I Am Not Suharto, or the Shah of Iran

As Malaysia's former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim went on trial on November 2, NPQ editor Nathan Gardels spent the afternoon cross-examining Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad about capital controls and the Anwar case at the prime minister's office in Kuala Lumpur.     

第六届上海“为了孩子”国际论坛会议综述

2007年9月19日，由上海市妇女联合会、上海社会科学院、新民晚报社及华东政法大学主办，上海市法治研究会、上海社科院青少年研究所、上海市家庭教育研究会及华东政法大学青少年法律保护中心等联合承办的第六届上海“为了孩子”国际论坛在上海华亭宾馆隆重举行。     

“和平、发展、稳定与多极化世界”——记首届“中印俄民间和平论坛”

随着全球化的深入发展，民间组织在全球治理中的作用不断加强，在这一趋势下，开展各国民间组织之间的交流与合作，对于探讨和解决全球性问题具有非常重要的意义。而当前全球性金融危机的爆发和蔓延，以及目前地区和全球安全形势的不确定，使得各国之间，特别是力量在不断上升的发展中国家之间有了更明确、更紧迫的合作议题。     

Introduction to global OD,I: extending the North American base

As the label “Global OD, I” intends to imply, the symposium is viewed as the first in a continuing series dealing with applications of the values-cum-technology usually called Organization Development or, more conveniently, OD. This action theory has developed a North American base over the past 3 or 4 decades, and extensions beyond this continent have now grown apace. Illustratively, a survey in the early 1980s found 100 research reports about OD applications, and there appears to have been no let-up. This industriousness will at once feed future Global OD symposia, and derive some direction from them.

The motivation for this series of symposia is direct. Such extensions beyond the North American base will help test OD's reach and grasp, while those theoretical developments and applications also seek to be responsive to significant and serious problems/opportunities on Space Ship Earth. We are all internationalists now, albeit with differing reservations about what we are in the midst of getting ourselves into.

“Global OD, I” models what is to come. This first symposium draws contributors from four continents; and it contains contributions that deal with OD in two modes -- as generic, or as rooted in specific non-North American contexts. This complements a series of symposia of long-standing in the Public Administration Quarterly, which have a strong bias toward domestic OD theory and applications in the public sector. Symposium VI of that series appeared in two parts in two 1993 PAQ numbers.

Specifically, this symposium contains ten contributions. Brief introductions follow.     

促进儿童权利保护与儿童参与—第六届上海“为了孩子”国际论坛宣言

9月19日至9月21日，第六届上海“为了孩子”国际论坛在华亭宾馆隆重举行。来自美国、德国、英国、南非等20多个国家和地区的近500名专家学者以及从事儿童保护的联合国官员，汇聚一堂，围绕“儿童权利保护与社会责任”这一主题展开交流和讨论，经过三天的研讨，论坛一致通过了《促进儿童权利保护和儿童参与》宣言。     

Freedom,Hate, and Violence on the American Right

Most studies on Middle East security focus on traditional threats such as military aggression and terrorism. This draft report examines the scope and dimensions of a broadened regional security agenda. It focuses on three specific issues: the opium trade in Central and Southwest Asia; unregulated population movements from the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and North Africa; and maritime piracy around the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula. Although Washington is not directly affected by any of these "soft" or "grey area" challenges, they are relevant for the United States in at least five respects. First, they represent a subset of the transnational problems that both the Clinton and Bush administrations have emphasized as a growing threat to national and international stability (such as international organized crime, corruption and generalized non-state violence and chaos). Second, they have, in varying degrees, undermined and distorted institutional state capacity, trade and (legitimate) economic growth in a region that is of geostrategic importance to Washington. Third, all carry significant implications for the lives, welfare and safety of ordinary citizens, including Americans. Fourth, in certain instances they have interacted with other sources of political tension to act as an additional catalyst for inter-state hostility and rivalry. Finally, because these challenges cannot be readily deterred by established mechanisms of border security, they necessarily require innovative and novel countermeasures--something that the United States is well placed to facilitate, both by virtue of its resources and global leadership role.     

"和平使命-2005"军演俄军精锐大扫描

中俄于8月18-25日举行了"和平使命-2005"联合军事演习.演习在俄罗斯的符拉迪沃斯托克和中国的山东半岛及其附近海域举行.此次军演是上世纪90年代以来两国规格最高、人员最多和技术含量最大的一次军演,也是两国军事合作的一个标志性事件,反映两国的军事合作到了一个新的层次.     

十年争吵终有"说法"--俄罗斯从格鲁吉亚撤军述评

俄罗斯、格鲁吉亚两国外长5月29日在莫斯科签署联合声明,商定俄将在2008年内自格分阶段撤除军事基地,格则承诺不在其领土部署他国军事基地或军队.至此,困扰两国关系近十年之久的俄驻格军事基地问题,终于在争吵和讨价还价声中落幕,有了一个令双方均能接受的初步"说法".     

相互的责任共同的责任——正析"中国责任论"

中国实行改革开放以来,国民经济实现了长期的持续稳定增长.中国特色社会主义事业更加坚固,中国的国际地位和国际影响力不断提升.西方世界观察中国的心态也是千变万化,时下"威胁论"、"机遇论"、"责任论"并存.     

Reflections on helping I: sustainable development,capacity building and participation

This selection focuses on the useful sense of what “help” means in development context. “Sustainable development is the goal, in sum; this requires the building of both individual and group capabilities; and broad participation is the major vehicle underlying the formation of solid capabilities.

“If you have come to help me you can go home again. But if you see my struggle as part of your own survival then perhaps we can work together.”

-Australian Aborigine Woman⁽¹⁾ (Manila 1991, p. 217)

What does it mean to “help” a person like this Aborigine woman in Australia, -- or a community, or line agency in Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, or here in Calgary? One response to this question might be in terms of the intended outcomes of my “helping”. A second response could be to consider the means I use to help the other move in the direction of their intended outcomes. A third view is to include the concerns for outcomes and process with an interest in the mutual influence of the helper and the helpee on each other during the life of the dialogue.

What are some important influences that shape my view of “helping” at this point, that is, in November 1992? Four forces immediately come to mind: 1) my training in the planned change of human systems, 2) my recently completed involvement for five years with colleagues associated with the Health Development Project in Nepal as we struggled to strengthen the capacity of the government's health-related institutions and rural communities to improve the quality of life of the rural poor; 3) conversations with colleagues at the International Centre like Sheila Robinson and Tim Pyrch who are passionate (and articulate) in their views about development and participation, and 4) my relationship with my wife, Tana, which provides an experiential context for struggling with the issues embedded in the Aborigine woman's comment which introduces these reflections. These forces -- and others which will go unmentioned but are known to those who wrestle with the mysterious undercurrents of life -- have led me to increasingly think of “helping” in terms of three ideas: sustainable development as the ultimate goal of development; capacity building as the appropriate vehicle for pursuing sustainable development; and participation of all appropriate stakeholder groups as partners in the pursuit of sustainable development.

This reflection will clarify several features of my emerging theory of development by getting the jumbled and often incoherent whispers of suggested ideas in my head down on paper.     

"一国两制"的光辉典范——香港回归十周年感言

20世纪90年代非同凡响,世界上上发生了一系列惊天动地、扣人心弦的大事.     

国际政治经济学美英学派的论战——学术分野、国家地位与中国议题

历史传统、学术文化与国际地位的差异导致了国际政治经济学美英学派之间明显的学术分野。英国学派更具有体系与制度的批判精神,美国学派主流理论霸权护持心态较为明显。在2008年爆发的全球金融危机面前,美国学派处于普遍失语状态,而英国学派则给予了及时、建设性的学术反应。中国学术界必须清算美国学派的不适当影响,建立更具广泛性的借鉴性知识体系,提出更多具有创造性的中国议题与中国命题。     

Preventing suicide in prisons, part I. Recommendations from the International Association for Suicide Prevention Task Force on Suicide in Prisons

In 2000 the Department of Mental Health of the World Health Organization (WHO) published a guide named Preventing Suicide. A Resource for Prison Officers as part of the WHO worldwide initiative for the prevention of suicide. In 2007 there are new epidemiological data on prison suicide, a more detailed discussion of risk factors accounting for the generally higher rate of suicide in correctional settings in comparison to the general population, and several strategies for developing screening instruments. As a first step, this paper presents an update of the WHO guide by the Task Force on Suicide in Prisons, created by the International Association for Suicide Prevention. A second paper, by the same Task Force, will present some international comparisons of suicide prevention services in correctional facilities.     

The rise of an anti-politics machinery: peace,civil society and the focus on results in Myanmar

‘Results’, ‘value for money’, ‘effectiveness’ and similar buzzwords have become commonplace in development cooperation and peace building. The use of technical instruments such as project cycle management and evaluations is hardly questioned anymore: these are presented as a minor shift of focus to make current practice more effective. This paper argues that there is far more to this shift: a machinery of practices and institutions has been installed that removes political questions on development or peace from the political realm and places them under the rule of technical experts. Drawing on a Foucauldian understanding of discourse analysis, the paper analyses how this machinery prioritises gradual reform, subjugates other approaches to societal change and reproduces power/knowledge networks in both the global South and North. Based on ethnographic field research in Myanmar, it also explores discursive strategies of local actors and assesses how they are aiming to create spaces to challenge this machinery.     

States of Exception on the Mexico–U.S. Border: Security, "Decisions," and Civilian Border Patrols

Civilian border patrol groups, like the much publicized Minutemen, who engage in the unofficial and unauthorized patrolling of U.S. borders, have proliferated in recent years. They have received an overwhelming amount of press, both national and international, but have garnered very little scholarly attention. In this article, I explore this phenomenon with an eye toward addressing conceptual and theoretical issues raised by the existence and practices of these groups. Specifically, how do we conceptualize civilian border patrol groups in terms of their relationship to statecraft, identity, and security? Do they have implications for the ways in which sovereignty and the political can be understood? I argue that while Carl Schmitt's theory of the political and the Copenhagen School's securitization theory are useful in attempting to understand and theorize the practices of these groups, the case ultimately points to the need for a reexamination of some of Schmitt's concepts including sovereignty and the political. Evidence from this case suggests that we should not limit our understanding of decisions that result in contemporary manifestations of exceptionalism to those controlled by the state or elites. Rather, decisions can arise in numerous locales and can be made by seemingly insignificant agents. This has implications for how we understand the practices that can lead to exceptionalism as well as how we understand sovereignty and the political.     

友谊跨越大洋--中共中央政治局常委罗干访问拉美三国纪行

应阿根廷政府和正义党、乌拉圭政府和广泛阵线、古巴共产党的邀请,中共中央政治局常委罗干2005年12月10日至25日对上述三国进行了正式友好访问.中联部部长王家瑞、中央政法委秘书长王胜俊、中联部副部长马文普、公安部副部长张新枫、司法部副部长段正坤等陪同出访.     

友谊之旅 交流之旅 合作之旅——中共中央政治局委员、中央书记处书记、中宣部部长刘云山访问拉美三国纪行

应智利政府、巴西及秘鲁两国执政党和政府的邀请，2009年6月28日至7月7日，中共中央政治局委员、中央书记处书记、中宣部部长刘云山对上述三国进行了友好访问。中联部副部长陈凤翔，中宣部副部长翟卫华，中共江西省委常委、宣传部长刘上洋陪同访问。