Making democracy matter: Responsibility and effective environmental governance in regional Australia

This paper will critically examine the changing social relations of responsibility associated with Australia's current regional ‘experiment’ in environmental governance. This experiment centrally involves the transfer of responsibility for natural resource management (NRM) from Federal and State governments to community-based regional bodies. Although governments are promoting democratic NRM planning at the regional level as a more effective means of addressing Australia's environmental problems, we argue that a tension is emerging in association with the simultaneous pursuit of these goals: ‘effectiveness’ has been defined in terms of the accountability of regional communities to central governments for the achievement of short-term results, an approach which is undermining the democratic promise that regional bodies would be responsive to wider community concerns. The notion of ‘responsibility’ provides a means of investigating this tension, as accountability and responsiveness are both elements of the overarching concept of responsibility. The examination of NRM institutions through this theoretical lens indicates that the shared substantive interests required to motivate a sense of shared responsibility amongst regional actors have been sidelined by the procedural demands of accountability. We argue that, if NRM planning is to be genuinely accountable and responsive to substantive public ends, the properly social and dialogical nature of responsibility relationships must be recovered. The paper concludes with a discussion of the social and political relations of responsibility that appear to provide the best opportunities for effective environmental governance, and thus for the achievement of more sustainable NRM outcomes, at the regional level.     

污名是阻碍青少年心理求助的主要因素

近20年来中国社会变迁加速，社会转型逐步深入。伴随这一社会进程，青少年心理问题日益凸显，引起了社会各方的广泛关注。可是，令人困惑的是寻求专业帮助的青少年患者很少。对此矛盾的现象，学者有不同的解释。本文认为，社会污名是导致青少年不去寻求专业帮助的主要原因。青少年害怕由于污名所带来的偏见、歧视和社会排斥，因而隐匿自己的心理问题。     

“三分伦理”下的“德性观”分析——兼论建构“公共道德空间”的可能性

立足“伦理三分”并在辩证分析康德“德性论”的基础上，超越康德“两个世界”论的局限和麦金泰尔观点的西方想象，以“公共道德空间”的开拓为目标，以“实践与三个世界”的形成为旨归并在建构“新德性论”的过程中人类完全有可能推进自身的道德建设。     

Contingency,conflict, crisis: Strategy selection of religious public relations professionals

A national survey among religious public relations practitioners working for mainstream Protestant Christian churches was undertaken to examine strategic options in a conflict or crisis. Religious public relations professionals tend to employ collaborating, contending or compromising in a conflict with a given public, while they are likely to use concession or corrective action in a crisis. Internal contingent factors are mostly associated with accommodating, avoiding, concession or corrective action strategies, while contending is most often correlated with external contingent factors.     

商业保险公司参与新型农村合作医疗问题研究

文章运用公共管理学与保险学、投资学等相关理论，对商业保险公司参与新农合后，保险公司“盈利性”与社会保险“公共性”的矛盾，以及保险公司“赔本赚吆喝”行为的合理性作了解读。认为新农合中保险公司介入提供管理服务的行为与国际上养老社会保障私有化改革的动因是一致的，都是为了追求效率。而且，利用Markowitz的E—V（均值-方差）模型分析表明，保险公司参与新农合优化了投资组合，提高了获利机会，是理性的投资决策。     

A content analysis of public relations literatures from 1999 to 2008 in China

This paper uses the content analysis method to review the research papers on public relations published in the past 10 years, concludes the current situation and trend of public relations research, and reveals the variations and laws of public relations research in China. In addition, this paper also compares the public relations literatures published in Mainland China with those in Taiwan, which benefits the understanding of the research situation and trend on public relations across the Strait.     

Changing ecological and cultural states and preferences of nature conservation policy: The case of nature values trade in South-Western Finland

We present a rural Finnish case of nature conservation called the nature values trade (NVT) as an example of the process of changing ecological and cultural states and preferences of environmental policy. We emphasise the importance of local ecological and cultural circumstances for the formulation of environmental policy. The study shows how regional actors in nature conservation and forestry were able to combine forest ownership and nature conservation through authentic dialogue, and overcome a nature conservation conflict, brought about by conflicting international biodiversity goals and the cultural preferences of landowners. Later, their ideas were included in the National Biodiversity Programme and implemented as a pilot project by regional actors, which in turn affected the ecological and cultural state of nature conservation. The NVT reflected international and large-scale trends in environmental policy, and opened new opportunities for further developing environmental policy.     

Public relations for peripheral places and their national media coverage patterns: The Israeli case

One of the ways to alter the negative image associated with peripheral locations and assist them in constructing a positive image in national media is by directing resources and maintaining a professional, skilled PR system. This article focuses on the relation between PR and coverage patterns in the press, and examines whether media coverage of locations with similar characteristics is influenced by the systematic use of PR. Israel provides a unique opportunity to examine this relation, due to the existence of three towns with extremely similar characteristics that during the time of this study differed only in their use of PR. Examining the relation between the use of PR and media coverage was accomplished using a variety of research methods, including quantitative and qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews.     

高等院校应当重视自身的公共关系

在市场经济条件下,高等学校的发展离不开公共关系管理,通过有效的公共关系工作,可以提高高校的公共关系形象,提升学校的竞争力,可以增进学校与社会的沟通,使高等院校的教学活动更加符合社会的需求。     

In the Eye of the Storm: Civil Servants and Managers in the UK Department of Health

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the UK government faces some tough choices over public expenditure, and these choices will have important implications for both the future of health policy and the way in which health services are managed. In this article, we examine the organization and leadership of the UK Department of Health and weigh its suitability to meet such challenges. We find an organization that is culturally split between public servants and managers, highly reliant on the ability of its key personnel to bridge these divides, and extremely responsive to the political goals of government ministers. We explore the modern DH using three types of evidence. First, the history of the department shows clear political efforts to reduce civil service discretion and focus the DH on the management of the English NHS. Second, the recent organizational structures of the DH show a bifurcation between policy direction and NHS management tasks. Third, an analysis of the top ranks of the department since 2005 shows the implementation of political preferences that are consistent with managerialism but inconsistent with the perceived characteristics of traditional civil servants. The result is a department which has changed just as frequently as the health service it oversees – a department which has been moulded by successive ministers into one for the management of the NHS. Our findings raise important questions about the value and purpose of long‐term organizational knowledge in policy formulation.