The freedom of speech is one of most important human rights. At present days, the freedom of speech is not only accepted universally, but also written into every country constitution. When time goes on, the meaning of the freedom of speech is getting complex and deep. However, as far as communication is concerned, is the freedom of speech the only right that human being could enjoy? The article will review the development of right theories, and claims communication rights basic human rights by communitarianism.
Regular Issue
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5
Volume #9, Number #1
Published in June, 2005
This paper based on A. Downs’ Median Voter Theorem, explores Chen Shui-Bian’s Third-way policy in unification-independence issue during the 2000 presidential election. The character of the empirical framework, based on the probability voter model proposed by Adams and Merrill (1999), is to incorporate both policies’ proximal and directional effects and to integrate the non-policy influence into the electoral decision. According to the Conditional Logit analysis, the paper has the flowing observations. First, the median voters who do not have distinct unification-independence preferences do not support the pan-blue sturdily as usual. They are more likely to vote for Chen. Second, unlike the pan-green tradition, Chen personally is able to attract the voters that prefer the unification if Chen moves towards the neutral point, given that he might lose some votes of the independence extremists. Third, people who prefer maintaining the status quo do not change their electoral decision much corresponding to Chen’s Third-way policy. Fourth, comparing with Lian, Song is less affected by Chen’s policy. Finally, this paper also convinces the influence of directional theory by finding Chen’s optimal location is either in the medial or in the extreme positions.
Recently, there has been a rising interest in institutionalism in political studies. Institutionalism appears as both empirical theories of politics and normative theories of social justice. This paper examines David Miller’s institutional theory of social justice, its characteristics and theoretical consistency. Miller’s theory takes manifold institutions seriously and its aim is to prescribe how to design institutions and regulate their operation. Miller attempts to combine pluralistic principles of justice, multi-dimensional functions of principles of justice, variety of resources and manifold social contexts together into a coherent whole. Apart from institutions, distributive outcomes, procedures and human behaviors are important elements of institutional theory of social justice. We aim to integrate these elements and thereby further develop Miller’s theory. This paper outlines a framework of institutional theory and aims at its improvements. Miller’s theory stimulates us to rethink the possibility of a localized theory of justice appropriate to the present domestic context.
This paper investigates the relationship between political party cooperation and Duverger’s Law. A theoretical model is build in order to demonstrate whether two party leaders would cooperate or not and therefore nominate only one candidate to campaign. The results shed light on how Duverger’s law is satisfied through pre-election coordination between political parties. Under three assumptions, Duverger’s law is satisfied. Otherwise, candidates of three political parties will run election under the plurality electoral system.
In addition, Kuomintang (KMT) party and People First (PF) party decided to campaign 2004 presidential election together. Lien Chan and James Soong are recommended as the presidential and vice-presidential candidates by pan-blue coalition. This is the first time in Taiwan electoral history that political parties formally form an alliance. Therefore, Chen Shui-bian and Lien Chan will run the election and therefore becomes the competition between pan-green coalition and pan-blue coalition. The above theory can analyze this case and explain why such a party cooperation exists as well.
This article is to review and evaluate the “enhanced productivity programme” that was implemented in the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government from 1998 to 2003. This is an epitome of application of the Anglo-American New Public Management reform to Hong Kong. The author attempts to critically probe the implications of the programme, indicating that the policy goals of the programme have been being shaped ever since the beginning. It is problematic as to whether the programme has resulted in the productivity enhancement in general. However, obviously, the substantive goals of the programme entail sacrificing the middle-to-low-level civil servants’ interest and enhancing the tractability of the management. The normative aim for “individual value addition” still stands far away from the current reforms.