American Grand Strategy in a World at Risk

If there is no single long-standing American grand strategy, one nonetheless sees through the course of U.S. history the tracks of a grand strategy. It started with the idea of a U.S. monopoly in the Western Hemisphere, along with balances of power in the chief theaters of the world; with belief in the primacy of sea and air power and the need for an economic system to support these; and the objective of transforming international politics. Since 9/11, even if the strategic hierarchy, intensity, and political basis have changed, the Bush administration has largely been continuing in this same project, with a sensible strategy but poorly considered tactics.     

《独闯非洲高山王国》序

去年7月,在我抵达马塞卢的第6天,尚未递交国书,就接待了一位特殊的客人--梁子.听说她要独自到海拔3000米的德拉肯斯堡山里采访,我既高兴,又不免有几分担心.高兴的是,通过梁子的笔和照相机镜头,莱索托这块美丽的土地及其纯朴善良的巴苏陀民族不久将会被呈现在中国读者的面前,这将是在我国出版的第一本有关莱索托的书,那种在书架上只能找到有关莱索托只言片语的状况终于要打破了.     

俄罗斯“政治女强人”马特维延科

随着2008年3月俄罗斯总统大选日期的日益临近，有关普京未来接班人的问题也越发引起国际社会的高度关注。在众多潜在接班人中，唯一一位“穿裙子的男人”显得尤为突出，她就是俄罗斯政治女强人、圣彼得堡市长瓦莲京娜·马特维延科。     

印度女性社会地位探析

印度政府长期致力于从经济、政治、法律等各方面促进女性发展，从为女性创造一个良好的外部发展环境、帮助女性在经济上获得独立、消除性别歧视等方面入手，使女性参与社会经济活动的人数和经济活动的范围都在不断扩大。尽管如此，印度女性在发展进程中还存在着种种问题和挑战。     

Collective Bargaining in the Twenty-First Century: A Negotiations Institution at Risk

Collective bargaining, a core social institution, faces a fundamental transformational challenge. National survey data provide unique insights into the current status of the bargaining process — revealing challenges and opportunities. Awareness and use of interest-based bargaining principles is widespread but complicated by underlying tensions between labor and management. The findings illustrate the value of conducting an institutional-level analysis of a negotiations process.     

When a Man Meets a Woman: Comparing the Use of Negativity of Male Candidates in Single- and Mixed-Gender Televised Debates

Much work has been done to analyze the consequences of the increasing representation of women in politics. Usually, this research compares male and female politicians from a female perspective. For instance, many studies in political communication investigate how and why female candidates show campaign styles similar to or different from their male colleagues. In contrast to this, few studies are interested in how men change their behavior when women enter the political arena. Some of these studies have demonstrated that men limit their negativity when confronted with female candidates. Unfortunately, these analyses focus predominantly on (a) the United States and (b) gender differences in campaign advertising. We seek to provide empirical evidence for non-U.S. campaigns from the most important single campaign events: televised debates. To do so, we analyze data covering all German televised debates broadcast since 1997 where male politicians participated in a two-candidate single- or mixed-gender debate. Our results indicate that the gender of the political opponent affects incivility but not the use of attacks in general. In mixed-gender debates there is less incivility. However, differences in the treatment of male and female opponents tend to decline over time. We conclude that female candidates transform campaign communication—not only because they communicate differently from men, but also because they influence male politicians’ political communication.     

美国站在战略十字路口

“9·11事件”是冷战结束后最具标志性的事件。值此“9·11”五周年之际,《现代国际关系》编辑部举办了“‘9·11’以来国际形势变化与中国外交”专题研讨会,邀请在京二十余位国际问题专家就五年来的国际形势变化、反恐形势、当前国际体系中的深层矛盾、大国关系的调整、国际格局的演变趋势、美国反恐的得与失、美国国际地位及实力的升与降、中国国际地位与国际战略等问题进行了深入分析和探讨。现将与会专家学者的主要观点辑录刊发,以期对读者把握国际战略形势及理解中国对外战略有所裨益。     

印度现代化进程中的社会风险问题及其治理研究

在世界风险社会形成的今天,任何一个国家都被迫直面现代性或第二次现代性所带来的巨大压力。与其他国家相比,印度所面临的风险环境带有更为复杂的多重特征。作为国情类似的后发国家,将印度与中国的社会风险状况进行比较,无疑会对印度的社会现实获得更为清晰的认识和判断。在此基础上,本文建议从法制、信息化管理、人口就业政策、社会机制、国际安全合作等方面对印度现行制度框架进行调整,为印度这样一个社会结构特殊的国家早日迈入现代化提供一个风险治理的视角。     

U.S. at a Crossroads

On the fifth anniversary of September 11, there are many subjects deserving comment. Here I focus on one issue, the problem of the United States. The world today appears more unstable and uncertain than it was five years ago. This is not surprising, given that the U.S. stands at a strategic crossroads. My judgment is based on the following three arguments:     

Risk,responsibility and roles redefined: is counterterrorism a corporate responsibility?

This article discusses the role of the private company in the fight against terrorism. It argues that the private company has become politically important to counterterrorism efforts, but the economic logic guiding the risk thinking of private companies is hardly compatible with the aim of providing national security. By examining whether and in what manner the risk of terrorism is considered a corporate responsibility, the article seeks to answer whether and how the political role ascribed to the company finds any resonance in the risk practice of private companies. The article approaches this question by examining how Danish food and infrastructural companies conceptualize the relationship between terrorism risks and corporate responsibility. It demonstrates that a distinction between safety and security discursively facilitates an exclusion of national security concerns from the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and thereby works to deresponsibilitize the company in the fight against terrorism.     

Empowerment at village level through a workshop method

This article describes the activities and lessons learned of a 2-day workshop held in Sheikhupura District in Punjab, Pakistan. The project aim was to strengthen primary health care and to include the community in health development. The pilot program established Village Health Committees (VHCs) to promote local participation. Villagers decided that VHCs should be representative of the community. The community elected traditional birth attendants, teachers, holy men, and village activists. Workshops were held with VHCs in order to provide basic concepts of community awareness, organization, and development. Each workshop included 3-4 VHCs. Groups were comprised of up to 6 people. Workshops were held near villages and had access to lavatories. The workshop aims were identified throughout individual sessions and linked with each other. Facilitators kept discussions relevant, objective, and interesting. Participants introduced each other, which provided an opportunity to establish comfort and trust. Initial discussions centered on health issues that were introduced as interrelated. The health system issues was related to the village situation. Participants were asked to develop a health system model. The aim of the sessions was to reinforce the importance of the role of community. An exercise was conducted to illustrate the importance of dialogue and collective work. Participants discussed the nature of community organization and means of development, threats to the village, and empowerment. The workshops created awareness of the process of community involvement in development and were ongoing.     

Working at the intersection—a story from Australia

Conceived by nurses in the hospital of a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, and inspired by Norwegian People's Aid, the international aid agency of the Australian trade unions was designed to give a genuine material base to solidarity with national liberation struggles. Bridging the difficult division in Australian labour politics between the Catholic right and the social democratic and pro‐Moscow lefts, Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad (now Union Aid Abroad APHEDA) was able to channel funds from unions and the Australian government to agriculture, health, and vocational training projects in many countries in the South. Unlike most counterpart organisations in Europe and the USA, its earlier partners were rarely trade unions. Only recently has APHEDA directly supported trade union training in Cambodia, East Timor, and Indonesia, under pressure from Australian unions, who see workers' rights in neighbouring countries as crucial to their own fate. Yet unions in advanced capitalist countries don't spontaneously understand the humanitarian and development needs of countries, such as Papua New Guinea, where waged workers are a small minority of the population. Unionisation is only one part of the solution. The April 2000 Durban congress of the ICFTU called for trade unions to ‘organise the unorganised’, such as informal‐sector workers, and to build alliances with NGOs and civil society around shared values. As a trade union NGO, APHEDA is located in the middle of a challenging intersection. Mandated to educate Australian workers on globalisation issues, APHEDA finds itself often more partisan than other international development NGOs in Australia, sometimes more circumspect. With attacks on union rights and the increasing share of the Australian aid budget delivered through private companies, APHEDA faces decisions about its independence, alliances, direction, and sustainability.     

CAFIU Delegation Attends a Consultation with NGOs at UN Headquarter

正On 22 June 2018,Deputy Secretary-General Liu Kaiyang led a CAFIU delegation to attend a consultation with NGOs at the UN headquarter in New York.Initiated by the UN Economic and     

风险预期加大中的调整与稳定--析新世纪初期国际金融形势

20世纪最后一年国际金融的发展状况对新世纪的国际金融发展趋势具有重要的影响.尤其是作为主导和影响全球的重要一极--美国金融趋势与风险对国际金融格局乃至发展趋势更具较大的作用;加之美国经济处于硬着陆与软着陆的争论之中,金融风险的压力更为沉重,但其潜在的优势也使其具有化解危机的能力,而不确定性、不明朗性的趋势将会加大国际金融波动与调整的压力.随着国际金融危机的加剧与缓解过程,国际金融的地位与作用日益上升,对世界经济,乃至政治的影响正在加大.因此,预测国际金融前景,对于把握世界经济与政治的脉搏具有重要意义.     

Political Risk: The Institutional Dimension

The argument developed in this paper is that the political arrangements and institutions that help leaders stay in office are not necessarily the ones that promote economic growth and prosperity. Indeed political leaders can remain in office more securely by rewarding the groups that keep them in power with privileged access to public resources. The net result is that the leadership remains in office but at the price of poor economic performance. It is not that the consequences of mismanaging the economy are unforeseen; rather the increased chances of an economic crisis are an acceptable price to pay if it means avoiding a political crisis which challenges the leaders' hold on power. Political survival, not peace and prosperity, is what determines the choice of policies. In this way bad economics can be good politics. The principal hypothesis addressed is that the smaller the size of the winning coalition the more the leadership depends on distributing private goods to the coalition members in order to purchase their loyalty, and, therefore the greater is the level of political risk. The ultimate effects of coalition size and the corruption attending the competition for private goods are the reduction of foreign direct investment per capita. These hypotheses were tested in a three stage least squares (3SLS) simultaneous estimation. The results generally supported the theoretical expectations.     

Between a croc and a herd place: Battle at Kruger and nature interpretation

Abstract

The article examines the popular YouTube clip Battle at Kruger and its National Geographic spin-off Caught on safari: The battle at Kruger. In seeking to account for the clip's popularity and National Geographic's motivations for making the hour-long feature, the author draws on the burgeoning studies of wildlife film in an effort to contextualise this new ‘eye-witness’ approach within the traditions of documentary films focusing on nature – particularly animals. Furthermore, do the clip and its online popularity suggest a new direction for wildlife documentary in an age of increasingly advanced filming technologies and digital broadcast platforms?     

Risk Aversion in International Relations Theory

When international relations writers use the idea of risk aversion, they either leave it undefined or cite the economics conception, that the decision-maker has a concave utility function for the goal. However, in the international context the goal is typically not money or any other objectively measurable quantity, and in this case the concept of concavity is meaningless. This article gives two definitions of risk aversion that are "non-metric" in the sense that they do not require such a quantity. The first, comparative risk aversion , specifies the relative degree of aversion but does not specify a zero point. The second concept, multiattribute risk aversion , does the reverse, separating risk-averters from risk-seekers in an absolute sense without making comparisons within each group. The arguments imply significant revisions of work on historical case studies using prospect theory and Fearon's categorization of rationalist explanations for war. It indicates that countries might be unable to negotiate their way out of a war because certain kinds of disputes, especially those over symbols or religious places, often generate risk-seeking behavior.