Measuring Active Citizenship through the Development of a Composite Indicator

This article defines Active Citizenship within a European context as a broad range of value based participation. It develops a framework for measuring this phenomenon which combines the four dimensions of Protest and Social Change, Community Life, Representative Democracy and Democratic values. The European Social Survey 2002 is used to populate the framework as this survey provided the best data coverage available and covered 19 European Countries. In total 61 indicators were selected. A composite indicator (CI), The Active Citizenship Composite Indicator (ACCI), is built using the framework provided and using experts’ weights. In addition, the robustness of the results is tested using sensitivity analysis. The limitations to the ACCI are explained in terms of the limitation of the data availability in particular concerning the new forms of participation and less organised forms of participation. Nevertheless, ACCI proved to be statistically robust and reliable and proved to be a useful tool for monitoring levels of citizenship in Europe. The results of ACCI exhibit interesting and quite distinct regional patterns. The results showed that the Nordic countries, and in particular Sweden, have the highest rate of Active Citizenship, followed by Central Europe and Anglo-Saxon countries. Mediterranean countries are next followed by Eastern European countries that close the ranking.

Connected political consumers: transforming personalized politics among youth into broader repertoires of action

This study explores political consumerism motivations in an effort to understand the complex ways in which this lifestyle practice fits into the broader participation repertoires of young citizens. We begin by outlining the psychological motivations for political consumerism, and theorize how they might orient political consumers toward (and away from) online expressive, political, and civic participation. In particular, we examine how the desire to gratify distinct psychological needs shapes navigation of the digital media environment in search of information and connection, and how this, in turn, shapes participation. Results of a national survey of young adults show that value-expressive, social-identification, and social-approval motivations for green living relate differently to participation, and that online community embeddedness mediates these relationships. The findings suggest that connecting to likeminded others via digitally-enabled communities can transform individual concerns into collective concerns, and extend participation from the private spheres of everyday life into the public sphere.     

Analysis of Type-II hybrid censored competing risks data

Kundu and Gupta [Analysis of hybrid life-tests in presence of competing risks. Metrica. 2007;65:159–170] provided the analysis of Type-I hybrid censored competing risks data, when the lifetime distributions of the competing cause of failures follows exponential distribution. In this paper, we consider the analysis of Type-II hybrid censored competing risks data. It is assumed that latent lifetime distributions of the competing causes of failures follow independent exponential distributions with different scale parameters. It is observed that the maximum likelihood estimators of the unknown parameters do not always exist. We propose the modified estimators of the scale parameters, which coincide with the corresponding maximum likelihood estimators when they exist, and asymptotically they are equivalent. We obtain the exact distribution of the proposed estimators. Using the exact distributions of the proposed estimators, associated confidence intervals are obtained. The asymptotic and bootstrap confidence intervals of the unknown parameters are also provided. Further, Bayesian inference of some unknown parametric functions under a very flexible Beta-Gamma prior is considered. Bayes estimators and associated credible intervals of the unknown parameters are obtained using the Monte Carlo method. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations are performed to see the effectiveness of the proposed estimators and one real data set has been analysed for the illustrative purposes. It is observed that the proposed model and the method work quite well for this data set.     

Statistical analysis of dependent competing risks model in accelerated life testing under progressively hybrid censoring using copula function

This article considers statistical analysis of dependent competing risks model from Weibull distribution in accelerated life testing, in which copula function is used to examine the dependence structure between competing failure modes. We derive the maximum likelihood estimates, the approximate, and Bootstrap confidence intervals of the parameters. The effects of different dependence structures on the estimates of parameters are investigated. The simulation is given to compare the performance of the estimates when the competing failure modes are dependent with those when the failure modes are independent. Finally, one dataset was used for illustrative purpose in conclusion.     

A general long-term aging model with different underlying activation mechanisms: Modeling,Bayesian estimation,and case influence diagnostics

In this paper we propose a general cure rate aging model. Our approach enables different underlying activation mechanisms which lead to the event of interest. The number of competing causes of the event of interest is assumed to follow a logarithmic distribution. The model is parameterized in terms of the cured fraction which is then linked to covariates. We explore the use of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to develop a Bayesian analysis for the proposed model. Moreover, some discussions on the model selection to compare the fitted models are given, as well as case deletion influence diagnostics are developed for the joint posterior distribution based on the ψ-divergence, which has several divergence measures as particular cases, such as the Kullback–Leibler (K-L), J-distance, L₁ norm, and χ²-square divergence measures. Simulation studies are performed and experimental results are illustrated based on a real malignant melanoma data.     

A martingale-based test for independence of time to failure and cause of failure for competing risks models

In this article, we introduce a class of tests, using a martingale approach, for testing independence of failure time and cause of failure for competing risks data. Asymptotic distribution of the proposed test statistic is derived. The procedure is illustrated with a real-life data. A simulation study is carried out to assess the level and power of the test.     

罗尔斯“公民的两种道德能力”论析——兼论罗尔斯《政治自由主义》与康德实践哲学的关系

罗尔斯在《政治自由主义》一书中所论及的公民的两种道德能力——理性的和合理的,是罗尔斯政治自由主义理论建构的基础。理性的和合理的两个概念来自于康德的实践哲学,通过对罗尔斯关于公民的两种道德能力的论析,可以看出康德的道德哲学在罗尔斯《政治自由主义》中的呈现。     

建设社会主义政治文明与全面建设小康社会

发展社会主义民主政治，建设社会主义政治文明，是全面建设小康社会的重要目标之一，也是中国共产党人始终不渝的奋斗目标。坚持中国共产党的领导，通过发扬党内民主到积极推动人民民主的发展，是建设小康社会的政治保证；完善人民民主，推进民主政治制度化、法律化，真正实现人民当家作主是建设社会主义政治文明的核心，是建设小康社会的力量之源，而依法治国是建设社会主义政治文明的重要标志，更是全面建设小康社会的法制保障。     

“三纲”说与先秦秦汉之际的伦理道德转化新探

董仲舒所提出的"三纲"思想,其直接来源是韩非子"三顺"说.董仲舒运用易学理论,援法入儒,反映了汉代儒学对其他学派的融合与吸收,与先秦儒学的伦理道德观大不相同.而"三纲"说形成的最根本原因,则是汉代外儒内法的中央集权君主专制郡县制政体的确立,客观上需要确立与之相适应的伦理道德规范.它的提出标志着先秦、秦汉伦理道德的转化.     

资本外逃的成因:文献评述及政策含义

国外理论界对于资本外逃成因诠释的文献,主要有资产组合理论、人力资本理论、政党轮流执政理论、公共地悲剧理论和政治风险理论,这些理论从不同角度诠释了资本外逃产生的原因及其内在机制,从一个侧面体现了经济学研究的方法论,从早期的文字阐述到模型的构建,从早期的假说、推测到近期的计量分析验证的演进轨迹。