物价86’,揭一揭谜底

下半年的物价还会升吗?人们悄悄地议论着这个敏感的问题     

’97香港,邮票也疯狂

一版价值10多港元的T46金猴邮票,目前香港邮商的收购价是3.2万元港币,而“龙”“兔”等邮票的价格也狂升20倍以上——1997,香港人除了迎回归之外,还掀起了一股炒邮狂飚。     

’96艺坛,失落了的艺德

过去的一年,对于大多数文化明星来说,可以说是“奉献年”、“爱心年”。而对于某些明星而言,或许就是“缺德年”、“抢钱年”了。逃税、罢演、走穴、炒作、假唱等种种表现,构成了一幅明星缺德百态图——     

‘Made in China’. Contraband,Labour and the Gendered Effects of ‘Free-Trade’, China-Peru

In Peru, textiles have increasingly become contested as commodities and objects of consumption, especially following the free trade agreement between Peru and China, signed in 2009, which accommodates increased importation of Chinese textiles. This article discusses how local intermediaries, often women who have found a livelihood working with the importation and vending of textiles, are affected by increased border regulations and competition from over-seas, more formalised forms of importation. Reflecting on enactments of femininities and the social and spatial embeddedness of trade in the border areas, the article discusses the multifaceted and gendered implications of a de-localisation of commodity flows.     

’94之夏, 南粤抗天歌

1994年,对于中国来说,是改革的攻坚年。然而,当先行一步的广东全社会都在关注财税、外贸等攻坚热点时,广东人却做梦都不会想到,“9403”号强热带风暴给这块改革热土带来了一场百年不遇的灾难。 天有不测 热带风暴是广东的常客,去年     

转冷,’93中国股票黑市

有人说;“1993年中国申办奥运会,谁最紧张?肯定是那些股票黑市的炒家们。”此言虽有偏颇,但也不无道理。那些被黑市股票套了半年多的炒家们,巴不得借奥运申办成功的机会,早点把手上那些“非上市股票”抛个干净。 然而,他们失望了。     

Conceptualising components,conditions and trajectories of food sovereignty’s ‘sovereignty’

This paper addresses the ambiguity of the term ‘sovereignty’ in food sovereignty (FS), intending to clarify the ‘aspirational sovereignty’ that food sovereignty movements indicate as the ideal configuration of power that would allow FS to flourish, or which might help measure movement towards FS. Since aspirational sovereignty is conditioned by existing power relations, the paper elaborates components of ‘actually existing sovereignty’, based on readings of a variety of political and social science literatures. By critically assessing the difference between actually existing and aspirational sovereignty across three geographic–political levels, the paper offers strategic options for constructing FS, and suggests what such an elaborated definition of FS’s sovereignty might offer future research on FS.     

‘Illegitimate’ loans: lenders,not borrowers,are responsible

Debt relief has focused on the borrower—debt is cancelled if a country is too poor to repay and now has acceptable policies. Iraq shifted the focus to the lender—debt should be cancelled because creditors should never have lent money to the repressive regime. This paper uses domestic and international law to establish the concept of ‘illegitimate debt’, which should not be repaid independent of the status of the borrower. The concept of ‘moral hazard’ is used to argue that non-payment of illegitimate debt is necessary to discipline lenders and to prevent future lending to oppressive dictators.     

Memory, History, and Nostalgia in Berlin’s Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum in Berlin is devoted to telling the 2,000-year history of Jews in Germany in a stunning building designed by Daniel Libeskind. It is Germany’s premier museum devoted to Jewish history and memory, but it is expressly not a Holocaust museum and most reference to the Holocaust is architectural. In its interactive and sophisticated exhibitions, the Jewish Museum represents contemporary international trends in museology and in many ways resembles the many Holocaust and other memorial museums around the world, one of the most prominent and striking international museological trends. However, in rejecting the categorization as a memorial museum and in focusing on a celebration of German–Jewish culture and history rather than the tragedy of the Holocaust, the Jewish Museum is what we might call a countermemorial museum. As such, it challenges the new norms around the creation of memorial museums and other sites of memory to be self-reflexive meditations on the negative past and its trauma. If memorial museums emerge from a particular orientation toward the past that Jeffrey Olick calls the “politics of regret” and claims is a major characteristic of our age, then the Jewish Museum might represent a parallel trend that we can call a “politics of nostalgia.” The museum serves, in many ways, as a screen upon which present-day Germany can project an idealized image of its past, masking some of the present tensions around German national identity and ideas of German multiculturalism. At the same time, the museum often seems to be in conflict with Libeskind’s building, which is infused with Holocaust symbolism and meaning.     

China’s foreign aid system: structure,agencies, and identities

China’s rise as a (re)emerging donor has attracted attention over the last decade, with a focus on Chinese development assistance as a challenge to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) aid norms. Knowledge of China’s domestic aid structure is needed to understand Chinese aid abroad. This paper addresses gaps in the literature and challenges the accepted nostrum that China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) dominates China’s aid programme. Building on the authors’ experience as Chinese aid practitioners and scholars over more than a decade and drawing on over 300 interviews, the paper explores China’s aid decision-making processes by examining the main agencies, identities and informal interactions. We argue that the Chinese aid system is characterised by fierce and ongoing competition for influence among actors, especially MOFCOM, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF), as well as the companies responsible for implementing Chinese aid projects.     

Al-Qaida, ‘war on terror’ and Turkey

The new wave of international terrorism gained strength in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, threatening not only the USA and its allies but also, as seen in the latest incidents, a significant part of the world. Continuing al-Qaida attacks signify the vulnerability and weakness of defence, security and intelligence systems in the face of the new international terror. The terror network has created an image of a postmodern virtual state. We argue that it has been shaped by a common ideology rather than in physical terms. Thus it is necessary to develop novel approaches. In this article we discuss Turkey's struggle against the new terror, underlining the fact that it is a Muslim majority state and has lively and dynamic Islamic traditions and different shades of Islamic belief. This situation makes the discussion more interesting, focusing on the position, perception, difficulties and struggle of a Muslim state with a democratic and secular mode of government vis-à-vis an allegedly Islam-inspired international terror network. There is an urgent need to develop an international terror strategy to counter terror attacks against Turkey, Britain, Egypt and others. We underscore the vital requirement of reconciling the macro-schemes and priorities of the global ‘war on terror’ with the national conditions and needs of the other countries involved in the struggle against the terror network.     

’94中国, 成也税改难也税改

1994年初,中国的经济生活发生了两件大事:汇率并轨和财税改革。 汇率并轨,在很大程度上是受外力——恢复关贸总协定缔约国地位的压力而采取的被动行为,却出乎意料地顺利。用人民日报大字标题的说法是:“汇率,在平稳中并轨”。只是一些有外汇券的人,趁国家宣布外汇黄金价格不变之际,排队购买而已。 财税改革则酝酿良久,包括三     

State Failure,Polarisation, and Minority Engagement in Germany’s Refugee Crisis

Talk about a ‘refugee crisis’ dominated Germany’s political discourse in 2015/2016. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of foreigners desiring protection shaped public and private debates. However, rather than taking the term refugee crisis for granted, this article suggests that critical experiences in Germany, and responses to them, were shaped by the failure of state institutions. In the same year, as further austerity measures were imposed on Greece, German citizens questioned the state of their own public infrastructure. Following privatisation and cuts to social services, national, regional, and local authorities lacked the capacity to respond adequately to newcomers’ needs. The sight of failing state institutions contributed to a sense of crisis. Simultaneously, however, the apparent state incapacity—particularly also in Berlin, the focus of this article—opened up spaces for emergent civil society actors, including minority groups. Muslims organised in associations could perform relevance as reliable citizens and raise their public profile. Different groups also put forward alternative visions of society. At the same time, government support for asylum seekers and the greater visibility of actors in a pluralist society pushed some conservatives towards a new far-right force: the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). The gaps in public administration that were revealed in 2015/2016 resulted in social polarisation left and right of centrist politics: nationalist conservatives rejected an increasingly multicultural country and found a new political home in the AfD, whereas left wingers and minority groups challenged austerity and claimed greater political representation for their views.     

Repression,co-optation and insurgency: Pakistan’s FATA,Southern Thailand and Papua,Indonesia

Scholars have long identified state repression as playing a key role in the onset of insurgency. Violence by security forces increases anger against the state and assists with rebel recruitment. Yet scholars have also recognised that repression does not always lead to rebellion: in some cases it successfully quashes movements before they have begun. This study advances an argument for when and why repression leads to insurgency and sometimes does not. We contend that violence by state security forces can fail to trigger rebellion if local elites within the repressed community are simultaneously co-opted with political and economic opportunities. When elites are satisfied with local autonomy and patronage they deprive the dissident movement of local leadership and coordination. When the state uses repression against a community and at the same time abandons this mutually beneficial relationship, the insurgency has both the leadership and grassroots support it requires. We illustrate our argument by examining three cases of state violence in Asia. In two of our cases, Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Southern Thailand, repression led directly to insurgency. In the third, Papua in Indonesia, ongoing co-optation of local elites has left the movement factionalised and weak.     

Process and practice: groupness,ethnicity, and habitus in Carpathian Rus’

This article synthesizes Wimmer's and Brubaker's processual approach to analyzing ethnic groups with Jenkins and Bentley's practice-based theories of ethnicity to explain the role played by socio-emotional experiences and practical concerns in Carpatho-Rusyns, both mobilizing as an ethnic group as well as resisting such mobilization. Data were gathered from interviews and participant observation during the eight months of fieldwork in 10 different villages, towns, and cities in the Pre?ov region of Slovakia and the Zakarpattia oblast of Ukraine. Carpatho-Rusyns live in an area where borders have changed frequently and where religions, states, and political movements have encouraged the inhabitants’ assimilation to a new or larger group. Rusyns tend to describe ethnicity as instrumentalist theorists do, that is, something largely produced as a result of struggles over territory, resources, and political power. Nevertheless, they evince a profound emotional connection to their language, land, and spirituality. This emotional connection manifests itself among “ethnopolitical entrepreneurs” as well as among the general population, but only motivates explicit political organization among the former.     

‘For you were strangers’: Jewish ritual,black musics,and commemorative politics in Tel Aviv’s Refugee Seder

ABSTRACT

Each Passover since 2009, hundreds of East African asylum seekers and Israeli activists have gathered for ‘Refugee Seder’, a public event to support Sudanese and Eritrean communities in Israel. Featuring a ceremonial seder meal, storytelling, speeches, and a dance party, Refugee Seder draws on age-old Jewish rituals and contemporary global black pop musics to symbolize Africans as members of the Israeli national collective. This article explores Refugee Seder’s modified commemorative practices, which engage dual narratives of Jewish nationalism and cultural cosmopolitanism. I show how seder rituals enable African participants to temporarily embody a Jewish spiritual identity, and how black pop musics help publicly reframe Africans’ ‘blackness’ as a cultural asset instead of a political liability. Ultimately, I argue that Refugee Seder distills larger ideologies of identity and belonging that are deeply rooted in Israeli collective consciousness, and which shape the trajectories of ‘refugee issue’ politics and policy-making.     

Where is the ‘Plus’ in ‘Credit-Plus’? The Case of Chiapas,Mexico

Abstract

It has become common to try and increase the effectiveness of microfinance programmes by adding supplementary services to the financial product. However, the added value accruing from this ‘credit-plus’ approach has been little analysed. We hypothesise that the extent of added value from credit-plus depends on the ability of the credit supplier to cultivate trust, or social capital, amongst clients. Applying difference-in-difference estimation, we exploit a natural experiment of two ‘credit-plus’ programmes in Mexico. The findings suggest that credit-plus is not universally effective, but that it is at its most effective, especially with low-income groups, where ‘bonding’ (within-group) social capital exists.