Business responses to environmental and social protection policies: toward a framework for analysis

This conceptual paper seeks to advance neo-institutional work that has traditionally portrayed environmental and social protection policies as constraints followed by businesses. Drawing from the policy sciences literature, we propose that in the United States, businesses tend to show increasing resistance as the protective policy process moves from initiation to selection and growing cooperation thereafter. Most importantly, we also contribute to the neo-institutional theory literature by positing that this inverted U-shaped policy process–business response relationship proposed for the U.S. context may be moderated by variations in the level of democracy, system of interest representation, regulatory approach, and national income.

Investigating the influence of social costs and benefits of environmental policies through social capital theory

The level of effectiveness of an environmental policy depends to a significant degree on the level of acceptance and cooperation of citizens. The relevant literature indicates that social capital may significantly influence environmentally responsible behaviour connected with the implementation of an environmental policy. In this context, the present article aims to further explore this field by introducing the issue of non-economic social costs and benefits imposed from environmental policies. In particular, it is supported, both theoretically and empirically, that social costs and benefits may influence the decision of individuals to cooperate and comply with an environmental policy and thus may be a significant indicator for environmental behaviour. Furthermore, these social costs and benefits may differ among individuals and are influenced by social capital elements. Consequently, through the article the need of exploring social capital prior to environmental policy implementation is underlined along with the need of creating social capital assessment techniques.     

Advocacy channels and political resource dependence in authoritarianism: Nongovernmental organizations and environmental policies in China

Nongovernmental organizations are important in policy processes, but most studies supporting this argument are conducted in democracies. This article, therefore, focuses on China's environmental policy to discuss how environmental NGOs (eNGOs) conduct policy advocacy in authoritarian contexts. Based on interviews with eNGOs and scholars in China, I provide a typology to describe policy advocacy channels based on their formality and consistency and explain how channels are selected based on the political resources of eNGOs. This article reveals how policy advocacy is affected by one of the prominent features of authoritarian states—a monopoly of political power—and indicates that many tactics identified in current literature can be explained by the political resource endowments of NGOs. Additionally, this article also provides insights on the potential changes of the advocacy channels when the political control is tightened in the Xi era and how eNGOs cope with the new political situation.     

生态脆弱区环境资源管理的制度与政策创新

生态脆弱区环境资源管理是区域可持续发展研究中的重大问题,是政府转变职能、进行宏观调控与管理的重要领域。环境资源具有公共物品的属性,只有通过政府的干预才能提高其效率。基于对生态脆弱区基本属性与环境特征以及环境资源公共物品属性的分析,从公众参与、绿色GDP、生态购买、配套政策、政府组织等几个主要方面论述了生态脆弱区环境资源管理的制度与政策创新。     

Beyond Abenomics: Japan's grand strategy

Much attention has been devoted to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's programme that aims to end Japan's prolonged economic stagnation, known as ‘Abenomics’. He has an equally radical agenda in foreign and security policy, however.     

Explaining Japan's Tortured Course to Surveillance Satellites

On December 25, 1998 the Japanese government reinterpreted a long‐standing policy prohibiting the use of outer space for military purposes by announcing its intention to develop a network of domestically produced and deployed “information‐gathering” satellites to be utilized primarily by the Japan Defense Agency (JDA) and other national security institutions. This decision is important in its own right—for one, Japan is a major player in the space technology arena—but also because of the precedent it sets for other areas of technology and military policy in Japan today. As many observers have noted, Japan appears to be undergoing a broad reexamination both of its view of the appropriate level of interaction between government bureaucracy and industry and of its military security strategy in the first decade of the twenty‐first century. The case of surveillance satellites links these two areas together, offering broader lessons for the course of Japanese policy in numerous areas in the future.     

Preservation policies in perspective

Abstract

This paper looks at the housing stock serving low‐income households and provides recommendations for future analysis and action. It concludes that too little attention is being paid to preserving the stock of unassisted units affordable by very low‐income families. This stock has shrunk in recent years, while the number of poverty‐level families has increased. Several recommendations for action by local governments are enumerated. Moreover, while much attention is focused on preserving projects developed under early federal assistance programs, policies for preserving units developed under the Section 8 program are needed to preserve owners’ incentives for maintaining these projects. Additionally, preservation issues must be considered in designing any new production programs. The paper outlines one option for a new program with a radically simplified financing structure.     

Japan's foreign aid: old and new contests

Abstract

Domestic and international contests explain the transformation of Japan's foreign aid programme begun in the early 1950s. Through contests between domestic players, Japan has streamlined its aid processes by introducing institutional innovations, accommodating new actors in aid policy and delivery, and responding more sensitively to public opinion and independent advice. At the international level, contests have come from the Development Assistance Committee/Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (DAC/OECD), the USA, and China. Through these contests, Japan has emerged as a more rounded aid donor. Its new aid model blends Western principles with concepts of ‘self-help’, favouring large infrastructure projects that serve both Japan's and recipient countries’ interests.     

日本对华政策中的意识形态因素

在影响日本对华政策的诸多因素中,意识形态是一个很重要却又时常被忽视的方面。这些意识形态因素主要包括狭隘民族主义、神道国家意识和西式自由民主理论。三者交错影响日本对华政策的突出表现就是参拜靖国神社问题。这些意识形态因素与国家利益互为表里,是日本政坛右翼化、保守化和对华政策强硬化的思想根源。     

大民族主义与日本政治主流意识

大民族主义是日本民族主义的延伸,是日本近代发展过程逐渐形成的文化意识。战后,随着日本经济的发展,大民族主义以新国家主义形式出现,其特征是政治上谋求世界政治大国地位;经济上谋求在世界经济中的主导地位。新国家主义作为政治的表层,在日本政治和文化的深层隐藏着大民族主义意识,并与经济、政治、文化相作用。日本经济的成功使大民族主义意识复苏,在政治、文化中蔓延和渗透,新国家主义以维护国家利益和国民利益为重,具有现实性和煽动性。大民族主义正成为日本国民的政治主流意识。在对日关系上,应充分认识到日本政治右倾的公众基础。我们应当从这个高度来思考“对日关系新思维”。