Transformer in navigation: Diverse government roles for open innovation in China's high-speed rail

Based on a longitudinal case study of China's high-speed rail embedded in the emerging economy context, we focus on what role the government plays and how that matters to open innovation (OI) for competitive advantage. By linking the OI literature with the national political institutions literature to motivate our research question, we propose a statist-based OI view to differentiate diverse government roles, investigating how government adopts roles in a combined way to push OI in stages. Our findings suggest that government is an important strategic decision-maker for OI. Specifically, the government plays various roles as commander, protector, cultivator, and intermediator, reflecting state activism derived from national political institutions, to construct institutional-level OI for domestic OI activities, and inbound and outbound OI across national borders. We find government can deliberately and strategically use its diverse roles in a combined way to push OI for competitive advantage through the industrial evolutionary process over time. Our study contributes to the OI literature and integrates the strategic management literature with the study of OI to provide new insights to explain the origins of competitive advantage from the state perspective.     

People with disability and new disaster communications: access and the social media mash-up

This article explores how a lack of access to increasingly complex and overlapping digital communications platforms in times of disaster for people with disabilities has the potential to make already life-threatening situations considerably more dangerous. As we are increasingly coming to rely on a social media mash-up of digital platforms to assist in communications during disaster situations, the issue of accessibility for people with disabilities is as dire as if it was high ground during a tsunami or transport during a typhoon. The contemporary social media environment is characterised by a complex and overlapping network of complementary platforms, populated by user-generated content, where people communicate and exchange ideas. In this environment, YouTube videos are posted to Facebook and embedded in blogs, and Twitter is used to link to these other sites and is itself embedded in other platforms. These networks are increasingly supplementing and supplanting more traditional communication platforms, such as the television and radio, particularly in times of disaster. The concern of this paper is that the elements from which this mash-up of communications channels is made are not always accessible to people with disabilities. This evolving network of social media-based communication exposes the limits of existing Internet-based universal design.     

“Who generates this city”? Socialist strategy in contemporary London

This essay, based on a “militant ethnography” of the attempts of the small radical grassroots activist group, Our London (a pseudonym), to mobilize a collective oppositional politics through activities around an election campaign, engages critically with E. Laclau and C. Mouffe's arguments on discourse and collectivity in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London: Verso, 1985). I argue, on the basis of my findings, that while their model does provide insights that help describe the process of building collectivity from among disparate perspectives and identities, we need to go beyond a focus on discourse alone and consider the ways politics is shaped by material contexts. This is necessary if we are to understand the continued appeal of class politics as well as the difficulties in mobilizing collectivity in highly unequal and fragmented cities. From an activist perspective, the essay also highlights how developing a conception of collective interests and a critique of overarching systems of exploitation can be important in building political unity.     

浅析加强和改进高校的思想政治教育工作

高校的思想政治教育工作在我国的现代化建设和发展中占有着举足轻重的作用,但高校思想政治工作在实际的操作中依然存在着不容忽视的问题。文章试从高校思想政治教育工作的必要性、紧迫性两方面出发,对加强高校思想政治工作进行探索,进而提出一些改进措施,以期进一步强化高校思想政治教育工作。     

Civil Society and Democracy: The Israeli Experience

Civil society has been considered pivotal to democracy, but the causes of its performance have remained controversial. According to one view the political context is a critical factor in shaping the contours of civil society. Another suggests that whether democracy prevails is contingent on society itself and the associations comprising it. In a test of these views it was assumed that if society prevails associations would vary by type. If the state is more important, then associations would be expected to score similarly on the democratic scale. It was also expected that variation among the types of performance would cut across group categories, reflecting general attributes of the polity. Data were derived from a survey conducted among voluntary associations in Israel (n = 360). Findings showed that (a) associations scored similarly on the democratic scale, (b) the scores for the democratic performance were not influenced by group category, and (c) the least performed function was integration.     

论我国农村基层民主建设的现实基础

基层民主建设是有中国特色的民主政治内容之一。近年来,我国农村的基层民主建设引起世人关注。本文从我国农村的经济因素、社会因素和文化因素三个方面探讨了在经济、文化相对落后的农村推进民主进程的可能性与可行性。     

对增强新时期大学生思想政治教育理论说服力的思考

国务院《关于进一步加强和改进大学生思想政治教育的意见》科学地阐明了重视科学理论、加强理论武装对于做好新形势下大学生思想政治教育的极端重要性,明确了理论在思想政治教育中的基础性作用。探析增强大学生思想政治教育理论说服力的路径,是贯彻《意见》精神、做好新世纪新阶段大学生思想政治教育工作的必然要求。     

高校网络思想政治工作初探

新的形势给高校思想政治工作带来新的生机，网络的出现赋予高校思想政治工作新的内容，使高校网络思想政治工作成为必要和可行。     

宪法:民主之法——论宪法学的研究对象

民主是宪法学的研究对象 ,宪法产生发展的历史、宪法的内容及宪法发展目标揭示了宪法学这一本质特征。从历史发展过程来看 ,宪法含义经历了从规定政权组织结构到规定公民权利 ,从规定公民权利到保障宪法中公民权利实现的变化 ;从现实世界范围内各国宪法内容考察 ,它们在形式上都承认主权属于人民 ,确认了一系列民主制度和民主原则 ;从人类发展趋势来看 ,民主是人类社会不懈的追求 ,由于需求的无限性 ,人类对民主的追求也没有止境。据此 ,宪法学研究范围具体应包括 :宪法基本理论、宪法制度、国家、公民及国家与公民的关系。     

浅谈网络环境下中学政治课研究性教学模式

基于网络环境下的研究性学习是目前研究性学习与信息技术的整合 ,尤其是与互联网技术整合的崭新课题 ,是当今国际教学改革的一个“亮点” ,探讨网络环境下中学政治课研究性教学模式的新课题。