Beyond contradiction and consistency: A design for a dialectical policy system

It is only within the last ten years that the necessary technical machinery has been developed that enables us to construct models that even begin to approach the complexity of dialectical reasoning. This paper shows both the diversity and the complexity of the concepts that must be woven together in order to construct a dialectic ‘process logic’, i.e., a logic that unfolds over time. It utilizes such concepts as Rescher's and Manor's plausibility calculus, Toulmin's framework for argumentation, and Markov chains. The result is the essence of a design for a computer based dialectical policy system.     

On the structure of dialectical reasoning in the social and policy sciences

This paper extends the work of Toulmin on argumentation and Rescher on modal logic by combining them into a single framework. The result is a powerful tool for analyzing the structure and dynamics of arguments. In particular, it allows us to construct a novel model of dialectical reasoning. The model is capable of handling both qualitative and quantitative aspects of dialectical reasoning. The qualitative aspect pertains to the fact that there is a dramatic shift in the structure of an argument during a dialectic. The quantitative aspect pertains to the fact that there is a radical shift in the underlying axiomatic structure which governs the credibilities of the components of the argument.     

The analysis of policy implementation models in higher education: the case study of Indonesia

This paper aims to analyse and understand the models of policy implementation in Indonesian state universities during the ongoing process of market-driven reforms and how academics respond to these models. The research undertaken was in the form of qualitative study using semi-structured interviews as instruments to collect data. Interviews were conducted with 30 academics in three state universities in Indonesia. The research demonstrated that policy implementation in Indonesian state universities takes largely a dialectical form which takes place both at macro and micro levels, suggesting a blended application of top-down and bottom-up approaches. The results of this study also confirmed that the interaction between policy and local systems plays an important role for the successful implementation of the policy. Indonesian academics perceived that each of these models has its strength and weaknesses particularly in relation to the aspect of collegiality. It is anticipated that the study will both contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics between governments as policy makers and academics as street level bureaucrats in the implementation of a policy, and offer guidance for policy makers in the formulation and enactment of relevant policies in higher education sectors both in Indonesia and other contexts implementing policy implementation.     

对芝诺否定事物是"多"的二难推理的拆解和破斥

芝诺论证事物是“一”而不是“多”的二难推理 ,留给后人诸多谜团。文章对其推理的全部过程进行了较为清晰的拆解 ,然后主要以物质存在的层次性和层次之间“关节点”的矛盾性观点对芝诺的思想进行了破斥。     

Positivism: paradigm or culture?

Much post-positivist policy theory implies that positivism exists as a self-protecting paradigm. Inspired by a one-sided reading of Kuhn, this understanding suggests that policy positivism must be overcome as a whole. This approach is problematic. In particular, there are important contradictions between various elements commonly said to be part of the positivist paradigm, contradictions that make it difficult to believe that the paradigm can be embraced as a whole. An alternative approach views positivism as a culture. Since components of any culture can evolve independently of each other, a cultural approach would focus its critique on specific dimensions of positivism. This approach would provide more rigor to policy critique, and push post-positivists to overcome weaknesses in their own theories, in particular those concerning the question of truth.     

批判实在论有助于马克思主义发展的五条途径

机械马克思主义的问题在于机械的辩证唯物主义;西方马克思主义虽然避免了机械论,但是具有目的论的先验图式,即把历史作为主观知识或阶级意识的证实过程的先验图式。这两种方法都偏离了马克思主义作为科学的社会理论的本质。批判实在论对机械论马克思主义者和西方马克思主义者的方法进行的批判,在五个方面有助于马克思主义本质的恢复,从而使我们成为纯粹朴素的马克思主义者。     

怀疑方法:一种创造性思维方法

怀疑方法是一种创造性思维方法,是对怀疑论的超越,它对于人类认识和实践都具有重要意义.合理的怀疑方法,是人们在认识和实践活动中,对客观事物的事实性或具体认识、实践的科学性和合理性所作的反思、批判、评价或规范,它具有未定性、辩证性、中介性和实践性.为了促进当代人类活动的科学化、合理化,有必要重建马克思主义的合理怀疑方法.     

Dialectics： Hegel,Marx and post-metaphysics

在哲学发展史上，黑格尔对抽象理性的批判，实现了辩证法与形而上学的“合流”，并开启了超越形而上学的辩证法的哲学道路。马克思在对抽象理性和抽象存在（资本）的双重批判中，实现了辩证法对形而上学的“终结”，展开了辩证法“对现存的一切进行无情的批判”。在“后形而上学”的视域中“澄清”黑格尔和马克思的辩证法，构建当代人类的实践的辩证法理论，既需要深化对“形而上学的恐怖”的批判，又需要深化对真理-规律-客观性的探索，坚守“反形而上学”的“形上追求”。     

Friendship, transactive dialogues, and the development of scientific reasoning

This study investigated the significance of friendship for scientific reasoning. We had two main goals: First, assess whether collaborations between friends fostered greater development of scientific reasoning than collaborations between acquaintances, and second, identify which features of friends' collaborative dialogues mediated their greater problem solving accuracy. Fifth graders collaborated on isolation of variables problems of varying difficulty with either a friend or an acquaintance. The results showed that adolescents paired with friends obtained higher problem solving accuracy than adolescents paired with acquaintances during both the collaborative and the posttest sessions. However, the cognitive advantages of working with a friend were only evident in the most difficult isolation of variables problems. Analyses of friends' and acquaintances' dialogues showed that friends were more likely than acquaintances to evaluate their solutions, justify their proposals spontaneously, elaborate and critique each other's reasoning, and engage in transactive discussions. Evaluating outcomes and participating in transactive conflicts were significantly associated with better problem solving, and consequently these may be the two key mechanisms through which friendship effects developmental changes in scientific reasoning. The results are discussed in terms of the need to understand developmental features of relationships and how these features mediate cognitive development and the need to take a longitudinal approach to the study of the relation between transactive dialogues and the development of scientific reasoning.     

A Critique of the Concept of Social Exclusion and its Utility for Australian Social Housing Policy

The paper reviews the usefulness of the concept of social exclusion for Australian social housing policy. We draw on recent theoretical and empirical research from Europe and the UK to develop a critique of the concept of social exclusion. It is argued that any assessment of social exclusion needs to distinguish between its utility as an academic explanatory concept and its political deployment to justify new forms of policy intervention. Policy targeting anti‐social behaviour through increasingly more punitive means, for instance, is often justified on the basis that it ameliorates the problems of social exclusion experienced by tenants residing in public housing estates. We conclude that, in spite of the limitations of social exclusion as an analytical concept, for political and pragmatic reasons it is likely to become an important component of the emerging Australian housing policy agenda.     

The rise of a 'social development' agenda in New Zealand

Since 1999 New Zealand has seen the election of a series of Labour-led governments committed to a social policy framework of social development. This article outlines the background to the emergence of social development, tracing its antecedents in the neo-liberal administrations of the 1990s. The social development framework consists of commitments around economic development, human capital development, family development and politico-administrative redevelopment. Taking the position that reforms must be seen as concrete policy mechanisms and as discursive cues and conceptual apparatus, the article offers a comparison and critique. First, it identifies the continuities and contrasts with the previous neo-liberal framework of minimal social policy; and second, it begins the process of critically interrogating the potential citizenship implications of social development.     

A new tool for urban governance or just rhetoric? The case of participatory budgeting in Taipei City

Increasing interest in participatory budgeting has been observed in local governments around the world. This paper stresses direct citizen participation in the budgeting process leads to good governance, deepens democracy and improves social justice, while also highlighting some challenges in its efficiency and effectiveness. Unlike participatory budgeting, the Sub-borough Chiefs Forum is a community-based representative democratic mechanism; it could be regarded as a form of participatory budgeting in a broad sense. If so, then did the Taipei programme simply duplicate the goals of the Forum or lead to a better governance by making up for the inadequacies of the Chiefs Forum? To find out whether the Taipei participatory budgeting programme made a difference, we carried out qualitative and quantitative comparisons of projects passed under the participatory budgeting process and at the Forum. We also interviewed several participatory budgeting participants and sub-borough chiefs. The findings suggested that participatory budgeting and the Forum generated different proposals and budget requests, and the Taipei programme supplemented the shortcomings of the Forum and therefore led to deeper civic engagement and better urban governance.     

The Transformation of Ideology from Mao to Deng: Impact on China's Social Welfare Outcome

This article aims at making a dialectical assessment of the development of social welfare between the period of Mao's socialism and Deng's economic marketization. It examines the transformation of ideological discourses between the two periods and its impact on social welfare outcomes. It posits that an ideological system is important in affecting the outcome of social welfare policy. Mao's welfare policy, despite certain shortcomings, created a relatively equal, sustainable and self-sufficient society with solid achievements in social welfare and especially in human development. Deng's economic marketization, although remarkable in economic growth, is producing social contradictions leading to the decline of welfare service. The current development discourse is dismantling Mao's welfare policy without establishing a new and more democratic conception of socialist political economy.     

The Nature of the Political Reconsidered

I present an immanent, and explanatory, critique of reflections on the nature of politics and of power within political science. I argue that these reflections are problematic, to the extent that they presuppose an actualist conception of the political, and that this is generated by an empiricist way of thinking on the one hand and a constructivist way of thinking on the other. I show how re‐defining politics, power, and the political on the basis of a dialectical critical realist ontology resolves these problems and, thereby, allows us to understand the conditions for social change and the relationship between the political and the economic. My argument has two, important implications: first, that the proposal that those who study politics professionally should celebrate philosophical diversity is dangerous–at least if it makes it difficult to sustain a distinct, emancipatory form of political inquiry; and, second, that the nature of social reality justifies the need both for specialized forms of inquiry, such as politics and economics, and integrative forms of inquiry, such as political economy.     

江户时期儒学家浅见絅斋《养子辩证》之探析

浅见纲斋在《养子辩证》的主要阐明了父子、兄弟之伦理不可乱，故而不可以异族之子为自己的养子。如果随意交换应有的位置，是很荒谬的，所以著书说明。《养子辩证》中某些观点虽然不免偏颇，但是通过浅见纲斋在《养子辩证》中引用中国历史上大量的事例来看，他一丝不苟、引经据典、博览我国儒家群书，不愧为日本江户时代著名的儒学家和哲学家。     

试用马克思主义哲学方法总结改革开放三十年

用马克思主义哲学方法对改革开放三十年做一个总体性的思考，可以看到改革开放的各项政策都经历了一个否定之否定的正、反、合过程，只有不断地对一些新矛盾进行新的反正，才能在更高层次上转向新的综合。辩证地看待改革开放三十年，我们既要充分肯定三十年取得的伟大成就，也要看到存在的问题和潜在的风险，包括生产力与生产关系之间的矛盾，经济基础与上层建筑之间的矛盾，生产力内部的矛盾，生产关系内部矛盾，以及社会意识形态与社会存在的关系等等问题。关于经济运行机制，在继续坚持市场改革的同时，要重新强调国家宏观计划调控的作用；关于所有制结构，在坚持多种所有制共同发展的同时，要重新强调“公有制为主体”；关于分配关系，要从“让一部分人先富起来”转向“更加重视社会公平”。     

The U.S. Pollution Prevention Act: A policy implementation analysis

Over a decade after enactment, this paper examines the implementation of the U.S. Pollution Prevention Act to identify those factors related to implementation that contributed to, or detracted from, the achievement of policy success. Implementation is analyzed in the context of a conceptual framework which builds on existing policy implementation literature by merging top-down and bottom-up considerations [Najam, A. (1995). Learning from the literature on policy implementation: A synthesis perspective (Working Paper WP-95-61). Laxenburg: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis]. This model connects the variables affecting implementation, allowing them to be analyzed in relation to each other. Strategic use of these linkages may also help overcome the policy “implementation gap.” The nature of the case study and findings are examined in relation to one another towards refinement of the model and conceptual generalizations based on use of the analytical framework.     

Place‐defending and the denial of racism

This paper introduces the concept of place‐defending and articulates its implications for locality‐based social policy. Place‐defending is the protection of one's local area from unfavourable assessments, in this case of being labelled or perceived as a racist space. Place attachment and identifications with place are drivers of place‐defending. Person‐place relationships and their implications for locality‐based social policies have not yet received sufficient consideration in the literature—a significant oversight considering the current policy focus in Australia and the United Kingdom on locality‐based social policy. In this study of local anti‐racism in the Australian context, place‐defending involved the denial of racism and performances of place that reproduced the discourse of tolerance. Print media coverage of the release of national data on racism was analysed alongside a series of interviews with individuals working on anti‐racism at both local and state/federal levels. Four tools of place‐defending are discussed: direct action to defend place; spatial deflections; use of minority group members to discredit claims of racism; and critiques of those who make claims about racism. The tools of place‐defending operated to construct localities as places of tolerance, potentially undermining the case for anti‐racism.     

Looking After Children: a case of individualised service delivery

This is a discussion of the debate in the literature on the new Looking After Children system of managing out of home care for children. This is an important program initiative in results‐oriented government that takes an individualised approach to children in care. The literature generally falls into the two categories of either relatively uncritical advocacy of LAC or its wholesale critique. These two camps pass as ships in the night and echo polarised epistemologies within policy analysis. There is very little analytical attention to LAC as an instance of the wider human service trends of individualised planning and case management.     

Changing paradigms in measuring national well‐being: How does Korea rank “beyond GDP”?

Academics, politicians, and citizens around the world are calling for multidimensional measures of national well‐being to be included in public policy‐making. Under the motto “The Future of Well‐Being,” the 6th OECD World Forum recently pushed forward this debate in Incheon, Korea. Comparing multidimensional well‐being measures across countries, Korea ranks well in income and health, but shows deficiencies in social support, perceived freedom over life choices, air quality, and work‐life balance. Multidimensional measures of well‐being are increasingly being adopted by policy‐makers around the world to improve people's lives.