法学方法新论

法学方法除了已有的价值评判、实证分析和社会实践以及法律解释、法律推理和逻辑分析等方法之外,还有其他法学方法,如从"事"(事物、事情)到"理"(道理),再从"理"到"法"(法律、法学),最后又从"法"到"事"。较之已有的法学方法,这些方法不仅是创新和发展,而且更为基础和根本。     

简析政治学中的研究方法

政治学中的研究方法制约着研究者的观察视野，规定着研究者的思维活动，影响着研究者对研究对象把握的深度和广度，最终决定着研究者解决实际问题的正确程度，所以对研究方法的分析可以帮助我们更好地进行政治学研究。     

民主化的基础性条件之分析

今天,民主已成为普适的价值,但并不意味着民主化的过程已经终结,很多非民主国家仍然面临着转型。民主化只有在某些条件成熟的情况下才有可能发生,通过对经济发展、政治文化、外部力量、反对运动、精英互动、领袖推动等民主化的基础性条件的分析,可以更好地理解它们与民主化之间的关系。     

A New Multicriteria Risk Mapping Approach Based on a Multiattribute Frontier Concept

Invasive species risk maps provide broad guidance on where to allocate resources for pest monitoring and regulation, but they often present individual risk components (such as climatic suitability, host abundance, or introduction potential) as independent entities. These independent risk components are integrated using various multicriteria analysis techniques that typically require prior knowledge of the risk components’ importance. Such information is often nonexistent for many invasive pests. This study proposes a new approach for building integrated risk maps using the principle of a multiattribute efficient frontier and analyzing the partial order of elements of a risk map as distributed in multidimensional criteria space. The integrated risks are estimated as subsequent multiattribute frontiers in dimensions of individual risk criteria. We demonstrate the approach with the example of Agrilus biguttatus Fabricius, a high‐risk pest that may threaten North American oak forests in the near future. Drawing on U.S. and Canadian data, we compare the performance of the multiattribute ranking against a multicriteria linear weighted averaging technique in the presence of uncertainties, using the concept of robustness from info‐gap decision theory. The results show major geographic hotspots where the consideration of tradeoffs between multiple risk components changes integrated risk rankings. Both methods delineate similar geographical regions of high and low risks. Overall, aggregation based on a delineation of multiattribute efficient frontiers can be a useful tool to prioritize risks for anticipated invasive pests, which usually have an extremely poor prior knowledge base.     

Robustness of Risk Maps and Survey Networks to Knowledge Gaps About a New Invasive Pest

In pest risk assessment it is frequently necessary to make management decisions regarding emerging threats under severe uncertainty. Although risk maps provide useful decision support for invasive alien species, they rarely address knowledge gaps associated with the underlying risk model or how they may change the risk estimates. Failure to recognize uncertainty leads to risk‐ignorant decisions and miscalculation of expected impacts as well as the costs required to minimize these impacts. Here we use the information gap concept to evaluate the robustness of risk maps to uncertainties in key assumptions about an invading organism. We generate risk maps with a spatial model of invasion that simulates potential entries of an invasive pest via international marine shipments, their spread through a landscape, and establishment on a susceptible host. In particular, we focus on the question of how much uncertainty in risk model assumptions can be tolerated before the risk map loses its value. We outline this approach with an example of a forest pest recently detected in North America, Sirex noctilio Fabricius. The results provide a spatial representation of the robustness of predictions of S. noctilio invasion risk to uncertainty and show major geographic hotspots where the consideration of uncertainty in model parameters may change management decisions about a new invasive pest. We then illustrate how the dependency between the extent of uncertainties and the degree of robustness of a risk map can be used to select a surveillance network design that is most robust to knowledge gaps about the pest.