全面深化劳动竞赛为天津又好又快发展建功立业

我市工会开展的"五比一创"劳动竞赛,紧扣时代主题,适应了我国社会发展新阶段的新要求,得到了各级党委的高度重视和行政的大力支持。在各级工会的精心组织、具体实施、狠抓落实和各方的共同努力下,已经成为团结动员广大职工推动科学发展、转变经济发展方式、促进社会和谐、实现天津又好又快发展的重要载体,创造了新时期工会工作的新品牌。     

人身保险合同常见条款研究

在长期的保险实践中,保险业界逐渐形成了一些规范人身保险合同的条款,常见的有不可抗辩条款、年龄误告条款、自杀免责条款、战争免责条款、宽限期条款、复效条款、不丧失价值条款、保单贷款条款、保单转让条款。这些条款衡平了投保人、被保险人、受益人与保险人之间的利益,促进了寿险业的健康发展,维护了寿险市场的正常秩序。     

Modernizing the Estonian Farmhouse,Redefining the Family, 1880s–1930s

In the nineteenth century, the transition from a Baltic-German-controlled manor-and-serf economy to individually owned farmsteads transformed all aspects of life including the spatial organization and form of farmhouses in the western provinces of Tsarist Russia. Agricultural experts and social reformers discussed how to update the traditional threshing-room dwelling house (rehielamu) into a healthy dwelling for successful farmers and, after the Estonian War of Independence, for new settlers. Using material culture such as contemporary plans, I show that changing household relationships, in addition to economic and technological factors, helped to transform the ancient rehielamu into a modern dwelling.     

Sexual Orientation Discrimination after Grant v South-West Trains

In Grant v South-West Trains [1998] ECR I-621, the European Court of Justice implied that, as a general matter, discrimination against an employee on the ground of sexual orientation did not violate Article 141 EC. This article argues that Grant rests on shaky foundations, in that it is conceptually inconsistent with the Court's earlier decision in P v S and Cornwall County Council [1996] ECR I-2143. Furthermore, the scope of Grant has since been qualified by decisions of the European Court of Human Rights – decisions which may well have undermined the status of the case more broadly. However these difficulties are ultimately resolved, the Court of Justice's treatment of sexual orientation discrimination exposes flaws in its approach as a self-proclaimed constitutional court.     

Well-Being in the Welfare State: Level Not Higher, Distribution Not More Equitable

The terms well-being and welfare are Often bracketed together, especially well-being and state welfare. The level of well-being is believed to be higher in welfare states, and its distribution more equitable. This theory is tested here in a comparative study of 41 nations from 1980 to 1990. The size of state welfare is measured by social security expenditures. The well-being of citizens is measured in terms of the degree to which they lead healthy and happy lives. Contrary to expectation, there appears to be no link between the size of the welfare state and the level of well-being within it. In countries with generous social security schemes, people are not healthier or happier than in equally affluent countries where the state is less open-handed. Increases or reductions in social security expenditure are not related to a rise or fall in the level of health and happiness either. There also appears to be no connection between the size of state welfare and equality in well-being among citizens of the state. In countries where social security expenditure is high, the dispersion of health and happiness is not smaller than in equally prosperous countries with less social insurance spending. Again, increases and reductions in social security expenditure are not linked with equality in health and happiness among citizens. This counterintuitive result raises five questions: (1) Is this really true? (2) If so, what could explain this lack of effect? (3) Why is it so difficult to believe this result? (4) How should this information affect social policy? (5) What can we learn from further research?     

社会分层与治安善治

社会分层反映一个社会的权力、资源配置和结构关系、利益表达协调和实现机制、社会活力释放机制,是一个社会组织结构状况合理性与否的整体性反映。它在深层蕴含着一个社会的内在张力的蓄积情况,决定着社会治安的实际状况和演变的规律。社会治安善治,是政府和公民合作管理社会治安的过程,是政治国家与市民社会间的一种新颖关系。社会分层必然关切于治安善治的内容及其结构模式。在当代中国背景下,治安善治理应采取行政吸纳社会的模式进行,它既可以保证稳定,又能持续改善。治安善治的制度结构应该是支持性治安基础制度和控制性治安制度的有机统一。     

Long-term income trajectories and the evolution of political attitudes

Income and political attitudes are powerfully correlated in cross-sectional data, yet research based on panel data finds at most a weak correlation. In this paper, we examine this puzzling pattern by exploring the long-term evolution of attitudes over the life cycle. We evaluate the predictions of five different explanations on the relationship between attitudes and income experiences. These explanations focus on, respectively: socialization, anticipation, myopic self-interest, learning and status maximization. We employ accelerated longitudinal design models using data on core political values that span up to sixteen years from the British Household Panel Survey. Our findings reconcile the mixed evidence in the literature: the correlation between income and political attitudes, strong in cross-sectional studies but weak in short panel studies, emerges because attitudes crystallize – slowly but systematically – as income evolves over the life cycle. This pattern is most consistent with the learning explanation.     

A Life in Pictures: Looking for Elizabeth Senior

This essay follows the author’s search for forgotten art historian Elizabeth Senior (1910–41). Using a quest narrative, it traces the process undertaken to piece together the life story of a remarkable young woman, including Internet research, visits to archives and correspondence with family members. Killed at just aged 30 by a bomb during the Blitz in 1941, Senior left a quite substantial body of editorial work and writing. Editress for the inaugural volumes in Allen Lane’s King Penguin series, Senior also wrote multiple reviews for the Burlington Magazine and the British Museum Quarterly, as well as her own art historical books on portraits of Henry VIII and his wives, and on portraits of Christ (co-authored with Ernst Kitzinger). A collaborator and friend to many Jewish émigré art historians, including The Story of Art author Ernst Gombrich, Senior played an important role in facilitating the safe passage of many fleeing the Nazis for England in the 1930s and 1940s. Unmarried at the time of her death, Senior was survived by a 10-week-old baby, whom she had stashed under a table for safety when a bomb landed on her flat.     

Political capabilities for democratisation in Uganda: good governance or popular organisation building?

Opinion is divided about the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) to enhance the political capabilities of disadvantaged groups in neo-patrimonial contexts, and particularly through a hegemonic paradigm which seeks to advance poverty reduction through good governance. Drawing on a qualitative study of CSOs in western Uganda, this paper argues that strategies focused on increasing the participation of rural citizens in formal decentralised planning spaces may be less effective in enhancing their political capabilities than those facilitating social mobilisation through the formation of producer groups and federations. This has important implications for thinking and practice around popular empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Rethinking economic security in a globalized world

Economic security is one of the primary dimensions of human security and is closely associated with poverty and related issues. This article takes a non-economic view of economic security and argues that the concept may lose its policy traction and relevance if it continues to be narrowly defined as and associated with poverty per se. If the concept is to continue to be useful to policy-makers and analysts, it needs to champion and embrace issues and concerns beyond poverty and consider the emergent threats affecting the non-poor. It argues, by way of several highlighted examples, that the concept is sufficiently dynamic to capture and incorporate other pervasive threats to the well-being of the people. It also points out that understanding the political impact and influence of economic security is just as important as studying the economic dynamics.