北洋政府时期中国矿业法规评述

中华民国建立后,工商业界掀起了振兴实业的浪潮,对法律制定的需要也日渐高涨。有鉴于此,北洋政府积极修订近代经济的专门法律,其中最重要的当属《中华民国矿业条例》,它的制定奠定了中国现代矿业法律制度的基础。民国初年的矿业立法,既继承了晚清相关法律的框架,又吸取了西方法律的物权理念,是中国矿业法律体系走向成熟的重要一步。     

北洋政府时期吉林省行政区划变迁述略

1912年至1928年为北洋政府统治时期。这一时期,地方行政区划实行的是省、道、县三级。本文试对北洋政府时期吉林省行政区划即道级政区和县级政区的变迁及其原因作一论述。     

北洋政府时期文官惩戒制度探析

防止官吏违法失职,保证官僚机器的正常运转,北洋政府逐步确立了较为完备的文官惩戒制度。由于此时没有完备的考绩制度,文官惩戒制度在某种意义上而言是对行政官员实施监督的唯一有效的手段。本文将从文官惩戒的创设缘由、过程和制度设计等方面对文官惩戒制度作简要探析。     

北洋政府时期文官惩戒制度探析

为防止官吏违法失职,保证官僚机器的正常运转,北洋政府逐步确立了较为完备的文官惩戒制度。由于此时没有完备的考绩制度,文官惩戒制度在某种意义上而言是对行政官员实施监督的唯一有效的手段。本文将从文官惩戒的创设缘由、过程和制度设计等方面对文官惩戒制度作简要探析。     

北洋政府时期的乡民防匪

乡民防匪,自古有之。但没有哪个时期能像北洋政府时期那样普遍。北洋政府时期,中国土匪的数量之多达到了历史的顶峰。从当时全国范围来看,“遍全国无一省没有盗匪的,一省之中,又无一县没有盗匪的,一县之中,又无一乡镇没有盗匪的。”该时期的土匪不仅数量多,其危害之烈亦属罕见。     

北洋政府时期顾维钧与中俄建交交涉

北洋政府时期,是中国近代外交史上一个关键性的转折时期,中国政府开始摆脱封建落后的状态,并成功地加入了国际社会。同时中国新一代的职业外交家逐步成熟,顾维钧就是其中的杰出代表,他积极投身于中国的外交事业,对于推动这一时期中俄建交作出了突出的贡献,也使他自己在国际社会享有极高声誉。     

北洋政府时期的九六公债述评

1922年北洋政府对逾亿元的盐余抵押借款进行整理,发行九六公债。九六公债从议起、发行到偿还均遇到困难,遭到非议,并先后造成两次影响很大的公债风潮。北洋时期这样一项重要的公债个案,体现了北洋政府时期发行公债的一些特点并折射出京沪两地证券市场的一些差异。     

北洋政府时期国内公债总额及其作用评析

根据“内债”这一概念的科学界定,北洋政府所发内债总额应为992725449.868元。以往学术界在对北洋政府内债政策的考察和评述中,偏重于揭露其封建性、殖民地性和破坏性等消极作用,而对近代中国内债的两重性分析显得极其缺乏。事实上,北洋时期所发行的内债还是有一定的积极效果的:首先,北洋时期大量国内公债的发行,进一步突破了中国古代惯用的捐输、报效等封建落后的筹款方式,而采用借债的方式应付政府的紧急财政需要,这在财政手段和财政观念上都具有进步意义。其次,从内债的用途上讲,北洋政府所发行公债总额中的1.96亿银元(约占总债额的20%)用之于交通事业建设、教育事业和水利、赈灾等,在一定程度上促进了中国经济的近代化。再次,北洋政府所发公债加速了银行资本的原始积累,促进了中国近代银行业的迅速发展,再由银行资本投资工业资本,促进了中国经济的发展。     

北洋政府时期国家预算的编制与运作

国家预算是北洋政府财政体制的重要组成部分。北洋政府时期出现过两部通过立法机关审议的正式国家预算,六部已由行政机关编成、但未完成立法审议的国家预算案,三部由政府委托机构编出的国家预算参考册。它们多不能反映财政实情,于约束政府开支方面作用亦有限。即使是在被认为预算执行较好的1914、1915年,预算数字也仅有部分约束力。而在其他时期,由于政治混乱、财政困难、地方不听命于中央,国家预算更难起到应有作用。不过,北洋政府时期的预算虽难实现对财政的刚性约束,但常被作为整理财政的起点、各方进行利益分配时的参照和弱势部门争取经费的手段,实际仍以柔性的方式嵌入财政的日常运作中。     

朝野纠葛:北京政府时期的舆论与外交--以关税特别会议为个案的考察

关于北京政府时期的外交,尽管学术界近来已开始有了较为客观的评价,不过对于其背后因素的考察还有待深入。实际上,在北京政府时期,由于特殊的时代背景,各种社会舆论被全面动员起来,以汹涌澎湃之势冲击着外交这一特殊的政治领域,从而形成了近代史上国民外交的黄金时期。于是,由于中央政府统治的虚弱,在其决策者进行外交运作时,就处处受到来自舆论界的影响,这是一个极为明显的历史特色,通过对当时舆论的考察,就会更深层次地探究北京政府外交的两难境地。笔者在考察时,主要以关税特别会议为个案,以上海舆论为核心,以《申报》、《东方杂志》等报刊为第一手资料。     

试析辛亥革命期间《大公报》的舆论导向——以《君主民主立宪问题之解决》征文为中心

1911年10月10日武昌首义爆发,舆论界有摇旗呐喊的支持者,也有发出质疑之声的反对者,造成这一现象的原因各异。北方大报《大公报》对革命的态度,在辛亥革命期间的日常报道和《君主民主立宪问题之解决》的征文活动过程中一览无余,即使在起义爆发之后全国争相响应,革命一发而不可收拾之时,英敛之主持下的《大公报》仍然坚持着一以贯之的君主立宪理想。有奖征文不但是报纸和社会之间互动的有效方式,亦成为报纸引导舆论导向、传播自身理念的又一途径。     

Public opinion,the press and the failed Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations of 1939

For nearly 80 years, historians have debated whether the western powers or the USSR should be blamed for the failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations in 1939. This rather tired debate features here, but only in the background. Instead, these negotiations provide a case study for exploring the interface between the press, public opinion, and foreign policymaking, identifying an example of how policymakers’ perceptions of popular opinion wielded a tangible impact on diplomacy. The article will show that, from late April through to early June 1939, British and French public opinion, as mediated by the press, demanded a ‘Grand Alliance’. The popular pressure needed to facilitate a Soviet alliance was in place, and, combined with broader diplomatic and strategic imperatives, nearly delivered one. Perceptions of public opinion also help explain why this alliance remained elusive. Emboldened by their own readings of western newspapers, the USSR increased their demands, confident that domestic pressures would compel London and Paris to yield. But this was a fatal miscalculation. From mid-June, Western opinion turned against Moscow, and familiar anti-Soviet tropes resurfaced. By charting this evolution in public sentiment, this article provides a fresh perspective on the factors contributing to the failure of these negotiations.     

Loyal to the Crown: shifting public opinion towards the monarchy in Australia

Over the past half century, the Australian public has remained divided on the issue of whether Australia should retain the monarchy or become a republic. Clive Bean found that there had been remarkable stability on the issue and evidence of a long-term trend away from support for the monarchy with a sudden decline in 1992. This article adopts Bean's longitudinal cross-sectional methods to examine the social and political basis of public attitudes. This article analyses the Australian Election Study (1993–2013) to compare Bean's results and re-analyse earlier data from the National Social Science Surveys and Australian National Political Attitudes surveys (1967–90). Public opinion has been fluid and is now at a crossroads between the 1980s high and the 1990s lows. Cohort analysis suggests socialisation impacts long-term opinions. Gender and ethnic nationalism also influences opinion.     

The Determinants of Public Policy: What Matters and How Much

This article is a research synthesis addressing four questions critical to our understanding of the determinants of public policy. How often and how strongly do hypothetical determinants of policy—public opinion, interest groups, the party balance, and other factors—actually influence policy? Do some hypothetical determinants of policy have more influence than others? Does the way we measure policy affect our ability to explain it? And is there a connection between how strongly particular variables affect policy, and how much effort we devote to studying them? It turns out that variables hypothesized to influence policy more often than not have no effect. When variables do affect policy, researchers very seldom say anything about how much impact they have. Variables that convey the most information to policymakers about what the public wants have a greater impact than other variables, but it is less clear how the measurement of policy affects our findings. Researchers pay much attention to hypothetical determinants of policy unlikely to matter very much, and little attention to those likely to be the most important. Implications for future research are considered.     

Europe,public opinion,and Brexit*

ABSTRACT

The construction – and deconstruction – of Europe is a spatial democratic process, and public opinion is central to it. One part of public opinion is fuelled by pragmatic – either economic (the search for prosperity) or strategic (the need for security) – arguments. Another is fired by political, moral and religious ideologies and identities (and utopian views of Europe in particular). Attitudes concerning Europe were never identical in the Western or Eastern halves of the continent, or in Britain. They evolved in connection with processes of economic change (from the second to the third phase of the Industrial Revolution), and latterly in relation to globalization and its geographic impact. Euroscepticism demands a deep adjustment of Europe to its current political-intellectual scene and geographic organization.     

The Labour government and the battle for public opinion in the 1975 referendum on the European Community

An upsurge of historical research in this century has assessed various campaigns that promoted European Community (EC) membership to the British people. This article, concentrating on the Labour government’s approach to the 1975 referendum on the EC, uses sources such as official records at The National Archives and political papers of some of the key agents; these sources have hitherto been underused for investigating public opinion-related activities on Europe in 1975. Although acknowledging that the interpretation of a government-controlled referendum applies up to a point, the article emphasises, as its key theme, the government’s difficulties in controlling events during the campaign itself. Despite having much support from newspapers, the government often had difficult relations with the mass media as a whole, and the article challenges the belief that it was effective here. This article also contests the idea that the campaign made much impression on the public. These findings further apply to other campaigns on the EC in the 1960s and 1970s and potentially in contemporary British politics.     

Developing sustainable cultural policies in Turkey: an investigation of public opinion on the theatre scene

The arts scene in Turkey has been witnessing many discussions with the revealing of the governmental reform agenda on the state support model for the arts that includes establishment of an arts council type institution, the closure of the State Theatres and, the State Opera and Ballet. Nevertheless, despite strong public criticism on this reform agenda, there has never been any comprehensive research to reflect the public opinion. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to recent discussions by providing data on public opinion regarding such a fundamental change, with a particular focus on theatre. Towards this end, a survey was conducted in Istanbul. The findings demonstrate that the majority, including both users and non-users of theatre, value the State Theatres and are in favour of sustaining it. There is also a common belief that in case of the State Theatres’ closure, the private theatres cannot undertake its public mission.     

The Effects of Beneficiary Targeting on Public Support for Social Policies

We assess the tendency for the public to use group‐centric policy evaluations with evidence from a survey experiment concerning two issues within the social policy domain, health care and aid to cities. By randomly varying target group identity within each issue and using both negatively and positively regarded groups our evidence shows that differences exist in the tendency for members of the public to use group‐centric heuristics. Group‐centric evaluations are related to party identification and political ideology. Across both issues conservatives and Republicans are more likely than liberals or Democrats to adopt a group‐centric heuristic. Partisan and ideological differences suggest that established theories miss the mark by emphasizing how universal policy designs are preferred to designs that target unpopular groups.     

戊戌政变后的社会舆论

戊戌政变后,虽有统治者严酷的言禁,但社会各界仍对相继发生的事件相当关注,以各种方式和途径表达自己的见解和态度。当时参与较多的报纸,如《中外日报》、《国闻报》、《申报》、《知新报》和《清议报》等都刊登了相关报道和文章,从不同立场对政变作出各种反应和思考。与此同时,包括各级官员、各类知识分子和各界民众在内的社会各阶层人士,或公开或私下表达自己的意见和态度。这些出自各方面的舆论,说明政变后的社会舆论比较复杂,反映了社会各阶层对时局的不同主张以及先进与落后势力的复杂斗争。