The human factor in technology transfer

Over the past thirty years developing countries have imported product and information technologies. Despite receiving billions of dollars in products and information, many third world countries are now poorer than 30 years ago. One possible explanation for the failure of technology to transfer effectively is the human dimension--the threat of that technology to the receiving organization's internal status structure. To increase the likelihood of successful technology transfer the following suggestions are offered: seek alternative problem definitions; allow decisionmaking latitude at the most problematic point using appropriate technology; restructure the system prior to introducing the technology.     

From failed states to fragile cities: redefining spaces of humanitarian practice

It has become commonplace to claim that cities are becoming conflict zones, or ‘war zones’. This article traces some of the discursive and conceptual shifts that made it possible to define the city as a new frontier for international humanitarian action in states of the Global South. In order to represent cities as humanitarian spaces, concepts of ‘failure’ and ‘fragility’ have been problematised and subjected to reinterpretations that legitimised new strategies applied to the urban realm. I argue that this re-scaling of humanitarian practices enables a de-coupling and inclusion of so called new ‘urban conflicts’ in strategies of global liberal governance. Moving from failed states to fragile cites is a key development to understand changes in the practices that redefine humanitarian spaces today. The definition of urban violence as a new type of conflict informs a new cycle of expansion of the humanitarian order focused on the city. The article analyses the problematisation of concepts of failure and fragility as a decisive move to redefine the boundaries of humanitarian spaces.     

The national factor in Ukraine's quadruple transition

Studies of post-communist transition in central and eastern Europe initially focused on democratization and marketization as the key pillars of transition, drawing parallels with the experiences of southern Europe and Latin America in their emergence from authoritarianism. Whilst some authors have also added a third factor-that of 'stateness', this article argues that post-Soviet transition, in particular, is not a triple transition, but a quadruple one, because nationhood and nationalism should also be added. This article discusses the centrality of nationhood to liberal democracy and then applies this to post-Soviet Ukraine, by investigating its inherited Soviet legacy and the quadruple transition it is undertaking as an independent state.     

The state of politics in Africa: The corporatist factor

In the past decade, studies of thestate in Africa have either suggested its pervasiveness in both political and economic life or have concentrated on its nonrepresentative (i.e., undemocratic) nature and its dependence on foreign capital for its survival. This study adopts a different reasoning. It suggests that thestate in African countries should be viewed as grappling with problems of managing society within the context of underdevelopment, a task that is increasingly becoming more difficult given the recurring economic crises on the continent. Politics ofcorporatist organization thus become an attractive option for the state to express its authority and attempt to legitimize its existence.     

In-between anarchy and interdependence: from state death to fragile and failing states

International relations scholars concede a vital role for anarchy in structuring state behaviour towards survival. Anarchy provides strong incentives for power-maximising behaviour, since states that do not act accordingly risk death by conquest. This assumption raises an important question: if international anarchy is pervasive, leading to processes where only the fit survive, how do we explain the survival of fragile and failing states? Under conditions of self-help such states should be tempting targets, yet these vulnerable states avoid death by conquest. Fragile and failing states survive because international order is based on a sovereignty regime backed by major powers. International order is more salient than anarchy and provides better vantage points to understand the absence of state death. Elements of international order, like the relational hierarchies between dominant and subordinate states, no longer tolerate state death. This largely explains the survival of fragile and failing states.     

"新自由主义"思潮和"美国因泰"

观察和研究国际问题,可以有多个"切入点".在现代国际关系和国际政治的研究中,有两个"点"是不能忽视的,这就是"新自由主义"思潮和"美国因素".     

The personal and the factor distributions of income in a cross-section of countries

The shares of capital and labour in national income vary substantially both over time and across countries. This paper shows that the factor distribution of income is an essential determinant of the personal distribution of income. We use cross-country and panel data for a group of developed and developing countries to show that a larger labour share is associated with a lower Gini coefficient of personal incomes. This effect is not only statistically significant but also economically important. An increase in the labour share in Mexico to that observed in the US would reduce the Gini coefficient of the former by between two and five points.     

The age factor in language practices and attitudes: continuity and change in Ukraine's bilingualism

This article analyzes inter-cohort differences and intra-cohort changes in language proficiencies, use patterns and attitudes in a society undergoing a radical political and cultural transformation. My analysis focuses on Ukraine, a country with an asymmetrical bilingualism where the new independent state mildly promotes the titular language but the formerly dominant Russian maintains an active presence in most social domains and individual repertoires. While confirming earlier findings on the small scale of age differences, this study detects the end of the inter-cohort shift toward Russian. Another important finding is that the apparent continuity with a slow drift toward the titular language in Ukraine as a whole conceals two radically different developments in the two geographical “halves” of the country. The study demonstrates an advantage of combining a synchronic analysis of inter-cohort differences with a diachronic analysis of intra-cohort changes.     

The impact of direct trade controls and an overvalued exchange rate on factor proportions in manufacturing

This paper is an analysis of certain aspects of manufacturing development under a regime of import and foreign exchange controls, where such controls are accompanied by an overvalued exchange rate. The analytical framework is a modification of the ‘effective rate of protection’ analysis. The argument proceeds from the fact that the overvalued rate represents a subsidy on imported capital equipment and intermediate goods. Two implications are drawn from the analysis. First and most important, the subsidy on imported intermediate goods will exacerbate the oft‐noted tendency of import‐substitute industry to take the form of ‘processing and packaging’ operations with minimal domestic value added. Second, the subsidy on imported capital equipment will give entrepreneurs an incentive to substitute imported capital equipment for domestic labour.     

The public valuation of religion in global health governance: spiritual health and the faith factor

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the role of religion is evaluated in global health institutions, focusing on policy debates in the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank. Drawing on Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s pragmatist approach to justification, I suggest that religious values are creative and worldly performances. The public value of religion is established through a two-pronged justification process, combining generalizing arguments with particularizing empirical tests. To substantiate the claim that abstraction alone does not suffice to create religious values in global public health, I compare the futile attempts of the 1980s to add ‘spiritual health’ to the WHO’s mandate with the more recent creation of a ‘faith factor’ in public health. While the vague reference to some ‘Factor X’ inhibited the acceptance of spiritual health in the first case, in the second case, ‘compassion’ became a measurable and recognized religious value.     

Land consolidation as a factor for rural development in Moldova

This article draws on data from several recent surveys in Moldova to examine the question of land consolidation within the process of agrarian reform. It suggests that larger individually owned farms produce higher family incomes than smaller ones and thus farm augmentation makes a positive contribution to the well being of the rural population. Also, for farms of a given size, productivity increases as the number of parcels decreases. The article then proceeds to discuss the actual use of various market mechanisms for land consolidation, including leasing as well as buying and selling of land. According to various surveys, farms with leased land are in fact larger than farms that rely on owned land only. The article argues that land consolidation leads to better economic performance, while land leasing is actually used as a market mechanism for consolidation, which benefits both lessees, through increased farm incomes, and lessors, through income from lease payments for their land.     

现代传媒是政党生存和发展的重要条件

现代传媒体现了社会信息化的程度,是社会信息化的重要标志之一.作为人们社会生产生活中无所不在的一种重要力量,现代传媒在社会进步和全球化中的作用越来越突出,已成为人类生存发展必不可少的条件.对各国政党,特别是对执政党而言,如何处理好自己与现代传媒之间的关系,如何发挥其作用,日显重要.     

对青少年离家出走现象中家庭因素的个案分析

青少年离家出走的原因是多方面的,有社会因素也有青少年心理的内部原因,而家庭教育方式和家庭环境是主要影响因素。本文通过两个个案的家庭成长环境,从家庭心理气氛、家庭角色、家庭教养方式和家庭教育观念角度透视青少年离家出走现象,并对家庭怎样对待离家出走归来的青少年提出了建议。