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正Photo NewsJuly 9,2014The 6th round of China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogue opens in Beijing.The forum is co-chaired by Vice Premier Wang Yang(front,third right),State Councilor Yang Jiechi(front,second right),who is the special representative of President Xi Jinping,U.S.Secretary of State John Kerry(front,far left)as President Obama’s special representative and U.S.Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew(front,second left).     

Reform Strategies Matter: Explaining the Perplexing Results of Regional Government Reforms in Norway and Denmark

Reforming the public sector often means imposing immediate costs on well-organised interests in return for longer-term, diffuse benefits to voters and taxpayers. Nonetheless, reforms sometimes are carried through. Investigations of this puzzle have followed two approaches: The first is structural and explains reforms as a consequence of the institutional setting in which policymakers operate. The second focuses on human agency. It investigates how reformers search for ways to overcome structural obstacles. This approach has lived a quiet life in recent decades. In this paper, we investigate recent attempts to reform the regional government level in Norway and Denmark. Despite very similar structural settings and political preferences, the reforms failed in Norway, but were successful in Denmark; failure and success being defined by the two governments' intensions. We argue that the explanation lies in the different reform strategies pursued by the central governments in the two countries.     

A Social Discount Rate for Appraisal of Regional Investments: Evidence from Russia

This article provides estimates of a social discount rate (SDR) to inform government policy in Russia. We find that a SDR should be determined for the whole country as well as for particular regions. We apply the social rate of time preferences approach and estimate values for public sector projects at national and regional levels. All calculations are based on data from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia. Findings help the decision-making process in the public sector of economics. Suggestions are useful for Russia as well as for post-Soviet countries and other developing economies with regional diversity.     

The Four Pillars of Russia’s Power Narrative

The Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and the annexation of Crimea were two major international events in which Russia engaged in early 2014. In spite of all the divergence in the logic underpinning each of them, four concepts strongly resonate in both cases. First, in hosting the Olympics and in appropriating Crimea, Russia was motivated by solidifying its sovereignty as the key concept in its foreign and domestic policies. Second, the scenarios for both Sochi and Crimea were grounded in the idea of strengthening Russia as a political community through mechanisms of domestic consolidation (Sochi) and opposition to unfriendly external forces (the crisis in Ukraine). Third, Sochi and Crimea unveiled two different facets of the logic of normalisation aimed at proving – albeit by different means – Russia’s great power status. Fourth, one of the major drivers of Russian policy in both cases were security concerns in Russia’s southern flanks, though domestic security was also an important part of the agenda.     

The US–Russian security ‘reset’: implications for Central-Eastern Europe and Germany

Abstract

The article examines the reactions of selected European states to the US-performed ‘reset’ in relations with Russia and explores the ways in which they have been adapting to the new set-up. The article is divided into three parts: after the discussion of the substantive continuity and limited change in US foreign and security policy (USFSP), the multilateral and bilateral dimensions of USFSP procedure are examined through John Ruggie's theoretical observations. The second part of the article deals with implications of the USFSP for Central-Eastern European countries. This part begins with a discussion of Russian attempts to wheedle Europe into embracing its plans for new European security architecture. The next section sheds light on the unexpected process of strategic realignment of the region (USA/NATO/EU/CSDP) and simultaneous transformation of the special relationship with the USA into ‘normal life’. The third part of the article tackles the implications of heightened US–Russian bilateralism for Germany. Authors' findings, many of them based on conducted elite interviews, suggest the contrary process, namely Germany's strengthened multilateral commitment to the EU and specifically to European Security and Defence Policy, limiting the bilateral option to energy trade with Russia. What follows are concluding remarks.     

俄罗斯石油公司发展历程及其与中国石油合作

俄罗斯石油公司是俄罗斯最大的国有石油公司。2012年末,它以560亿美元收购秋明—BP石油公司,预计交易在2013年上半年完成。完成收购后,俄罗斯石油公司即晋升为在产量和资源储量上全球最大的石油公司。此次收购将对俄罗斯乃至世界能源行业产生深远影响,并将促进中俄能源合作的开展。     

A chance for a breakthrough in Russo-Japanese relations: will the logic of great power relations prevail?

Under Mori Yoshiro the Japanese government energetically pursued Russia's new leader, Vladimir Putin. Progress was achieved, as Putin recognized the 1956 treaty in which Moscow pledged to return two islands. From the summer of 2000, however, a backlash could be detected. The architects of the initiative not only failed to make their case to Japanese politicians, but also became the object of two years of attacks, leading to Suzuki Muneo's ouster from the LDP and arrest and to Togo Kazuhiko being fired as ambasador to The Netherlands. Under Koizumi Junichiro Japan lost interest, while the media feasted on the image of foreign policy being hijacked. Lost in the media frenzy and setback to relations was the case for why Tokyo and Moscow need each other as great power partners in the face of rising Chinese power and overwhelming US power. Since both parties sided with the US war against terror, the logic of cooperation has become clearer. A general outline for an interim agreement is well understood on both sides, but a breakthrough is unlikely soon.     

The muslim slavs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (with reference to the Sandzak of Novi Pazar): Islam as national identity

Using results from a 2010 survey conducted in the Republic of Buryatia, this paper compares the responses of Russians and Buryats on questions of religious practice and belief, as well as the role of religion and religious organizations in the political sphere of contemporary Russia. Buryats more commonly identify with a religion and more frequently attend religious services in comparison to Russians living in the republic. There is greater consonance between the two groups on the public role of religion, with both Russians and Buryats generally supportive of the recent extension of religious education into schools and the creation of national holidays for all traditional religions, among other issues.     

“Neither angels,nor demons,but humans”: anti-essentialism and its ideological moments among the Russian Zionist intelligentsia

This article shows that anti-essentialism was a pivotal ideological feature of Russian Zionism – the idiom of Zionism that lay behind Russian Zionist periodicals such as Rassvet in Late Imperial Russia. For Russian Zionists, the Jewish nation was the social field that existed as a social fact. While Russian Zionists' concept of the Jewish nation was inevitably influenced by their political context, nonetheless, it was primarily a result of the convergence of the following two ideological movements. First, there emerged a sense that a socioeconomic foundation was crucial in forming a nation. The transformation of Jewish socioeconomic positions in Eastern Europe and Russia was the background of this consciousness. The second is the ideological claim that any collective entity or social field should be respected regardless of its merit and utility vis-à-vis others. More specifically, for Russian Zionists, the Jewish raison d'être was the simple existence of their own social field; they believed that no further definition was required. The emergence of this viewpoint can be understood as a reaction to the Zionists' perception of Jewish history where Jews pursued the recognition and validation of their place among non-Jews by virtue of their merit or utility vis-à-vis non-Jews.     

What explains regional variation in election fraud? Evidence from Russia: a research note

The December 2011 legislative election was among the most fraudulent national elections in Russia since the communist period. The fraud, however, was not evenly spread across the country. Precinct-level election returns from the 83 regions of the Russian Federation suggest that the level of fraud ranged from minimal or small in some regions to extreme in some others, with moderate to high fraud levels in many regions in between. We argue that in an electoral authoritarian context like Russia, regional variation in fraud can be explained by differences in (a) the perceived need by regional authorities to signal loyalty to the center by “delivering” desired election results; (b) the capacity of regional authorities to organize fraud; and (c) the vulnerability of citizens to political pressure and manipulation. We test the effect of signaling, capacity, and vulnerability on electoral fraud in the 2011 legislative elections with data on the 83 regions of the Russian Federation. We find evidence for all three mechanisms, finding that the tenure of governors in office, United Russia's dominance in regional legislatures, and the ethnic composition of regions are most important for explaining regional variation in electoral fraud.