The reconstruction of business interests after the ISI collapse: unpacking the effect of institutional change in Chile and Uruguay

Abstract

This paper focuses on understanding the different evolutions of business’ associational paths in post-Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) Chile and Uruguay, offering an explanation at the crossroads of the institutional change and international trade literatures. The argument is that the different forms in which ISI institutions were transformed during the liberalisation period facilitated a greater mobility of factors to different degrees, triggering divergent enduring associational strategies on the part of business. The proliferation of narrow-based special benefits during the ISI fuelled preferences for the formation of sector-based coalitions oriented towards rent-seeking activities. Nevertheless, while ISI regulations were displaced in Chile during the military period, Uruguay followed a gradual process of layering of new rules alongside old ones. These diverging strategies, having different effect on established inter-sectoral regulatory distortions, propitiated alternative associational paths of local business.     

Chutzpah even before the heavenly court

This article discusses how classic and contemporary films can be used to examine justice and peacemaking themes in personal, social, and criminal justice contexts. Thematic topics include poverty, homelessness, the Holocaust, racial prejudice, prison violence, and religious intolerance. The author attempts to illustrate how transformative justice can occur through individual acts of compassion and courage in difficult circumstances.     

Family,clergy, conviviality and morality among the Greek-Orthodox in Izmir at the end of the Empire

This paper discusses the intricate relation between aspects of social life and the antagonism of the administrative institutions in a particular locality. By using cases of divorce decisions as well as contested weddings among people from different confessions which, despite the fact that they took place in Izmir were reported to and investigated by the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, it aspires to shed light on those liminal aspects where locality and conviviality are transgressed in the name of tradition. Furthermore, the paper investigates the role of the clergy both in dealing with charity and the destitute, and as an institution, whose encounters with modernity triggers tensions and new perceptions of the relation between the church and its congregation, always bearing upon issues of morality and efficiency.     

Qualification and Disqualification in Rape Cases

Between 1946 and 1950, the police in Stockholm interrogated almost 150 men about their involvement in alleged rapes and attempted rapes. The results of these investigations eventually led to seventeen prosecutions and eleven convictions. It was not easy to convict someone of rape. However, a consequence of the way the court operated was also that only certain men could be convicted, only certain women regarded as reliable witness, and only certain kinds of attack regarded as plausible. The question of whether the alleged crime was considered possible to prove was dependent upon who reported whom for what. For the complainants it was a matter of qualifying for inclusion within the protection of the law. But what appeared as a rejection of someone's credibility, was in actual fact a result of a prior rejection of the individual's person and character. From the point of view of the legal system, some individuals were more fitted than others for the role of credible victim or likely offender. The sexually immoral woman and the man at the mercy of his sexuality were both in danger of having their credibility questioned: the former a poor victim and the latter all too suitable an offender.     

对尸骸犯罪问题研究——从全国首例“非法经营人类头骨案”说起

公共秩序与善良风俗是刑法所保护的社会法益的重要内容。2009年发生的"美籍华裔博士在中国收购人头骨倒卖"一案引发了众多争议,以何罪名定罪成为争议的焦点。法院判决确定的罪名为非法经营罪,属于破坏社会主义市场经济秩序罪大类中,该罪名强调违反行政手续或经营方式非法,而人类头骨本身属于禁止性的交易内容,因此以刑法分则第六章妨害社会管理秩序罪中的罪名来认定本案更为适当。人类骨骸是尸体蜕化后的另一种存在形式,保护骨骸的尊严在维护社会公序良俗的意义上与尸体有着同等的价值,因此应将倒卖人类头骨的行为认定为盗窃、侮辱尸体行为。     

Transnationalism,neo-liberalism,and the rise of the shadow state

This paper examines the processes through which a neo-liberal agenda is broadened and entrenched through time. The case study focuses on a federal immigration policy in Canada in the 1980s, which encouraged the rapid entry of wealthy entrepreneurs and investors from Hong Kong. One of the many impacts of the arrival of this Chinese business élite in British Columbia was the rapid growth of a key volunteer organization in Vancouver dedicated to social service provisioning for immigrants. With the donations and volunteerism of the new Chinese arrivals, this organization grew from a small, narrowly focused social service institution, to one of the largest and most extensive providers in the lower Mainland, supplying numerous goods and services formerly controlled primarily by the province and the federal government. As a result of the actions of this voluntary organization, a type of interstitial organization that some scholars have termed under the rubric, 'the shadow state', conservative politicians in the 1980s were able to roll back many welfare state programmes in British Columbia without a corresponding loss of legitimacy occurring from the immediate truncation of services. The Business Immigration Programme thus aided in the entrenchment of a neo-liberal agenda both through the increased circulation of capital and articulation with Asian networks, and also through the devolution of direct welfare-state governance. I argue that this immigration programme thus represents one good example of the multiple ways that seemingly simple policy shifts can have much broader effects, and can entrench neo-liberal policy socially,culturally and institutionally as well as economically.     

简析中西文化差异对商务英语教学的影响

商务英语有很强的专业性,它不仅应注重英语语言知识的讲授,也应注重英语国家文化背景的讲解。中西方文化差异体现在寒暄问候、商务谈判、商务宴请、时间观念和商标语言及产品的包装设计。针对以上差异提出高职商务英语教学应采取的教学方法。     

Business to the rescue: private sector actors and global environmental regimes’ legitimacy

In 2006, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted decision VIII/17 to further involve the private sector in the activities of the Convention. This initiative mainly aims at improving the current regime’s legitimacy. By increasing business involvement, decision VIII/17 can be viewed within the context of the current academic debate on the ‘privatisation’ of environmental governance, which refers to the growing importance of private actors in the formulation of environmental policies. Against this background, this article aims at: (1) assessing the extent to which decision VIII/17 might reverse the CBD’s legitimacy crisis and (2) analysing the issues at stake when private sector actors are involved in environmental regimes. In order to do so, the article analyses the consequences of decision VIII/17 in terms of internal—representation and transparency—and external—institutional efficiency and implementation—legitimacy. The study is based on an extended empirical scrutiny of the negotiations linked to decision VIII/17. While adopting a general conceptualisation of legitimacy, the value added by the study is to broaden the usual understanding of business strategies towards environmental issues. In particular, this article shows how decision VIII/17 has generated several reactions—defensive as well as proactive—among the business community. At the practical level, the article proposes several recommendations to secure a constructive participation of all categories of business actors in biodiversity governance. At the theoretical level, it calls for a change in deterministic visions of economic actors’ interests.

整合业务流程管理实施模型研究

整合业务流程管理是当前企业管理发展的趋势。从管理体系、信息支持、岗位支持、知识体系、绩效体系等方面进行流程管理的整合,是提高流程效率、发挥流程职能的基础和关键。建立以业务流程为核心的整合流程管理体系,将会使企业的经营运作更好地面向客户需求,发挥流程的价值和创造作用,从而促进企业效率的提高,增强企业凝聚力与核心执行能力。     

白领犯罪及防治策略研究

随着社会的进步与经济的发展,白领犯罪日益增多,极大地损害了我国的经济运行秩序,恶化了经济环境,造成了社会信用危机。针对白领犯罪,我国要根据犯罪形势发展,进一步完善立法,建立严密的防范体系,采取多种类、全方位的措施,从根本上减少和避免白领犯罪的发生。