The floating Island: change of paradigm on the Taiwan question

China and Taiwan, as well as the US, have failed to adapt new practices in response to the paradigmatic changes in the sources and nature of the China–Taiwan conflict. Reflecting the tremendous political and social changes in Taiwan, China, and the world that have occurred during the past 10–15 years, the most prominent source of the China–Taiwan conflict has shifted from power to identity. This article discusses the change of social identity in Taiwan and the re‐emergence of nativistic nationalism in the PRC identity. The authors suggest that policymakers on all three sides could begin to re‐think the Taiwan issue by taking advantage of the ideas and methods pioneered by experts in the rapidly growing field of conflict analysis and resolution. In this article, the authors apply concepts related to identity used by practitioners in the field of conflict resolution to look at the deeper cultural issues of identity and suggest some more appropriate methods for intervention and resolution of this deeply rooted conflict.     

Federal-State Relations in Gun Control: The 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which took effectin February 1994, sets minimum nationwide requirements for thesale of handguns and establishes a national criminal-backgroundinformation system. Each of these thrusts of Brady involvesfundamental issues of federalism. The first involves the traditionalgive-and-take between the states and the federal governmentin sorting out specific authority over the prohibition of firearmsales. The second thrust, establishing a national informationnetwork, requires cooperation of all the states and the federalgovernment. This article reviews Brady in the context of twenty-fiveyears of federal gun-control activity, examines its impact onfederal-state relations, and addresses the development of anational criminal-history information network linking the statesand the federal government.     

Yunnan,China: minority peoples observed

An account of the time which the author spent among the Iban more than 30 years ago. He describes the customs, festivals and way of life of a people who were still headhunters in recent memory. More particularly he explains how people who lived in longhouses the way their ancestors had lived were slowly brought to change their traditional beliefs, thus enabling development to take place.     

Failed Governance: A Comment on Baker and Griffith's Ensuring Corporate Misconduct

This essay evaluates Baker and Griffith's book, Ensuring Corporate Misconduct, as a contribution to the social science literatures on regulation and governance, risk, and insurance. Previous social science work on insurance often took an “insurance on the ground” perspective comparing how insurance actually works with the theory of insurance and scrutinizing the actions of insurers as well as the actions of their policyholders. In line with this perspective, Baker and Griffith find that directors and officers (D&O) insurers do not actually charge premiums that vary with risk or monitor the actions of the officers and directors covered by the insurance. Because insurers and governments share governance tasks (a point Baker makes elsewhere), insurers' failures in fact amount to “failed governance” of the corporate world.     

Philanthrocapitalism: rendering the public domain obsolete?

Engaging the lively debates about the next expression of neoliberalism, this study suggests that it is evolving into philanthrocapitalism. After a brief discussion of the trajectories from neoliberalism, the article addresses the core ideology of philanthrocapitalism. The central thesis explores how philanthrocapitalism is moving beyond the requirement of ‘business practices’ for recipients of donor funds, into enforcing ‘business rule’ on to the public domain. Although philanthrocapitalism is most debated in the fields of health care and education, this article uses empirical analysis of international agricultural policies trying to enlist Southern Africa policies. It explores how philanthrocapitalist rule is reducing transparency, participation and deliberation within the public domain, well beyond requesting efficient business practices for greater food security. It concludes with how smallholder farmers are actively organising to resist business rule over their genetic resources and farming practices.     

The discursive flexibility of ‘flex crops’: comparing oil palm and jatropha

‘Flex crops’ such as corn, oil palm and soy are understood to have multiple, interchangeable uses; they have material flexibility. We propose that discursive flexibility – the ability to strategically switch between discourses to promote an objective – equally shapes the political economy of flex crops, and thereby patterns of agrarian and environmental change. Comparing oil palm and Jatropha curcas, we find that actors who cast oil palm as a multi-scale solution to food and energy insecurity, climate change and (rural) poverty successfully reinforce its high material flexibility. Jatropha's proponents compensate for low material flexibility by positioning the crop as a ‘sustainable’ energy source that achieves both global and local goals. While this paper focuses on discourses that reinforce the oil palm and jatropha projects, understanding the power of discursive maneuvering can also inform efforts to contest them.