试论中国国际信托关系的法律适用

信托源于遥远的古代,但作为一种法律制度发展起来则是从11世纪的英国最先开始的。在借鉴英美法系和大陆法系信托制度的基础上,中国于2001年4月28日颁布了《信托法》。然而,不无遗憾的是,该法并没有对涉外信托的法律适用作出规定。这对于加入WTO之后中国国际信托关系的发展缺乏应有的预见性,也给人民法院审理涉外信托纠纷案件留下了法律适用的难题。因此尽快建立和完善中国国际信托关系法律适用规范已成当务之急。首先回顾了中国信托法律制度的演变过程,然后阐析了中国国际信托关系法律适用的原则,最后提出了完善中国国际信托关系法律适用的若干法律思考。     

Parents' Reactions to Child Day Care Organizations: The Influence of Perceptions of Procedures and the Role of Organizations' Trustworthiness

On the basis of the uncertainty management model, we argue here that when people are uncertain about an organization's trustworthiness, they may resolve the question how they should react toward the organization by relying on their perceptions of the organization's procedures. As a consequence, we predicted that the reactions of parents whose child was in a day care center would be strongly influenced by their perceptions of the procedures used by the organization that was responsible for their children's day care when the parents would be uncertain about the organization's trustworthiness. However, when parents would be certain that the organization could be trusted they would be less in need of procedural information, yielding less strong effects of perceived procedure on parents' reactions. The findings of a survey study corroborate this line of reasoning. In the discussion it is argued that these findings suggest that people especially rely on their perceptions of procedures when they are uncertain about important aspects of their lives, such as the trustworthiness of organizations that are responsible for their children's day care.     

Zwischen Kultur und Kalkül? Vertrauen und Sozialkapital im Kontext der neoinstitutionalistischen Wende

Trust and social capital work in social networks as informal institutions, favouring cooperation between the participants of such social interaction. However, the increasing use of both terms has been accompanied by vanishing conceptual and theoretical precision. In order to counterbalance this development this article tries to clarify some of the major puzzles connected with both terms. First, we embed trust and social capital within the institutionalist turn in political science. Second however, we demonstrate that trust and social capital have been modelled from at least two perspectives: sociological institutionalism and economic institutionalism. Furthermore, attempts of combining those approaches have lead to decreasing theoretical consistency. Finally, we propose that economic institutionalism is theoretically and empirically more fruitful to explain the creation and destruction of social capital.     

论公证的证据效力

证据效力是公证的基本效力之一,也被视为公证与私证的主要区别。公证的证据效力包括两方面内容:一是公证证明的内容属于司法认知的范畴;二是从证据材料的优先性来看,经过公证的书证证明力大于一般的书证。公证的公信力是公证证据效力的渊源,而相关法律规定也为这种公信力提供了保障。公证证据在诉讼证明中可以成为书证,经过公证的法律行为、法律事实和文书属于可予认知的内容,只是在形式上具有初步可信的证明效力,因而在某种程度上是可辩驳和推翻的。目前,公证证据在我国仅适用于民事诉讼,在刑事诉讼中的运用应受到限制,一般不宜成为司法认知的对象、不能直接作为定罪量刑的依据。     

政治信任、情绪感染与政策执行

政策执行力是现阶段高质量发展的研究焦点及难点问题。依托计划行为理论和情绪感染理论，提出了考虑情绪感染调节作用的政治信任与政策执行关系假设，并基于162份有效样本数据，对其进行了实证验证。结果显示：(1)政策受众者对政府、政策、官员的信任程度，直接影响其对政策执行效果(尤其是经济绩效)的认知。(2)政策受众者的情绪感染力，会不同方向地干扰政治信任程度与政策执行效果认知之间的关系。具体而言，情绪感染对政治信任与行政绩效关系发挥了部分显著的正向调节作用，对政治信任与经济绩效关系发挥了部分显著的负向调节作用。     

The effects of executive constraints on political trust

This article explores political trust, delving into its subcomponents and the relationship between them. It is interested in explaining why governmental trust and trust in regulative state institutions are similar in some countries and different in others. It argues that the variation can best be explained by checks on the executive. This is the case because the more restricted the executive, the less regulative state institutions are affected by the fluctuations in governmental trust. When the government cannot encroach upon state institutions, the impartiality and efficacy of regulative institutions are maintained. The less governmental interference to regulative state institutions, the more such institutions will be devoted to the public rather than partisan interests, resulting in a wider gap between state and government trust. The argument is tested through an empirical analysis of a cross-national panel data based on all existing waves of the World Values Survey.     

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Generalized Social Trust and International Dispute Settlement

What determines the success of a peaceful settlement attempt of a border dispute? In order to fully understand why decision makers choose to put an end to an ongoing conflict, it is necessary to consider the social trust levels of the general populations in both states. International conflict settlement requires public support at the domestic level. If a state’s general population perceives the potential dangers of a settlement as too severe, the conclusion of a peace agreement will be difficult. We argue that high levels of social trust allow citizens (1) to favor more conciliatory foreign policies and (2) to be more optimistic about the future behavior of other states. In democratic settings, these public attitudes serve as powerful constraints for decision makers. As a result, high aggregate levels of social trust should be directly related to concession-granting behavior by democracies as well as effective dispute settlement among jointly democratic dyads. We test these expectations with a new aggregate-level measure of social trust and find mixed support for our hypotheses: While trust does not influence the behavior of challenger states, it does have strong effects on democratic target states and jointly democratic dyads.     

Party politics,elections and (mis-)trust in Japan

Abstract

Trust matters profoundly for many dimensions of political life. In this article we focus on political trust: how the trust or mistrust citizens have toward the political process, politicians and government affects politics. Prior research has shown that political trust influences such crucial dimensions of politics as the basic legitimacy of government, political participation, voting behavior, compliance with government, and reform orientation. In this article, we seek to answer three major questions. First, is political trust declining in Japan? Second, we are interested in exploring the determinants of trust and distrust in politics: why do people lose trust in politics? What kinds of voters lose political trust? Third, we explore the consequences: what happens when people lose trust in government and politics.