China's Belt and Road Initiative: at the crossroads of challenges and ambitions

Interpretations of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) mostly agree that it is a policy opening that offers some remedies for China's economic and security challenges, as well as reflects China's increasing regional and global ambitions. This paper argues that the multiple drivers characterizing the BRI result from the multiple identities of China as a developing country struggling with several sources of instability and macroeconomic problems and, simultaneously, a regional and an emerging power, and finally a major global power with significant economic capacity to shape the global economic order. The paper aims to substantiate the entanglement of the defensive and ambitious motivations behind the BRI by examining the background against which the Chinese Communist Party leadership has suggested it. In so doing, it draws on Chinese official policy documents and statistics, speeches from Chinese leaders and existing social–scientific research on the transformation of China's economic and political landscape in recent years.     

Implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa: A Firm-Level Study of Sub-Saharan African SMEs

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Over the past few years, the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has seen a marked increase among state-owned enterprises and large...     

“一带一路”倡议基础设施建设国际金融合作体系研究

基础设施互联互通作为"一带一路"倡议有形的连接纽带,是"一带一路"倡议建设的先导,资金融通作为无形支撑,则是实现"一带一路"倡议建设的关键环节,更是实现基础设施互联互通的重要保障。金融是"一带一路"倡议建设的重要内容、重要支撑、重要引领,无论是战略层面还是企业层面,金融均将在"一带一路"倡议基础设施建设中发挥重要作用。"一带一路"倡议沿线国家基础设施建设资金需求存在巨大缺口,亟须通过银行货币合作、资本市场合作、公私合营合作、信用保险合作、金融市场合作和金融监管合作等六大方面构建基础设施建设领域的国际金融合作体系,以推动"一带一路"倡议基础设施跨国合作,解决资金瓶颈。     

Explaining the Enhanced HIPC Initiative: A Response to Michaelowa (2003)

Michaelowa (2003, 2002) proposes a political-economy model to explain the re-design of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) debt reliefinitiative in 1999. The principal assumption justifying the adoption of thisalternative approach is an alleged paucity, if not non-existence, of applied economic research on sustainable debt levels. This note challenges that assumption.     

“一带一路”背景下尼泊尔中资企业发展问题研究

尼泊尔是中国的友好邻邦和“一带一路”沿线重要国家。尼泊尔政府积极支持和参加“一带一路”倡议,大力吸引中资企业赴尼投资,助力尼泊尔经济社会发展。在“一带一路”倡议背景下,中国企业参与尼泊尔基础设施、水电开发、交通通信、旅游、农业等领域的投资和建设,成为尼泊尔最大的外资来源国。中资企业在尼泊尔的投资和经营,改善了尼泊尔的基础设施状况,促进了尼泊尔的经济发展,提升了尼泊尔民众的就业和生活水平。由于尼泊尔政治、经济、社会处于转型和发展之中,在尼中资企业的经营发展也面临着许多风险和问题。近年来,随着尼泊尔政局的稳定和投资环境的不断改善,“一带一路”倡议下的中尼各领域互利合作得到全面深化,在尼中资企业迎来了新的发展机遇。作为“一带一路”建设的主体力量,在尼中资企业将在新的机遇和环境下获得良好的发展。     

PPP模式社会许可法权化探究

针对目前PPP模式公众参与制度不完善,导致部分PPP项目推进不顺利等问题,探讨在PPP模式中实现社会许可法权化的可能性,有利于PPP项目的推进和目标的实现,提高公共服务的质量,更好地满足公众需求。因此,在PPP模式中设立相关的法律制度为社会许可提供行为规范,建立"二元"社会许可法权化机制:完善相关的信息流通渠道和反馈机制,建立许可人利益表达组织化机制,明确表决权的适用范围、适用阶段、触发条件并建立公开透明的表决权行使程序。     

Putting the “Public” Back in Public Values Research: Designing Participation to Identify and Respond to Values

This article seeks to put the “public” back in public values research by theorizing about the potential of direct citizen participation to assist with identifying and understanding public values. Specifically, the article explores eight participatory design elements and offers nine propositions about how those elements are likely to affect the ability of administrators to identify and understand public values with regard to a policy conflict. The article concludes with a brief discussion about potential directions for future research.     

我国治理研究的反思（2007—2018）：概念、理论与方法

治理既是当代国家建设的重要实践,也是社会科学中的前沿议题。中国的治理研究已经涌现大量文献,有必要进行反思和评估。通过对CSSCI数据库(2007—2018)中相关学术文章进行分析发现,我国的治理研究在整体上存在四个方面的问题:语境疏离,西方语境和中国语境下的治理概念缺乏有效对话;重规范轻经验,非经验性研究与经验性研究结构失衡;理论化水平总体不高,面临缺失、褊狭与依赖等困境;方法有待改进,存在匮乏、失衡、粗疏等问题。未来研究应着力在治理概念达成共识的基础上,进一步推进经验性研究,加强理论的积累与创新,注重方法的多元与质量。     

Decentralising to Villages in Indonesia: Money (and Other) Mistakes

Nearly 15 years after embarking on its large‐scale decentralisation programme, Indonesia has decided to extend its efforts to the village level. Decentralising to villages is intended to improve service delivery performance at the lowest administrative tier and reduce social inequality and poverty. A number of potential difficulties with the design of Indonesia's nascent village decentralisation initiative have already become apparent. Methods used to allocate funds to villages are particularly problematic. Oddly, fund distribution procedures insist to a large extent on equal per village allocations, despite the significant heterogeneity of villages. And they ignore other sources of revenue to which villages have access. In the event, village revenues will be very inequitably distributed: villages with high levels of poverty will receive less money than they need and villages with access to significant funding from oil and gas revenues will receive more than required. Also, village service responsibilities are unclearly defined, village financial management systems are inadequately prepared to handle large increases in funding, and mechanisms to monitor and control village spending are underdeveloped. These difficulties will severely constrain the achievement of official objectives and create further challenges for reformers in their attempts to combat corruption at the subnational level. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Workplace Relations: Friendship Patterns and Consequences (According to Managers)

This article examines orientations toward workplace friendship. Based on a survey of senior managers in cities with populations over 50,000, it addresses the following questions: Do senior managers promote, condone, or discourage workplace friendship? What risks and benefits of workplace friendships do these managers perceive? What policies and strategies that affect workplace friendship are found in organizations? How do these organizational efforts affect perceptions of employee performance? This article finds that, despite the risks, orientations in favor of workplace friendships are widespread, and many jurisdictions engage in efforts to promote them.     

Party system(s) and electoral behaviour in Belgium: From stability to balkanisation

Belgium has one of the most fragmented party systems of any modern democracy. This article asks the following questions: is party fragmentation linked to the importance of the ethno-regionalist vote or to the rules of the electoral system? Has party fragmentation also produced centrifugal or polarised multipartyism (between the regions, but also within Flanders, given the spectacular rise of the Vlaams Blok)? What explains the difference in party fragmentation between Flanders and Wallonia? What are the dimensions of party competition in each community and what are the socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics of the different electorates? Which steps have the political elites taken to cope with the increasing fragmentation of the party landscape and growing voter volatility? To what extent has the increasing divergence between the regional party systems led to the building of asymmetrical coalitions at the federal and regional levels of government? The splitting of the Belgian party system into two, albeit still fragmented, party systems has further complicated the problems of coordination within a polarised, multi-cleavage and multilevel system that seriously undermines the stability of the entire political system.     

Withdrawing (from) waste,and the end of law: reflections on DeLillo’s prophecies in Mao II (1991) and Underworld (1997)

ABSTRACT

An often heard phrase these days is “There is something about this chaotic 21st century of ours ...”. This “something”, it is argued here, lies at the heart of a new form of life which has become predominant in recent decades in globalizing culture: the life of aspiring, radicalizing sovereigns. This “something”, then, could the called the end of Law. In an age of aspiring and radicalizing sovereigns the Law, indeed law in all its forms and shapes, has become not just an irrelevance, but a nuisance and embarrassment as well. One of the manifestations of this irreverent sovereign attitude is the growing inability to accept waste, that is, an inability to live with all that generates waste (i.e. Law), and an inability to live with all that is waste. Waste, i.e. the accumulation of spent potential, is not what the aspiring, radicalizing sovereign wants. The sovereign's desires are all about conserving all potential. Although this new form of life has become manifest only very recently, it had been predicted by the novelist Don DeLillo in his novels Mao II and Underworld. The themes and images in both these novels are the focus of this contribution.     

国内外对营业性(文化)娱乐场所研究的学术观综述

随着休闲社会的发展,城市居民的生活逐步进入追求生活质量的阶段,其日常生活方式和内容也越来越休闲--娱乐化.而与居民生活所对应的城市消费场所(文化、购物、娱乐、休闲等)已成为衡量城市生活质量的重要标志空间之一.因此,对休闲--娱乐场所特别是营业性(文化)娱乐场所的空间研究便成为(微)区位研究的核心内容之一.目前,国内外学者对营业性(文化)娱乐场所的研究学术观,根据其研究角度和出发点的不同可分为城市社会学理念下和城市社会地理学理念下的研究.     

Correction to: (Sex) Crime and Punishment in the #MeToo Era: How the Public Views Rape

Political Behavior - The original version of this article mistakenly listed “the Foundations of Human Behavior Initiative at Harvard University” in Acknowledgements section. The proper...     

Doing Politics: Journey to the Centre of the (Academic) Universe: 20 Steps on Getting Published in Journals

As postgraduate students, researchers or junior lecturers, we all aspire to climb the highest peaks of academic life, to bask in our reflected glory and to have the (small disciplinary) world at our feet. Yet how do we assail those peaks? More often than not, they seem like sheer cliff faces or mountain ranges where the noviciate assemble at the bottom and gaze skywards in disbelief. When we look around at academics who have successfully scaled those heights, it is obvious that an effective publication record is essential, where refereed journal articles are particularly prized. Yet the numbers who gather to attempt their own ascent ask the question – is there any straightforward publication route the beginner can follow? Surely we cannot all be left to cut our own path without really knowing where, how, or even whether we should be travelling at all? This article argues that writing academic journal articles has been mystified. For many wanting to get started, it seems like the final destination is a secret place, somewhere that you might stumble across but one where the locals jealously guard the short-cuts. Here we aim to de-mystify journal article writing and provide 20 steps for the prospective writer. These 20 steps, however, provide more a series of useful directions than a definitive map of the terrain. As beginning academics themselves, the authors are, at best, merely amateur cartographers.