Practical wisdom and ethical awareness through student experiences of development

How is book-learning at university made relevant to societal needs? What pedagogical framework helps to transform students from those who know about major challenges of the twenty-first century to those who know how to respond to such challenges in a particular socio-cultural and ecological context? This narrative about the practical experience of Canadian students in two separate international-development classes shows that learning is ultimately about linking the education of students to its consequences for communities and society. The students' maturation from a community of enquirers to a community of social practice is not just an intellectual transformation from ‘knowing that’ to ‘learning how’, but also the development of a heightened ethical awareness of the consequential link between freedom and responsibility.     

《恐怖主义札记》简介

俄罗斯埃迪托利阿尔·乌尔斯斯出版社2001年出版了俄罗斯国家杜马安全委员会评审会议成员、《俄罗斯联邦反恐怖法》起草者之一、俄总统安全会议“加强打击恐怖主义联邦纲领起草工作组”成员、俄罗斯联邦护法机构领导人协商会议预防犯罪工作组成员、法学博士В·Е·彼得里谢夫(В·Е·Петрищев)的新作《恐怖主义札记》。该书对政治型恐怖主义进行了深入探讨,现介绍如下: 一、定义。恐怖主义作为一种复杂的社会政治现象,可将其定义为:借助社会、政治或意识形态理由系统地使用暴力或威胁使用暴力,通过这种恐吓迫使自然人从事有利于恐怖分子的行为或实现恐怖分子预定目标。 二、基本特征。恐怖行为的主体是极端运动和党派及团体的成员、民族主义者、教权主义者、宗教极端分子;具有视采用恐怖主义为正确行为的思想     

Notes of the Visit to Japan in August

In August 2008, I visited Tokyo, Yokosuga and Hiroshima of Japan together with my colleagues. We found peace and prosperity wherever we went. However, we were not so relaxed as we were preoccupied with some political, military and natural disaster issues.     

The influence of sociocultural and environmental factors on the adolescents’ life and development: Japanese youth from a Western readers perspective

This article provides an analysis of phenomena of youth in Japan by means of a literature review. A rich literature on Japanese youth has been published during the last decade, which provides us with information on a variety of topics. By focussing on sources published in Western languages a selection is drawn to research presented as relevant to Western readers. Japan is known as a highly dynamic society. How do children and youth adjust to the ever-changing social and cultural environment? And how can we identify and analyse the most relevant sociocultural and environmental factors and their relationships to each other, which obviously have a strong influence on the adolescents’ life and development? These questions can guide us when structuring the available information according to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological perspective of human development. I will illustrate findings from recent journal articles on central topics like the school to work transition, recent educational reforms and youth culture and discuss these on the background of context knowledge on Japanese youth from former theoretical and empirical studies.     

Transcending the Classroom: A Practical Guide to Remote Role Plays in Teaching International Negotiation

This article discusses the pedagogical value of using remote role plays in cross‐cultural negotiations between two classes taught simultaneously at different and geographically distant institutions. We argue that remote role‐play simulations provide valuable teaching and learning experiences, and are particularly helpful for managing issues associated with outside‐group negotiation and cultural differences, the prenegotiation stage, electronic negotiations and distorted communication, and one‐shot settings in which the negotiator lacks previous knowledge of the partner. The article begins with a discussion of some critical limitations of “traditional” in‐class role plays, followed by a practical guide to remote role plays and a report of our experiences with them. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of remote role plays as a teaching tool for international negotiation classes and the key lessons for the participating students.     

越南汉籍《往津日记》及其史料价值评介

《往津日记》是关于越南阮朝特使阮述第二次使华经历的记录,是越南汉籍中保存并流传至今的仅有的几种＂燕行记＂之一。该日记的孤本由法国戴密微教授于1939年左右在越南河内首度发现,后经陈荆和教授整理,于1980年由香港中文大学正式出版。《往津日记》是一份弥足珍贵的文献资料,可以为近代中越关系研究提供新的视角,为深入研究轮船招商局提供新的史料依据,为中越文化交流提供新的资料等,这种价值应引起学术界的关注与重视。     

“坚持推动构建人类命运共同体”笔谈

2021年7月1日,习近平总书记在庆祝中国共产党成立100周年大会上发表的重要讲话明确提出,以史为鉴、开创未来,必须不断推动构建人类命运共同体。推动构建人类命运共同体是习近平外交思想的核心内容,是解决全球纷繁复杂矛盾的中国智慧和中国方案。为深入学习习近平七一重要讲话精神,本刊编辑部组织召开了坚持推动构建人类命运共同体座谈会,就习近平外交思想与新时代中国特色大国外交展开了深入研讨,会后组织四位专家对各自的会议发言进行再梳理和完善,并分别以弘扬全人类共同价值奉行独立自主的和平外交政策推动共建‘一带一路’高质量发展坚决维护国家核心利益为题进行刊发,以期深化对推动构建人类命运共同体理论内涵与政策实践的研究,引导学术界深入开展习近平外交思想的学习和研究。     

Re-animating a radioactive landscape: informal life politics in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster

The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident of 11 March 2011 posed massive and continuing social challenges to communities in the affected areas. People from wide areas around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant received vastly conflicting information about the levels of radiation released and about the likely health effects. They were left facing agonising decisions whether to remain and face possible (but uncertain) long-term health risks, or whether to move away, leaving behind homes, friends, jobs, schools and communities. Focusing on the case of the small farming community of Tōwa in Nihonmatsu City, this article examines self-help activities that have emerged in the affected areas in the wake of 3/11. The activities have included community monitoring of radiation levels and collaborative research with academic scientists to explore ways to reduce radioactive contamination in forests, farm soil and crops. The self-help activities of Tōwa residents can be seen as an example of “informal life politics” – that is, of the way in which grassroots groups respond to challenges to their livelihood or way of life by organising themselves and taking actions outside the sphere of formal governmental structures. It is argued here that the residents of Tōwa were able to respond rapidly to the challenges of the Fukushima disaster because they had already developed informal life politics practices in response to earlier challenges of local economic decline and depopulation. I also suggest that, in responding to the Fukushima disaster, the relationship between the people of Tōwa and their landscape has been profoundly changed, and that this change has implications not just for the community itself but also for the wider world.     

Notes on expanding the concerns of peace research

This paper attempts to develop an approach to the problem of peace, the world order approach, and suggests some general directions for research in psychology intended to describe global conditions and to promote solutions to critical human problems. The author stresses the need for enlisting psychologists whose work focuses on the humanistic aspects of peaceful interactions.

The paper is divided into four sections. The first section presents the author's view of the current world situation; one that suggests expanded research and action in peace studies. The second section develops the concept of world order to complement the more restricted view of peace research that is often adopted. The third section develops the idea of constructing a global monitoring system designed to describe the global problem of peace. The final section proposes some broad directions for research in psychology that hopefully build upon previous and current efforts in the field.     

Bounded by the Reality of Trade: Practical Limits to a South American Region

This article argues that regionalism in South America will meet with limited success because continental and subregional integration projects lack the necessary economic underpinnings. The result is an incomplete form of regional integration that, while offering some rewards to the participating countries, predominantly serves the energy security needs of the region's major players. Brazil, in particular, benefits from this process and also is the prime reason that regionalism in South America will not deepen. Without a major state to absorb the costs of region-building the process will stall. As the evidence in this article implies, Brazil is not willing to absorb these costs, placing severe limits on the region and regional acceptance of Brazilian leadership.     

Development versus enjoyment of life: a post-development critique of the developmentalist worldview

This article discusses the meaning of development from a post-development perspective, based on a case study of a goat-keeping project involving a small community of farmers from a rural town in north-east Brazil. The development project was fraught with conflicting views of development as it sought to impose an interventionist, ethnocentric, and modernist view of what was best for the community, even stipulating how the farmers should work together. The modernist interpretation has been criticised on various grounds, but nevertheless continues to condition how the ‘development industry’ defines its values and views its mission.     

匈牙利社会党发展演变探析

东欧剧变以来,在匈牙利政党政治中,由匈牙利社会主义工人党改建而来的匈牙利社会党始终占据着极为重要的地位。22年中,社会党经历了两次大的浮沉起落,形成了其演变的两大周期。通过考察社会党发展演变历程,对其作出合理定位。社会党的发展演变受到多种因素制约,为我们留下了许多值得汲取的经验教训。     

The Astana summit. A new stage in the development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

The Astana summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) achieved remarkable results, demonstrating that this four-year-old young organization has embarked on a new course of pragmatic development. This multilateral organization is now showing a more active posture in safeguarding security and promoting economic development in the region, caring about the situation in areas around Central Asia like Middle East and South Asia, and participating in world affairs.     

Institutional development in practice: A case-study from the Tibetan refugee community

There is growing interest in organisational and institutional development, or capacity-building, but little understanding of what these involve in practice. This article provides a case-study of a successful long-term programme of institutional development, which built the capacities of the Tibetan refugee community in development planning. The primary focus is on key features for adaptation by development practitioners. The authors also clarify some of the confusions in the debate on organisational and institutional development.     

A new age of social movements: A fifth generation of non-governmental development organizations in the making?

This paper addresses two themes. Firstly, it presents the historical evolution of Northern Non-governmental Development Organizations, proposing an enlarged and transformed definition based on Korten's Generations. Secondly, it makes several recommendations for how to develop a hypothetical Fifth Generation of NGO-Northern and Southern alike whose activities might contribute to a very broad, diverse, and unpredictable social movement for structural change on both the political and social levels.     

The emergence of a fourth pillar in development aid

Development co-operation has traditionally been the playing field of governments, multilateral institutions, and established development NGOs. In the past decade, however, other actors in Northern countries (such as businesses, migrants' organisations, professional groups, and schools) have shown active interest in development-related activities. Although they do not belong to the epistemic community of development specialists and are often overlooked in the discourse and literature on development co-operation, their number and importance are growing. These novel approaches to development co-operation give rise to some important reflections about their methodologies, potential impact, and fundraising. Based on the authors' experiences and research in Belgium, the article raises some issues about what they term the fourth pillar of development co-operation, with the aim of stimulating the academic and policy-oriented debate.