生态危机:当代技术文化危机与系统转化

生态危机是人类当代技术文化危机的征候之一。当寻求生态危机的根源时,我们不应把技术当成一种纯粹"工具理性"进行质疑甚至贬抑,辩证剖析生态危机与技术文化的内在关联,实现系统转化,进而选择适宜的生态文化模式,才能使我们的反思和批判达到一个新的高度。     

经济全球化与发展中国家的生态危机

经济全球化加剧了发展中国家的生态危机,最突出的表现就是污染转嫁。生态危机的实质源于人的心态危机,既有经济学动因,也有社会性动因。解决环境问题的出路,一是靠科学技术,二是靠完善的法律与道德自律。     

Corporatism in Crisis: Stability and Change of Social Partnership in Austria

While recent developments in Western Europe provide numerous examples of the instability and decay of corporatist arrangements in the face of economic crisis, Austrian social partnership still exhibits remarkable stability. The article tries to explain this stability of corporatist politics in Austria. The Austrian case is also used to demonstrate some limitations of the academic literature on the breakdown of corporatism. However, stability in the Austrian case does not mean that nothing has changed. Changes have occurred within the existing institutional framework. Two main factors in the transformation of Austrian social partnership are pointed out, namely socio-cultural and political changes. Finally, some future perspectives of Austrian corporatism are outlined.     

Theorizing Islamism and democracy: Jamaat-e-Islami in India

Liberal reading often posits Islamism as obverse of modernity and reason. Phil Briscoe's statement that Hitler's Mein Kampf might be kept in libraries but not the books by authors like Jamaat-e-Islami's founder's (Maududi) amply illustrates it. This article calls such an understanding into question. On the basis of my historical-ethnographic fieldwork on India's Jamaat-e-Islami and its offshoot, Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), I examine the interrelationships between Islamism and democracy showing Jamaat-e-Islami's moderation and SIMI's radicalization. It is my contention that Islamism and democracy are not antithetical to each other; they cohere in complex ways. When democracy is responsive to the traditions and aspirations of its Muslim citizens, Muslims relate to pluralism and democracy. But when democracy becomes majoritarian and a theater of entertainment and violence against Muslims, Islamists turn radical. I also suggest that radicalization such as SIMI's symbolizes a complex dynamic of democratization and demonopolization of religious authority. By foregrounding the salient transformation of Indian Islamism, this article aims to advance a nuanced, fresh understanding of both Islamism and democracy.     

Ecological Crisis, Poverty and Urban Development in Latin America

This article deals with the social and ecological crisis in the urban regions in Latin America. To analyse the social and environmental conditions of Latin-American urban regions it is necessary to take into account two main factors: the high population and territorial growth of Latin American cities during the second half of the 20th century and the lack of an integral development which would have improved the urban quality of life. The imported market economy in Latin America, as a bad copy of the growth economy in the North, has generated a highly unequal development. The acceleration of the economic growth has gone hand in hand with the deceleration of development. Whereas the macro-economic rates improve, the indicators that measure qualitative evolution among sectors, territories and people have deteriorated. So, to explain the ecological crisis in Latin America, it is important to consider not only the different forms of environmental impact, but also the socio-economic factors and the availability of infrastructures. Therefore, this article describes the general social and economic development process in Latin America, and then examines the relationships between industrialisation and urbanisation in connection to the social and ecological conditions in urban areas.     

Coastal Oil Pollution: Spills,Crisis, and Policy Change1

The federal government's adoption of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 represented a radical statutory departure from past policy. Coastal oil spill control provisions that had languished for decades within the industry-friendly confines of a few select congressional subcommittees suddenly became law. Much popular belief credits the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill crisis for bringing about this radical policy change. Closer examination reveals that postcrisis policy change is much more complex. Crisis events intermingle with other short- and long-term factors that either inhibit or support dramatic change. This study analyzes change within the coastal spill arena over several decades. Particular attention is given to crisis episodes, periods identified with a major catastrophe or a successive series of attention-getting spills over a brief time. Analysis finds that crises can play an instrumental role in eliciting change.     

西方马克思主义生态危机理论及其启示

西方马克思主义的生态危机理论继承了资本主义危机理论,提出了生态生产力的理论,对当今社会消费主义和异化消费现象进行了反思和批判,倡导生态意识和生态文明。西方马克思主义的生态危机理论为分析和解决当今人类的生态问题提供了富于建设性的思路和方法,对于我们深入理解生态危机、运用科学发展观解决发展中的问题,具有积极的启示作用。     

Manfred Elfstrom,Workers and Change in China: Resistance,Repression, Responsiveness

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Punctuated Equilibrium and Agenda‐Setting: Bringing Parties Back in: Policy Change after the Dutroux Crisis in Belgium

The article analyzes how focusing events affect the public and political agenda and translate into policy change. Empirically, the study focuses on the policy changes initiated by paedophile Marc Dutroux's arrest in 1996 in Belgium. Theoretically, the article tests whether Baumgartner and Jones's (1993 ) U.S. punctuated equilibrium approach applies to a most different system case, Belgium being a consociational democracy and a partitocracy. Their approach turns out to be useful to explain this “critical case”: Policy change happens when “policy images” and “policy venues” shift. Yet, the Dutroux case shows also that political parties, as key actors in the Belgian policy process, should be integrated more explicitly in the punctuated equilibrium theory. Finally, the article argues that the quantitative analysis of longitudinal data sets on several agendas should be supplemented with qualitative case study evidence (e.g., interviews with key decision makers) to unravel the complex case of issue attention and policy change.     

Local government reform in Jamaica and Trinidad: a policy dilemma

Issues of local governance have dominated Caribbean policy agenda for the past two decades, prompting considerable thought and action on local government reform by scholars, local government practitioners and policy makers, alike. No reforms have been as ubiquitous as those of local government. Permitted by an international reformist agenda, local government reform policy is linked positively to efforts to redress incapacities of public management and administration. This article examines conceptual and empirical issues relating to implementation of local government reform in two Caribbean countries, Jamaica and Trinidad. It analyses how the vision for local governance is articulated through specific reform taxonomies and argues that, although local government reform is normatively a policy aimed at fundamental changes in intergovernmental relations, in Jamaica and Trinidad reform has led merely to adjustments in the internal administration of local government. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.