美国新任商务部长骆家辉

2009年2月25日,美籍华人骆家辉(Gary Faye Locke)被奥巴马任命为商务部部长,成为新一届政府14位内阁部长中的第二位华裔部长。尽管此前奥巴马提名商务部长两度受挫,但选择前华盛顿州州长骆家辉仍为奥巴马赢得不少分数。白手起家、靠实干获取信任的骆家辉不仅符合新总统的执政理念与风格,更符合美国面临的国内外新环境。骆家辉的成功代表着华裔参政的成功,能赢得这份殊荣不仅是他个人努力的结果,更与美国社会包容、中国崛起等因素息息相关。     

Population data for the Identifier 15 STR loci in Hong Kong Chinese

Allele frequencies for 15 STR loci, namely D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818 and FGA, which are tested for by PE Applied Biosystem's Identifier kit, were obtained from a sample of 325 unrelated Chinese in Hong Kong.     

Friction and bureaucratic control in authoritarian regimes

Democracies deliberately create “friction” in bureaucratic processes, using inefficiencies to mitigate the impact of government transitions and asymmetric information on leaders' ability to exert control. With far more centralized power, would authoritarians prefer less friction? We argue that they do not. In fact, excess friction is actively supplied to hinder bureaucratic coordination independent of or even in opposition to top-down control, leaving the central leaders the only player powerful enough to organize complex actions. Our analysis of data on the Chinese government indicates that bureaucrats are systematically sent to unfamiliar work environment, and that agencies that are more exposed to the resultant inefficiencies are also more likely to come under direct control by senior Politburo members. The pattern of targeted intervention indicates that bureaucratic control in authoritarian regimes is predicated not only on centralized power in general but also the deliberate supply of friction to obstruct independent actions from the bottom up.     

Assessing the developing knowledge-base of product counterfeiting: a content analysis of four decades of research

Considering the steady and rapid growth of product counterfeiting and the damage it causes to society, it is important for criminology and criminal justice scholars to assist criminal justice officials, industry practitioners, and law makers in understanding the product counterfeiting problem and developing strategies to combat it. However, for researchers to be effective in their advisory role they must first establish what is known about product counterfeiting. As a first step in this process, we investigated relevant published research through a content analysis of 47 articles discussing product counterfeiting published in criminal justice and criminology journals through 2014. We analyzed various characteristics about the articles themselves, their authors, the journals they appeared in, and the nature and extent of their focus on product counterfeiting. We conclude this study with an evaluation of the state of product counterfeiting research and recommendations for future research.     

Militarizing civilians in Singapore: preparing for ‘Crisis’ within a calibrated nationalism1

The Singaporean polity has created the ‘militarized civilian’. This policy phenomenon beckons the question: How is this cross-fertilization carried out in Singapore's civil–military relations? Militarization is in the first sense meant to inculcate a calibrated dual personality within the civilian whereby being an effective soldier requires indulging in simulated military suffering as a badge of pride; at the same time, the citizen soldier has to believe that military and civilian values are perfectly interchangeable and contribute equally to the maintenance of peace. In a second sense, militarization is equally about permanently ritualizing sacrifices for a communitarian defence. We argue that while mostly successful, militarization also produces the tension arising from the need to appear pugnaciously vigilant while avoiding the casualties that must logically arise from heightened simulated combat. This tension is explained through two dimensions of ongoing crises: the parameters of a politically dramatized National Service ritual; and the constant propaganda of geopolitical dangers threatening the Republic.     

Fibre mapping--a case study.

Fibre mapping, more commonly known as one-to-one taping, was developed in Germany approximately twenty years ago. The technique facilitates the distribution of fibres on a surface to be recorded. The impact of this technique on the investigation of serious crime has been reported in the European Fibre Group on several occasions. This paper represents a case study of the application of the technique. It is believed to be the first time that this technique has been successfully applied in the United Kingdom.     

Trilateral trade relations among China,Japan and South Korea: Challenges and prospects of regional economic integration

China’s emergence as a global and regional manufacturing center has significant implications for the Northeast Asian economies of Japan and South Korea. China's trade with Japan and South Korea has been rapidly growing in relative importance, largely facilitated by China's rise as a regional production base as well as changes in the trade structures between China and her neighbours. Indeed, in recent years, China has been the main driving force behind Northeast Asian trade interdependency. The strong economic linkages and complementarities among China, Japan and South Korea augur well for the further integration among the three Northeast Asian countries. Establishing a trilateral free trade arrangement (FTA) provide new opportunities to enhance the three countries’ overall growth potential through trade and investment. However, such Northeast Asian regional integration is destined to be a long, drawn out process. The forging of a trilateral trading arrangement between China and her two neighbours remain a long term vision in view of the many outstanding issues and obstacles.     

Regulating Quality of Care in Nursing Homes in Hong Kong: A Social-Ecological Investigation

A social-ecological model aided by an adversarial methodology was employed to study the regulation of private nursing homes in Hong Kong over a five-year period. Specifically the study addresses the way quality of care and its definitions changed in response to shifting socio-political-economic conditions. The study began when only 2 percent of the industry was licensable. It was found that an initial period of harmful capture was replaced by a period of cooperation between government and the industry, following increased resource flow into the system that made it possible for desirable trade-offs to occur between the two parties. Six-and-a-half years after the introduction of the regulatory ordinance, all homes in the market achieved licensure status.     

Introduction: The Basic Law,Governance and Electoral Politics in China's Hong Kong and Macao since 1997

1 July 2007 marks the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong's retrocession to Chinese sovereignty to become a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the PRC. The HKSAR has functioned under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework as enshrined in the Basic Law, its mini-constitution. Upon the resumption of Chinese jurisdiction over Macao on 20 December 1999, a similar ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula also came into effect for the new MSAR under its Basic Law. The ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula that guarantees a high degree of autonomy in both Hong Kong and Macao is also a cornerstone of the PRC's strategy toward peaceful reunification with Taiwan. To provide a more balanced and informed understanding of these two Chinese SARs in actualizing the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model, this special section of four articles adopts a bi-focal approach. On the one hand, it presents in a joint article the views of two leading mainland Chinese legal scholars (Professors Geping Rao and Zhenmin Wang, both National People's Congress Hong Kong Basic Law Committee members) on some vital dimensions of the Basic Law. On the other hand, it offers three articles with a more locally anchored perspective—a comparative analysis (by Professor Sonny Lo) of the contrasting HKSAR and MSAR experiences, and two case studies (by Professors Bruce Kwong and Eilo Yu) that highlight key features of patron–client linkages and informal politics dynamics in HKSAR and MSAR elections and politics.