社会资本对农民工信任流入地政府的影响研究

农民工已然成为我国城市建设和经济发展的中坚力量,但由于户籍制度和城乡二元体制的影响,他们无法得到城市、农村两地政府的有效服务和管理,导致他们对政府的信任感偏低。本文利用西安交通大学人口与发展研究所2008年12月在陕西省X市LH区对农民工进行实地调查所获得的数据,以政府信任理论和社会资本理论作为理论基础,对西部农民工信任流入地政府现状及影响因素进行研究。研究结果发现,高素质、年轻一代的农民工对流入地政府的信任感低;社会资本越丰富的农民工越信任流入地政府;政治活动参与意愿越强、社会经济地位越高的农民工则越不信任流入地政府。     

Beyond town and gown: university economic engagement and the legacy of the urban crisis

University-driven land development and research into the amelioration of social problems are examples of the wider dimensions of economic engagement by large American research universities in metropolitan settings since 1949, and both dimensions are strongly conditioned by the experiences of universities and surrounding neighborhoods during the “urban crisis” of the 1960s. The rise of the modern American research university between 1950 and 1980 coincided with the economic decline of large American cities and the slide of their poorest neighborhoods into severe socioeconomic distress. The elite identification of the university as a force for economic and social change was a direct response to these urban upheavals, and the dynamics of its new role were fueled by the presumptions of postwar consensus liberalism. The urban crisis had an effect on town-gown relations that endured into the early twenty-first century, not least because it made local governments and universities allies rather than adversaries. Countering definitions of the role the university should take in economic development have arisen from a “town” comprised not of elected officials, but of community members from both within and outside of the university. The long shadow of urban crisis attests to the historical contingency of town-gown interactions and the usefulness of historical, case-based approaches to understanding the role of universities in urban and metropolitan economies.     

Researching counterterrorism: a critical perspective from the field in the light of allegations and findings of covert activities by undercover police officers

The article addresses some of the key issues that are raised for researchers engaging with counterterrorism police officers and initiatives, when undertaking research. A significant area to explore in this context is, in fact, the issue of relationships with counterterrorism police officers who may themselves directly have been covert police officers in the past and/or who may be continuing in their current, apparently more open, role (wittingly or otherwise) as agents of broader state strategies of exploiting trust for intelligence-gathering purposes. This article suggests that it is important for researchers to understand that working within the counterterrorism field involves degrees and shades of risk in the service of trust-building, sensitivity and the empowerment of communities, and that researchers themselves can (wittingly and unwittingly) be part of wider strategies instigated by security-minded individuals or groups of counterterrorism police officers. Reflecting upon the research that we have undertaken individually and collectively over the last number of years, in the light of the most recent spate of allegations about counterterrorism police officers infiltrating activist and political protest groups, having sexual relationships, and indeed, on occasion, children, with women whilst undercover and of potentially working to entrap vulnerable individuals into planning terrorist acts, this article raises questions around trust, credibility, legitimacy, the prevalence and near unavoidability of dysfunctional agendas and the implications of all of the above for community-based approaches to counterterrorism.     

Energy Crime,Harm, and Problematic State Response in Colorado: A Case of the Fox Guarding the Hen House?

Crime related to energy extraction is an emerging area of interest among green and critical criminologists. This paper contributes to that developing work by examining the political economy of harm and crime associated with the oil and natural gas industry in rural Colorado. Specifically, we examine problematic state regulatory response to citizens’ complaints regarding a range of harms caused by private industry (e.g., water pollution, adverse human health consequences, and domestic livestock death). In this paper, we draw on content analysis of formal complaints filed by citizens to the state, ethnographic work, and intensive interviews with citizens seeking relief from problematic or abusive industry practices. Our analysis illuminates how the state documents these practices, how citizens experience them, and how the state dilutes and deflects the externalities of energy extraction to produce additional harm.     

Comparing the Recognition Memory Test and the Word Choice Test in a Mixed Clinical Sample: Are They Equivalent?

The Recognition Memory Test (RMT) was compared to the Word Choice Test (WCT) within the same fixed neuropsychological battery administered to a mixed clinical sample of 237 adults to empirically evaluate the psychometric equivalence of these two instruments. On average, there was a 3-point difference in raw scores between the two instruments (M _RMT?=?44.3, SD _RMT?=?6.8; M _WCT?=?47.1, SD _WCT?=?4.6; p?d?=?.48). The probability density functions differ substantially at the two ends of the scale but are similarly ≤42. Cross-validation analyses suggest that the RMT cutoff of ≤42 is functionally equivalent to a WCT score of ≤45.     

Italian Utilities and Public Control: Evidence of Merger Effects

ABSTRACT

Increasing competition-induced mergers amongst public utilities may favour in Italy a reduction in public control and an increase in fair value accounting. In this context, conducting a multiple case study characterized by an innovative comprehensive approach, it is investigated how the peculiarities of the sector affect integration and the subsequent accounting representation of the post-merger entity. The findings show, firstly, the persistent will of the public shareholders to maintain control and, secondly, shed light on a form of interconnected ‘accounting levelling out’ that seems ill-suited to represent the economic reality of the most significant post-merger companies, despite New Public Management provisions.     

Realising the Right to Health for Young People in South Africa—Some Reflections

Abstract

The right to health is enshrined in the South African Constitution as well as a range of international and regional human rights treaties which South Africa accepts. Yet empirical data reveals some of the challenges faced by South African youth—childhood diseases, HIV/AIDS and such like. There are evidently challenges realising the right to health in practice. Nevertheless, South African courts have led the international field in recognising the justiciability of economic and social rights such as the right to health. Having reviewed the applicable laws and jurisprudence, the paper will conclude that a more holistic human rights-based approach offers perhaps the best way forward.     

Establishing a Social-Darwinist Mentality in Japan’s Paternalist State: The Potential of Resistance by a Counter-Public

ABSTRACT

From a historical perspective, the welfare net in Japan was established from above without democratic participation and expanded only slowly. This expansion in many cases was aimed at enhancing national cohesion, especially during war time. During the current neoliberal era, Japan’s paternalistic welfare state has been able to put into practice the dismantling of national pension and health-care systems without the need for any theoretical re-orientation. In response, counter-publics have engaged in protest and resistance. By doing so, the victims of modernization and those who are socially weak and disadvantaged in multiple ways are able to regain their self-esteem and personal integrity.     

The rise and fall of “Novorossiya”: examining support for a separatist geopolitical imaginary in southeast Ukraine

In the spring of 2014, some anti-Maidan protestors in southeast Ukraine, in alliance with activists from Russia, agitated for the creation of a large separatist entity on Ukrainian territory. These efforts sought to revive a historic region called Novorossiya (“New Russia”) on the northern shores of the Black Sea that was created by Russian imperial colonizers. In public remarks, Vladimir Putin cited Novorossiya as a historic and contemporary home of a two-part interest group, ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking Ukrainians, supposedly under threat in Ukraine. Anti-Maidan agitation in Ukraine gave way to outright secession in April 2014, as armed rebel groups established the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhans’k People’s Republic on parts of the eponymous Ukrainian oblasts. Rebel leaders aspired to create a renewed Novorossiya that incorporated all of eastern and southern Ukraine from Kharkiv to Odesa oblasts. To examine the level of support for this secessionist imaginary in the targeted oblasts, our large scientific poll in December 2014 revealed the Novorossiya project had minority support, between 20 and 25% of the population. About half of the sample believed that the concept of Novorossiya was a “historical myth” and that its resuscitation and promotion was the result of “Russian political technologies.” Analysis of the responses by socio-demographic categories indicated that for ethnic Russians, residents of the oblasts of Kharkiv and Odesa, for older and poorer residents, and especially for those who retain a nostalgic positive opinion about the Soviet Union, the motivations and aims of the Novorossiya project had significant support.