从暴力犯罪看乡村秩序及其“豪强化”危险——国家法/民间法视角反思

对东北四所监狱“民事转刑事”暴力犯罪案件的调查显示,现代乡村社会存在一类特殊的纠纷：第一,它的广泛存在,标志着民间秩序整合力量在特定情境下的失败;第二,它也没有被国家法系统处理和吸收。本文通过对结构性访谈中7个案例的详细剖解,检视了这类纠纷背后乡村秩序的可能图景。与传统的民间法理论的预设相反,国家法秩序的“外来性”是地方性社会中日渐增多的“陌生人”获得保护的可能途径。然而,国家法的实践依赖于基层政治运作,其调整功能取决于民间秩序的配合,民间秩序整合的失败迫使国家法直接面对个人的实质性需求,而其调整无力反过来增加了个人对国家法的失望,并可能将失望导向对国家法独立性的质疑。在此背景下,“豪强化”的危险可能在乡村社会出现：“强力人士”依赖国家对社会的渗透力和控制力,向下瓦解传统秩序的力量;借助国家法和国家政权在权力来源上的同一性,向上瓦解国家法秩序的合法性。     

工人、资本与国家:理解工人阶级研究的关系视角

阶级实体和概念都是关系性的,工人阶级的状况和性质需要从工人、国家、资本三方关系的形成与变化入手进行考察。在资本主义国家中,国家在三方关系中占据中心位置,对劳资关系和工人阶级具有塑造能力,国家并非只会选择做优势阶级的刻板代言人;劳资矛盾是否激化以及工人阶级成为秩序合作者还是激进行动者,与国家如何定位和处理劳资关系有关。社会学的阶级分析在当代还有没有潜力很大程度上也取决于国家在劳资问题上的角色与措施,可能缓解工人对国家和资本的对抗性、促使工人转变成秩序的合作者,也可能激发工人的对抗意识。如果是前者,阶级分析会因劳资对抗问题的缓解而不再具有重大的政治和社会意义;如果是后者,阶级分析就不仅是恰当的理论分析工具,还具有重大的实践内涵。上述视角可能也适用于研究社会主义国家的工人问题。     

市民社会与当代伦理精神的历史生成——以《德意志意识形态》的市民社会理论为视角

马克思恩格斯指出,"市民社会"这一概念始终标志着直接从生产和交往中发展起来的社会组织,这种社会组织在一切时代都构成国家的基础以及任何其他观念的上层建筑的基础.就法权关系而言,也和国家一样,是所有制关系的表现,是一定经济基础的派生物.法权概念也是由于分工和私有制的产生而产生的.尽管伦理精神作为一定社会道德的观念形态.具有一定的抽象性,但是它也是"可以通过经验来确定的、与物质前提相联系的物质生活过程的必然升华物".它不仅是一定社会内在秩序的体现,而且它体现了一定社会的人一社会一自然系统的内在秩序的协调状况;不仅体现人的目的--人们如何安顿作为社会人的人生,如何调节作为生命个体的人的内在自然生命秩序,同时能认识和体悟自然的目的--自然包括人在内的生态价值、人在自然中的地位,人对人一社会一自然系统的内在秩序的责任与使命,进而确立相应的伦理规范和伦理行为的价值取向.     

信仰及其秩序的构成——中国信仰社会学的理论视角

对于中国历史、文化的"和谐"现象及其概念理解,信仰问题的理解与认识,乃是其中的关键。中国信仰及其社会实践方式,与中国社会历史、文化秩序的和谐建构紧密相关。实际上,"和谐"既可以指一种价值目标,也可以是一种社会现实,同时也是一种信仰方式;而基于某种信仰关系、道德秩序、政治秩序、权力秩序等层面的和谐建构,则是社会、文化和谐的基本要素。因此,从信仰社会学的理论视角,来探讨中国文化和谐秩序中诸种信仰关系在和谐秩序构成中的具体地位及其作用,有利于把握中国社会与中国信仰双重变迁的某些规律。     

匈牙利经济改革的利弊

匈牙利的社会经济制度具有两重性.赞成还是否定这种制度,取决于人们观察问题的立场.如果能考虑到这场经济改革早在六十年代就进行了长期的和周密的准备(尽管这场改革在七十年代受到挫折,但它终究还是延续下来了),如果能看到匈牙利的社会经济制度有时比苏联等国家的制度更为合理,那么这种制度是可以肯定的.人们也可能从相反的立场出发去看待这一制度.     

政治秩序·经济效率·社会公正——转型国家的社会公正及政府责任研究

在国家转型时期,经济效率虽然对社会公正也会造成某种负面影响,但它不是这一时期社会公正问题的唯一主要矛盾,在效率的因素之外还存在着非效率造成的社会不公。就是说,相对于发达国家而言,转型国家的政治秩序对经济效率和社会公正的影响非常重要。要解决转型期以非效率不公为主要特点的社会不公正问题,就要在认识到转型国家政治秩序的稳定要求与转型滞后的必然性的同时,积极推进政治体制主要是行政体制渐进变革,从而使政治秩序为经济效率和社会公正提供基本保障。在这一过程中,政府应该履行其重要责任。     

俄罗斯的市民社会诉求与"法治国家"定位

俄罗斯"法治国家"的理论路径是与俄罗斯社会结构转型进程相回应的,并以市民社会为其逻辑起点,即认为市民社会构成了法治国家的社会基础;市民社会的自由、权利和秩序诉求提供了法治国家的价值原则;公民法律意识是法治国家的重要条件和保证.这不仅反映了俄罗斯社会结构转型条件下的法治要求和特有关怀,也反映了俄罗斯国家控制能力衰弱和市民社会"畸变"背景下的法律秩序要求.文章指出,要推进法治,不仅要推进国家和市民社会二元化进程,更重要的是确立二者良性互动关系,而不可简单移植和照搬西方.     

规范社会服务 提高管理效率

标准是国家核心竞争力的基本构成要素,是规范经济和社会发展的重要技术制度,不仅在指导工农业生产、保障产品质量、促进商品流通、规范市场秩序方面发挥着重要作用,而且在规范社会服务行为、提高管理效率、保护消费者权益等方面也有独特功能.     

网络舆论及其调控

网络舆论可以释放情绪、调和矛盾,起到社会问题"减压阀"的作用;主流舆论的爱憎分明,褒奖了真善美,抨击了假恶丑;打破了传统媒体对权威话语权的垄断,拓宽了民意表达渠道.但是,它有时鱼目混珠、真假难辨,易于扰乱社会秩序的负面效应也是不言而喻的.为了维护网络信息安全,保障国家、社会、公民的合法权益免遭侵害,必须对网络舆论进行适当引导和及时调控:网络媒介从业人员要做到"守土有责",以科学的管理方式引导舆论;政府应加大力度,促进网络信息传播步入法制化管理轨道;重构网络伦理,建立网络道德秩序.     

论社会主义国家管理的客体和内容

随着社会主义社会的形成和发展,国家管理的作用大为加强.整个社会的进步,各阶层居民的日常生活,每个人的福利,都在很大程度上取决于国家管理的原则、合理性和效能.在社会主义社会里,劳动、住房、商业、日常生活劳务、交通运输、医疗、教育、艺术、休息、社会保障、保险等人们生活和满足物质和精神需要的每个重要领域,都受到国家的重要影响,而且往往是决定性影响.在社会主义社会的发展进程中,不仅管理的作用在加强,而且它的某些特点和内容本身也在发生变化.阐明这些变化,是正确确定完善国家管理方向的一个必要前提.这种变化是多方面的,需要对它们进行全面的理论研究.     

Extending social security in developing countries: a review of three main strategies

The article discusses strategies to extend social security cover-age in developing and newly industrialised countries. The three major options are to extend social insurance coverage , to rely on mutuals or micro-insurance or to bring in social assistance in one form or another. Social insurance usually covers small population segments. Insiders are seldom willing to extend coverage to poorer groups, as poorer groups are usually higher-risk groups. Micro-insurance and mutual societies work pri-marily among people with similar risk profiles. Discretionary social assistance targets poorer groups, but is open to patronage and misuse. However, some social assistance designs are less open to misuse than others. Demogrants, i.e. benefits given to people in vulnerable social categories, are easy to administer and difficult to misuse. Whether or not a developing country provides such benefits can be considered an indicator of the willingness of the ruling elite to alleviate hardship among 'unproductive' population groups.     

Informal, Voluntary and Statutory Services: The Complex Relationship

Summary The argument of this paper is that equitable social care caneventuate only with the acceptance of a greater role for publicsector services. In debates about the development of socialcare, politicians in industrial societies who stress the virtuesof family care are either unaware of the costs to families ofproviding that care, or are cynically expecting a major shiftin social provision and social resources, with the result thatthose least able to provide adequately will find greater burdensthrust upon them. Responses to the exclusions experienced bypeople in the 1980s will require greater state interventionbecause families may have the willingness, but not the capacityto provide the high level care required by dependent relativesand because the voluntary sector is too diffuse and diverseto plan, develop and deliver the bulk of the services.     

Risk and its Management in Post-Financial Crisis Hong Kong

In the 1970s and up until the financial crisis occurred in the late 1990s, Hong Kong prospered in a relatively stable social, economic and political context. Since the financial crisis, however, its population has been increasingly exposed to risk: there has been job uncertainty and decreasing capacity for self‐reliance, leading to a growing reliance on public welfare and on families at a time when both are under pressure. The old welfare policies, unable to cope with the new risks, have been replaced by neo‐liberal reforms, redistributing the roles and responsibilities of the individual and the state, with a greater burden falling on the former. Individuals are required to be prudent to manage risk. While these reforms have relieved some of the burden on the state, both new social risk groups and ‘net taxpayers’ considered themselves to have borne disproportional costs. Society is facing serious problems resulting from ineffective old welfare policies, new social risks due to new policies, and the political upheavals arising from increased social conflicts and weakened social cohesion and solidarity. A further complication is that there is no acceptable platform or agent to negotiate a compromise between the polarized groups. This article argues that reliance on publicly funded risk coping strategies or on neo‐liberal risk prevention and mitigation strategies is not a desirable and sustainable policy. A commonly accepted political platform is required to negotiate a compromise which emphasizes shared and balanced roles and responsibilities, and a well‐conceived combination of risk prevention, mitigation and coping strategies.     

A multilevel analysis of perceived intergenerational mobility and welfare state preferences

Previous scholarship suggests that the effect of perceived intergenerational mobility on attitudes related to social justice, inequality and redistribution is more salient than the effect of individuals' objective intergenerational mobility. However, virtually no studies have attempted to link individuals' perception of experiencing intergenerational mobility and their support for different welfare state programmes. In my study using nationally representative and comparative survey data for 33 Western European welfare democracies and post‐socialist transition societies, I found that perceived intergenerational mobility is associated with support for certain welfare state programmes. Results from multilevel linear probability models indicate that subjectively downwardly mobile individuals are less likely to support education and healthcare expenditure and more likely to prefer targeted assistance of the poor, while subjectively upwardly mobile individuals oppose extra spending on housing and old‐age pensions. The described associations are more vividly manifested in post‐socialist societies than in the analysed Western European democracies.     

Mutual benefit societies in Hungary, 1830-1941

In Hungary for most of the nineteenth century mutual benefit societies played a key role in providing various social groups with aid in case of illness, accident, disability or death. The majority were linked to the burgeoning working-class movement and were voluntary associations whose members had no other recourse in times of adversity. Hungary was undergoing transformation in the nineteenth century. Changes in goods production and the craft guilds accelerated the establishment of workers'benefit societies, and so did the lack of a coherent system of social insurance in the new industrial order. They grew in tandem with the expansion of Hungary's economy and the return of constitutional government in 1867, and flourished from the 1870s to the decade preceding the First World War. Austria and Germany provided theoretical justifications and practical models. By the 1890s voluntary mutual benefit societies faced increasing competition from the State. As the economy and social structures evolved, successive governments sponsored their own insurance programmes. By the turn of the century, private companies were also offering life and accident insurance and the appeal of mutual benefit societies to both workers and the middle class diminished. Between the two world wars, they continued to serve a substantial segment of the population.     

"Never right, never wrong": child welfare and social work in England and Sweden

When are parents “unfit” to care for their own children? As in many other countries, social workers in England and Sweden have the unenviable task of forming such judgments. On behalf of society at large, social workers must balance the rights of parents to provide continuing care with the responsibilities of the state in ensuring adequate care of children. They are involved in professional judgments which are also inherently political. In both England and Sweden social workers are able to seek legal orders which, if granted, permit compulsory removal of children against the wishes of parents. In such cases social workers are centrally involved in processes which remove ordinary rights of citizenship from their fellow members of society. The rights of parents and children, together with the responsibilities of the state to each class of citizen, are clearly in focus: intervention in family life requires both grounds and legitimation. But what is the basis of intervention in the two societies? Social work practices in Sweden and England suggest very different answers to this question. In explaining these differences it is necessary to address much broader variations of social and political culture in the two societies. In so doing, variations in social work practice can be located in different cultural values and systems of legitimation. Instabilities and pathologies of professional practices can also be identified within both England and Sweden. These too are quite different in the two societies.     

Dangerous Futures: Social Exclusion and Youth Work in Late Modernity

The paper contrasts the role and structure of youth work in modern and late modern societies. Modern societies linked citizenship to inclusion in production and youth work helped the transition of young people from childhood to inclusion into the labour market and citizenship. When postwar full employment eased these transition processes then youth work concentrated on leisure provision and dealing with the small numbers of excluded young people. Late modern societies redefine citizenship in terms of market choices but also create increasing risks, which a declining state can no longer manage, and a growing use of social exclusion as a form of social control. These changes demand a new role and structure for youth work.     

Order in Transitional China and Its Institutional Logic

The development of order in transitional China is not merely a matter of institutional supply, but also a matter of defining the state’s special roles and functions in the transition period. Since reform and opening up, China has sought to realize the twin governance aims of high speed development of the socialist economy and maintenance of stability, which require that the state simultaneously undertake the dual roles of modern government and national capital. The consequent adjustments to the governance structure are expressed in the state’s devolution of power to the market while reserving government pricing power; devolution of power to local governments while reserving power over central tasks; and affirming social rights while reserving the power to approve social organizations. At the institutional level, the externalities produced by this “quasi-decentralized governance structure” are marked by the shrinkage of arrangements for collective welfare, the absence of mechanisms for routine security in ordinary life, and the development of mechanisms that allow the government to profit from the market. This may result in the instrumentalization of government functions and the capitalization of public power, producing imbalances in the distribution of social rights, wealth and risk, or in other words, social instability.     

The Development of State Welfare in the Asian NICs with Special Reference to Taiwan

This paper explores Taiwan's welfare development from its specific politico-economic situation. Although education and public health are well developed in Taiwan and social insurance is expanding to cover more and more Taiwanese people, the govenmental welfare effort is still too low to meet the welfare needs of the public. This is especially so given our discovery that military servicemen and related groups receive over 70% of the welfare expenditure of the central government while the disadvantaged receive only around 3%. Furthermore, political crises are often accompanied by a significant growth in social expenditure, implying that the purpose of state welfare is to maintain the stability of the Taiwanese state rather than to protect the well-being of Taiwanese people. Political isolation forces the Kuomintang (KMT) to secure Taiwan's role in the international community via economic growth. The development of state welfare cannot be allowed to have a negative effect on this highest priority. The limited resources, therefore, are allocated to economic goals as well as to the KMT–state apparatus in order to keep the KMT in power. However, the democratization of Taiwanese politics since the 1980s has forced the KMT to consolidate its legitimacy from the people and the improvement of social welfare is one measure for this purpose. Whether or not Taiwan becomes a Western-style welfare state through the expansion of state welfare in the near future, it furnishes a useful example with which to examine existing welfare theories.     

A conceptual approach to the creation of public–private partnerships in social welfare

All societies are confronted with complex, often difficult to overcome, challenges associated with changing population demographics. These challenges have placed increasing demands on society for social protection. Individual citizens, politicians, and scholars alike all are searching for the ideal configuration of the welfare mix, that is, a combination of various institutions that can offer the best possible combination of essential goods and services for everyone in every society. Key Practitioner Message: ● The organization of the public–private welfare partnership as viewed from a conceptual perspective; ● The unique contextual and contemporary social forces that shape public–private partnerships in modern welfare state practice; ● Contrasts in the origins and nature of public–private partnerships between two of the world's most populous countries whose histories, traditions, values, and norms differ fundamentally from one another. Even so, considerable learning regarding welfare state formation in different societies is possible through the application of the Public–Private Development Mix to the analysis of welfare state formation in these two contrasting societies.