A sociosemiotic interpretation of cybersecurity in U.S. legislative discourse

ABSTRACT

Based on one specially created corpus of U.S. cybersecurity-related laws, this study employs the corpus approach to examine the referent objects and securitizing actors in U.S. cybersecurity legislative discourse, which are two critical issues in constructing security, including cybersecurity. Through corpus data analysis, it is found that unlike traditional security, cybersecurity has become more people-oriented in terms of referent objects with critical infrastructure as a key referent object. Additionally, the role of private sectors and cooperative security are highlighted in U.S. cybersecurity legislative discourse. From a sociosemiotic perspective, it is noted that the meaning-making process of U.S. cybersecurity not only is conveyed by the texts but also interacts with other sign systems, such as historical background, cyberspace as a virtual realm and social contexts, which suggests that the specific meanings of signs constructing cybersecurity and cybersecurity itself should be interpreted in specific temporal or spatial contexts. Furthermore, a sociosemiotic approach to U.S. cybersecurity legislative discourse also offers valuable insights to how signs and concepts in cybersecurity contribute to sketching a holistic landscape of cybersecurity and further security on a large scale.     

农民工城市社区融入面临的困境与纾解

随着城镇化、现代化进程的不断加快,数以亿计的农民不断涌入城市,他们为城市的现代化建设提供了巨大的劳动力资源和智力支持.然而,他们并没能分享到与之相对应的社会发展成果,这与当下农民工不能很好地融入城市社区紧密相关.本文从农民工城市社区融入协力主体的角度阐释了当下农民工融入城市社区的状况,分析了农民工融入城市社区难的原因,对破解农民工城市社区融入难问题提出了相应的建议.     

Walking on Thin Ice

正Lithuania,a country of less than 3 million people,has drawn international attention by playing the "Taiwan"card.Yet there was little time for Lithuania to indulge in the pleasures of basking in the global spotlight before the Baltic country bumped into strong countermeasures from the Chinese side.The offender here is the Lithuanian Government,which has allowed the Taiwan authorities to set up a "representative office" in Lithuania under the name "Taiwan"despite the Chinese Government's strong opposition.This is seen as a serious breach of China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.On August 10,the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced its decision to recall China's ambassador to Lithuania and demand that the Lithuanian Government recall its ambas s ador to China.     

环境公益诉讼相关问题思考

环境公益诉讼是伴随着社会经济发展而产生的一种诉讼类型,它旨在保护环境公共权益,在促进社会变革,形成环境公共政策,法律执行等方面发挥了积极的作用。我国的民事诉讼法和环保法都对环境公益诉讼作出了相应的规定,但是我国的环境公益诉讼还处在刚起步阶段,相应的制度建设还需要完善。     

‘Post-NPM’ by force or fiat? A comparison of administrative reform trajectories in Brazil and Mexico1

‘New Public Management’ (NPM) ideas gained widespread acceptance all over the world in the 1980s and 1990s. In developing countries, notable examples of its influence include the Brazilian ‘Master Plan for Reforming Public Administration’, launched in 1995 by president Cardoso, and the Mexican ‘Federal Public Administration Modernisation Programme’ created in the same year by president Zedillo. Both reflected NPM doctrine and advanced changes for the organisation of the Executive. This article explores the evolution of these two countries' managerial reforms and the extent to which they eventually continued converging (or not) around similar principles, such as those often referred to as ‘Post-New Public Management’ (Post-NPM). By applying quantitative textual analysis of official documents and an analysis of self-reported institutional changes, the article concludes that despite their governing parties' strong political differences Mexico and Brazil did converge during the 2000s, improving controls from the centre, and prioritising the adoption of transparency and participation tools. The comparison of the trajectories of the administrative reforms of these countries between 1995 and 2016 contributes to international debates on policy convergence and Post-NPM reforms.     

China's dual strategy of coercion and inducement towards ASEAN

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the discussion about China's divisive influence on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It argues that recent China–ASEAN relations are based on Beijing's successful implementation of a dual strategy of coercion and inducement. The effectiveness of this strategy is tested against the South China Sea disputes – the issue that lies in the core of regional security and a key platform of power display. The article outlines Beijing's recent interaction with individual ASEAN member-states and its implications for the regional multilateral diplomacy. While by no means identical, Beijing's dual strategy of coercion and inducement with individual ASEAN states have resulted in an effective abuse of the ASEAN consensus principle – a tactic often referred to as ‘divide and rule’. Consequently, the group's internal discord has further eroded and affected the institutional confidence of ASEAN. This article draws attention to the psychological effect of coercion as a perception of punishment, and inducement as a perception of reward.     

Sudden death of an infant with 'an early epileptic encephalopathy'.

This article reports an autopsy case of sudden death of an infant with an infrequent encephalopathy involving epileptic episodes. The infant was a 1-year and 10-month-old boy, who had a history of the first convulsive seizures in the third month after birth. The clinical diagnosis was described as 'an early infantile epileptic encephalopathy with suppression-bursts' (Ohtahara syndrome). On a winter day, he was collapsed following a high fever and was already dead on the arrival at a hospital. The body was small for the age and poorly nourished. The autopsy and postmortem magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI) of formalin-fixed brain revealed advanced unsymmetric brain atrophy with cortical dysplasia, which were prominent in the left temporal and right occipital lobes, and sclerotic atrophy of the parahippocampal gyri, additionally showing a feature of the olivo-ponto-cerebellar atrophy. However, the cause of death was pathologically and microbiologically determined as bacterial bronchopneumonia following pulmonary infection of the influenza A virus. In sudden death cases of physically handicapped infants, the investigation of viral infection in consideration of an epidemiological survey is important even when the death can be pathomorphologically explained.     

Power Transitions,Status Dissatisfaction,and War: The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895

Although power transition theory offers a powerful model of international conflict, scholars have not adequately operationalized the theory's key variable of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the status quo. We argue that status dissatisfaction is an important component of a rising state's overall dissatisfaction with the system. We apply our revised power transition framework to the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War. Japan's revisionist foreign policy was driven by economic and security threats posed by China's control over Korea, dissatisfaction with Japan's place in the China-dominated East Asian hierarchy, the hope for recognition as a great power by the West, status-related domestic pressures, and by belief change that was endogenous to shifting power. Despite several earlier crises, Japan made the decision for war only after it had achieved parity with China, which is consistent with power transition theory's hypothesis that under conditions of shifting power, parity is a necessary condition for war.     

未成年被告人非监禁刑适用实务问题研究——以福建省法院审判实践为基础

对未成年罪犯尽可能的适用非监禁刑,应是宽严相济刑事政策语境下的应有之举。但是,由于刑事司法理念偏差、立法缺陷和制度缺失等原因,司法实践中,未成年被告人非监禁刑适用形势不容乐观,各地适用比例不平衡,而本地籍与外地籍未成年人被告人适用非监禁刑比例严重失衡的现象则更为严重。     

Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature

What is the impact of bureaucratic behaviors on tax rates? What is preferable: a bureaucrat or a partisan politician? Does a flypaper effect occur when lobby groups influence public policies? This article tries to answer these questions by analyzing and comparing six different models of public choice: (1) the median voter model, (2) the Leviathan model, (3) the slack-maximizing model, (4) a general model of bureaucracy, (5) the partisan politicians model and (6) a general model of lobbying. Among several results, it is shown that the median voter’s income and tax share almost always play a significant role in the design of the public good/tax package, even if the government does not explicitly try to maximize the median voter’s utility. The article also provides a synthesis of the positive analysis of the flypaper effect.