Re-examining the Australian public's attitude to military casualties: post-heroic or defeat-phobic?

Australia, like most other developed democracies, is often alleged to suffer from ‘casualty phobia’. The perception that the Australian public will not tolerate casualties in foreign conflicts has shaped the decisions of both civilian and military policy makers. Measures taken to protect Australian forces from casualties may, for instance, also serve to increase the risk to civilians in the country to which they are deployed. The USA underwent a similar debate some years ago. Innovative public opinion research techniques—especially ‘survey experiments’ which allow researchers to establish causal relationships by consciously manipulating one variable while holding others constant—have established that the American public are not reflexively casualty-phobic and that the impact of casualties on public opinion can be outweighed by other factors, such as the public's confidence in the mission's overall success. In this article, the author replicates one of the key survey experiments from the US debate, suitably adapted to Australian conditions, with a nationally representative sample of Australian voters. The author finds that the same pattern holds in Australia as in the USA: casualties do lower public support for a given mission, but the mission's chances of success matter more.     

Citizen Participation,Process, and Transparency in Local Government: An Exploratory Study

This study had two purposes. First, it empirically examined the relationship between citizens' participation in administrative policymaking phases and their perception of government transparency. Second, it investigated how citizens' use of both offline and online participation channels and their involvement in different phases of policymaking (i.e., agenda setting, implementation, and evaluation) were related to their assessment of transparency in government. A 2009 survey of residents of Seoul, South Korea, was used to test the study hypotheses. Using two‐stage least squares estimate techniques, the study found that citizens involved in any citizen participation programs are more likely than those not involved to positively assess transparency in government. With regard to the relationship between participation channels and transparency, citizens who used offline participation channels were more likely than nonusers to perceive enhanced transparency in local government. However, their use of online participation channels had limited effect on perceptions of transparency. Finally, participation in two phases of the policy process, agenda setting and evaluation, positively affected citizens' assessment of transparency in government.     

A Behavioral Theory of Policy Feedback in Tobacco Control: Evidence From a Difference‐In‐Difference‐In‐Difference Study

Public policy scholars argue that in highly tangible policies, such as tobacco control, the public learns from the direct experience of the beneficial effects of the policy. Empirical evidence supports this argument, suggesting that in the United States the introduction of tobacco control measures makes people more inclined to further regulation. By relying on a set of cases which allows testing the effects of the introduction of tobacco control measures across European countries on a series of relevant variables, this study confirms that the introduction of tobacco control measures makes the public more inclined to further regulation. Yet, when the effects of these policies are disaggregated between smokers and nonsmokers, results show that these positive effects are driven by smokers. This puzzle suggests that different effects than mass attitudinal policy feedback effects, driven by learning from direct experience, might explain the positive reaction to tobacco control. This study puts forward a behavioral theory of policy feedback, which suggests that smokers react positively to the introduction of tobacco control measures because they see these measures as commitment devices, which can help them quit smoking. Evidence for this argument is found by demonstrating that the introduction of tobacco control measures increases smokers’ welfare.     

自然保护区的社区参与管理模式探索 --以九寨沟自然保护区为例

九寨沟自然保护区在实践中摸索了一套社区参与景区管理的办法：设立专门机构和利用社区组织对居民进行管理;建立多渠道社区居民就业和参与管理方式;组建股份制旅游经营公司;建立公平的利益分配机制等,这些经验具有实践上的创新和理论上的突破,具有典型性。进一步完善社区管理,需要进一步解决“公平”问题、加强社区居民“实质性”参与、重视区域的协调发展、建立就业培训机制。     

建国初期中国共产党对私营金融业的社会主义改造

建国初期,我党参照、借鉴前苏联的经验,根据本国实际情况,通过加强对私营金融业的管理和整顿、积极引导私营金融业的资金投放和业务经营、组织私营行庄联合经营和联合管理、进行全行业社会主义改造四个阶段,最终完成了对私营金融业的社会主义改造任务,建立了社会主义的金融体系.     

南京国民政府公务员考绩法规若干史实的考证

南京国民政府在不同的历史时期,先后颁布了考绩法、公务员考绩法、非常时期公务员考绩暂行条例、非常时期公务员考绩条例、公务员考绩条例、公务人员考绩条例。关于这些法规、法令颁布的时间、施行的时间,考绩的种类、程序和方法等基本史实,目前出版的有关教材、著作中,有不少错误,甚至有十多种图书包括辞典、教材错得一模一样。本文的考证,旨在纠正错误,寻得正确答案。     

青海民族地区新社会阶层政治参与研究

政治参与是政治学研究的重要命题,也是民主政治建设的重要内容。现阶段,公民政治参与在我国政治发展中居于十分重要的地位。作为我国新社会阶层重要组成部分的民族地区的新社会阶层,他们不仅是民族地区经济社会发展不可缺少的重要社会力量,也是推动民族地区政治发展的重要力量。目前,民族地区新社会阶层的政治参与还没有引起人们的足够重视,他们的政治参与权利还没有充分体现出来,还缺乏健全的法律制度保障。这种状况不仅不利于民族地区新社会阶层的自身发展,而且也不利于民族地区的稳定和健康发展。要重视民族地区新社会阶层合理的政治利益诉求,引导他们有序政治参与,从而把他们的活力和创造力整合、凝聚到社会主义现代化建设事业中来,为地区经济社会又好又快发展,为民族地区社会稳定和民族进步做出积极贡献。     

网络信息时代公共图书馆读者信息服务刍议

本文从网络信息时代读者信息服务的新形势入手,对现阶段读者信息服务工作中存在的问题进行了较为详细的阐述,并从强化现代服务理念、注重网络信息时代图书馆的人才队伍建设等方面提出了相应的对策和建议。     

Law enforcement activities in Italy

This article examines the organization and function of Italy’s police forces. In contrast with other countries there have been very few recent studies on policing in Italy. This article starts from the origins of the modern police in Italy and tracks changes over time. Police activities that relate specifically to surveillance of territory and individuals, maintaining public order, controlling immigration and the coordination of police operations are reconstructed and documented, with a specific focus on crime prevention. The article attempts to assess to what extent this has been achieved in recent decades, and to what extent the efficiency of crime prevention has increased or decreased over the last thirty years. The article also examines the relations between the size of the police force and crime statistics to discover whether the increase in the former is directly linked to a decline in the latter.     

The Italian resistance between history and memory

Abstract

Since the 1960s the Resistance has held pride of place in public ceremonial, political debate and to a point also in historcial writing in Italy. The emphasis on its popular and national character transformed the Resistance into the struggle of the whole country to rid Italy of the German invaders and the small number of Italian fascists who remained their allies, but in ways that took no account of the complexity of people's reactions and the different ways in which Italians experienced the years immediately after the fall of fascism. In the last decade, however, numerous accounts have been published that contradict the images of the Resistance that for 30 years have constituted the ‘official’ memory of the Italian Republic. As a result, the Resistance offers a classic example of the ‘public use of history’, in which historical interpretation has served primarily to justify party political, instutitional and idelogical ends. It is now clear, however, that the supposed unity against fascism was more the result of agreement that there were limits beyond which political differences could not be pressed rather than of a deeper political unity that might have provided the basis for the political and institutional reform of the Italian Republic. The contrasting memories and interpretations of that period that have recently re-emerged for the same reason make it more difficult to project a new Italian democracy for the future.