武力抑或外交政策工具?——评俄罗斯对格鲁吉亚战争的官方话语

对于2008年的俄格战争,俄罗斯从法律和规范的角度,为自身的行为提出了辩解.一方面是为了证明其行动的合法性与合理性,另一方面也隐含着更大的政治动机:即俄罗斯想利用对自身有利的国际转型期和自身实力上升的机会,挑战现有的国际规范,从而为自己在未来的行动,特别是在独联体地区的行动,创造有利的条件.然而,俄罗斯的这些辩辞并不能得到广泛的共识,相反其言行反而带来了国际社会的担心,从而使得其挑战西方主导的秩序更加困难.     

The industrial society in transition: Comparative public policymaking - the United States and Sweden

This paper attempts to contrast the industrial policymaking “styles” of the U.S. and Sweden. The study looks past the clutter of economic and trade issues into underlying political culture and institutional regime. The conceptual framework of pluralism versus managed pluralism is employed to examine some complex issues related to economic and industrial management, and to help explain the problem. A strategy to advance the long-term interests of a country must go beyond the “legislative pork barrel” approach, simply to create employment and to keep jobs. Industrial policy must have both institutional and policy linkages. Government-business cooperation at a sectoral level is essential in providing policy loans and tax incentives. The state, to facilitate policy implementation, has to pursue linkage developments between industrial, human resource, economic, and trade policies.     

The changing face of culture: gauging the impact of a free media

This paper empirically assesses the relationship between culture and a free press. The results reveal that a privatized or ‘free media’ strongly influences informal institutions of a country or what is commonly known as culture. By providing unbiased and a wide variety information to the masses, the media sector not only reduces information asymmetry and transaction costs but also helps generate higher levels of social capital. It acts as an effective liaison between the masses and the government and also among various religious, ethnic and other fractionalized groups in a society. We use the proxy of informal institutions identified by Tabellini (Journal of the European Economic Association 8(4):677–716, 2010) which consists of four traits. The results are robust to alternate specifications and inclusion of controls.     

The Russian case for military intervention in Georgia: international law,norms and political calculation

Abstract

The Russian military intervention in Georgia in August 2008 has raised significant questions about Russian thinking and practice on the legitimate use of military force abroad, especially in relation to neighbour states. The arguments advanced by Russia to justify this campaign show how Russian interpretations of customary international law as well as norms related to the use of force have served as an instrument of state policy, rather than being rooted in any broader international consensus. The Russian discourse in this context about sovereignty, self-determination and the legitimacy of recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as states appears similarly to be strongly influenced by political self-interest and Russian views about its entitlement within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region. Among Russian claims, Moscow's commitment to support its ‘citizens’ abroad has been particularly controversial. This article examines these issues and also the possibility that, through its justifications for waging war against Georgia, Russia is more broadly contesting the interpretation of certain international norms, that it regards as essentially constructed by Western states. Some potential implications of these legal and normative arguments for future Russian policy in the CIS region, including Ukraine, are also examined.     

Medieval modernity: On citizenship and urbanism in a global era

This paper examines forms of citizenship associated with contemporary urbanism. Focusing on three paradigmatic spaces: the gated enclave, the regulated squatter settlement and the camp, the authors argue that the landscape of urban citizenship is increasingly fragmented and divided. These geographies are constituted through multiple and competing sovereignties which, when territorially exercised, produce fiefdoms of regulation or zones of ‘no-law’. In order to understand these practices, the authors employ the conceptual framework of the ‘medieval city’. This use of history as theory sheds light on particular types of urban citizenship, such as the ‘free town’ or the ‘ethnic quarter’, that were present at different moments of medievalism and that are congruent with current processes. The ‘medieval’ is invoked not as an historical period, but rather as a transhistorical analytical category that interrogates the modern at this moment of liberal empire.     

How Serious is the Global Warming Threat?

Despite the media’s and politicians’ insistence that the science of global warming is “settled”, there are good reasons to distrust climate model projections of future global warming. While the supposed scientific consensus is that mankind is very likely to blame for recent global warmth, this is mostly a statement of faith made from a position of relative ignorance about natural variability in the climate system. Since we do not understand what causes decadal- to century-scale natural climate variability, it has simply been assumed to either not exist, or to be relatively small. But even if predictions of catastrophic warming are accurate, the worldwide demand for energy is so large that there is little mankind can do without radically new energy technologies. Since it is only the wealthy countries of the world that can afford the R&D efforts to develop those technologies, punishing the use of fossil fuels, and the resulting negative impact on economies, might well delay the development of cost effective carbon-free energy sources that so many people are now calling for.