Transcending Culture and Structure:Theoretical Paradigms of Cultural Sociology and Its Integration

Sociological theory which is dominated by structuralism paradigm faced with a series of crisis and predicament, and has given rise to a turn of cultural. It reviews and reflects critically the concept, development context and theoretical paradigms change of cultural sociology about domestic and foreign helps to gain insight into concerns and explanatory power of cultural sociology responding China’s current social issues. This article summarizes theoretical context of cultural sociology and its three leading research paradigms (culture-structuralism paradigm, stratification-class perspective, and strong-weak cultural program), and find that although the three paradigms have their own critically advantages, but faced with the common problem that is hard to jump out of the duality between culture and structure. Besides, this article tries to put forward an integrated research paradigm of cultural sociology, and in order to respond to the China’s indigenization of sociology and current social real issues.     

国际制度设计视角下的澜湄合作

为什么在湄公河流域已经存在数十个国际合作机制的情况下,还要建立澜湄合作(LMC)这一新型次区域合作机制?既有研究大多强调湄公河流域大国国际制度主导权竞争的宏观背景因素,而较少关注澜湄合作机制的新制度特征及其形成原因,即澜湄新型次区域合作机制究竟"新在何处"。与大湄公河次区域经济合作机制(GMS)等既有国际机制相比,澜湄合作机制具有两大新的制度特征:一是议题范围更加广泛,除了传统的区域经济合作议题外,还增加了区域安全合作以及水资源合作等新议题;二是集中程度更高,与之前合作机制主要由"职能部门引领"以及"借用"亚洲开发银行作为国际秘书处的做法不同,澜湄合作机制采取了"领导人引领、各部门参与"的机制运行模式,并逐步建立独立的国际秘书处。通过运用国际制度理性设计的理论模型,本文考察了在湄公河流域国际合作中上游国家与下游国家之间所面临的日益严峻的分配问题和执行问题,并以此解释了澜湄合作新制度特征的形成原因。     

三种服务型政府观比较

当下中国学界与政界主要存在着三种服务型政府观,即基于政府价值理念的内涵定位和适应后工业社会治理要求的服务型政府观;基于政府价值理念的内涵定位和主要借鉴工业社会治理经验的服务型政府观;基于政府职能结构的内涵定位和主要借鉴工业社会治理经验的服务型政府观。它们在服务型政府的本质内涵、主要特征、兴起动因、理论基础等方面的阐释与定位都不尽相同。就目前所产生的实际效果而言,第一种服务型政府观理论目标相当宏大高远,但实践响应比较困难;第二种服务型政府观理论契合学界主流观点,但实践响应比较一般;第三种服务型政府观理论契合政界近期工作,且实践响应也较明显。梳理和比较这些不同的服务型政府观应当是推进和深化服务型政府研究的必要环节和重要任务。     

土耳其旅游业浅析

经过近30年的快速发展,土耳其已经成为新兴的世界旅游目的地国家。在土耳其旅游业的发展过程中,政府的发展战略和政策导向发挥了关键性作用。土耳其的旅游产业在创汇增收、打造特色产业集群、优化产业结构等方面,不仅支撑并拉动了整个国民经济的持续增长与发展,也为解决国内就业问题做出了独特贡献。目前,土耳其旅游业正处于国际化发展进程中,其旅游业快速发展的经验值得发展中国家学习和借鉴。     

Cut Loose in the Caribbean: Neoliberalism and the Demise of the Commonwealth Sugar Trade

This article focuses on the way the Anglophone Caribbean succumbed to the overhaul of the European Union sugar trade and how these countries have attempted to restructure their economies in its wake. We show how the protagonists of reform gave a sense of inevitability to the demise of the Commonwealth trade system and conveyed (unrealistic) strategies for how this should be managed for the benefit of the Caribbean. In this way we detail the hegemony of neoliberalism in contemporary trade politics and the need for alternative strategies for rural development in the Caribbean region.     

台湾与东盟经济关系发展新趋势、成因与前景分析

近几年来台湾与东盟经济关系呈现出一些新的发展趋势，主要表现为台湾对东盟投资额和双方贸易额快速增长，东盟在台湾对外经贸格局中的地位不断攀升以及双方经贸交流合作日益密切，其中台湾与新加坡率先签订“经济伙伴协议”，标志着台湾与东盟国家的经济关系迈入新的发展阶段。双方经济关系的快速发展是东盟经济的“引力”、大陆经济转型升级的“推力”、两岸关系和平发展和台湾当局政策“助力”这三股力量共同作用的结果。未来台湾与东盟经贸往来有望继续保持平稳发展态势，东盟对台湾经济重要性将持续上升，台湾也将东盟及主要国家列为对外商签VrA的重点对象，但可预见的是，双方经济关系将继续在“一个中国”框架内运行，且不会从根本上影响两岸经济关系发展大局。     

表演者精神权利结构与本质探析

理论界及司法界有关表演者精神权利的问题争论较大,归根结蒂是有关表演者精神权利的结构与本质的争论,目前相关研究较少.本文着重论述了表演者精神权利的结构与本质,在有关精神权利的结构部分,论述了表演者精神权利的主体、客体和内容;在本质部分,对表演者精神权利与作者精神权利进行了比较研究,论述了两者的本质区别,突显了表演者精神权利的纯粹的人身权属性.最后还以表演者精神权利结构和本质为视角阐述了其法律特征.     

Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics

Important research programs within New Institutional Economics advance culturalist arguments to explain failures of economic development. Focusing on the work of Douglass C. North and Avner Greif, this article argues that such arguments rely on an essentialist conception of culture that is both historically inaccurate and analytically misleading. Greif’s work in particular rests on a selective use of empirical data that ultimately distorts the deductive models that are at the core of his work. As a result, both scholars use culture to account for outcomes that are more adequately explained as the product of social conflict and political struggles—struggles in which culture plays a far more contingent and destabilizing role than the one they attribute to it. What is needed, I argue, is to link arguments about the persistence of inefficient institutions with a sociologically informed conception of culture as an ensemble of resources that enhance rather than constrain the scope of individual agency. To come to terms with the effects of culture on institutional formation and change it is necessary to replace the essentialism articulated by North and Greif with a strategic-instrumentalist view in which culture is compatible with a wide spectrum of economic behaviors, individual actions, and thus institutional trajectories.

Institutions and Caribbean Economic Performance: Insights from Jamaica

We explore the impact of social institutions on economic performance in Jamaica through a reinterpretation of the plantation economic model. In its original form, the plantation model fails to develop a causal link between the plantation legacy and persistent underdevelopment. Despite its marginalization, the model remains useful for discussions on growth and development. Consequently, we offer a reappraisal using the causal insights from Kenneth Sokoloff and Stanley Engerman. We use two examples to demonstrate how inequality encourages the formation of institutions that are inconsistent with growth, and an empirical analysis to confirm the hypothesized relationship between inequality, institutions, and economic development. Since inequality is expected to influence growth indirectly, we use a structural specification, which follows William Easterly’s recent test of Sokoloff and Engerman’s argument. Our reliance on a time-series specification is unique. We demonstrate that the expectation that, on average, inequality and growth is negatively related and that institutions may compromise growth are accurate for Jamaica, the most cited Caribbean nation in the current discourse. Our results carry several policy implications, including support for the recent calls in Jamaica for political restructuring. However, both the paucity of similar studies and the importance of the implications for sustainable growth and development demand further analyses.

理想图景与正义问题——《中国法学向何处去》读后

通过对中国法学自1978年以来26年间的这一个时代的批判,邓正来提出了一种以社会秩序的建构及其正当性为核心问题的中国法律哲学观,其任务是建构一种"中国法律理想图景".以"中国法学向何处去"为主题的系列论文,不仅强调了世界结构是这种法律哲学观的历史性条件,还隐含着建构"中国法律理想图景"必须考虑的三类正义问题.