Word on the Street: The Persistence of Leftist-dominated Protest in Europe

Classic studies of protest politics have traditionally defended the dominant left-wing orientation of protesters. However, some recent research has highlighted the general spread of protest by the increasing participation of right-wing individuals. Has this process meant an ‘ideological normalisation’ of protesters? The present article tackles this question by examining competing hypotheses regarding the relationship between ideology and political protest. Through a hierarchical multilevel design, the article tests whether left-wing (or right-wing) supporters are more likely to stay at home when left-wing (right-wing) parties are in power and whether they intensify their protest activities when they are more distant from the government’s ideological position. The article shows that left-wing individuals protest more under right-wing governments than under left-wing governments and yet, they are the group which protest the most also under left-wing governments. Both party mobilisation and values appear to be behind these individuals' greater propensity to participate regardless of the governments' ideological orientation.     

Protest participation and economic crisis: The conditioning role of political opportunities

The economic crisis that started in 2008 has negatively affected European nations to different degrees. The sudden rise in demonstrations particularly in those countries most hard hit by the crisis suggests that grievance theories, dismissed in favour of resource‐based models since the 1970s, might have a role to play in explaining protest behaviour. While most previous studies have tested these theories at the individual or contextual levels, it is likely that mechanisms at both levels are interrelated. To fill this lacuna, this article examines the ways in which individual‐level grievances interact with macro‐level factors to impact on protest behaviour. In particular, it examines whether the impact of individual subjective feelings of deprivation is conditional on contextual macroeconomic and policy factors. It is found that while individual‐level relative deprivation has a direct effect on the propensity to have protested in the last year, this effect is greater under certain macroeconomic and political conditions. Both significant results for the cross‐level interactions are interpreted in terms of their role for opening up political opportunities for protest among those who feel they have been most deprived in the current crisis. These findings suggest that the interaction of the contextual and individual levels should continue to be explored in future studies in order to further clarify the mechanisms underlying protest behaviour.     

关于量刑建议权的几点思考

量刑建议权是公诉权的重要内容,是求刑权的外在表现,本文在论证量刑建议权价值合理性的基础上,结合司法实践,对量刑建议抗诉权行使的时间、载体及具体内容提出了构想。并论证量刑建议与抗诉的关系。     

The political implications of popular support for presidential term limits in Russia

With Vladimir Putin having commenced his second term, the issue of the constitutional limit of two successive terms for the president has again become politically salient in Russia. In this article, two specialists of Russian politics investigate public support in 2018 for term limits. They address three questions. Why does the issue of term limits matter? To whom in Russia does it matter? Is opposition to abolishing terms limits likely to be politically divisive? Their findings point in general to a shift in the level and character of support for term limits since 2012. Opposition to term limits has grown over time, and while in 2012 support for term limits was drawn from supporters of more authoritarian leadership, today it includes engaged democrats with negative views of the economic situation. They also find that supporters of term limits remain more likely to support political protest.     

Struggle for citizenship: interaction between political society and civil society at a Kurd refugee protest in Tokyo

This article analyzes a Kurd refugee sit-in protest staged in front of the United Nations offices in Tokyo in July–September 2004 and its implications for the interaction between political society and civil society. The refugees' protest is viewed as a moment where the line between citizens and non-citizens is redrawn. Citizens possess an exclusive right to political speech and action. Protests by refugees undoubtedly question citizens' monopoly of this right. By organizing protests, refugees, who do not have citizenship status, raise their voices, make demands, and thus request a right to speech and action. In doing so, they blur the line between citizens and non-citizens. In this process, how do citizens and refugees interact with each other? By using Partha Chatterjee's concept of political society, I examine the different tactics employed by the refugees, who are part of political society, and the citizens of civil society. The case shows that when different voices meet, the voice of civil society drowns the voice of political society: the refugees' tactics were de-legitimized by the citizens. This interaction suggests that encounters between citizens and refugees are not simply events where the refugees claim a right to speech and action, but that such encounters also involve citizens in effect struggling to secure their monopoly of the same rights.     

Action repertoires in contentious episodes: What determines governments’ and challengers’ action strategies? A cross-national analysis

This paper studies the interactions between governments, challengers and third party actors in the context of 60 contentious policy episodes in 12 European countries during the Great Recession. More specifically, we focus on the endogenous dynamics that develop in the course of these episodes. Based on the combination of a new event dataset, which allows for the construction of action sequences, and a novel method (contentious episode analysis) to study the impact of actor-specific actions on subsequent actions within a sequence, we test a set of hypotheses on the determinants of actors’ overall action repertoires within specific contexts. Overall, our results are more supportive of the interdependence of cooperation than of the interdependence of conflict: the repression-radical mobilisation-external legitimation of conflictive behaviour nexus is weaker than the concession-cooperation-mediation nexus. While the literature tends to focus on conflict dynamics, we find that there is a more systematic dynamics of cooperation in the course of contentious episodes.     

从“阿拉伯之春”到“占领”运动——全球抗议周期中的框架转型及其效果

2010年年底以来发生在西亚北非的"阿拉伯之春"以及以美国"占领华尔街"运动为代表的系列"占领"运动,被国内外学术界视为构成新一轮全球抗议周期的组成部分。作者从社会运动理论有关主框架和抗议周期之间的关系出发,考察了"阿拉伯之春"和系列"占领"运动之间的联系与异同。"阿拉伯之春"中一个具有创新性的"变革"主框架的出现,构成此轮抗议周期兴起并具备强大动员能力的重要原因;而当系列"占领"运动在借鉴"阿拉伯之春"的话语和象征体系的基础上提出了一种"占领"主框架时,抗议周期在主框架上经历了从"变革"到"占领"的转型过程。然而,与"变革"主框架相比,"占领"主框架在经验的可信度、经历的可测量度和观念的重要性上存在明显不足,这是系列"占领"运动的动员能力无法与"阿拉伯之春"相比的重要原因。鉴于从"阿拉伯之春"到系列"占领"运动之间的意义和象征体系的转型并不成功,大致可以预料,除非新的社会运动对话语体系进行创造性的改造,否则,这一波全球抗议周期将趋于式微。     

Monotowns and the political economy of industrial restructuring in Russia

During the 2008–2009 economic crisis, Russia's monotowns – one-industry towns left from the Soviet era – gained widespread attention as potential sources of social protest and unrest. Will such worries resurface under current economic conditions? While fears about monotowns were exaggerated during the last economic crisis, Russia's leadership has reason to remain concerned. Despite the dramatic transformations of the last two decades, Russia's post-Soviet industrial landscape has largely survived intact, leaving a significant number of monotowns with unprofitable enterprises in a precarious position. Yet given its emphasis on social stability, we can expect the government to continue subsidies, both explicit and hidden, that seek to maintain employment and avoid social conflict, but that preserve the country's inefficient industrial geography.     

赋予刑事案件被害人上诉权的可行性浅析

刑事案件的被害人作为刑事诉讼当事人之一,却不享有其他当事人所享有的上诉权,为此有学者呼吁,为了追求平等原则和保障人权,应当也赋予被害人上诉权。采取如下措施可充分保障被害人的权益:(1)通过立法或司法解释增加提起抗诉申请的主体和范围;(2)延长上诉、抗诉的期限,明确判决书送达的方式及时间;(3)明确有关部门对于被害人抗诉请求权的告知义务;(4)规定审查抗诉申请有关人员的回避制度以及详细的处理规则;(5)增设抗诉申请被驳回之后的救济制度。     

民事再审检察建议问题研究

再审检察建议作为抗诉的补充手段,改变了检察机关单一抗诉的监督模式,具有较强的实用价值。进一步完善再审检察建议的制度和程序规范,已成为民行检察工作的重要任务。