Asia from the doorstep of 50 Albemarle Street

John R. Murray was at university at Magdalen College, Oxford, during which time he walked from London to Oxford on a Sunday in the footsteps of John Buchan, swam the Bosphorus from Europe to Asia supervised from a rowing boat by Freya Stark, the Arabian traveller, and climbed Mount Parnassus by night guided by the moonlit blanched rocks of the river beds. After leaving Oxford he studied printing and went to Ashridge Management College before entering the family publishing firm.

This article is based on the talk given to the Society on March 9, 2004.     

英国工党的社会政策解读——观念变化与政策变迁

英国的福利国家是多重政治力量和思想妥协的一个产物,汇聚了不同的观念和政策。同时它也是一个变化的体系。不同政治力量围绕平等、分配和国家的观念分歧及其变化决定了实际政策选择范围和结果。作为该体系的主要缔造者,英国工党有关福利国家的观念直接影响了英国社会政策的演变。这种变化、多元的视角是我们理解英国工党社会政策的基本前提。     

Going Down on Good Neighbours: Imagining América in Hollywood Movies of the 1930s and 1940s (Flying Down to Rio and Down Argentine Way)

During the Good Neighbor Era of the 1930s and 1940s, the USA sought to normalise relations with Latin America in order to promote hemispheric unity, particularly so after the outbreak of the Second World War, which provoked anxiety about transatlantic trade routes and South American attitudes towards the Axis. An Office of the Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs was established, which in turn set up a Motion Picture Division. The Division pressed for a Latin American specialist to monitor and control representations of Latin America via the Production Code Administration. The attempt to promote positive portrayals of Latin Americans assisted a boom in musical comedies dealing with North Americans visiting their southern neighbours. This article examines an early precursor, Flying Down to Rio (1933), and a full-blown Good Neighbor movie, Down Argentine Way (1940). The article uncovers, behind the optimistic projection of neighbourliness, hidden tensions and deep-rooted anxieties about American identities.     

Frederic Eggleston on International Relations and Australia's Role in the World

Frederic Eggleston was a prominent public intellectual whose reflections on international relations constitute one of the most important records by an Australian liberal thinker during the first half of twentieth century. Eggleston wrote extensively, and hopefully, about the capacity of international organisations to discipline the behaviour of nation-states; but his hopes were tempered in his writing also about the descent to wars, including the early Cold War period in which his support for American foreign policy grew stronger. His liberal outlook was also informed by his sense of Australia's Britishness, Australia's location in the Pacific, and Australia's future relations with Asian countries.     

How do MPs in Kosovo develop constituency links? A comparison of MPs’ behaviour under closed-list and open-list PR electoral systems

While studies among established democracies suggest MPs’ incentives to develop close links with their constituents are hardly determined by the electoral system, very little is known about MPs’ incentives to establish such links outside these countries. Looking at the case of Kosovo, as a newly democratic country with a low level of party system institutionalization, this article examines the extent to which its MPs develop close links with their constituents. Through interviews, the article compares MPs’ behaviour under closed-list PR system which was used in the 2004 elections and open-list PR system which was used both in the 2007 and 2010 elections. The main argument is that due to the weak nature of the party system institutionalization, MPs elected under open-list PR system, where there is intra-party electoral competition, will develop closer links with their constituents than those elected under closed-list PR, where such intra-party electoral competition is absent.     

从佐藤春夫的《星》看近代日本的中国想象

佐藤春夫的中国题材作品《星》是以中国闽南地区的民间传说"陈三五娘"为框架改编而成的,该作不仅寄寓了佐藤春夫个人的情感体验,同时也阐发了他的"东洋"美学。文章通过《星》与"陈三五娘"故事原型的比较分析发现,该作对"陈三五娘"故事做出3处改动,从中可见,第一、佐藤春夫的中国趣味仅仅是他的亚洲意识的载体;第二、东西二元对立的思维方式成为他的中国观的认知基础;第三、他依据达尔文的进化论这一西方近代主义的认知模式评价中国、判断价值优劣。由此可见,"中国"在近代日本历史上被严重地符号化乃至意识形态化,成为近代日本知识人试图对抗西方文明入侵,实现自我认同的手段和工具。     

Stanford chapter

Abstract

The Concerned Asian Scholars at Stanford was organized in March of this years around a nucleus of about fifteen graduate students. Membership has reached about 25 with two or three professors and some undergraduates. Among the activities to be carried on are the following: establishment of new local chapters at those campuses on the West coast which have yet to be organized and plans for the National Conference (both to be done in conjunction with Berkeley); efforts to establish good channels of mass communication in this area and study projects on the ABM and Asia, the history of Asian Studies in America, institutionalized racism in Asian studies and textbooks and teaching materials on Asia in California public schools. Also under consideration are proposals for a photo exhibit on the people of Vietnam with a documentary film. One of the first actions of our CCAS group was to come out publicly in support of the April Third Coalition and its sit-in at the Stanford Applied Electronics Laboratory which seeks to stop all CBW research, counterinsurgency work, war-related scholarship and all classified research on this campus and at the Stanford Research Institute. Many members of the group were active participants in the nine day liberation of the AEL.     

中国海洋国土的现状和捍卫海洋权益的策略思考

《联合国海洋法公约》唤醒了沿海国家开发和维护海洋资源的意识 ,进而引发了争夺海洋国土、海洋资源和海洋通道的新的斗争。中国是一个海洋大国 ,目前与海上 8个周边国家都有海洋争端 ,面积约占我国海洋管辖区的二分之一。新的世纪是海洋的世纪 ,我国要捍卫自身的海洋权益 ,审时度势 ,韬光养晦 ,理性处理。     

Demonstrating the Melbourne University Respirator

The First World War was a theatre for the demonstration of Australia's contribution to the Empire, and the role of science and technology. This paper explores this relationship by tracing the history of the Melbourne University Respirator, a gas mask developed by scientists at the University of Melbourne during the Great War. In the immediate post-war period, the Respirator was used as a political technology to educate citizens about the actual and potential contribution of scientific research to national and imperial defence. Scientists in this manner promoted national scientific and technological development and a more equal partnership with Britain. The political use of the Respirator was staged in the vivid medium of an exhibition, in which sentiment was conceivably used to motivate political action.     

No Country for the Market: The Regulation of Finance in Germany after the Crisis

The severity with which the financial crisis struck Germany in 2008 came as a shock to German elites. The relatively traditional shape of its bank-based financial system was supposed to isolate the country from the vagaries of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Instead, the government was forced to unprecedented steps, such as the de facto nationalisation of banks and an unlimited guarantee on savings deposits. A comprehensive reform of financial regulation in the country seemed imperative. This article evaluates change in the institutional structure of financial sector regulation and supervision in Germany. The inconclusive debate about the reorganisation of financial supervision, the emergence of new regulation in the field of bank restructuring, and the attempted reform of the deposit insurance system are used as empirical cases. It is argued that the constraints of the German political system impeded the comprehensive reform that might have been expected after a major shock. Instead, a pattern of institutional layering was perpetuated which contains the germs of future dysfunctions.     

The profession of deputy. The idea of political representation in liberal Spain

This article attempts to provide insights into the concepts of political representation developed by Spanish liberalism during the middle of the nineteenth century, contextualised by comparison with other European models. The study of electoral legislation, parliamentary debates, essays about suffrage, and other less theoretical publications (press, propaganda) gives information about the prosopographical profile of those members of parliament who were highly involved in the development of electoral legislation, a dynamic group especially concerned about bringing meaning to the representative system and giving legitimacy to parliament. A second group of conclusions relates to the concepts of political representation which they developed. The concept of representation in liberal discourse rested on three components: the political capacity of electors and candidates, the influences which were considered legitimate and necessary, and the implementation of the right to vote along with the institutions deemed to command and to channel it. The arguments may have varied depending on the ideological profile of the parties, but they also shared certain common features because of the dominant political culture of the time.     

The wall in the ballot box: The Berlin election of 1995

The Berlin election of October 1995 produced very different results in the eastern and western halves of the city, and although the end result was a continuation of the Grand Coalition, it was the PDS and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen who stole the limelight once the votes were counted. This article attempts to account for the performance of the parties in each half of the city and considers the political consequences for them. It concludes by considering what the election can tell us about the public mood in Berlin and about political trends in the Federal Republic in general. What emerges is a ‘wall in the ballot box’, a practical manifestation of die Mauer im Kopf which clearly continues to exist five years after the first all‐German election.     

La procédure des Gravamina lors des sessions de la Diète hongroise

Summary

In 1791 there were published eight weeklies and one fortnightly in the British North American colonies which, in 1867 and the following years, united to form the Canadian confederation. The British newspapers served them all as principal sources of information about the events in Europe. The positive and sympathetic press reports in Great Britain relating to the momentous changes in Poland, which were introduced with the adoption of the 3 May 1791 Constitution by the Diet, were thus also ‘echoed’ in Canada. These ‘echoes’ notwithstanding, judging by the scope of press coverage, which started on 4 July 1791, as well as by some editorial comment, it can be concluded that there also existed a genuine interest in Canada about the progress of the peaceful Polish ‘revolution,’ which contrasted so sharply with the bloody strife in America and France.     

近三十年来中江兆民思想研究

近年来关于中江兆民的研究主要涉及其哲学思想、政治思想及汉学对其影响等方面。中江兆民研究始于20世纪80年代,起步于对其哲学思想的研究,随后逐渐扩展到其他方面。总的来说数量上是有所增加的,质量也有所提高,但视角还不够丰富。总之,对于这样一个在日本近代史上占有重要地位的思想家来说,目前国内的研究还有其不足之处。     

Sexual Abuse as the Core Transgression of Childhood Innocence: Unintended Consequences for Care Leavers

ABSTRACT

The decision of the Gillard government to establish a royal commission in 2012 was acclaimed by care leavers. However, they were soon disillusioned: it was not the royal commission for which they had long struggled. Its terms of reference were too broad, encompassing a range of institutions never before the subject of official inquiries, yet also too narrowly focused on sexual abuse. Care leavers who suffered other forms of abuse were excluded. This paper argues that, while care leaver advocacy contributed to the decision to establish a royal commission, the agenda was a product of other pressures fuelled by state-based inquiries about cover-ups of sexual abuse of children, particularly by clergy. Sexual abuse could no longer be regarded as a sin to be handled in-house by institutions but a crime for which the state carried superordinate responsibility. The government had to intervene to address society’s “ultimate collective shame”. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has made a massive contribution to our understanding of child sexual abuse and to reforms in child protection policy and practice. But its mandate created unintended consequences, and questions remain about the unmet needs of care leavers who suffered other forms of abuse.     

Changes in the handling of corruption scandals in Japan since 1994

Over the last fifty years, the Japanese political landscape has been shaken from time to time by the exposure of corruption scandals. In 1993, a multiparty coalition won government in Japan and initiated a package of reform legislation that was passed by the Diet in 1994. The system of legal controls was tightened, penalties for wrongdoing were increased, and the flow of money in politics was made more transparent. However, after more than five years of debate about reform and putting an end to money politics, corruption is still prominent in Japanese politics, and the number of corruption scandals even seems to be growing. Dr. Verena Blechinger of the German Institute for Japanese Studies analyzes how corruption scandals were handled up till 1993, and how this has changed since. She argues that the process of political reform since 1994 has brought about change in the structural framework of the Japanese political system which has caused a shift in relations between the three main political elite groups.     

Bringing the Past Back in: How Attitudes towards the Democratic Transition Influence the Portuguese Voter

Abstract

This article analyses the way in which attitudes towards the transition to democracy explain party identification and ideology in Portugal. This question is important because the transition to democracy in Portugal was a turbulent process marked by a rupture with the past and institutional fluidity. It has also conditioned the main political parties’ relationships with the electorate and each other since 1974. I compare the same explanatory model results from two surveys, conducted in 2004 and 2014, respectively, to understand the extent to which perceptions about the transition help characterise the Portuguese voter over the last decade.     

东游运动与潘佩珠日本认识的转变

《潘佩珠自判》呈现出了东游运动前后潘佩珠对日认识的变化。赴日前,潘佩珠认为日本是同文同种的新兴强国,期望日本军事援助越南。东游运动失败后,潘佩珠认为日本背弃了黄种人和亚洲,是个重强权、轻道义的国家。他对日本国民素质则始终赞赏,以之为越南人的学习对象。     

Asia's Regional Security Order: Rules,Power and Status

East Asia's security order is experiencing significant change as it moves from a stable and peaceful geopolitical setting into one of increasingly open contestation. There is no scholarly consensus about the core character of East Asia's old security order, thus making analysis of this period of change especially challenging. The aim of this paper is two‐fold. Firstly, it seeks to provide some order to the broader debate about East Asia's regional security environment. Secondly, it provides a novel account of East Asia's security order that better captures the key dynamics at play in the region than the literature currently does. The paper's first part discusses the different types of security orders identified by scholars and analysts. The second examines the ways in which scholars have attempted to explain East Asia's security order and explores the key forces that they have argued shaped their form. The third part develops a distinctive account of Asia's security order which focuses on the interplay of domestic and international factors and argues that it was the political consensus that existed across the region about its structure and purpose that made the region stable and it is the breakdown of that consensus that is destabilising East Asia today.     

中、印、尼佛教文化交流的特点及影响——来自三国学者的观点

中国学界过去对印度佛教研究较多,对尼泊尔佛教研究不多;对中印、中尼佛教交流研究较多,而对中、印、尼三国之间的佛教文化交流的研究则不多。2019年11月25日,由中国友谊促进会和教育部人文社科重点研究基地四川大学南亚研究所共同举办的"加强佛教文化交流,促进民心相融相通——中印尼佛教文化研讨会"在成都召开。来自印度德里大学、和平与冲突研究所、贝纳勒斯印度教大学、新那烂陀佛教大学、加尔各答城市学院和尼泊尔的特里布文大学、莲花学院、蓝毗尼佛教大学以及中国的中国藏语系高级佛学院、中国藏学研究中心、四川大学、上海大学、西南民族大学等三个国家18个单位的50名代表参加了会议。此次会议围绕中、印、尼三国"佛教源流与影响"、"佛教传承与艺术"以及"佛教融合与发展"三个议题展开交流,讨论的内容丰富、信息量大,为三国的友好交流作出了积极贡献。三国学者的观点主要集中在中、印、尼佛教交流的历史起源、特点、影响、问题和建议五个方面。