中国沿海外商直接投资外移趋势分析

受外商投资区位优势加速变迁,国际经济环境剧烈变动,尤其是全球金融危机冲击实体经济,各国对国际直接投资(FDI)的争夺日趋激烈等因素影响,中国沿海地区劳动密集型制造业的FDI大量外移。减少FDI向国外转移,促进其向内地转移,既有利于沿海发达地区经济结构升级,又有利于推动内地经济发展和对外开放,加快中国工业化进程,增加国内就业机会。促进沿海劳动密集型制造业的FDI内移,必须正视中国二元经济结构的现实,避免工业化进程中好高骛远,选择内地区域中心,形成产业集群效应,拓展产业链条,降低外商投资内地的综合成本。     

Making sense of multilevel governance and governance coordination in Brazil: The case of the Bolsa Verde Programme

Brazil is an example of a challenging governance context par excellence: continental size, multi-levelled governance structures and diverse administrative cultures meet with ambitious, large-scale policy needs and objectives. The multilevel governance approach is applied here to analyse implementation and governance coordination of the Bolsa Verde Programme (BVP). Through a close reading of the narratives told by three programme officials – and zooming in on jointly exercised governance functions known from the metagovernance approach – we analysed how BVP’s programmatic governance coordination was made sense of. The analysis showed that our interviewees were well aware of the shortcomings of the governance coordination in BVP, understood as rather hierarchical, centrally driven and often tackling challenges of vertical multi-actor coordination in a reactive ad-hoc manner. However, since the implementers have been able to creatively and skilfully solve governance coordination challenges, possibilities for developing more systematic and inclusive (meta)governance approaches seem feasible.     

The right to vote and nomadic voter enrolment

What model of voter enrolment is appropriate for states with nomadic minority populations? The present paper examines this question with reference to an equality-based, moral right to vote and considers four models that track some of the different institutional strategies that have been developed by states with transient populations. The paper shows that the right to vote is compatible neither with a model that makes permanent residence in a constituency an absolute condition for voter enrolment and so excludes nomads from the electoral process, nor with a model that enables nomadic voter enrolment but restricts the number of nomads that can enrol in a single constituency. But the right is, subject to certain caveats, consistent with a model that enables nomads to enrol in a constituency of their choice and, as well, with a model that enables nomads to enrol and vote in a distinct, non-territorial constituency.     

Town twinning and political support

Does town twinning foster citizens’ political support of the European Union? This study investigates the relation, which is maintained in politics and academics but still calls for empirical evidence. We distinguish between two levels of analysis, namely individual and context level, and differentiate in accordance with David Easton’s modes of political support specific from diffuse support. The corresponding hypotheses are tested with a unique dataset, which embraces survey findings of more than 12,000 respondents from 28 randomly selected municipalities in Germany. The main conclusions that emerge from the analysis are: First, town twinning does promote political support of the European Union on the individual level. Second, there are positive effects on specific and diffuse support. Thirdly, there is no relationship between local activity in twinning affairs and political support.     

Gender and Vernaculars in Digital Humanities and World Literature

Abstract

This article discusses the large-scale and world-encompassing aspirations of digital humanities and world literature and their methodological accordance with the analysis of literature in smaller languages and of texts understood in social, transnational, and gendered contexts. Are Digital Humanities and World Literature establishing themselves as fields utilizing analytical tools that are at odds with the aims and perspectives of feminist literary history and reception history as a part of literary history? We argue that gender research and theory is insufficiently developed in both computational literary history and World Literature. An unproblematic understanding of translations, canonization, English as a global language, and the use of large-scale computational methods and formalized interpretive models is in many cases not beneficial for the understanding of texts by women writers or from feminist perspectives. Drawing on feminist criticism of computational methods and arguments for specialized rather than generalized knowledge about literary history, we propose that digitization in some form, be it a bibliographical database or digitization of a corpus of texts, may be thought of as part of the research process in projects oriented towards gender and cultural exchange.     

Elektorale Responsivität als Kriterium zur Beurteilung des deutschen Bundestagswahlrechts

We argue that plurality systems strengthen the accountability of governments towards the electorate while proportional systems lead to a broad representation of voter interests in parliament and coalition governments. We demonstrate these effects in an analysis of all German federal elections from 1949 to 2017 using first-tier votes and directly elected deputies as reflecting the plurality segment and second-tier votes and the seat shares of parties as reflecting the proportional representation segment. We show that the percentages of directly elected deputies react more to differences in perceived party competences (party valences) than the percentages of all party deputies. Electoral system reforms should take into account the effects of both parts of the German electoral system.     

The Challenges to Cooperation Posed by the Nexus of Terrorism and Organized Crime: Comparing the Situations Between the Andean and the Sahel Regions

The recent conflict in the Sahel area is another case where the nexus of terrorism and organized crime causes challenges to the international community. Comparing the situation with that of the Andean region brings forth the challenges faced when dealing with this type of conflict: the states’ weak presence in the remote regions, the insurgents’ ability to offer income and “security” to the people, immediate threat to international investments, unresolved political/regional issues, the marriage of convenience of insurgents/terrorists and organized crime, internal divisions of the insurgent groups and also ideologies surviving or suffering after the elimination of their leaders.     

Drilling Deeper: A Systematic,Context-Sensitive Investigation of Causal Mechanisms in the Oil–Conflict Link

Abstract

This article employs an innovative methodology to study causal mechanisms in the oil–conflict link by combining a systematic approach with taking into account country details. Engaging in a deductive test of causal mechanisms in a controlled comparison of four major oil exporters, results show that no oil-related causal mechanism can fully explain the differences in violence. A more inductive analysis complemented by process tracing suggests a more comprehensive mechanism: oil contributes to the formation of opposition through grievances. Levels of violence, however, vary largely according to non-oil conditions – particularly the cohesiveness of opposition and the reaction of government to challengers.     

Indigenous Land Policies,Culture and Resistance in Latin America

Considered here are three edited collections about Latin America that address a wide variety of key rural development issues arising from landholding. The latter include not just methodological approaches (anthropology, political economy) but also questions of identity (gender, indigenous) and sustainability (the environment). Two seemingly antithetical interpretations of the impact of neoliberal project on indigenous populations are in evidence: as economically disempowering, but as politically empowering. A possible synthesis of these contrasting positions is suggested.     

Rural responses to reform in Post-Soviet countries

This review article discusses three books on post-communist agrarian reforms. At the heart of the discussion are questions over the efficacy of market reform and rural responses to reform policies. The article argues that the conception of reform that stemmed from the Washington Consensus was often too narrow and did not always lead to expected results, and indeed, sometimes led to unwanted, unintended results. Nonetheless, the three books are highly suggestive of rural adaptation in most post-communist nations. The nature and degree of adaptation to a new economic environment across several post-communist nations represent a critical mass of rural responses. Instead of seeing rural responses as resistant to change, or victims of change, a more nuanced view of reform appreciates the transformation in social and economic relations engendered by market reform.