The expanding galaxy of performing arts: extending theories and questioning practices

This paper introduces the Special Issue on the languages of performing arts and is therefore aimed at designing how the context of the latter can be illuminated by socio-semiotic and multimodal approaches to communication. In this Special Issue, performances and performing arts are described as multimodal semiotic acts that co-deploy a range of semiotic resources to produce and construct meanings across different cultures and ages. Seen as dynamic and interactive processes of meaning-making, their analysis calls for new and multidisciplinary frameworks which are collected in this Special Issue. The introduction gives an overview of these papers and discusses their range of diverse phenomena, both live and recorded, including theatre performances and films, art installations, opera, as well as reading out aloud. By outlining the significance and contribution of different disciplines and fields of studies to the broad area of performance studies, the chapter argues the case for innovative approaches that can extend theories and analyse aesthetic and performative practices in context. With the help of some case studies, it provides guidelines for the reading and interpretation of the several theoretical discussions and practical case studies presented to encourage further multidisciplinary research on these domains.     

The labour of identity: performing identities,performing economies

Recent analyses of workplace organization have stressed that the self-identify of workers constitutes a key resource in new regimes of accumulation. Morever, this significance of self-identify has been understood to form part of an aestheticization of work since the techniques involved in the performance of identity are widely conceived as aesthetic or cultural practices. However, in this article we suggest that in these assumptions the questions of a person's relation to self-identity and of how the labour or work of identity may contribute to the political organization of production remain hidden. Through looking not just at the kinds of self-identity available to and performed by workers but also at the terms and conditions of their performance. We show that a person's self-identity is a key site of conditions of their performance, we show that per' self-identity is a key site of contestation in the struggle that maps out production. In particular, and through a focus on issues of gender and the body, we illustrate the ways in which workers may be denied authorship of their identities and the ability to claim their identity performances as occupational resources. Our analysis indicates that self-possessing workers with performable identities should not be universalized by theorists of the economic and, moreover, that considerations of the aestheticization of work need to be sensitive to what we term socio-cultural regimes of accumulation in which the implications of particular processes of aestheticization for the relation between self and identity and of both to production are explored rather than assumed.     

学习型党组织的基本特征

建设学习型党组织，是建设马克思主义学习型政党的基础性工程。要完成这一战略任务，首先应明晰学习型党组织的学习特征，这是建设学习型党组织的逻辑前提和题中应有之意。对这个基本特征的概括，应遵循一个重要的指导原则，就是必须符合党的十七届四中全会提出的建设马克思主义学习型政党的总体要求，即四个方面24个字：“科学理论武装、具有世界眼光、善于把握规律、富有创新精神。”     

Governance as a strategy in state-of-nature games

Public choice scholars routinely claim that coercion can be used to solve the social dilemma. However, while social contract theorists have frequently described state-of-nature societies using game theory, they have not used game theory to show how coercive action within such societies can improve outcomes. Here I operationalize the concepts of coercion and governance within a Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) framework; governance is operationalized as coercion to compliance, and to adopt a coercive strategy is to impose a strategy choice upon another player. I show that, under certain conditions, adding governance strategies to a noncoercive one-shot PD game can improve outcomes.     

The evolution of economic institutions as a propagation process

Based on some notions from recent game theoretic approaches to explain the emergence of institutions, a model is put forward which implies some generalizations and extensions. First, the evolution of institutions is interpreted as a diffusion process. This interpretation provides a general formal framework to cover both, the case of strategic and that of non-strategic interaction. Second, different forms of interdependency effects between the individuals involved are identified as making the crucial difference between the case where institutions emerge spontaneously in an unorganized form and the case where they do not.     

Decentralization as a strategy of regime maintenance: The case of Yemen

Proponents of decentralization often argue that decentralization makes governments more accountable and responsive to the governed. This is perhaps why the decentralization literature tends to overlook Middle Eastern regimes as these are among the most authoritarian and most centralized regimes in the world. However, many of these regimes have included decentralization in their legal framework. This article shows how a weak regime can use decentralization as a regime maintenance strategy when formal decentralization reforms strengthens external and internal legitimacy. The articles main argument builds on the literature on decentralization and elite capture to show how weak regimes can use formal decentralization reform to undermine local autonomy. The article uses the case of Yemen to make this argument. Yemen has a long tradition for local bottom-up initiatives and there is widespread internal support for decentralization. Simultaneously, donors have seen decentralization as a way of strengthening the Yemeni state, leading to international support to the formulation of the Local Authority Law of 2000, Law 4/2000, an extensive legal decentralization framework.     

学习型党组织与执政党的社会知识管理能力

创新性地提出社会知识管理能力的新概念,分析了学习型党组织与社会知识管理能力之间的关系,阐述了提高执政党的社会知识管理能力的必要性,结合深圳经验就如何提高党的社会知识管理能力提出了建议。     

Reinventing the central city as a place to live and work

Abstract

Public policies for urban development have traditionally emphasized investment in physical infrastructure, the development of large‐scale commercial facilities, the construction of new housing, and the renewal of existing neighborhoods. Most efforts to revitalize central cities by building new facilities for visitors have focused on suburban commuters and tourists. At the same time, many housing initiatives in central cities have concentrated on low‐income communities because outlying suburban areas have attracted traditional middle‐income households.

This article argues that emerging demographic and cultural trends—combined with changes in the structure of business organizations and technological advances—provide new opportunities for cities to retain and attract middle‐class households. Using gay and lesbian populations as an example, it focuses on the role that nontraditional households can play in urban redevelopment. In light of the rise of nontraditional households and the growth of self‐employment and small businesses, cities should adopt policies that make them attractive places in which to live and work.     

Politicization as a strategy for recognition and enforcement of human rights in Kenya

Drawing from recent advocacy efforts on the right to education in Kenya, this article argues that linking human rights to local political struggles is a useful way of ensuring their realization. Human rights are legal and moral but their realization is a political project. The form that this project takes will differ from context to context. While paying due regard to the remarkable contribution of international human rights regimes and transnational advocacy of the last fifty years in providing the world with a powerful legal and moral vocabulary of rights, this article suggests that this vocabulary risks losing its edge unless those working in the field of human rights recognize the necessity of local politics. The article examines the activities of the Kenyan human rights movement and its strategic linking of access to basic education with repression of political freedoms. I would like to thank participants at the May 9–10, 2003 “Rights in Africa” conference at North-wester University, Illinois, for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Local government and development in a regional city: The case of Iloilo City,Philippines

The development of urban hinterland centres, known as the Regional Cities Development Project (RCDP), is a key strategy applied by the Philippine government to rectify the country's grave regional imbalances. Yet RCDP has not markedly altered the distorted demographic, spatial and economic growth patterns of the Philippines. Unlike the sizeable body of literature which mainly explains failures of the ‘growth centre approach’ by economic factors emanating from the metropolis-periphery relationship, this study places greater emphasis on politico-administrative factors that affect regional city development. The article demonstrates that regional city development in Iloilo City–one of four Philippine secondary centres selected as RCDP sites–is impeded by an elitist, conservative local oligarchy, excessive patronage politics, severe financial constraints, limited managerial capabilities, a low degree of local autonomy, over-politicization and the impact of an adverse economic environment. Following an in-depth analysis of the politico-administrative culture of Iloilo City, the authors present suggestions that in the long run may positively affect the city's developmental path.     

The governance institutions of a drug trafficking organization

How do drug trafficking organizations organize? Drug trafficking organizations continue to operate effectively despite incentives for members to defect, pressure from damaged communities, and government interdiction efforts. This paper identifies the problem of defection in this context and applies insights from the literatures on club goods and extralegal governance institutions to explain the puzzling organization and activities of one of Mexico’s most dangerous drug trafficking organizations, La Familia Michoacana. The group uses a reward and punishment scheme to prevent defection from members and to elicit cooperation from the community and government.     

The quest for a better performing health system: Public expertise and corporate management recipes in France

Though the government pledged to cut the public deficit from 7.7% of the gross domestic product in 2010 to 3% by 2013, thereby responding to EU Normative power, health expenditures continue to rise, because public demands are higher and more social problems are handled in the health care setting. With French budget deficit threatening France's credit rating, novel instruments were needed. These included corporate management recipes (e.g., pay for performance contracts, patient volume targets, and management by objectives), new compensation mechanisms (e.g., activity‐based accounting and a nationwide scale of health care costs) and far‐reaching laws (e.g., the 2009 HPST bill). Our approach investigates some critical elements of the French health care system. We focus on primary (e.g., family physicians and General Practitioners) and secondary (e.g., hospital and specialty) care. We explore how policies such as the standardization of health services, the regrouping of health policy decisions within the larger Regional Health Agencies, affected citizens' engagement and physicians' autonomy. A French welfare elite pursued a hybrid strategy, regulating quasi‐markets of care providers in a postcompetitive government, while creating supportive conditions for a vibrant private hospital sector. Reforms also emphasized evidenced‐based policy, outputs‐rather than outcome‐measurement, and performance evaluation in a bid to streamline the delivery of health services.     

Self-exclusion as a strategy of inclusion: the case of Shas

Among the many paradoxes of Israeli politics, there are the strategies of political inclusion used by organizations and parties representing groups that reject the universalism which Israeli democracy is heir to. This paper develops a model of ‘political inclusion Israeli-style’, illustrated by one party, Shas, which since 1984 proclaims itself the voice of the socially and culturally excluded Sephardi population of north African and Middle Eastern Jews, who represent over 40% of the Jewish population. Shas is also a movement of religious and ethnic revival which, by adopting a social strategy of self-exclusion grounded in strict religious observance, and of independence vis-à-vis established Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox politics, has gained 11 out of 120 Knesset seats, inclusion in government, and control over a share of educational and welfare expenditure. The paper raises the issue whether such less-than-perfectly universalistic practices are not a variety of corporatism and possibly, for the parties concerned, a more effective strategy of incorporation than the classic social democratic path.     

Going once, going twice, sold! The committee assignment process as an all-pay auction

I analyze the committee assignment process as an all-pay auction and derive equilibrium lobbying strategies of legislators competing for vacant seats on a committee. The model illustrates the relationship between sincere and revealed preferences, which earlier formal models of committee assignment do not explicitly consider. Incorporating seniority, party loyalty, effort constraints, or committee transfers can discourage those who highly value the assignment from competitively lobbying for the seat. I also offer an alternative interpretation of the model’s parameters to consider the pure partisan assignment model, where efforts are contributions to the party’s collective good.     

试论“桂林抗战文化城”之现今价值与意义

"桂林抗战文化城"在抗战时期成为一道耀眼的景观,而在今天,它仍然具有当下的价值与意义。主要从再现辉煌历史成就、成为城市响亮名片以及提供参考借鉴三个方面对"桂林抗战文化城"所具有的当下意义进行探讨,以期对"桂林抗战文化城"之现今价值与意义有一个正确的认识,并将其所具有的精神及现代意义用于桂林未来发展与建设。     

非营利组织志愿者的管理与开发

志愿者是现实社会生活中重要的社会资源，也是非营利组织中最具特色的人力资源。随着非营利组织的发展壮大，志愿者在中国社会中的价值越来越明显。但由于各种原因，非营利组织志愿者管理问题日益突出，成为非营利组织可持续发展的难题之一。因此，加强对非营利组织的志愿者管理与开发研究，不仅具有理论价值，更具有极强的现实意义。     

Photographing Handsworth: photography,meaning and identity in a British inner city

ABSTRACT

‘If you say “Handsworth”’, the novelist Salman Rushdie remarked in 1986, ‘what do you see? Most people would see fire, riots, looted shops … and helmeted cops … a front page story.’ In the 1980s, ‘front page’ images of violence and disorder had come to define areas of black settlement such as Handsworth. However, for both Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy, photography has the potential of unearthing alternative histories of black people in Britain. Connell explores how this might work in practice by taking Handsworth, an inner-city area of Birmingham, as its case study. Following the Handsworth riots in 1985, a photograph of the ‘black bomber’ appeared on the front page of every national tabloid newspaper, and Handsworth became conceptualized by the media as ‘Frontline Britain’. At the same time, there are numerous examples of photographs from within Handsworth that attempt to present a different view of the community: images taken at high-street portraiture studios, community photography projects and the documentary work of the professional photographers Vanley Burke and Pogus Caesar. What such images offer the historian, it will be shown, is not clear cut. Photographs from within Handsworth are suggestive of possible themes in any alternative history of race in Britain, particularly in their emphasis on everyday life. However, Connell shows that it is also necessary to understand what is often the unacknowledged politics behind these images, something that makes them—in differing ways—as problematic as the stereotypical narratives presented on the front pages of tabloid newspapers.     

The challenges and opportunities of implementing the integrity pact as a strategy for combating corruption in Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta region

In recent years, significant local and transnational concerted initiatives have been instituted to curb the incidence of corruption that has undermined socio‐economic development in Nigeria. Drawing on the critiques of such initiatives, and the experience from the process of implementing the Integrity Pact in the Niger Delta Development Commission, this article suggests that the Integrity Pact in principle offers real opportunities that can both reinforce and complement existing anti‐corruption initiatives in Nigeria's public sector. However, political instability, lack of continuity in civil service leadership and limited capacity are core challenges that confront the successful implementation and institutionalisation of the Integrity Pact as a means of fighting corruption and meeting sustainable development objectives in the Niger Delta. The article concludes by considering the implications of the findings for the fight against corruption in Nigeria. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competitive analysis,structure and strategy in politics: a critical approach

• This article begins by arguing that the structure of the political market differs significantly from business markets and that, consequently, the prescribed strategies from ‘traditional’ marketing theory are not always appropriate in politics.
• Then the military metaphor is applied to the political market and its ability to illuminate competitive strategy in this market is explored. Particular attention is paid to the interaction of direct and indirect strategies in politics over the lifecycle of a parliament.
• The relevance of military principles in implementing the strategies identified is then considered. The paper concludes with a wider discussion of the limitations of the military/competitive model as applied to politics and a general indication of how a more comprehensive competitive model might be created.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.