The Engagement Pendulum: Australia’s Alternating Approach to Irregular Migration

This paper examines the Australian federal government’s use of regional engagement to stop irregular migration. It shows that Australia’s policy elites have long debated whether regional cooperation is useful or necessary for stopping irregular migration. The debate among policy elites bears little relationship to the academic and ideological controversy over Australia’s “engagement” with Asia. Rather, this controversy is defined by pragmatism and operates akin to a pendulum, with an action–reaction cycle occurring where governments seek alternative approaches to what they perceive as the failures of their predecessors. This paper shows that the governments who have championed Asian engagement have been no more willing to seek a regional approach to irregular migration than those who seem to downplay engagement. Differing perspectives on regional cooperation is an important and largely under-examined aspect of Australia’s broader national debate about irregular migration. Given the significance of this issue to Australian politics, it also serves as an important case study in the wider context of Australia’s relationship with and attitudes towards the Asia-Pacific.     

The Development-Insecurity Nexus in China’s Near-Abroad: Rethinking Cross-Border Economic Integration in an Era of State Transformation

Surprisingly, perhaps, China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative expresses a familiar mix of the security–development nexus and liberal interdependence thesis: Chinese leaders expect economic development and integration will stabilise and secure neighbouring states and improve inter-state relations. However, drawing on the record of China’s intensive economic interaction with Myanmar, we argue that the opposite outcome may occur, for two reasons. First, capitalist development is inherently conflict-prone. Second, moreover, China’s cross-border economic relations today are shaped by state transformation – the fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of party-state apparatuses. Accordingly, economic relations often emerge not from coherent national strategies, but from the uncoordinated, even contradictory, activities of various state and non-state agencies at multiple scales, which may exacerbate capitalist development’s conflictual aspects and undermine official policy goals. In the Sino-Myanmar case, the lead Chinese actors creating and managing cross-border economic engagements are sub-national agencies and enterprises based in, or operating through, Yunnan province. The rapacious form of development they have pursued has exacerbated insecurity, helped to reignite ethnic conflict in Myanmar’s borderlands, and plunged bilateral relations into crisis. Consequently, the Chinese government has had to change its policy and intervene in Myanmar’s domestic affairs to promote peace negotiations.     

习近平关于经济全球化的理论阐述与重大部署

当今世界正处于百年未有之大变局,经济全球化面临来自保护主义、单边主义的挑战。习近平对此进行了深入的理论分析,指出经济全球化尽管具有双刃剑效应,但仍符合世界大势和历史规律。解决经济全球化存在的深层次问题,必须在开放、包容、普惠、平衡、共赢五大价值理念的指导下,对世界经济发展进行适度引导,使各国家、各阶层的人群都能分享经济增长带来的收益。中国为构建开放型经贸格局从四个方面进行了重大部署,这些部署将成为新一轮全球化的引擎,也为构建新型国际关系和人类命运共同体勾勒出明确路径。     

菲美安全合作及其对中国安全环境的影响分析

菲律宾是第一个表示支持美国反恐斗争的亚洲国家,反恐战争使双方之间的安全合作关系迅速升温,用美国总统布什的话说,美菲在反恐战争中已经是"军事同盟".本文分析了菲美安全合作关系迅速升温的原因、影响,并针对菲美安全合作对中国安全环境的影响提出了一些政策建议.     

不确定性与安全困境

不确定性是安全困境命题中一个最核心的构成要素。面对东盟国家对中国崛起后如何行动的不确定性 ,中国采取了积极参与国际多边合作的举动 ,这对于减少双方安全关系中的不确定性 ,缓解已经开始形成的安全困境具有积极的作用。     

中欧经贸关系发展中的制约因素及因应对策探析

随着中国与欧盟的经济迅速发展 ,特别是中国改革的深入进行、西部开发战略的实施、中国加入世界贸易组织 ,中欧经贸关系正面临广阔的前景。同时 ,欧盟东扩、欧盟贸易保护主义以及中国入世带来的挑战等因素也制约着中欧经贸关系的发展。中国应抓住机遇 ,迎接挑战 ,实施美欧日贸易平衡等战略 ,促进中欧经贸关系全方位、多层次、宽领域的良性发展。     

新加坡加强发展对华经济的动因分析

近年来,由于世界经济形势发生了新变化,美、日、欧等主要发达国家的经济增速放缓,使得新加坡的经济 发展面临着严峻的挑战。而中国经济在全球经济普遍不景气的情况下,继续保持良好的增长势头。为了赶搭中国经济发展 的顺风车,新加坡政府推出“中国战略”,希望通过进一步加强同中国的经贸关系,来重振国内经济。     

防范化解政治领域重大风险探析

政治安全是国家安全的根本。维护国家政治安全,是新时代进行伟大斗争的必然要求,是实现中华民族伟大复兴中国梦的重要保障。当前,我国政治安全形势总体保持稳定、向好的基本态势,但同时面临的风险与挑战也是前所未有的,影响政治安全的不利因素日趋复杂。必须坚持底线思维,增强忧患意识,认真贯彻落实总体国家安全观,加强有针对性的防范打击...     

Free trade agreements and “economic territory” as a geoeconomic imaginary in South Korea

Since the early 2000s, the discourse of “economic territory” has surfaced in conjunction with economic neoliberalization in South Korea. This paper argues that economic territory as a geoeconomic imaginary not only facilitated the expansion of free trade agreements as an accumulation strategy but also served as a hegemonic project which masked the nature of an accumulation strategy as a class project and consolidated political legitimacy by manipulating nationalism. To examine this linkage, it critically draws upon the idea of cultural political economy (CPE) developed by Lancaster-based sociologists Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum. This paper offers a fresh and more substantial interpretation of South Korea’s political economy and opens up new analytical space for CPE.     

Pre-colonial centralisation,traditional indirect rule,and state capacity in Africa

What explains contemporary variation in state capacity across African states? Recent research has focused on the possible role played by colonial and pre-colonial institutions. This paper investigates the way in which colonial and pre-colonial institutions interacted to affect the public legitimacy and coercive capacity of African states on independence. A coherent configuration of historical institutions, pre-colonial centralisation combined with colonial indirect rule through traditionally legitimate rulers, contrasts with the incoherent and comparatively illegitimate configurations of pre-colonial decentralisation with traditional rule and pre-colonial centralisation with colonial non-traditional or direct rule. The paper tests the theoretical expectations in a historical instrumental-variables framework.     

Political culture,state elites and regional security in West Africa

This article analyses the dominant patterns of political culture among West Africa's state elites in an attempt to understand what standards, beliefs and principles they cherish. We suggest that although there are significant differences across the region's states, the dominant political culture can be characterised as neopatrimonial, that is, systems based on personalised structures of authority where patron–client relationships operate behind a façade of ostensibly rational state bureaucracy. In order to explore these issues the article proceeds in four parts. After providing a definition of political culture and why it is an important topic of analysis, we examine the central characteristics of the political culture held by state elites in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region. The section ‘The Nigerian factor’ briefly discusses some of the malign effects that this culture has had upon governance and political economy issues in the regional giant, Nigeria. The final section explores whether the region's elites are living up to their own claims that they are embarking upon a serious attempt to engage in state reconstruction or are instead simply searching for alternative ways to sell their more traditional concern with regime protection. We conclude that, without a fundamental recasting of the political culture guiding the region's elites, a security culture that prioritises democracy and human security is unlikely to emerge within ECOWAS.     

涩泽荣一对华实业思想中的“利权”论述——以1914年访华为中心

关于利权的争论是1914年的涩泽荣一中国之行的一个重要话题。外界视涩泽此行的目的是获取在华利权,而涩泽则对此予以坚决反驳。在他看来,利权一词带有强烈的政治意义,而作为来华目的之一的中日实业会社一事则纯属商业行为。此外,他又将利权赋予了双方共同获利的意义而为己所用。涩泽对利权的如此表述意在消除中国的疑虑,其背后所反映的对华实业思想也与他的国家本位意识、经济伦理思想和汉学背景等因素有着紧密的关联。     

China’s Phantom Urbanisation and the Pathology of Ghost Cities

This article examines the production of China’s “ghost cities” and constant urban expansion to challenge the dominant conceptual narrative of rural-to-urban migration as the driver of urbanisation. It argues that behind China’s “miraculous” urbanisation story is a powerful ideological commitment to urban growth as the “royal road” to modernity and assessment of political performance. Local governments have a wide-ranging “tool-kit” for pursuing urbanisation, ranging from administrative border-drawing to expropriation of rural land and investment in expanding urban infrastructures. Urbanisation is the destination to which all paths seem to lead. Indeed, local states pursue the construction of new urban space, even when doing so harms them financially. But why? The concept of phantom urbanisation names the process whereby constructing the aesthetic form of the urban is even more important to local state actors than economic, demographic or environmental repercussions.     

论知识经济时代中国与东盟的经济合作

在知识经济时代,面对知识经济产生的重大影响,同为发展中国家的中国与东盟,应对双方的经济合作拟订新的思路和框架,以推动双方经济的更大发展。技术合作与技术贸易,即是双方今后合作的重点,具体包括“三个层次”和“两个层面”。“三个层次”指的是在亚太经合组织中的合作、中国与东盟组织的合作,以及中国与东盟各国的合作。“两个层面”指的是政府间合作与非政府间合作。     

Portuguese Citizens’ Support for Democracy: 40 Years after the Carnation Revolution

Abstract

Forty years after the Carnation Revolution, the relatively young Portuguese democracy is experiencing dramatically low levels of public specific support for democracy. This article tests the leverage of demand-side and supply-side accounts to explain differentials in public satisfaction with democracy. Through ordinary least squares regression analyses that draw on the unique data of the ‘Barometer 40 Years of Democracy in Portugal (2014)’, this articles shows that age cohort, identification with extreme parties, evaluation of the country’s political past, and economic performance are strong correlates of citizens’ specific support for democracy.