Peddling a semiotics of fear: a critical examination of scare tactics and commercial strategies in public health promotion

In this study, we critically examine the ways in which a nationwide health promotion campaign – the 2013 Diabetes UK/Tesco diabetes campaign, the largest of its kind in the UK – seeks to raise the general public's awareness of Type 2 diabetes. We subject a series of six campaign images (including their layout and accompanying text) to a multimodal discourse analysis, identifying the presence of a range of fear-inducing, stigmatising and commercial strategies, through which the campaign emphasises the dangers of diabetes and advocates personal responsibility for assessing both individual and others' risk of the disease. Specifically, we describe, in multi-semiotic detail, three discursive techniques deployed in the campaign to achieve these ends: (1) the depiction of grief and amplification of diabetes-related danger, (2) the promotion of diabetes risk and localisation of individuals' responsibility for their health and (3) the commercial branding and framing of the Diabetes UK/Tesco partnership – including the promotion of goods and services – as a means of diabetes prevention and management. Our findings raise concerns about the moral legitimacy of using fear-inducing and commercial strategies in order to (effectively) raise public awareness of and responses to Type 2 diabetes, strategies which do little to address the environmental factors which are associated with increasing rates of the disease.     

试论全面提高年轻干部队伍的素质

全面提高年轻干部队伍素质是一项关系全局的战略任务,年轻干部应具备良好的思想政治素质、优良的道德品质和较高的科学文化水平、优良的作风和较强的工作能力,要有法纪观念。提高年轻干部队伍素质需要组织的教育培养,这就需要人事部门创新用人机制,完善培养措施,为人材培养营造良好氛围。     

扩大有序政治参与推进社会主义政治文明建设

古往今来 ,政治文明由低到高 ,渐次更新 ,政治文明演进依赖于社会自身的力量。公民的政治参与构成政治文明建设的基础力量。在改革、发展的今天 ,政治参与的基础进一步扩大 ,参与渠道逐渐多样化和制度化 ,公民参与行为日趋活跃 ;同时 ,我国今天的政治参与还不成熟、不完备 ,必需以培育民主意识为先导、以政治体系制度创新为重点、以公民社会成长为契机 ,进一步扩大有序的政治参与 ,推进政治文明建设。     

Judicial Independence, Judicial Promotion and the Enforcement of Legislative Wealth Transfers—An Empirical Study of the New Zealand High Court

This paper investigates the Landes-Posner thesis on judicial independence using data on public law decisions in which the government was the defendant decided in the New Zealand High Court over the period 1958–2001. We use survival analysis to examine whether successive New Zealand governments have promoted judges from the High Court to the Court of Appeal (which stands above the High Court) on the basis of political considerations, the quality of the judge's decision-making or both. Our findings suggest that the quality of decision-making has generally been important. Consistent with the weak form of the Landes-Posner hypothesis we find no evidence that governments have used their powers to punish judges who decided cases against them. On the contrary, we find some support for the strong form of the Landes-Posner thesis that governments positively use their powers to secure judicial independence.     

干部选拔任用过程中规范和建立优先条件制度的探索

本文以河南省Z市干部选拔任用过程中业绩优先条件制度的探索为例,研究干部选拔任用的创新途径。该市在选拔任用干部过程中,根据干部使用导向设置了全局性优先条件、岗位优先条件和综合素质优先条件,分类制定了各项优先条件的标准和认定办法,严格将优先条件与干部选拔任用相结合,在实践中取得了良好的效果。     

领导干部提拔模式对地方政府权力运行方向的影响

利用实证调查数据,通过交叉表分析,发现在提拔领导干部时,存在侧重考察"工作能力"与侧重考察"社会活动能力"两种模式,并且这两种模式对地方政府权力运行的集体决策的程度、为亲友用权、政府工作取向、决策偏好、政策执行取向有显著影响;通过探索性要素分析发现,领导干部提拔模式对政府权力运行方向的影响可以简化为"权力为整体利益服务"和"权力为小团体服务"两个方面;通过综合性结构方程模型分析验证了探索性分析的结论,表明领导干部选拔模式确实会对政府权力运行方向产生显著影响。同时发现:在提拔领导干部时,若强调后备人选的"能力和工作业绩"及"口碑",政府权力将更多地偏向于为公共利益服务;若"背景和关系"、"跑官买官"因素发生关键影响,政府权力则容易演变成为小团体牟利的工具。     

《就业促进法》检视下的退役运动员人力资源开发研究

对退役运动员的就业保障和安置面临一定的政策和法律困境。对退役运动员就业保障的研究,首先应着眼于基于什么样的法理和法律根据来保障其就业。实际上,退役运动员的现实状况,符合《就业促进法》中特殊就业人群的外观,在法理上也能够解释。以退役运动员作为特殊就业人群的法律地位所作的制度设计和保障,才在法理上能立足、在制度上有根由、在效力上有根据,并最终达到较好地保障退役运动员就业权之目标。     

Influence Through Introspection

正As Chinese art gains popularity worldwide,artists in China are rediscovering the value of their traditional culture.In a recent interview with Beijing Review,yang Xiaoyang,President of the China National Academy of Painting,elaborated on the positive interactions between Chinese and Western artistic traditions.Excerpts follow:     

Negotiating democracy with authoritarian regimes. EU democracy promotion in North Africa

ABSTRACT

In order to better understand the dynamics of international cooperation on democracy promotion with authoritarian regimes, this article looks into the processes and results of negotiations on democracy (promotion) between the European Union (EU) and two of its North African neighbours (Morocco, Tunisia) in the decade leading up to the Arab uprisings. Asking if, how, and to what effect the EU and its Mediterranean partners have negotiated issues related to democracy promotion, it analyses official documents issued on the occasion of their respective association council meetings in 2000-2010. It shows that partners have indeed addressed these issues since the early 2000s, however, without engaging in substantive exchanges. Most of the time, conflicts have been neither directly addressed nor resolved. Where there are traces of actual negotiations leading to an agreement, these are clearly based on a logic of bargaining rather than arguing. These findings challenge the picture of harmony and cooperation between the EU and Morocco. Furthermore, they point to the low quality of these exchanges which reinforces the dilemma of international democracy promotion in cooperation with authoritarian regimes.