Lift is complicated

朱丽没有想到自己会同楼上的邻居玛格丽特翻脸,本来嘛,楼上楼下住着,都说远亲不如近邻.说起来,平时她们的关系还是不错的,在澳洲住了十几年,玛格丽特逢年过节的时候还常常送小礼物给朱丽.     

The Beautiful Grassland is My Home

In recent years, as the big and medium cities like Beijing are developing rapidly, the high-rises emerged row upon row. The technical cleaning of the internal and external environment has gradually drawn concern. Personnel training for the job has also become a new job. In order to promote cooperation between Yandu Langsu Cleaning Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd, a Sino-Japanese joint venture and Tongliao City in personnel recruitment and training, I went with some company staff from Aug. 8…     

Where is India’s growth headed?

Growth in India declined in the post financial crisis years both due to external and domestic factors. While the slowdown appears to be largely cyclical, it is possible that trend growth may also have been affected, especially by negative shocks from the domestic policy environment. In this article, we analyze the sources of output growth in the past three decades and discuss the outlook going forward. We make projections for the growth of factors of production and the growth of trend gross domestic product (GDP) per worker for the period from 2013–2030. In general, the outlook for factors appears strong. As long as policy reforms support the broad environment for investment in infrastructure and education and eliminate frictions hampering the efficient use of labor and capital, all of which can also boost productivity, it does not appear that trend growth is likely to decline in the future.     

How Much Disagreement is Good for Democratic Deliberation?

The ideal of deliberation requires that citizens engage in reasonable discussion despite disagreements. In practice, if their experience is to match this normative ideal, participants in an actual deliberation should prefer moderate disagreement to conflict-free discussion within homogeneous groups, and to conflict-driven discussion where differences are intractable. This article proposes a research design and methods for assessing the quality of a deliberative event based on the perceptions of the participants themselves. In a structured deliberative event, over 2,000 individuals were assigned to small groups composed of about 10 persons of varying levels of ideological difference to discuss health care reform in California. We find that participants experience higher satisfaction with deliberation under moderate ideological difference than when they are in homogeneous or in highly disparate groups. That moderate disagreement induces optimal deliberation is consistent with normative expectations and empirically demonstrates the deliberative quality of this event.     

America is Back. Is Europe Back Too?

Within a resilient transatlantic alliance, political leadership and security forces can respond successfully to any crisis imposed, but without resilience the alliance will remain vulnerable to malign influences that seek to divide, sap physical and societal strength, and undermine the ability to respond to challenges—politically, economically, and militarily. Unity in a resilient security environment, with economic and political unity, is critical for defending against authoritarian regimes that aim to “divide and conquer.”     

How is the EU-ASEAN FTA viewed by ASEAN stakeholders?

Since April 2007, the EU Commission has been entrusted to start negotiating a FTA with ASEAN countries. Being enshrined in the logic contained in its ‘Global Europe strategy’, the proposed EU-ASEAN FTA finds its economic rationale in the expected overall positive impact found by most econometric studies on the topic. This article argues that although beneficial, these studies are limited conceptually and methodologically. In particular, they are unable to tackle the issue of differentiated effects on several groups of stakeholders. By analysing, through a questionnaire, the opinion of a number of ASEAN stakeholders, this article brings complementary information on the perception of the planned EU-ASEAN FTA by these different stakeholders. Whilst offering many opportunities, the FTA presents also a number of risks, the most critical one being the costs of adjustment, particularly for poorer ASEAN member countries. This paper draws partly on research work conducted jointly with F. Nicolas as part of a research contract for the European Commission DG Trade

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Indo-Pakistan Relationship is Moving from Confrontation to Détente

AtthebeginningofthisyearMr.A.B.VajpayeePrimeMinisterofIndiaandGeneralPervezMusharrafPresidentofPakistanheldtheirfirstmeetinginthepasttwoyearsonthesidelineofthe12thSouthAsianAssociationRegionalCooper-ationSAARCSummitMeeting.Bothsidescalledforturningsuspicionintotrustdisputesintocoor-dinationandconfrontationintopeaceandagreedtoresolvevariousdisputesbetweenthetwocoun-triesthroughconstantbilateralmeetingsthuscon-tributingtopeaceandstabilityinSouthAsia.Bothsideshavealsodecidedtostarta″co…     

What is democracy? A reconceptualization of the quality of democracy

Works on the quality of democracy propose standards for evaluating politics beyond those encompassed by a minimal definition of democracy. Yet, what is the quality of democracy? This article first reconstructs and assesses current conceptualizations of the quality of democracy. Thereafter, it reconceptualizes the quality of democracy by equating it with democracy pure and simple, positing that democracy is a synthesis of political freedom and political equality, and spelling out the implications of this substantive assumption. The proposal is to broaden the concept of democracy to address two additional spheres: government decision-making – political institutions are democratic inasmuch as a majority of citizens can change the status quo – and the social environment of politics – the social context cannot turn the principles of political freedom and equality into mere formalities. Alternative specifications of democratic standards are considered and reasons for discarding them are provided.     

“Taiwan Security Enhancement Act”is a Dangerous Political Bill

On February 1st, the US House of Representatives openly passed the so-calledTaiwan Security Enhancement Act" (TSEA), in disregard of the Chinesegovernment's firm opposition and solemn representation, the overall situation ofUS-China relations and the accepted criterion of international relations. It not onlycrudely infringes China's sovereignty but also tremendously undermines the recov-ering relations between the US and China. The Chinese government has shown itsstrong indignation and objection to it.     

If technology is the answer,what does it take?

This article aims to assess why technology such as improved crop varieties has not taken off in Tanzania in spite of substantial efforts, and to consider what role policy plays in that regard. Few farmers use improved varieties due to reasons such as affordability in relation to the low profitability of farming; high risk, including fake seed in the market; and unpredictable policies and marketing opportunities. Effective governance is needed for agriculture to be transformed in the direction stated in national policy documents, but weak institutions and the collective interests of farmers not being sufficiently recognised hinder the likelihood of necessary technological changes happening.     

Stability in North East Asia is the Foundation for Regional Cooperation

１．ThedevelopmenttrendofregionalcooperationinNorthEastAsia．Since１９９０s，economicglobalizationhasgrownrapidlyintheglobalsphere．Inthemean－time，organizationsofvariousformsforregionalcooperationhavecomeintoexistence．Worldeconomicpatternandinterna－tionaldivisionoflaborandcom－petitionsystemhavewitnesseddrasticchanges．Theofficialin－augurationanddevelopmentoftheEuropeanUnionandNorthAmericanRegionalOrganizationhavemountedseverechallengetoAsia．IntheworldtotalGDP，thethreeNorthAmeric…     

Why is There No Race to the Bottom in Capital Taxation?

This article explains the absence of a race to the bottom in capital taxation by analyzing fiscal competition under budget rigidities and tax equity constraints (fairness norms). We outline a political economic model of tax competition that treats the outcome of tax competition as one argument in the governments utility function, the others being public expenditure and tax equity. In accordance with previous theoretical research, tax competition tends to cause a reduction in taxes on mobile capital and an increase in the tax rates on relatively immobile labor in our model. Yet, our model predicts that governments do not fully abolish taxes on mobile capital. Instead, the government being least restricted by budget constraints and equity norms cuts tax rates to levels slightly below the lowest tax rates of those countries, in which governments are more constrained, where effective constraints are country size, budget rigidities and fairness norms. Analyzing data from 23 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries between 1975 and 2004 we find empirical support for the hypotheses derived from our theoretical model.     

People's Friendship is the Important Social Basis of the Stable Sino-Japanese Ties

The year of 2007 is the 35th anniversary of thenormalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic ties.People in both China and Japan carried out     

Who is rebuilding Aceh? Tensions between groups of staff in an NGO

This article takes its point of departure in an international non-governmental aid organisation (INGO) active in post-disaster and post-conflict Aceh. Using material collected through fieldwork conducted in the organisation, the article addresses the issue of how the intrinsic logic and workings of development reinforce the historically tense relationship between Acehnese and Indonesians.     

‘Death is painful so it is better to be holding a gun’: the socio-ecologically situated dis/rearmament decisions of formerly abducted persons in northern Uganda

In northern Uganda, children and youth once abducted by the notorious Lord's Resistance Army now live in internally displaced persons camps, facing challenging social, economic and security conditions. Within this context, former combatants state they would prefer to rearm than face a ‘painful’ and inevitable death. Drawing on qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with over 300 former combatants, we apply a socio-ecological lens to determine the push/pull factors that influence their decision to rearm or disarm. A lack of personal security, levels of stigmatisation and poor economic and educational opportunities are among the highest push factors toward rearmament. These findings point to a broad range of causes and actors responsible for child and youth militarisation and call for more holistic DDR approaches.     

Learning is An Endless Journey——Summary of My Study in Hiroshima

正From September 29~(th) to November 26~(th) 2015I attended a two-month training program for overseas Japanese teachers in International Cooperation Center of Hiroshima prefecture,Japan at the recommendation of the Chinese Association for International Understanding(CAFIU).The program is aimed at training overseas Japanese teachers,spreading advanced teaching methodologies and promoting friendly exchanges between Hiroshima and regions of other countries.     

Whose House is this Anyway? IDP and Refugee Return in Post-Saddam Iraq

Although many people displaced by Saddam's regime over the yearslooked forward to returning as soon as the 2003 war ended, anumber of problems emerged which continued to bedevil the returnprocess as late as one year after the war. These problems includedan unclear political future for the country, competing politicaland sectarian forces that often view IDPs and refugees as strategictools or weapons, a hesitant and initially undecided Coalitionpolicy on the return issue, unclear mandates for the variousactors that could assist with returns, lack of funding, andmost importantly of all, an extremely poor security situationwhich has impeded or even blocked all progress on the returnissue. Nonetheless, because Iraq's Ba'athist dictatorship wasthe overwhelming cause of displacement in the country to beginwith, the future does hold some hope for Iraqi displaced persons.This paper examines the causes of return problems in Iraq andhow various authorities in post-Ba'athist Iraq are addressingthe return issue. Particularly around the contested city ofKirkuk, problems relating to the return issue risk ignitingethnic conflict and possibly even civil war in Iraq as a whole.The article examines the return issue for the period from March2003 to June 2004, focusing especially on northern Iraq andKirkuk. The research presented here is based on fieldwork conductedin Iraq by the author between September 2003 and May 2004. Theauthor went to Iraq independently, with the assistance of aCanadian Department of National Defence post-doctoral researchgrant. Interviews were conducted with US and Coalition ProvisionalAuthority officials, Iraqi Interim Government officials, KurdistanRegional Government officials, NGO workers, and IDPs themselvesduring visits to camps around Kirkuk and Baghdad.     

China-U.S. Military Relationship: Which Way the Wind is Blowing?

Military relations are the most sensitive and essential elements in bilateral ties between two countries. It is quite often when political and economic relations between the two sides turn warm, their military relationship is still at freezing point; and as misunderstanding in the military relationship melting away like ice,