清除个人崇拜 增强党内民主

完善党内民主制度是提高党的执政能力的重要内容。中国共产党内曾经产生过严重的个人崇拜,今天仍然发生着不良影响。个人崇拜的危害主要表现为集权、人治、偶像崇拜、思想僵化、破坏党内民主制度。不彻底清除个人崇拜,就不能真正完善党内民主制度,党也就不能率领广大人民群众最终完成建设社会主义现代化强国的宏伟任务。     

Challenge of multi-level governance in developing countries and possible GIS applications

Of the three most prominent issues in governance discourse—the horizontal coordination of markets, government hierarchies and networks, global governance and multi-level governance—this paper argues that the last, developing and sustaining structures of multi-level governance, constitutes the most profound governance challenge for most developing countries.The paper identifies the major forces promoting change in favor of multi-level governance in developing countries. Using the growing literature and comparative national experiences (illustrated with the examples of India, the Philippines, Colombia and Nigeria), it highlights the key achievements of democratic decentralization as well as its nagging problems in these countries. Finally, the paper demonstrates the significance of these developments for democracy and development in these countries and shows some of the ways by which external partners—especially experts associated with the Geographic Information Systems for Developing Countries can assist and possibly benefit from this process.     

论苏共党内民主的历史教训

苏联共产党党内长期过度集权 ,缺乏民主是苏共垮台的主要原因之一。苏联共产党就党内民主建设方面提供的历史教训是 :搞好党内民主必须坚持民主集中制原则 ;搞好党内民主必须把党的权力中心转移到党的代表大会上来 ;搞好党内民主必须建立健全的党内监督机构。     

A Contingency Approach to Decentralization

After decades of centralization, in 1980 the central government of the Netherlands embarked upon an ambitious project to decentralize the administrative system. It proclaimed a series of general decentralization measures that aimed to improve the performance of the administrative system and to boost local democracy. This article presents the results of research into the effects of these measures. It shows that the decentralization project did not meet the high expectations. This can be explained by the fact that the theoretical framework underlying the decentralization policy was overly simple. The authors present a new framework that represents the contingent character of the effects of decentralization.     

Who governs or how they govern: Testing the impact of democracy,ideology and globalization on the well being of the poor

This paper examines the effects of regime type, government ideology and economic globalization on poverty in low- and middle-income countries around the world. We use panel regression to estimate the effect of these explanatory variables on two different response variables: national poverty gap (104 countries from 1981 to 2005) and child mortality rate (132 countries from 1976 to 2005). We find consistent and significant results for the interactive effect of democracy and government ideology: strong leftist power under a democratic regime is associated with a reduction in both the poverty gap and the child mortality rate. Democracy, on its own, is associated with a lower child mortality rate, but has no effect on the poverty gap. Leftist power under a non-democratic regime is associated with an increase in both poverty measures. Trade reduces both measures of poverty. Foreign direct investment has a weak and positive effect on the poverty gap. From examining factors that influence the welfare of poor people in less developed countries, we conclude that who governs is as important as how they govern.     

‘A brutal blow against the democratic normality’: unlearning the epistemology of the political

ABSTRACT

The objective of this paper is to rethink our understanding of ‘the political’ through an examination of two novels by José Saramago, Blindness and Seeing. Both novels tackle directly a central, if not the central, signature metaphor of Western political thought, namely that of ‘seeing the light’. This metaphor takes many forms and recurs throughout the tradition of Western political philosophy as a source, legitimiser, and validator of knowing, and perhaps even a guarantor of knowledge. In particular, this metaphor has served to make knowable whatever it is that is signified by ‘the political’. By extension, it also means that whatever might be outside of this epistemological frame is rendered unknowable, if not unthinkable. Both of Saramago’s novels provide a fruitful means to recalibrate how we might know ‘the political’. The novels call into question the epistemic signatures that frame our commonly accepted understandings of ‘the political’ and in so doing provoke us further to question how we might move towards unlearning the epistemology of the political.     

Judging public relations: An analysis of an Israeli court judgement on a defamatory and negative campaign

This article analyzes a recent court ruling in Israel and argues that it has major implications for the public relations community internationally. To date, the public relations literature on legal judgments has focused on cases where media channels were sued for defamation. The article uses a 2012 Israeli court decision that may be unique in ruling out defamatory intentions in a public relations plan that was part of a lawsuit. The defendant in this case was not the media but rather a company that hired a public relations firm to, according to the judgement, conduct a defamatory campaign against a competitor. Although this is just one case in one country, the article also considers some of the wider implications for the profession and for democracy.     

现代传媒与公共治理:以杭州为个案的研究

在公共治理领域,现代传媒发挥着独特的作用,其规范性特征在于民主责任承担与民生事业关注两个层面.杭州民主民生的传媒行动,以现代传媒的实体化功能创新,建构传媒的场域效应、社会交往效应与治理效应.公共治理的现代传媒功能建构,关键在于建构合作治理的社会行动网络；其路径在于:导引社会行动,吸纳公众参与,促成制度规则体系的互动衔接.     

Democracy and human development: recent legislation in India

Human Development (HD) requires that development must accompany fundamental human concerns that make life worth living. It is surprising that despite being a democracy, India performs poorly on HD. In this backdrop, four pieces of legislation of different orientations have been passed since 1998–99: ‘Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana’, the ‘Right to Information’, the ‘National Rural Employment Guarantee Act’ and the ‘Right to Education’. Where successful, they have empowered the beneficiaries. Though not expressed as such, nor exclusively directed to this end, these pieces of legislation are bound together with democracy's demand for HD: they are influenced externally by various aspects of globalisation; internally, development is continuously interrogated by democracy, competitive politics and social activism.     

Tweeting democracy? Examining Twitter as an online public relations strategy for congressional campaigns’

Considering the integral relationship between public relations and democracy (Martinelli, 2011) coupled with the growing use of social media for democratic aims (Smith, 2011) the current study examines the effectiveness of Twitter as a public relations communications tool for congressional campaigns. Specifically, as a means of testing Twitter's effectiveness in informing and engaging voters, congressional candidate and political party Twitter use for all 435 U.S. House of Representatives races (N = 1284) are compared with 2010 election outcomes. Results indicate that candidates’ Twitter use significantly increased their odds of winning, controlling for incumbency and Party ID. Additionally, significant differences between incumbents’ and challengers’ Twitter use during the election cycle emerged, which has important implications for public relations practices aimed at achieving democratic outcomes.