仪式变迁:地方化与全球化

在全球化的潮流中,地方社会传统的信仰与仪式也必然随之变迁。这些变迁可以看作是地方在与国家和全球的环境互动中进行的行为模式的调整,以能符合时代与国家的要求,同时又能满足自己或社区的整合需求的选择。地方性的信仰与仪式操演结合国家的在场实现了这种变迁,又或者加以保护和改造,在全球化的语境中演化成了非物质文化遗产。这也正是费孝通先生所指出的全球体系之中的地方或族群在文化全球化中表现出的同质性与异质性的二元特点。     

Supporting local climate adaptation planning and implementation through local governance and decentralised finance provision

Policies developed at national levels can be unresponsive to local needs. Often they do not provide the rural poor with access to the assets and services they need to allow them to innovate and adapt to the ways that increased climate variability and change exacerbate challenges to basic securities – food, water, energy, and well-being. In development deficit circumstances, common pool resources are important for climate adaptation purposes. In order for climate adaptation actions to deliver resilience, local perspectives and knowledge need to be recognised and given due priority in formal planning systems. Basing formal adaptive development planning on local strategies can support and strengthen measures that people have been tested and know to work. Local climate adaptation through collective action can address current increases in climate variability, future incremental changes, and the need to transform existing systems to deal with qualitative shifts in climate. These types of adaptation can work in cumulative ways. The results of local adaptation collective action that have benefits of low rivalry between users while being highly inclusive can be considered “local public goods”. Evidence is beginning to emerge that when local governance systems facilitate high levels of participation in planning collective action for climate adaptation, and direct access to resources for implementing local plans, “local public goods” can be created and common pool resources better managed.     

Climate resilience in fragile and conflict-affected societies: concepts and approaches

To understand resilience to climate and environmental changes in fragile and conflict-affected societies is particularly important but equally challenging. In this paper, we first develop a conceptual framework to explore the climate-fragility-conflict and climate-resilience-peace nexus. Second, we discuss approaches to promote pathways from climatic changes to peace. We draw on the relevant literature and International Alert's experience in fragile and conflict-affected societies to stress the key role of resilience. To build resilience, climate, development, peacebuilding, and government actors would have to overcome bureaucratic and institutional barriers and cooperate across thematic and regional silos.     

China Has Avoided Rampant Population Growth

正AT the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference on September 21,1949,Mao Zedong pointed out that China had a population of 475 million.As of June30,1953,the country’s total population had surpassed 600 million.Statistics indicate that in 1970 the average number of births per Chinese couple was five and the total population had reached 830 million.Drop in Birth Rate To curb population growth,since     

Reflective political reasoning: Political disagreement and empathy

As political polarization increases across many of the world's established democracies, many citizens are unwilling to appreciate and consider the viewpoints of those who disagree with them. Previous research shows that this lack of reflection can undermine democratic accountability. The purpose of this paper is to study whether empathy for the other can motivate people to reason reflectively about politics. Extant studies have largely studied trait-level differences in the ability and inclination of individuals to engage in reflection. Most of these studies focus on observational moderators, which makes it difficult to make strong claims about the effects of being in a reflective state on political decision making. We extend this research by using a survey experiment with a large and heterogeneous sample of UK citizens (N = 2014) to investigate whether a simple empathy intervention can induce people to consider opposing viewpoints and incorporate those views in their opinion about a pressing political issue. We find that actively imagining the feelings and thoughts of someone one disagrees with prompts more reflection in the way that people reason about political issues as well as elicits empathic feelings of concern towards those with opposing viewpoints. We further examine whether empathy facilitates openness to attitude change in the counter-attitudinal direction and find that exposure to an opposing perspective (without its empathy component) per se is enough to prompt attitude change. Our study paints a more nuanced picture of the relationship between empathy, reflection and policy attitudes.     

The Bifurcation of Politics: Two Englands

A dynamic of global economic development means that many countries are experiencing uneven development and their citizens are increasingly split between those who can access high‐skill jobs and those who cannot. As a result some citizens are living in cosmopolitan areas of growth and others in backwater areas of decline. There are emerging out of these processes two versions of England. In cosmopolitan areas we find an England that is global in outlook, liberal and more plural in its sense of identity. In provincial backwaters we find an England that is inward‐looking, relatively illiberal, negative about the EU and immigration, nostalgic and more English in its identity. This bifurcation of England is already having political effects, reflected in the outcome of the 2015 general election. It will further reconfigure politics over the next two decades, creating diverse political citizens and a complex array of challenges and dilemmas for governments, political parties, campaigners and political organisers.     

The lasting impact of adolescence on left-right identification: Cohort replacement and intracohort change in associations with issue attitudes

This study examined how the ideological correlates of left-right identification in the Netherlands changed between 1980 and 2008, and whether these changes were driven by cohort replacement. Analyses on repeated cross-sectional data revealed an increasing association with immigration and a decreasing association with redistribution, secularism, and civil liberties. Cohort differences were found for cultural attitudes: Secularism was most important for voters who were adolescent between 1917 and 1960, while civil liberties were most important for the 1960–1980 cohort and immigration was relatively important for the 1980–2008 cohort. Consequently, over-time changes in the importance of cultural issues, but not redistribution, were partly driven by cohort replacement. This indicates that the left-right distinction is partly shaped by circumstances during voters' adolescent years.     

Where Does Location Affordability Drive Residential Mobility? An Analysis of Origin and Destination Communities

Abstract

Despite an overall decrease in residential mobility after the 2007 housing crisis, many households, particularly those that are low income, continue to move in pursuit of a better life. Traditional theories of residential mobility suggest that mobility will occur when housing and transportation costs are cumulatively greater than the cost of moving to a new location. At the same time, the influence of these factors is not likely to be uniform across geographic contexts or for moves up or down the metropolitan hierarchy. Our analysis examines how well affordability measures explain patterns of county-level residential mobility. Specifically, we contrast conventional measures of affordability focused on the ratio of income to housing expense with measures of location affordability that factor in both housing and transportation costs. We find that whereas households tend to move from lower to higher cost locations, transit affordability at the destination plays an important role in mobility decisions.     

Institutional Change Through Policy Learning: The Case of the European Commission and Research Policy

Research initiatives to enhance knowledge‐based societies demand regionally coordinated policy approaches. By analyzing the case of the European Commission, Directorate‐General Research and Innovation, this study focuses on examining the cognitive mechanisms that form the foundation for institutional transformations and result in leadership positions in regional governance. Drawing on policy learning theories, the study emphasizes specific mechanisms of institutional change that are often less noticeable but can gradually lead to mobilizing diverse groups of stakeholders. Through historical and empirical data, this study shows the importance of policy learning through communication processes, Open Method of Coordination initiatives, and issue framing in creating a stronger foundation for policy coordination in European research policy since the 2000s.     

Environmental Harm or Natural Hazard? Problem Identification and Adaptation in U.S. Municipal Climate Action Plans

A number of cities in the United States have devised climate action plans (CAPs) to mitigate the effects of climate change. However, few of these plans address strategies to adapt to the long term effects of climate change that will occur in the near and distant future. The research presented in this article examines why cities choose to embed adaptation provisions in their CAPs. Our study codes the content of CAPs for all cities (N = 98) in the United States with populations greater than 50,000. We find cities that frame problems associated with climate change in the language of hazards are more likely to include adaptation strategies in their CAPs than cities that focus on other types of environmental harm. Our findings suggest that more robust efforts to plan for climate change will require the activation of communities of interest beyond those that have been instrumental in setting the current climate agenda.