Can Democracy Cope?

The success story of democracy over the twentieth century has given way to doubts in the twenty‐first, as democracies struggle to cope with difficult wars, mounting debts, climate change and the rise of China. This essay uses intellectual history to explain the link between long‐term democratic success and short‐term democratic failure. It distinguishes three distinct views of what can go wrong with democracy, and identifies the third (which I call ‘the confidence trap’, an idea that originates with Tocqueville) as the key to understanding our present predicament. Democratic success creates blind spots and a reluctance to tackle long‐term problems. I use this idea to explain and put in context Fukuyama's claims about the end of history, and to examine the link between democratic failure and market failure.     

Negotiating state and society: the normative informal economies of Central Asia and the Caucasus

ABSTRACT

This special issue introduces new research on informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The research presented here was conducted in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Beijing, Guangzhou, Yiwu and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The following eight articles illustrate how informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus provided spaces for people across the region to negotiate state and society in the last three decades; the articles also suggest that informality should be seen as constitutive of a normative order for polities in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Informal markets and trade in Central Asia rest on three factors: the inability of the state to measure commercial transactions; markets and trade becoming places from which citizens built personalized networks that required individualized networking and oral agreements based on social relations, particularly trust; and markets being embedded within states in which clientelism frequently thrives.     

The Rebirth of Water as a Weapon: IS in Syria and Iraq

The so-called Islamic State (IS) has increasingly used water as a weapon in order to further its political and military aims in Syria and Iraq. In this water-scarce region, IS has retained water and cut off crucial supplies, flooded large areas as well as contaminated resources. The capture of large dams in the Euphrates and Tigris basin has made it possible to deploy the water weapon even more effectively and in a frequent, systematic, consistent and flexible manner. Measures to counter this weaponisation effectively have been limited to military means. However, several internal constraints create a dilemma for IS as its state-building ambitions conflict with the consequences of the weaponisation of water. The rebirth of using the water weapon in Syria and Iraq raises questions about protecting water infrastructures in conflict and post-conflict settings.     

Forecasting proportional representation elections from non-representative expectation surveys

This study tests non-representative expectation surveys as a method for forecasting elections. For dichotomous forecasts of the 2013 German election (e.g., who will be chancellor, which parties will enter parliament), two non-representative citizen samples performed equally well than a benchmark group of experts. For vote-share forecasts, the sample of more knowledgeable and interested citizens performed similar to experts and quantitative models, and outperformed the less informed citizens. Furthermore, both citizen samples outperformed prediction markets but provided less accurate forecasts than representative polls. The results suggest that non-representative surveys can provide a useful low-cost forecasting method, in particular for small-scale elections, where it may not be feasible or cost-effective to use established methods such as representative polls or prediction markets.     

Socio-economic dynamics in slums and implications for sanitation sustainability in Kisumu,Kenya

Lack of sanitation facilities is a major challenge in slum areas, and this has implications on the health and well-being of residents. Sanitation in slums is complex due to slum living conditions, and a detailed understanding of dynamics in slums and how they impact sanitation is required. This study sought to understand the relationship between socio-economic dynamics, and sanitation provision and management in the slums of Kisumu, Kenya. The results indicate a mix of social, cultural, economic, tenancy, and relationship dynamics, all of which influence sanitation provision and management. The article calls for collaboration among various stakeholders and the use of local knowledge dissemination approaches.     

New town,new capital,new workplace? The employment relations of a Japnese inward investors in West Midlands new town

In this paper we examine the chracter of employment and industrial relatins withing new manufacturing industry in a new-town setting. We show how a combination ofnational and local state initiatives generated a new patterno of manuafacturin, dominated by foreign-owned companies. Drawing from extensive fieldwork in Japanese firms, we demonstrate,contra the ‘japanization’ thesis, that greenfield sites do not proved employers with unconstained opportunities to control labour. Rather, we highlight how capoital-labour relations development through interaction between large firms, state agencies and workers, producing an evoling and contested new employment settlement. Our analysis also undelines the limits confronting local state development strategies under a neo-liberal state regime.     

水资源可持续利用的思考--云南水管理体制改革及水价形成机制研究

水资源可持续利用是经济社会可持续发展的重要保障。而“多龙管水”的现行水管理体制 ,导致了水管理界限不清、“政出多门” ,从而加剧供需矛盾 ,制约水资源可持续利用和有效保护 ;由于尚未建立合理的水价形成机制 ,水市场进展缓慢 ,严重滞后于社会主义市场经济发展 ,制约了水资源优化配置和调控能力的提高。云南目前保障水资源可持续利用的关键问题是 :改革计划经济时代延续下来的水管理体制和水价形成机制 ,实施城乡水务一体化管理和建立合理水价形成新机制     

古蔺县水利建设创佳绩

“治水兴县 ,兴水富民 ,兴水强县”是四川省古蔺县的战略措施之一。该县水利电力局在贯彻落实县委县府的总体规划中 ,注重结合自己行业的实际 ,特别是时时想到能为人民带来些什么上下功夫。他们建造的德政工程 ,合理地解决了农村的人畜饮水和饮灌结合的问题 ,在生态工程方面 ,实行“集中治理、规模治理、综合防治、配套发展、连续治理山、水、林、田、路”方针。全县水利电力发展成绩显著     

The Beauty Premium: Physical Attractiveness and Gender in Dictator Games

Are beautiful people better negotiators? In this article, I present evidence from a simple bargaining game in which players listened to prerecorded speeches and viewed the pictures of other players. I found that physically attractive players received a greater share of the surplus when their partners could both listen to their speeches and view their pictures. This effect was strongest when the listening partner was female. These results suggest new directions for experimental and empirical research on the role of nonresumé characteristics on labor market outcomes, and also has implications for those practitioners involved in negotiations characterized by extreme power imbalances between the parties.     

水利·国家·农村——以水利社会史为视角加强对传统社会国家社会关系的研究

本文较为系统地阐述了农村政治与国家政治的关系,对目前学界对于传统国家水利治理和水利社会的研究做了较完整回顾,并且在此基础上提出从水利社会史角度截取典型地区对传统国家社会关系进行研究和探讨的可行性分析.