Because they were there: Access,deliberation, and the mobilization of networks for support

When people need help, what is the process through which they decide whom in their network to turn to? Research on social support has described a process that is deliberative in nature: people determine their needs, assess who in their network has the needed attributes—such as skill, trustworthiness, intimacy, and accessibility—and then activate that tie. Nevertheless, research in behavioral economics and other fields has shown that people make many decisions not deliberatively but intuitively. We examine this possibility in the context of social support by focusing on one factor: accessibility. Although researchers have argued that people weigh the accessibility of potential helpers as they do any other attribute, accessibility may be not only an attribute of the helper but also a condition of the situation. We develop a framework to make this question tractable for survey research and evaluate competing hypotheses using original data on an analytically strategic sample of ∼2000 college students, probing concrete instances of social support. We identify and document not one but three decision processes, reflective, incidental, and spontaneous activation, which differ in the extent to which actors had deliberated on whether to seek help and on whom to approach before activating the tie. We find that while the process was reflective (consistent with existing theory) when skill or trustworthiness played a role, it was significantly less so (consistent with the alternative) when accessibility did. Findings suggest that actors decide whom in their network to mobilize through at least three systematically different processes, two of which are consistent less with either active “mobilization” or explicit “help seeking” than with responsiveness to opportunity and context.     

试论西方协商民主实践的内容和形式

西方协商民主实践的内容主要体现为治理、参与和决策等三方面。西方协商民主实践的主要形式则表现为协商民意调查、协商日制度、公民陪审团制度、21世纪城镇会议等。由于协商民意调查和公民陪审团的运行成本相对不高,所以其在中国实践推广的可能性更大。协商日制度和21世纪城镇会议则存在一定程度上的适用困难。前者在西方也主要存在于思想实验阶段,而后者在中国适用的困难则在于其对基础设施和技术平台的较高要求。     

Moral dialogs and public opinion research

Etzioni’s article is thought provoking, and contains a series of arguments that would be useful lines of inquiry for scholars of public opinion. In many ways, these ideas link to, and can enrich existing areas of research on opinion formation, opinion change, and political behavior more broadly. Specifically, the elite vs. mass nature of these dialogs, the extent to which they are actual political discussions, and the impact of polarization on them are avenues where these ideas can inform broader understandings of public opinion, and vice versa. Etzioni’s arguments about the role of morals in political discussion and as agents of opinion change warrant further inquiry.     

Between argument and coercion: Social coordination in rural environmental governance

Increasingly, partnerships and other cooperative forms of governance are common-place in addressing problems of environmental management in rural landscapes. These forms of governance are multi-dimensional in the policy instruments employed; the make-up of actors; and, the types of rationalities that actors use to debate the problem and proposed solutions. This paper pursues the question of how different modes of social action, represented in argumentative claims of participants, influence social coordination in these governance arenas. An empirical study is presented of agri-environmental governance in Australia where actors debate planning and policy initiatives to reduce diffuse water quality impacts from farms on the adjacent Great Barrier Reef. Forester’s conceptualisation of practical social action which locates communicative action in the ‘real world’ of interest-based planning contexts, is used as an analytical frame to identify: (i) the type of claims made by governments, farmer groups and other actors in argumentation; (ii) the claims association with communicative, strategic and instrumental modes of action; and, (iii) their consequence for social coordination in formation and maintenance of inclusive, legitimate and viable forms of governing. The study finds that the interconnected character of claims made by actors, and the ready switching between modes of action observed, point to a situated and dynamic expression of rationality within these contested and prolonged debates on how to legitimately and effectively govern rural environments.     

中国协商民主制度

对中国协商民主制度的研究相当有限,目前研究注重中国地方选举的产生、发展及意义,它们将视角限于选举阻碍了对地方民主协商方面的进一步探寻.20世纪80年代尤其90年代以来,中国城乡社会已经发展了许多新的协商制度形式--民情恳谈会、民主恳谈会、民主理财会、民情直通车、便民服务窗、居民论坛、乡村论坛和民主听(议)证会.中国的协商制度综合了物质和规范两方面考虑,是官方意识形态和民主的一种混合产物,也常带有感情宣泄的特点.通过讨论民主商谈会、公民评议会、居民或村民代表会几种主要的协商制度形式、概括它们的主要特征并比较它们对协商的影响,考察了协商制度相关问题及地方上解决这些问题的战略.     

网络民主:公共协商与制度创新

网络社会的民主性基础使网络民主成为可能.网络民主是作为网民的公民借助网络的信息媒介,参与公共事件、影响政治社会决策,建构公共生活的网络集体行动创新过程.网络民主的功能取向在于公共协商与治理.网络民主的制度创新以导引公共领域的形成为核心目标;以理性的公共运用为条件;其有效性源于网络民主参与的集体行动与正式制度系统之间的互动联接.其具体路径在于:以公共性原则引导网络集体行动;促进多元理性的交往融合;促进信息共享;以地方性公共事务为当前的切入点.     

Deliberative Disjunction: Expert and Public Understanding of Outcome Uncertainty

Many environmental and risk management decisions are made jointly by technical experts and members of the public. Frequently, their task is to select from among management alternatives whose outcomes are subject to varying degrees of uncertainty. Although it is recognized that how this uncertainty is interpreted can significantly affect decision‐making processes and choices, little research has examined similarities and differences between expert and public understandings of uncertainty. We present results from a web‐based survey that directly compares expert and lay interpretations and understandings of different expressions of uncertainty in the context of evaluating the consequences of proposed environmental management actions. Participants responded to two hypothetical but realistic scenarios involving trade‐offs between environmental and other objectives and were asked a series of questions about their comprehension of the uncertainty information, their preferred choice among the alternatives, and the associated difficulty and amount of effort. Results demonstrate that experts and laypersons tend to use presentations of numerical ranges and evaluative labels differently; interestingly, the observed differences between the two groups were not explained by differences in numeracy or concerns for the predicted environmental losses. These findings question many of the usual presumptions about how uncertainty should be presented as part of deliberative risk‐ and environmental‐management processes.     

Working through disagreement in deliberative forums

Working through disagreement is a core deliberative activity, yet our knowledge of how disagreement exchanges unfold during deliberation is limited. This study analyzes this issue using eight National Issues Forums and a framework that identifies specific activities related to working through disagreement. Even though deliberators expressed opposing viewpoints during forums, there was minimal “working through” of these differences. Specific points of contention were not articulated clearly, causal logics were not critiqued, the accuracy and relevance of evidence went unexamined, and the relative costs and benefits of proposals were not compared. Even when disagreements were explored at length, the conversations often lacked explicit efforts at working through. These findings suggest that deliberative democracy scholars need to focus greater attention on factors that can promote or inhibit working through disagreements, as well as how participants’ approach to disagreement can influence whether desired deliberative outcomes are realized.     

宋人“妙悟“与“活参“的诗歌接受理论

"妙悟"与"活参"本是禅宗提出的把握真如佛性的两种特殊的思维方式和方法,受"以禅喻诗"时代风气影响的宋代诗论家则借用来喻示读诗和学诗一类诗歌接受活动的思维特征和思维方法.文章在分析"妙悟"与"活参"这两种诗歌接受理论与禅宗思想的内在关联的同时,侧重揭示该理论所蕴涵的极有价值的文学接受思想及其与当代西方解构主义理论的某些契合之处.