Sailors' families and the urban institutional framework in early modern Holland

This article points to a largely neglected theme in the maritime history: the important role of sailors' families in urban seafaring communities during the Early Modern Period. At the end of the seventeenth century and during the first decades of the eighteenth century, about 20% of the crewmembers of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were married. Accordingly, in the towns in Holland where the VOC was present, many women had to run a household by themselves for a long period of time. The sailors' families were often confronted by emotional and financial distress, which to some extent affected the financial expenses of VOC towns as well. Many of these families were however able to cope because they received material support from various urban institutions. The Company created a system that encouraged sailors to send their money home during voyages, while urban poor relief often temporarily complemented the family's budget. Contrary to other married women, wives of sailors could obtain the legal power to engage in financial transactions, or to have access to inheritances. Town councils, civil courts, church councils, charity institutions and the East India Company were all willing to help the seamen's families. Their motives were twofold: while urban communities benefited from financially stable families, and the VOC compensated for their low pay by offering their employees fringe benefits, the attitudes towards seamen's wives also indicate that the urban elites genuinely wanted to provide some assistance to these needy families.     

Sorting out the Conceptual Muddle: The Role of the Japanese Economy in the Asian Financial Crisis

Karel van Wolferen argues that, since Japan's political economy was the main factor in creating the circumstances that led up to the East Asian financial crisis, studies must focus on it to understand this event. The Japanese economy, which is here described as a war economy operating in peacetime, provided the model for East Asia's 'tiger economies' that imitated the Japanese government in its targeting of sectors for investment, especially the construction industry in the 1980s. These other East Asian economies proved more vulnerable to crisis than the Japanese economy because they were more open to foreign investment and did not have Japan's closely knit economic and financial networks and institutions. After presenting this preface to the crisis, van Wolferen then criticizes the current East Asian economic situation, in which international institutions continue to force the Western ideals of transparency and deregulation on most of the East Asian economies while permitting Japan to remain the least transparent economy of the entire region.     

The impact of plurilateral trade agreements on developing countries – to participate or not to participate?

In the wake of the impasse in the Doha Development Round of multilateral trade talks, sector-specific plurilateral trade agreements (PTAs) have been gaining traction. However, PTAs mostly appeal to developed countries, with the uptake among developing countries (including least-developed countries) being very limited. This article investigates the factors contributing to such a phenomenon, whether there is indeed merit in developing countries playing a more active role in PTAs and how they might be encouraged to do so. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted with specific attention being given to the effects, on a selection of developing countries, of participation in four PTAs: the Trade in Services Agreement, the Government Procurement Agreement, the Environmental Goods Agreement and the Information Technology Agreement II. Among the findings was that although, according to the qualitative analysis, policymakers are generally disinterested in the four PTAs because they are not aligned to the countries’ economic interests or they threaten policy space, the quantitative analysis revealed that gains could often be made from more active participation in these agreements. This clearly points to a research gap and highlights the need for more in-depth analysis of the potential of PTAs in the developing world.     

国外电子采购的发展及启示

不论在美国还是在荷兰,我们的调查研究发现,电子采购其实还处在婴儿期,只有在较大的工业公司才可以找到其实际应用。这和最近大肆渲染的电子采购应用前景形成了一个鲜明对比。根据我们的调查研究,我们对为什么电子采购的商业应用率很低给出5种解释。结论是电子采购将会改变采购现状,但速度远比一些研究机构预期得慢。从这5种原因中,实践者还可以学到在投资不同的电子采购解决方案之前要考虑哪些问题。     

Indigenous People,Organized Crime and Natural Resources: Borders,Incentives and Relations

This article explores the relationship between the Emberá–Wounaan and Akha Indigenous people and organized crime groups vying for control over natural resources in the Darién Gap of East Panama and West Colombia and the Golden Triangle (the area where the borders of Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand meet), respectively. From a southern green criminological perspective, we consider how organized crime groups trading in natural resources value Indigenous knowledge. We also examine the continued victimization of Indigenous people in relation to environmental harm and the tension between Indigenous peoples’ ecocentric values and the economic incentives presented to them for exploiting nature. By looking at the history of the coloniality and the socioeconomic context of these Indigenous communities, this article generates a discussion about the social framing of the Indigenous people as both victims and offenders in the illegal trade in natural resources, particularly considering the types of relationships established with dominant criminal groups present in their ancestral lands.

     

Specifying the information effect: reference points and procedural justifications affect legal attitudes in four survey experiments

Journal of Experimental Criminology - Providing detailed information about sentencing reduces punitive attitudes of laymen (the information effect). We assess whether this extends to modest...     

Reisverslag

SUMMARY

A new interest in and a consciousness of the ethics of public communication is noticable amongst scientists and practitioners in communication. In order to give depth to this consciousness it is necessary to address fundamental questions regarding the nature of ethics as such. In this article a constructive and contextual approach is followed to determine the nature of ethics, as it should be and its relation to the non-ethical. The nature of communication and how it should be ethical is also viewed contextually. Amongst others this means that the true humanitarian nature of man and its relation to public communication should also be considered. The ethical is related to the news responsibility of the media and the human interest served by this responsibility. Problems such as truth, objectivity, privacy and publicity is dealt with in the context of its ethical relevance. Finally, attention is given to the controversial problem of justification, where aspects such as the role of media councils is also dealt with.     

THE BATTLE FOR HISTORY AFTER SUHARTO: Beyond Sacred Dates,Great Men,and Legal Milestones

Historical discourse has become an important aspect of post-Suharto Indonesian politics. The nationalist instrumentalization of the past, always strong in Indonesia, took on a martial aspect under the New Order. Even today, the establishment remains reluctant to abandon it. But new visions of history have arisen out of the widespread protests against the New Order. Some preserve the form of a martial nationalist historiography, but displace it to the regions (especially Aceh and Papua), thus turning it against Jakarta. Others, both at a national and a local level, embrace more societal historiographies in which the state and national unity are not idealized, and in which internal conflict is not taboo.