Why Have Chinese Reforms Come to a Halt? The Political Economic Logic of Unfinished Transformation

This study approaches the Chinese reform process from a political-economic point of view, focusing primarily on institutional changes. Besides revealing the main factors behind the different phases of the reforms, it argues that in the framework of the current authoritarian regime, vested interests work against the continuation of the reforms, making it impossible to fully establish the institutional framework of a market economy. Current rents and privileges also deter the elite from implementing serious political reforms, leading to a trap that prevents the completion of the transition process.     

French engagement versus British commitment. Was it interlingual miscommunication or political manipulation?

ABSTRACT

The efforts undertaken to establish the contemporary European Union started many years earlier. The history of establishing a pan-European organization is interesting not only for historians and economists but also translators and linguists as it is the history of interlingual communication (negotiations and agreements). One such negotiation was allegedly ineffective due to the difference in understanding the French term engagement and its English equivalent employed by translators and interpreters, that is to say the English term commitment. The authors aim at presenting the political background of negotiations and the social semiotic analysis of the terms in question in order to provoke the reader to find the answer to the question whether the negotiation was broken due to interlingual miscommunication resulting from erroneously chosen equivalent or it was destined to failure from the very beginning due to socio-political and economic interests of negotiating parties. In order to achieve that goal, the authors have analysed notes exchanged between the governments of France and Great Britain in course of negotiation. The history of negotiation and the linguistic analysis are combined to illustrate the complexity of meaning construction and the semiotic implications of the contextual dependence of meanings of terms and their dynamic evolution in time and space.     

Has machine learning rendered simple rules obsolete?

European Journal of Law and Economics - Epstein (Simple rules for a complex world, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1995) defended the superiority of simple legal rules over complex,...     

Trends in the proportion of married women of reproductive age in Spain, 1887–1991

Using the Princeton nuptiality index I_m, we analyzed historical developments in the proportion of married women of reproductive age in Spain. We show the internal diversity in nuptiality patterns and offer an explanatory statistical model based on panel data analysis to identify the main variables influencing these changes over more than a century (1887–1991). We found that Spain has been the developed country with the greatest contrasts in its provincial nuptiality patterns (measured by I_m), although this diversity has lessened over the course of time. We also found that some socioeconomic variables (the gross domestic product per capita and the percentage of population living in cities) do not have a linear relationship with female nuptiality but rather have a U shape or an inverted U shape. This may partly account for some of the controversy that has raged on this topic over the past few decades on an international level.     

The AIDS epidemic in Brazil: Public health and community responses

Brazil boasts one of the world's most successful programmes to confront the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in spite of the country's rather low social and health indicators. The government recognised early the threat that HIV/AIDS posed to Brazil, and initiated a great number of programmes. However, the success of prevention programmes, assistance to those infected and control of the epidemic in Brazil are the result of a combination of political will, technical and human resource capacity, adequate funding and, most important, social mobilisation.     

Ritual Demonstrations versus Reactive Protests: Participation Across Mobilizing Contexts in Mexico City

Using an innovative survey of protest participants and nonparticipants from five major street demonstrations in Mexico City in 2011 and 2012, this study tests the assumption that influences on protest participation vary across different types of events; namely, ritual demonstrations and reactive protests. The comparison is based on two assumptions: that these are two of the dominant forms of protest in contemporary Latin America, and that specifying the context for different types of social movement participation provides a better understanding of the individual mobilization process for groups seeking to defend their rights or gain new benefits. The comparative analyses reveal some crucial differences. Political interest and previous political experience are more influential in the decision to take part in reactive demonstrations. For ritual demonstrations, the decision to participate tends to be driven more by personal and organizational connections.