Power-sharing and political public relations: Government-press relationships in Northern Ireland's developing democratic institutions

Northern Ireland's democratic governance is consociational (i.e. power-sharing is mandatory) and therefore substantially different from the majoritarian electoral system which characterizes most Western democratic societies. Consociationalism has been advocated as a form of democracy which can reconcile post-conflict societies fragmented along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines. Political public relations within mandatory coalitions have received little attention from scholars to date. Drawing on data from elite interviews with Government Information Officers (GIOs), Ministerial Special Advisers (SpAds) and journalists in Northern Ireland, this paper analyses their perspectives on political public relations in Northern Ireland's evolving democratic institutions. Our findings suggest Northern Ireland's public sphere is characterized not just by the usual contest between government communicators and journalists over political stories, but also by competition across government departments and within departments between GIOs and SpAds. Our research investigates the role of public relations in Northern Ireland's developing democratic institutions and more generally identifies important issues surrounding government communication in post-conflict power-sharing democracies.     

TV VIEWING AS GOOD CITIZENSHIP? POLITICAL RATIONALITY,ENLIGHTENED DEMOCRACY AND PBS

This article draws on theories of political rationality, governmentality and cultural policy as well as historical analysis to examine how a philosophy of ‘enlightened democracy’ informed the historical formation of PBS. I analyse its early campaign to turn TV viewers into active citizens and show how the citizen subjectivities constructed presupposed a set of knowledge-power relations defined and managed by ‘opinion leaders’. Following a cultural studies approach I analyse policy and popular discourses to show how requirements of professionalism, reason, civility and detached objectivity served as a means of differentiating good citizens and as a form of social control.     

我国政治稳定研究综述

政治稳定是政治发展领域研究的重大课题。作者论述了政治稳定研究的必要性以及政治稳定的内涵、标志、形态、特点,论述了政治不稳定的产生及原因和实现政治稳定的对策等一系列重要问题,比较全面、系统地梳理和归纳了近年来我国理论界研究的最新进展。     

公共政策的“内部输入”机制与当代中国的政治认同

我国的公共政策制定,基本上是一种"内部输入"机制。它对人们的政治认同,具有许多积极的促进作用,但是,这种"内部输入"机制,其输入权的单极性、单一输入主体的经济人理性、输入主体的责任性缺失及受制约性缺位,又对政治认同带来了比较大的消极影响。因此,我们应该进一步改革和完善当代中国公共政策的内部输入机制,以获得公众的稳定的、持久的政治认同。     

分流抑或分工合作——马克思主义理论学科的设立与中国政治学学科及其话语体系的建构

马克思主义是一套成熟的关于人类社会历史发展规律的理论话语体系,其中包含丰富的关于人类社会政治发展规律的思想、理论与论述。到目前为止,马克思主义几乎仍然是唯一能与西方社会主流话语体系抗衡与交锋的元理论性质的话语体系。同时,由于马克思主义理论源自西方,是在与时代以及前人的对话和交锋基础上建构进而发展起来的,因此,它也是很容易与西方主流话语体系进行平等对话与交流、进而相互借鉴和学习的理论话语体系。正是马克思主义理论一级学科的设立,才使我们更深刻地认识马克思主义理论在中国政治学学科及其话语体系的建设和发展中的这种核心地位与特殊作用。     

消费主义视阈下“90后”大学生的国家认同与政治认同

消费主义作为一种"去意识形态"的意识形态,通过形而下的生活方式和消费内容,不同程度地影响和削弱当代大学生的国家、民族认同与政治认同,降低民族凝聚力、向心力、整合力,并进而影响到国家统一、民族团结和政治安定。因此,必须从意识形态安全、国家软实力等方面考虑,重视消费主义对大学生的国家认同、民族认同和政治认同方面的影响,从学校教育、家庭教育、社会教育和自我教育四个方面完善和提高大学生的国家认同、民族认同与政治认同,抵御消费主义文化的消极影响。     

青年农民工的身份认同和政治参与

在城市化过程中,青年农民工面临着身份危机。为了实现身份认同,青年农民工需要进行身份重塑,经由身份重塑实现身份认同是青年农民工个体获得明确身份地位的一次飞跃。除了实现身份认同,青年农民工还应通过政治参与的方式来融入社会,获得社会认同。由身份认同到社会认同是青年农民工在社会化过程中的第二次飞跃。     

青年文化建设与大学生政治认同

青年文化对大学生的政治认同有很大的影响。青年文化中的消费文化、网络文化、浅阅读文化潜伏着削弱大学生政治认同的因素。因此,要以社会主义核心价值引导青年文化建设,形成建设青年文化的合力,遵循青年文化建设中的客观规律,有效提升大学生的政治认同。     

Anthropology and the theorisation of citizenship

In this paper I argue for the importance of theorising citizenship as an independent axis of social inequality in the contemporary world. As a foil, I take two intertwined tendencies within anthropological writings on migration. First is the historical trend of anthropology as a discipline to theorise against the grain of the nation-state. Second is the tendency within anthropological studies of transnationalism and migration to theorise their subject in terms of Marxian understandings of class and exploitation or in terms of the intersecting dimensions of race, class and gender (but not citizenship). The result of these approaches is to elide the role of national boundaries and citizenship as significant theoretical objects in themselves. To build my approach, I contrast the production of migrant ‘illegality’ in three national contexts: the United States, China and Australia.     

Political Process and the Development of Labor Insurgency in Turkey, 1945–80

Much attention in recent political science and sociology has been given to the origins of social movements, revolutions, and other similar forms of contentious politics. Furthermore, unlike other areas of study in the social sciences, analysts of contentious politics have actively sought to draw insights from divergent theoretical approaches. Such an integrated approach to the study of social movements is offered by the political process model. This paper offers an empirical extension of the process model of social movement emergence to the case of the labor movement in Turkey. The predominant view of the labor movement in Turkey is one that sees the movement as relatively inconsequential to the development of state–society relations in that country. This conclusion is based on two lines of reasoning: first, the notion that the state granted labor rights and freedoms without a protracted struggle from below, and, second, the notion that the military coup of 1980 effectively crushed the Turkish labor movement. On the contrary, applying insights from the political process model better helps to explain why the 1960s and 1970s saw the development of an important labor insurgency in Turkey.