Compromising the public good? Civil society as beneficiary of gambling revenue

Profits from legal gambling are often channelled to good causes. This system embeds the predicament of whether citizens’ potentially problematic gambling activities should be a source of funding for the public good. In this article, this dilemma is unfolded by the receivers of public grants that stem from gambling revenues. A total of twenty-three representatives of Civil Society Organizations were interviewed as beneficiaries of the Finnish state-owned gambling monopolies. The article illustrates explicit dependencies and hidden ethical dilemmas, suggesting that CSOs may have limited possibilities of making ethically consistent decisions in view of the origin of their funding.     

Westernness,Chineseness, or Life as Essence——A Discussion with Luo Gang and Peng Yuping on the Poetic Nature of Poetic Remarks in the Human World

There have emerged two representative opinions regarding the origin of Wang Guowei's thought as shown in his Poetic Remarks in the Human World, one being Westernness aided by Chineseness, and the other being Chineseness aided by Wesernness. The former opinion holds that Wang's fundamental ideas in Poetic Remarks in the Human World were derived from modern Western philosophy and aesthetics, which, in turn, were used to deal with traditional Chinese poetry; the latter opinion argues that Wang's basic thought originated from Chinese aesthetic traditions, which were aided by western thought in Wang's Case. The two opinions seem to be over-focused on conceptual comparison and identity; therefore, they fail to point to Wang's principle of “Life as Essence” which incorporates thought of all origins. Wang's Poetic Remarks in the Human World is a reaffirmation of the “aesthetic life”, a blending that goes beyond mere conceptual comparison and contrast.     

从法治走向善治的中国特色社会主义治理模式

在国家治理现代化推进的激励之下,21世纪中国治理模式演进为以全面依法治国和全面深化改革为特征的中国式善治。善治的中国模式包含了多重治理系统的内在逻辑,即执政党治理制度化、政府治理法治化、社会治理的协同化和参与全球治理的有效化。善治的中国模式呈现出坚持党的领导和推进执政党续造、坚持全面深化改革和迈向幸福生活的政治图景。     

The life-course demography of convict transportation to Van Diemen’s Land

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a sample of 16,953 male and 7,783 female convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land between 1818 and 1853 whose life courses have been reconstructed as much as possible from cradle to grave to explore the effects of critical life stages and the impact of a shared exposure to a stress regime of penal servitude, forced labour and exile. It uses survival and family formation of a lineage as the key measures of life outcomes. It finds that male convicts, while not producing many descendants because of sex imbalances, did well biologically out of being transported, while female convicts, entering servitude under a greater burden of previous abuse and deprivation, continued to suffer a severe gender penalty in survival and significant secondary infertility after sentence. Early life effects from the social environment, or crime economy, into which men were born remained remarkably persistent, while the previous history of prostitution and/or alcohol abuse dramatically shortened the lives of women. These were the embodied effects, over generations, of structural violence against women in the most deprived and dangerous neighbourhoods of from the late-eighteenth century through to the 1840s in Great Britain and Ireland, and transported with them to the Australian colonies.     

Workplace Monitoring and the Right to Private Life at Work

In Barbulescu v Romania, the European Court of Human Rights clarified the application of the Article 8 right to private life in the workplace, and the extent of the state's positive obligations to protect the right against workplace monitoring. The decision establishes that there is an irreducible core to the right to private life at work that does not depend on an employee's reasonable expectations of privacy, and sets out clear principles for striking a fair balance between Article 8 and the employer's interests in the context of workplace monitoring. This article considers the nature of states’ positive obligation to protect human rights at work, the scope of the right to private life, and the impact of the decision on domestic law of unfair dismissal.     

从《公民权利与政治权利国际公约》评我国死刑立法

《公民权利与政治权利国际公约》确立了严格限制死刑并最终废除死刑的国际标准。以此观之,我国死刑立法虽然在明确死刑的适用条件、缩小适用对象、降低死刑适用率等方面取得了一定的进步,做出了限制死刑的谨慎努力,但在大幅度削减死刑罪名、适用死刑核准程序等方面还存在诸多不足,需进一步改进。     

党内法规执行责任制:制度构成、理论逻辑与实践意义

党内法规执行责任制是强化管党治党、推进政党法治、健全“制度之治”的重要制度安排,是党内法规体系的重要组成部分。《党内法规执行责任制规定(试行)》的出台,标志着党内法规执行责任制的正式确立,形成了以执规责任主体、执规责任类型、执规责任保障为基本要素的制度结构。党内法规执行责任制蕴含着“政治权力与政党责任相统一”“政党法治与良法善治相统一”“从严治党与依规治党相统一”“问题导向与治理效果相统一”的理论逻辑,为制度形塑提供了理论基础。党内法规执行责任制有效推进了国家治理现代化、法治中国建设协同化、党的建设科学化、党内法规建设实效化等实践进程,这有助于我们更深入地理解党内法规执行责任制的功能与实践价值。     

论公共视阈下的思想政治工作

文章从“公共视阈”这一新的视角来考察思想政治工作,提出思想政治工作本质上是一种公共行为;生活世界是思想政治工作的唯一源泉;互为主体是思想政治工作的核心特征;对话是实现思想政治工作的重要途径。     

Tasmania's Tamar Valley Pulp Mill: A Comparison of Planning Processes Using a Good Environmental Governance Framework

In November 2004, the Tasmanian government requested the state's planning body, the Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC), to undertake an evaluation of a proposal to establish a pulp mill at Long Reach near Bell Bay on Tasmania's Tamar Estuary. In early 2007, Gunns Limited, the project's proponent, pulled out of the RPDC process and the government established an alternative, ‘fast‐track’ process under the Pulp Mill Assessment Act (PMAA). This article evaluates the RPDC and the PMAA assessment processes using a ‘good environmental governance’ framework composed of eight criteria – transparency, accountability, openness, balance, deliberation, efficiency, science and risk. The comparison reveals that although the RPDC process fell short of the ideal, it was markedly superior to the PMAA process that replaced it. The case highlights how political economic power can be used to the detriment of public planning and the communities and environment that rely on it.     

The impact of associational life on trust in local institutions: a comparison of 57 Swiss municipalities

In this paper, we evaluate the impact of associational life on individual political trust in 57 Swiss municipalities. Our hierarchical regression models show that individual political trust is not only affected by individual associational membership but also by the exchange between associations and local political authorities in a community. In other words, if political authorities and associations are linked at the community level, citizens will place more trust in their local institutions. Furthermore, we find clear evidence for the rainmaker hypothesis: our results show that the positive effect of a vibrant connection between associational life and local politics on political trust is not solely confined to the associational members themselves, but rather indicate that the structure of the local civic culture fosters political trust among members and non-members at the same time. However, the internal democratic processes of associations have no effect on individuals’ trust in local political institutions.