knowledge free and ‘unfree’: Epistemic tensions in plant knowledge at the Cape in the 17th and 18 th centuries1

ABSTRACT

This article utilises the same epistemic objects, particular indigenous medicinal plants of the Cape region, to explore the gamut of epistemologies in contested, dynamic tension in the early Cape Colony: That of the frontiersman, the Khoikhoi, the Sonqua or Sankwe, and the slave. Drawing on a transdisciplinary set of literatures, the article puts Africana studies, the study of indigenous knowledge systems, and social studies of science and technology in wider conversation with each other, and argues for the adoption of an epistemic openness, methodologies which ‘braid’ seemingly separate strands of social history and differing knowledge practices, and cross-border collaboration among scholars of African and African diasporic knowledges. The findings and interpretation suggest new ways to view the ‘multiplexity’ of early indigenous southern African botanical, therapeutic and ecological knowledges, as well as the necessity for rethinking both the construction of colonial sciences and contemporary concerns about indigenous knowledge, biosciences and their 21^st century interaction.     

From Emigrant to Immigrant Society

Abstract

As the host of complex factors that give rise to forced and voluntary migration change over time, the history of migration in any one country also changes. This paper is concerned with the processes of transition and change in migration patterns in the Republic of Ireland over the past fifteen years, as Ireland has moved from being a country of net emigration to one of net immigration. More specifically this paper considers the manner in which, as immigration acquires a negative label through reactive state policies enabled legislative provisions both migrant and local population groups focus on resource-based tensions. As a result, a complex set of barriers emerges to inhibit the formation (by migrants) of extensive social networks within Irish society and ultimately to restrict general social interaction and integration. This paper considers the manner in which, migrant interaction with the host society becomes more limited and of less relevance to the individual when social interaction takes place in the context of a heightened sense of difference and of barriers between local and migrant groups. As a consequence, the barriers and boundaries between the immigrant and the local population are further reinforced.     

The Contingent Public Value of ‘Good Design’: Regulating the Aesthetics of the Australian Urban Built Environment

The proposition that the urban built environment can, and indeed should, be made more visually attractive is a long‐standing feature of the governance of Australian cities. In this vein, this paper examines how ‘good design’ in terms of visual aesthetics is currently pursued including through the development assessment process and the work of government architects. The paper begins by tracing the background of contemporary regulatory practice from long‐standing ideas around beauty and its value through to the urban design movement of today. Next, it considers in more detail various rationales for aesthetic governance and what might be better forms of regulatory practice. In short, it will be argued that while there can be scope for regulation to deliver superior outcomes, this practice must be sensitive to a high degree of contingency in what the public values and that deliberate empirical inquiry into the latter is desirable.     

媒体与司法之间的良性互动

舆论监督对司法独立的影响分为两步：一是新闻媒体通过报道或是对案件的评价让公众了解案件的前因后果;二是公众依据所收到的报道对这类事件产生看法和意见。在这两个阶段中,媒体不仅扮演着媒介的角色,也扮演着＂引导者＂的角色。在媒体的＂引导＂下,公众的情绪就构成社会舆论,它会直接影响执法者对案件的审判,从而影响司法独立。     

中西诚信伦理的主要差异

中西方对“诚信”的研究和应用有悠远的历史,并在目前的企业管理中有成功的实践。从各自发展历史看,中国传统的道德诚信与西方文化中的道德诚信具有基本相同的内涵和要求,但由于社会制度和文化传统的差异,在具体的理解上,两者存在着实质性的区别,并由此影响了不同文化背景下诚信行为表现特征上的差异。