中印战略合作:双方共赢,世界受益

2008年1月13日-15日,印度总理辛格对中国进行了国事访问,这是他就任总理以来第一次访问中国,亦是印度总理时隔5年后的首度访华.正如中国国家主席胡锦涛在15日与其会见时所言:"这次访问虽然时间不长,但是内容充实,成果显著.     

Transnational processes,development studies and changing social hierarchies in the world system: A Central American case study

Globalisation is bringing about changes in social hierarchies in the world capitalist system which traditional categories and frameworks in development studies and macro-sociologies are unable to capture. Under globalisation processes of uneven accumulation are unfolding in accordance with a social and not a national logic. The increasing subordination of the logic of geography to that of production and the rising disjuncture between the fortunes of social groups and of nation-states, among other processes, demand that we rethink development. The social configuration of space can no longer be conceived in the nation-state terms that development theories posit but rather as processes of uneven development denoted primarily by social group rather than territorial differentiation. Social polarisation, the fragmentation of national economies, and the select integration of social groups into transnational networks, suggest that development may be reconceived not as a national process, in which what 'develops' is a nation, but in terms of developed, underdeveloped and intermediate population groups occupying contradictory or unstable locations in a transnational environment. The shift to flexible accumulation worldwide and from an international to a global division of labour result in an increasing heterogeneity of labour markets in each locale. Labour market participation becomes a key determinant of new social hierarchies and of development conceived in social groups terms. Local and national labour markets are themselves increasingly transnationalised, part of a global labour market, in which differentiated participation determines social development. This article applies these propositions to a case study of Central America, examining the changing fortunes of one particular region under global capitalism and the lessons it offers for changing social hierarchies in the world capitalist system and for a renewal of the sociology of development.     

Territorial changes and changing identities: how spatial identities are used in the up-scaling of local government in the Netherlands

This article analyses the use of local identities by local communities in two Dutch municipalities. This research was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior to better understand the role of local identities in municipal amalgamations. This article develops a conceptual framework based on the distinction between a primary identity based on the widely recognised dominant characteristics of the local community, and a secondary identity based on how communities within a municipality have learned over time to deal with these different primary local identities. During an amalgamation, this secondary identity disappears with the old municipality. The disappearance of the protective shield of a secondary identity exposes the underlying primary local identities, and can bring local identities into the centre of the local political debate. They can become more ***inward-oriented and focus more on their historical roots and their differences with others; they ‘thicken’ into resistance identities. In other cases, the secondary identity of a municipality is too weak and indistinct to support the primary local identities. Municipal amalgamation can then help to promote a new more attractive secondary, ‘thin’ regional identity based on a selection of characteristics of established primary local identities.