The United States,Japan, and the European Union: comparing political economy approaches to China

Abstract

This paper examines US, Japanese, and European political economy approaches to China, and their effect on US–Japan and US–EU relationships. Great powers with a greater security concern in dealing with another major country care more about power while those with less of a concern are preoccupied with calculations for wealth. China's rise and its actions have posed a far greater security challenge to the United States and Japan and are driving the two countries closer together. The political economy game involving China reveals a dominant welfare motive among the advanced market economies. The ambition to transform China politically has diminished. China's integration into the global market makes a relative gains approach difficult to implement. Globalization simply limits the ability of a state to follow a politics-in-command approach in the absence of actual military conflict, which explains why the political economy approaches of the United States, Europe, and Japan are not that different in the scheme of things. China's own grand strategy to reach out to the world to outflank the US–Japan alliance has also contributed to a divergent European policy toward China although there are severe limitations to Beijing's ability to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe.     

Vṛṣabhadeva’s Sphuṭākṣarā on Bhartṛhari’s Metaphysics: Commentarial Strategy and New Interpretations

Although somewhat neglected in the scholarly debate, V??abhadeva’s commentary (known as Sphu?āk?arā or Paddhati, possibly 8th c. CE) on Vākyapadīya’s first chapter, offers a remarkable analysis of Bhart?hari’s views on metaphysics and philosophy of language. Vākyapadīya’s first four kārikās deal with ontological issues, defining the key elements of Bhart?hari’s non-dualistic edifice such as the properties of the unitary principle, its powers, the role of time and the ontological status of worldly objects. V??abhadeva’s interpretation of the kārikās in question is intriguing and seems to be guided by the urgency to find a solution to the riddle which every non-dualistic theory has to face: how is it possible to postulate a unitary principle of reality when reality is cognized as multiple? In accomplishing the task V??abhadeva proposes various solutions (some of them based on concepts which are hardly detectable in Vākyapadīya and appear close to the ones propounded in certain trends of Advaita Vedānta), finally suggesting an explanation which, focusing on the pragmatic aspect of language, is altogether consistent with Bhart?hari’s theoretical picture.     

高职会计专业《经济法》教学模式挑战与构建

高职会计专业《经济法》课程的教学模式直接影响会计专业应用型人才的培养质量。当前高职会计专业经济法教学存在一系列挑战:缺乏适合高职财会专业的特色教材;考证应试效应给实践教学增添巨大压力;教师缺乏实践经验等。因此,以教师"双体验"为切入点构建新型教学模式:以趣味性和操作性为起点,抓好导入关;以考证和实践相结合为重点,抓好质量关;以教师培养和使用为关键,抓好育人关。     

Local Politics Online: The Influence of Presumed Influence on Local Politicians’ Online Communication Activities in Germany

Abstract

How extensively local politicians use online media to communicate with others and the factors that influence their online activities have rarely been examined. In particular, it is unknown whether local politicians use online media more extensively when they believe that online media has a strong political influence on others. To examine this, a standardised survey among German local politicians was conducted (n = 608). The results showed the following: The stronger the politicians perceive the influence of facebook and Twitter on journalists to be, the more extensively they spread information via these social media networks. However, the presumed influences on the public or on other politicians do not affect those online activities. Thus, local politicians apparently do not pursue a disintermediation strategy – they do not try to bypass journalism by directly addressing the public. Rather, journalists seem to be an important target group for local politicians’ online communication efforts.     

发展循环经济:背景与对策

本文分析了循环经济产生的背景和内涵,论述了我国循环经济概念与国外的差异及其原因,阐明了发展循环经济与建设节约型社会的关系,总结出制度创新、技术创新、伦理道德与社会文化是循环经济的三大支撑条件,从优先产业选择、优先地区选择以及区域层面、企业层面、农村层面上指出了发展循环经济的途径,最后提出了发展循环经济的十大政策措施。     

Intelligence,Crisis, and Democracy: Institutional Punctuations in Brazil,Colombia, South Africa,and India

This article analyzes why institutional crises are bound to happen and how they impact on national intelligence systems’ development. Punctuated Equilibrium theory is reviewed and employed to explain one institutional crisis in each of Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, and India. In Brazil, the case study is the fall of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) director in 2008, following the Satiagraha operation conducted by the Federal Police Department (DPF). In Colombia, the 2009 wiretapping scandal known as chuzadas is examined. In South Africa, the investigation in Project Avani (2006–8) is reviewed. Finally, in India the case study is the intelligence crisis following the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008. We found that institutional crises are inevitable because there are tensions between security and democracy, both being co-evolutionary dimensions of successful contemporary state building. However, the impacts of such crises vary across the four cases pending on three variables: (1) degree of functional specialization inside the national intelligence system; (2) degree of external public control over the national intelligence system; (3) whether effectiveness, legitimacy or both were the main drivers of the crisis. Our analysis of the four case studies suggests that the amount of positive institutional change in the aftermath of an intelligence crisis is greater in countries with more functional specialization and stronger external control mechanisms.     

Anti-money laundering by international institutions: a preliminary assessment

This paper presents an evaluation of the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) program. It briefly discusses why this can be seen as the birth of a “regime for financial integrity”. We find that some areas of the AML/CFT framework are consistently weaker than others in the area of prevention measures. Specifically, we have two findings: the first, positive one, points to a substantial adequacy of the repressive measures; the second, negative one, points to a substantial failure of countries to adopt adequate preventive measures, and calls for renewed efforts to improve implementation of preventive measures across the board, with specific regard to the activity of financial sector regulatory and supervisory authorities. Also, Eurozone countries outperform all other groups in the sample. Finally, the limited availability of country information and the multiplicity of assessors and methodologies make it difficult to evaluate the performance of the program. Therefore, we suggest greater transparency and availability of detailed countries’ information, and follow up assessments of the weak areas of a country’s AML/CFT framework at higher frequency than the established 5 years.

中国行政法学理论体系之重构——以行政指导的发展为视角

以强制性行政行为为主导是我国现行行政法的主要内容.社会主义市场经济以及民主政治的发展与进步已导致行政法理念由控权论向平衡论转变,以非强制的行政指导为主导将成为中国行政法的未来发展方向,这与现行行政法学理论体系存在诸多冲突.为此,必须重构中国行政法学的理论体系:重新定位行政行为的性质、重新构建非强制行政行为的合法性标准、行政救济的受案范围以及行政法律责任体系.