Environmental management as a third-world problem

Of the three major sources of environmental deterioration — CFCs, carbon dioxide, and deforestation and land degradation — only the first two can be eased by industrial policies alone. The second and third also require changes in mass behavior, especially in pre-industrial countries. In order to encourage action on the part of their governments, international agencies have supported the preparation of more than fifty country environmental profiles. The next steps will require a careful analysis of current direct and indirect policies influencing human behavior toward the environment. This article describes the ‘policy environment of environmental policies’ in third-world countries and suggests a strategy for creating a coherent body of incentives to motivate environment-supporting public behavior.     

The policy movement as a policy problem

The policy movement is unified by a common interest in the improvement of policy decisions through scientific inquiry. The movement is differentiated, however, because this common interest is highly ambiguous and subject to interpretation from different perspectives. This paper applies a policy sciences perspective to the movement's disappointments over the last few decades, and in particular, the failure to realize earlier aspirations for rational, objective analysis on the more important and controversial policy issues. The paper offers a definition and diagnosis of the underlying problem, and suggests what can be done about it as a matter of individual and collective choice.     

Contending discourses in the electric and magnetic fields controversy: The social construction of EMF risk as a public problem

The issue of adverse health effects from electric and magnetic fields (EMFs) has been brewing for the last decade or so. While the epidemiological evidence persists in linking proximity-to-powerlines to a few forms of cancer, exposure and dose remain undefined, and no clear mechanism of action has been identified. Despite this scientific ambiguity, there are frequent calls for governmental action; and yet, there is no unanimity on what action is appropriate, even among those asserting that something ought to be done. This article analyzes the various ways that the EMF problem has been socially constructed through distinctive forms of public discourse and the sources of contention among these different forms. It should appeal to interpretive policy analysts and to those interested in the valuative assumptions behind policy claims. Those oriented exclusively to the technical side of EMF may find the interpretation offered here somewhat unsettling, however, since it relativizes many of the factual claims surrounding the issue. Attention is also given to the ways that multiple EMF discourses are accommodated in the absence of scientifically conclusive evidence.     

对外汉语教学中的同义词辨析

汉语词汇系统中存在着大量的同义词。对于以汉语为第二语言来学习的外国留学生而言,同义词的辨析则成为他们熟练的掌握和灵活的运用汉语的一大障碍。同义词的辨析重在察异,尤其是汉语中的同义词大多只是存在着细微的差异。能否掌握这些细微的差异,是能否恰当地运用词语的一个重要基础。因此,同义词辨析教学是对外汉语教学中级词汇教学阶段的一个重难点。     

浅谈如何提高二外日语的教学效果

目前,很多英语专业的学生选择把日语作为第二外语,但在学习过程中,却发现存在课时少、重语法轻应用的现象,影响了学习质量。因此,在实际教学中,教师应设法提高学生学习兴趣,改进教学方法,改善教学效果,为学生今后学习和应用日语打下良好的基础。     

White trash: Eugenics as social ideology

She is coeditor of Judge, Lawyer, Victim, Thief: Women, Gender Roles, and Criminal Justice;author of, published by Northeastern University Press, White Trash: The Eugenic Family Studies, 1877–1919,from which this article is adapted with permission; and author also of Partial Justice: Women in State Prisons, 1800–1935.     

The social relations of money as universal equivalent: a response to Ingham

In a recent debate in Economy and Society, Ingham criticized Marxist theory of money on the grounds that it relates money to commodities through the labour theory of value, while ignoring credit money. Ingham suggested instead that money is constituted by social relations characteristic of credit, namely relations of ‘promise to pay’. Drawing on Marx, this article shows that, pace Ingham, it is necessary theoretically to relate money to commodities. Money is indeed constituted by social relations, but these are commercial relations among ‘foreign’ commodity owners, not credit relations. The social relations of money are successfully captured by Marx's concept of the universal equivalent, when that is interpreted as monopoly over the ability to buy. In this light, both commodity and credit money are forms of the universal equivalent, but qualitatively different from each other.     

Economic sanctions as the propositional satisfiability problem

In this paper we are trying to answer the question of when economic sanctions have the best chance to succeed. Almost three hundred scholars from around the world participated in a survey designed to define which pre-conditions and actions by the sender are desirable in order for economic sanctions to succeed. The resolution algorithm is employed to find out whether there is a consensus among the scholars about the factors leading to the success of economic sanctions. The results provide evidence that when scholars were grouped by region the consensus could be reached that sanctions will succeed if: (1) modest policy change is sought, (2) sanctions are comprehensive, i.e., both trade and financial sanctions are imposed, (3) the target does not receive significant support from a third party, (4) the sender has much greater economy than the target, (5) there is international co-operation in the imposition of sanctions, and (6) the target is economically and politically weak and unstable. When scholars were grouped based on the level of economic development of their countries of origin, a consensus on all but one issue (senders welfare or economic interest are threatened by targets action) was reached between scholars from economically developed nations and scholars from less developed nations. Surprisingly, experts from economically developed nations, i.e., the United States versus EU nations, could not reach a consensus on several issues.     

县级政府能力与县域经济社会发展——以云南省的县域经济社会发展为例

县级政府能力与云南省县域经济社会发展是一个双向互动的关系:县级政府能力的强弱及其治理的有效与否决定着县域经济社会的发展水平,反过来,县域经济社会发展水平的高低影响和制约着县级政府能力的有效提升。然而,只有须形成两者相互匹配的作用机制,方可实现云南省县级政府能力的提升与县域经济社会发展两者之间持续的良性互动。     

浅析《论语》对对外汉语教学的启示

随着中国经济的崛起,越来越多的国家开始重视汉语学习,对外汉语教学事业因此得以快速发展,但对外汉语教学质量问题也日益突出。教育思想是提高教学质量的关键,作为中国儒家经典著作之一的《论语》对教育思想有着精辟的见解,因此,随着对外汉语教学的发展,我们不但要研究汉语本身的教学,还应该从传统文化中汲取养料,将传统文化中的教育思想的精髓与当代对外汉语教学结合,促进对外汉语教学事业的蓬勃发展。     

Life space and social networks as political contexts

Based on data collected in the course of the September and November 1980 waves of the National Election Studies, this contextual analysis of interpersonal relations in social networks presents two major findings: First, the neighborhood as a geographical unit does not appear to be a perceptually salient environment for political behavior; and second,particular neighbors, individually linked to a voter, appear to constitute a social network that has an independent impact on partisan affect for the political parties and their candidates as well as on stability or change in vote preferences as the electoral season goes forward. Thus, although the neighborhood appears to be of minor importance as a politicalenvironment, social relations among particular neighbors result in an interpersonalcontext that has an impact on political behavior.This article is being published simultaneously as Chapter 12 in Heinz Eulau,Politics, Self and Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress). Copyright 1986 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.     

The limits of tax and expenditure limits: TEL implementation as a principal-agent problem

Previous scholarship has shown that Tax and Expenditure Limits (TELs) often fail to constrain government growth. This paper views the implementation of TELs as a principal-agent problem. Agency theory predicts that delegation is affected by the preferences of agents and the costs of monitoring those agents. Using panel data for the US states from 1970 through 2008, I conduct an empirical test of the validity of the principal-agent model for TELs. I find that state spending limitations are only effective at cutting the growth of state and local spending under the direction of agents who have a preference for limited government. Additionally, state property tax limitations are only effective when monitoring does not require costly coordinated action. These findings contradict an alternative theory of TEL implementation that looks towards the policy’s origin. My research suggests that the arrangements of delegation determine when and under what conditions TELs effectively reduce government growth.