Japan's conciliation with the United States in climate change negotiations

This paper attempts to analyze Japan's conciliation with theUnited States regarding national targets on greenhouse gas emissionsin the multilateral climate change negotiations (1990–2001)for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Changeand for the Kyoto Protocol to the Convention. Japan's conciliatoryproposals had nothing to do with bilateral pressure from theUnited States. Why, then, did Japan make special efforts toconciliate with the United States, and offer lenient proposals?I focus on three factors: concern for international status,the costs of the climate change regime and domestic politics.My main argument is that the Japanese Ministry of InternationalTrade and Industry used ‘conciliation’ with theUnited States in its favor as an excuse for making proposalsthat would emasculate the climate change regime and as a meansof receiving support from the United States for differentiationof national targets on greenhouse gas emissions.     

The potentials and limits of China–EU cooperation on climate change and energy security

Due to economic interdependency through trade and investment, economies of scale, and economic complementarities, China and the European Union (EU) have a huge potential for cooperation. Already many things have happened so far. Since 2004, the cooperation on climate change has been a key issue on the political agenda of China–EU summits. In 2005, the EU and China even endorsed a “Joint Declaration on Climate Change” which emphasizes reducing the cost of clean energy key technologies for China, first and foremost through the development and deployment of near-to-zero-emission CCS technology. Letting China gain access to clean energy technology is the key issue of climate change cooperation. Despite great efforts and potential mutual benefits, this is still a field of conflicting interests. The authors argue that currently, cooperation on the transfer of clean energy technology is very limited due to rational interests of the actors and the insecurities involved in cooperation. Professor Zhang’s research focus is on environmental issues and international organizations.     

The geopolitics of climate change: power transitions,conflict and the future of military activities

Climate change is emerging as one of the primary geopolitical challenges of the early twenty-first century, one that will likely involve military engagements and deployments in both traditional and non-traditional missions. Unlike mass casualty terrorism, climate change does not have a single galvanising event that can encourage collective mitigation efforts by both developed and developing states. International efforts to counter putative climate change causes have, thus far, been only marginally successful. Consequently, some of the more pernicious effects of climate change—extreme weather, heat waves, droughts and floods—will likely continue to manifest in the years and decades ahead. From a geopolitical perspective, climate change may influence the trajectory of rising or declining states in an increasingly multipolar world. It may also induce or exacerbate resource competition between states, particularly with regard to energy resources, water and food. Climate change may also exert a general weakening effect on lesser developed countries, thus necessitating increasingly intrusive and costly humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) missions, some of which may be conducted by military agencies. Overall, these trends suggest that climate change will continue to emerge as a significant factor that shapes and defines future military missions and deployments.     

Hand in hand against climate change: cultural human rights and the protection of cultural heritage

Within the debate on climate change and human rights, the field of culture, or cultural heritage in particular, plays a marginal role. At first glance, this seems reasonable, given the range of more concrete challenges people face in the context of climate change. However, the protection of cultural heritage is an important goal in its own right, even against the backdrop of other seemingly more pressing tasks. A human-rights-based approach to the debate on cultural heritage and climate change, it is argued, reinforces the international community's obligations to take necessary mitigation activities. Cultural rights and the corresponding duties, especially those under Article 15(1)(a) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, have the potential to provide an effective additional normative basis for the protection of cultural heritage from the adverse consequences of climate change.     

Democratic inclusiveness,climate policy outputs,and climate policy outcomes

In an ideal inclusive political system, all citizens are equally able to influence and challenge policies. We focus on how inclusiveness affects climate policies and outcomes. We argue that more inclusive systems should produce more policies in response to environmental threats and should have better outcomes. We test these hypotheses using panel and cross-sectional data relating to climate policy outputs and outcomes. The results suggest that inclusiveness is positively associated with policy outputs, but probably not with lower emissions of greenhouse gases. This pattern may relate to a lack of deliberation in systems, which are relatively inclusive in the narrower sense of pluralist democratic theory.     

加拿大文化主权与文化政策

加拿大提出了文化主权的概念,并制定了相应的保护文化主权的文化政策,采用立法、制定法规条例、政府资助和税收优惠等多种手段,维护其文化的自主性和独立性,抵御来自美国的文化影响和文化渗透.美国是加拿大的唯一邻国,也是世界上最大的文化产品生产国,在加美特殊关系中,如果加拿大对本国文化没有相应的保护措施,美国文化就有可能垄断加拿大文化市场.因此,追求文化主权成为加拿大抵御美国文化影响的主要手段.     

Orchestration and transnational climate governance

With multilateral efforts to mitigate climate change in gridlock, attention has turned to transnational climate governance initiatives, through which sub- and non-state actors seek to reduce greenhouse gases. These initiatives include networks of cities committed to lowering their carbon footprints, voluntary corporate reduction targets and disclosure processes, and many of the rules that govern carbon markets. The paper considers the role of “traditional” actors in world politics—states and intergovernmental organizations—in orchestrating such initiatives. This strategy accounts for nearly a third of transnational climate governance initiatives, we find, and upends the conventional dichotomy between “top down” and “bottom up” solutions to global collective action problems. We develop a theory to explain when states and intergovernmental organizations are likely to engage in orchestration, and we provide initial support for this theory with a new dataset of transnational climate governance initiatives and case studies of two of the most active orchestrators, the World Bank and the United Kingdom.     

Women's human rights in a changing climate: highlighting the distributive effects of climate policies

A women's rights perspective can inform and structure research on climate policy impacts on women. To date, climate policy analysis has mostly considered women as agents of climate protection, that is, objects of mitigation policies, rather than subjects in their own right. However, climate change mitigation involves direct and indirect distributive effects depending on which sectors are involved, which instruments are chosen and how funds are obtained and allocated. Since gender roles impact on individual livelihoods and activities, distributive effects are likely to be gendered. This paper suggests that women's human rights can be used as a framework for research aiming to fill this gap. They provide a well-developed, tested range of criteria for gender justice. Such assessments would allow for a more systematic and comprehensive understanding of the gendered distributive effects of climate policies, notably with regard to the particularly understudied situation in the industrialized world.     

19世纪俄罗斯的文化反思与文化自觉

按照洛特曼的文化对话机制,当两种异质文化接触和交流时,接受者接受外来文化通常要经过五个阶段。而且,要使对话能够进行,需要具备一系列条件。18世纪从彼得大帝开始俄罗斯拉开了与西方文化广泛交流的序幕,这个时期是俄罗斯接受外来文化的第一阶段。到了19世纪反法战争的胜利使俄罗斯人的民族意识和个人意识空前觉醒,这样一个特定的历史年代是文化发展的大好契机,俄罗斯民族抓住了这一契机,贵族精英阶层进行了深刻的文化反思进而达到实践的文化自觉,促成了19世纪俄罗斯文化的高涨,迎来了俄罗斯文化的黄金时代。这是俄罗斯接受外来文化的中间阶段,也是关键阶段。从此,俄罗斯文化开始走向世界,成为世界文化的有机组成部分。这是洛特曼所说的文化接受的最后一个阶段。     

苏里南——文化多元化的缩影

苏里南是一个既年轻又古老的国家。目前,在全球化进程越来越快的大环境和本国力求更好地适应大环境以求发展的情况下,苏里南逐渐融入整个世界大文化中,形成了具有"苏里南特色"的多元文化。这种文化现象不仅仅只发生在苏里南,当今的许多亚、非、拉国家正经历着与苏里南相似或相同的过程,因此,深入探讨和研究苏里南社会的文化现象具有借鉴意义。本文从苏里南的人口、族群的构成、土著人对本国历史的影响、苏里南语言的形成及目前国内存在的宗教问题等诸方面,从社会学的角度分析了苏里南在经历了几百年的西方殖民统治之后的国家概念的重要性及由此产生的重大影响。20世纪后半叶苏里南取得独立,之后发生的社会变化、目前存在的社会问题及应采用何种方式解决这些社会问题,应引起广泛关注。     

Exploring the Cultural Mechanics of Social Inequality and Global Cultural Interdependence

This article illustrates the role that General Studies courses in the Humanities can play in educating students about the complex dynamics by which cultural production may reflect, support, or change social structures, issues, and norms, through the specific examples of two English courses offered for General Studies credit at MSU Denver: “Monsters and Monstrosity” and “Vampire Films.” Grounded in a cultural-criticism approach to textual analysis, the courses read monsters as symbolic keys to the cultures that produce them. The terrifying and repulsive qualities of monsters invariably operate on the boundary between self and other. As an abject Other, the monster serves to reinforce our sense of what is different/non-normative/threatening, and the stamp of monstrosity legitimizes cultural bias, often perpetuating social marginalization and inequality.     

American evangelicals and domestic versus international climate policy

Because a significant portion of the American electorate identify themselves as evangelical Christians, the evangelical position on climate policy is important to determining the role the United States could play in global climate cooperation. Do evangelicals oppose all climate policies, or are they particularly opposed to certain types of policies? We argue that American evangelicals oppose climate policy due to their distrust of international cooperation and institutions, which has been a prominent feature of evangelical politics since the beginning of the Cold War. Using data from the 2011 Faith and Global Policy Challenges survey and the 2010 Chicago Council Global View survey, we find support for the theory. Evangelicals are equally likely to support domestic climate policy as other Americans, but they are significantly less likely to support international treaties on climate cooperation. The findings suggest that proponents of climate policy could win more evangelicals to their side by focusing on domestic action, instead of multilateral negotiations or international institutions.     

印度文化精神探析

印度文化虽以其多元复杂性著称,但印度文化本身具有完整的文化形式,是一种具有自身一贯性追求的文化范式。印度文化精神可以概括为和谐精神、出世精神和包容精神。     

李光耀的文化认同与新加坡现代化的文化选择

董淮平先生的《李光耀在新加坡现代化初期的文化认同》一文,认为在新加坡现代化初期即60-70年代,贯穿于李光耀思想中的文化认同,与他近年在国际论坛上阐述的“亚洲价值观”的文化内涵是极为不同的,意即李光耀对新加坡现代化初期与后期的文化认同是不一样的。本文认为,这种观点值得商榷,并从不同角度阐述了李光耀的文化认同是一贯性而非断裂性。     

Because of Cultural Confidence

正This year marks the 25~(th) anniversary of the founding of Chinese Culture Promotion Society,as well as the 25~(th) anniversary of my serving in it.The missions of the Society mainly include"promote Chinese culture"and"enhance international communication".Reviewing the efforts made by the Society over the past 25 years in the above two aspects,as a civil organization,     

Glasnost and the emotional climate in eastern Europe

The year 1989 was as historic for Europe as 1848. The countries of Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania had disappeared from the emotional calendar of Western nations. But the people in what was erroneously called Eastern Europe were hurting because of their ostracism from Europe. Under glasnost, they showed, expressed, and acted upon their hurt. The actors were the youth and the artists. Glasnost has revealed what is best and worst in the traditions of these countries.     

Creating the climate for conflict resolution in communities

Book reviewed in this article:
Roger Fisher and Scott Brown , Getting Together: Building Relationships that Get to YES
Susan L. Carpenter and W.J. D. Kennedy , Managing Public Disputes: A Practical Guide to Handling Conflict and reaching Agreements
Lawrence Susskind and Jeffrey Cruikshank , Breaking the Impasse: Consensual Approaches to Resolving Public Disputes     

Publishing for social change

This is the text of a talk given at a conference for Publishing for Social Change in Oxford. It explores the effect of literature on political consciousness.     

中、日、韩文化交流与东亚文化产业

中、日、韩 3国拥有不同的政治与经济制度、意识形态和价值观念 ,安全对话尤其是文化对话很有必要。当前 ,“日剧”、“韩流”风行中国 ,而“汉风”在日韩也渐成风气。 3国应以和合精神为基本理念 ,共同推进文化产业的发展。