Identifying IT-based rural development infrastructures： Strategic alignment approach

Information technology （IT） has been able to facilitate the rural development through empowering and integrating the accessibility of the villagers （cottagers） to the available knowledge and information and the opportunities to different extents. The success of IT approach in rural development requires some initial efforts to prepare applying IT in order to achieve it. Awareness of IT-based rural development infrastructures and subsequently preparation of required infrastructures are one of the most important steps towards delivering the development program. Considering the importance of this subject, in this paper, we have tried to identify the IT-based rural development infrastructures, using the ideas of experts in IT and rural development across the Iran country. The data analysis of 171 respondents with T-student test showed that the factors of social-cultural, organizational-managerial, technical-telecommunication and legal-legitimate are the IT-based infrastructures of rural development. Successful provision of these elements depends on the existence of strategic alignment approach and focuses on the balanced maturity of the infrastructures.     

Where in the world is South Africa? Lecture by Ambassador Tony Leon 14 February 2013

Most of the current constructs which theoretically underpin foreign policy for this country are either overblown or incoherent; they do not appropriately define or advance or prioritise South Africa's national interests abroad, nor do they acknowledge the tensions embedded in the clash between normative policies and realpolitik. Drawing from ‘real time’ experiences in international diplomacy, this lecture explores some of the dilemmas that South Africa, as a middle-range power in the world, confronts in its international engagements. The cost-effectiveness of South Africa's global projection is also examined, and some practical reforms to achieve better results in the current age of austerity suggested.     

Mixing business with politics: Does corporate social responsibility end where lobbying transparency begins?

Scholars increasingly have argued that the future effectiveness and legitimacy of firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are dependent on more transparent forms of lobbying to ensure firms' policy positions are aligned with their CSR commitments. Very little empirical work, however, has systematically analyzed firms' lobbying disclosures or examined how these firms coordinate their lobbying and CSR activities. We address these empirical questions by analyzing the CSR reports of 150 corporations from Germany, the UK and the US over an 18-year period and by conducting interviews with the CSR managers of these firms. We find that corporations have become more transparent about their public policy advocacy over time, thus acknowledging that lobbying is a CSR issue. For most firms, however, this commitment to transparency appears to be largely ceremonial. Few firms disclose the specific policy positions they advocate or sufficiently coordinate the work of their lobbying and CSR units to foster greater alignment of these activities. These modest changes in lobbying transparency appear to be driven by legitimacy concerns and, in a few instances, by governance gaps firms perceive to be relevant to their future business interests.     

The Organisation of Hate

In this paper, it is argued that we need to understand the role of ‘hate’ in the organisation of bodies and spaces before we ask the question of the limits of ‘hate crime’ as a legal category. Rather than assuming hate is a psychological disposition - that it comes from within a psyche and then moves out to others - the paper suggests that hate works to align individual and collective bodies through the very intensity of its attachments. Such alignments are unstable precisely given the fact that hate does not reside in a subject, object or body; the instability of hate is what makes it so powerful in generating the effects that it does. Furthermore, although hate does not reside positively in a subject, body or sign, this does not mean that hate does have effects that are structural and mediated. This paper shows that hate becomes attached or ‘stuck’ to particular bodies, often through violence, force and harm. The paper dramatizes its arguments by a reflection on racism as hate crime, looking at the circulation of figures of hate in discourses of nationhood, from both extreme right wing and mainstream political parties. It also considers the part of what hate is doing can precisely be understood in terms of the affect it has on the bodies of those designated as the hated, an affective life that is crucial to the injustice of hate crime. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

邓小平对日外交思想略论

对日外交的战略目标是中日世代友好 ;必须树立中日友好的大局思想 ,全方位推进对日外交。历史问题是两国关系中的敏感神经 ,按照“正视历史、以史为鉴”的方针解决历史问题是实现中日友好的政治基础。运用又团结又斗争的方针和利用矛盾的方针来处理中日关系是行之有效的对日外交策略思想。求同存异的原则既是对日外交的工作基点 ,也是寓于邓小平对日外交思想的哲学理念。     

全球和合共生系统理论与中国周边命运共同体

全球和合共生系统理论是共生理论与系统理论相互融合而形成的全新框架体系,可以作为构建人类命运共同体和中国周边命运共同体的理论分析范式和理论依据。全球和合共生系统理论认为,世界上的一切事物都是一个大系统中的共生体,必须从全球的角度来构建命运共同体。国际体系各组成部分之间的关系是辩证的,即对立的统一。全球体系内部与中国周边体系内部的互相依赖既有积极的一面,又有消极的一面。积极的相互依存是指相互依存的双方都从关系中受益,而消极的相互依存是指任何一方对相互依存关系的破坏都可能给另一方甚至双方带来损失。构建中国周边命运共同体是全球共生体系高级阶段的目标。全球和合共生系统理论的相互依存论决定了优化中国周边体系以实现中国周边命运共同体的必要性。以相互尊重为前提,以公平正义为核心,以合作共赢为目标,应成为构建中国周边命运共同体的三个关键要素。我们应以此来推进构建新型国际关系,进而建立中国周边命运共同体。     

东北亚区域政治学研究体系的建构及其他

东北亚区域政治研究作为国际政治学研究的一个重要组成部分 ,还没有形成相对系统的、独立的研究体系。适应东北亚区域历史与现实的复杂状况 ,有必要加强综合性的区域研究 ,探讨如何运用国际政治与国际关系研究的理论与方法 ,全面地、历史地分析研究东北亚地区的和平与发展问题 ,提出有战略意义的方案和建议。     

关于建设中国国际关系理论的几点思考

当前我国国际关系学界正以极大的热忱投入创建中国国际关系理论的学术研究,这是学科发展繁荣的又一可喜现象。建设具有时代精神和中国特色的国际关系理论应以马克思主义基本原理和实事求是精神为指导思想,吸收古今中外优秀文化成果。我国几代领导人、政治家、外交家在半个多世纪的外交实践中提出的国际理论、战略和方针政策是中国国际关系理论的主要思想源泉。     

中国外交新理念——和合观

中国在国际舞台上积极倡导和而不同和互利共赢,倡导新秩序观、新安全观、新文明观、新发展观,主张构建持久和平、共同繁荣的和谐世界。和合观发轫于中国和平发展备受世界关注之际,顺应世界多极化、经济全球化潮流,符合要和平、求发展、谋合作的时代主旋律,不仅指导着中国外交,也逐渐成为引领当前国际关系发展的重要理念。和合观作为中国外交的新理念,代表了中国外交的主流方向,体现了中国人民热爱和平、追求美好生活的愿望。中国倡导的这些重要思想和主张继承了博大精深的中华传统文化,并在新形势下加以丰富发展,形成了具有特定内容的中国外交的新理念———和合观。和合观念由来已久,经过千百年的传承与发展产生了丰富的内涵,目前对和合文化的研究也越来越深入。     

More Damage to Japan＇s Image

正MY daughter,who is studying a master’s degree at Japan’s Waseda University,always asks me:Most people I meet in Japan are quite amiable,and Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is popular among the Japanese people,so why does China accuse Japan of deviating to the right?Shigeru Ishiba,secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan,formerly Japan’s defense minister,also asked me during a China-Japan thinktank forum:Japan has kept to a peaceful road for decades since WWII,so why does China insist that Japan’s militarism is undergoing a