Bernard Magubane’s critique of anthropology in southern Africa: an introductory essay

ABSTRACT

This essay is an attempt to piece together the fundamentals of Bernard Magubane’s critique of anthropology in southern Africa. The point is not to berate the discipline of anthropology, but to discuss Magubane’s work in relation to it. The essay comprises three main parts. First, it examines Magubane’s critique of southern African anthropology in a colonial situation – particularly in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Second, it assesses the usefulness of anthropological notions of pluralism and ‘tribalism’ in explaining conflicts in Africa. The remainder of the essay contends with anthropological themes such as social change and ‘modernisation’ in southern Africa. Generally, anthropology had problems at two levels: political and epistemological. Politically, anthropology was a handmaiden of colonialism and imperialism; and its main flaw was to study southern African societies outside of history and context. Epistemologically, anthropology is a discipline founded on alterity, that is, on studying the cultural Other.     

Staying the course in Mexico: the role of the US in the drug war, 2006–present

With drug-related violence reaching record levels in Mexico, there has been growing debate over its causes. US and Mexican officials blame many factors, including problems with their strategy in the drug war, fighting among cartels, corruption in police forces, an ineffective legal justice system and US drug demand. In this paper, I argue that the Mérida Initiative, a multi-billion dollar programme of US assistance, is an important additional factor. Drug-related violence increased in the years after the implementation of the Mérida Initiative, declined when Mexican officials paused new programmes in 2012 and increased again as US and Mexican officials implemented new Mérida programmes in the following years. Over the same time period, drug-related homicides and complementary counternarcotics assistance from the US Department of Defense are positively correlated. Using US records, I show that US officials have been willing to overlook the growing violence because they have been more focused on achieving their economic and strategic objectives. I conclude that their actions have played a significant role in increasing drug-related violence while starting an ominous new phase of US imperialism in Mexico.     

Electoral violence prevention: what works?

Elections are in theory democratic means of resolving disputes and making collective decisions, yet too often force is employed to distort the electoral process. The post-Cold War increase in the number of electoral authoritarian and hybrid states has brought this problem into relief. In recent years the prevention of electoral violence has played an increasingly large role in the democratic assistance activities undertaken by international agencies, following increased awareness within the international community of the specific security challenges that elections entail. However, there has to date been little systematic evaluation of the success of different electoral violence prevention (EVP) strategies in reforming electoral institutions so as to enable them to maintain the peace during the electoral period. This article assesses the effectiveness of two common types of international EVP activity. Using a new global dataset of EVP strategies between 2003 and 2015, this article finds evidence that capacity-building strategies reduce violence by non-state actors, whereas attitude-transforming strategies are associated with a reduction in violence by state actors and their allies. The findings are relevant both for understanding the dynamics of electoral violence, and also for policymakers and electoral assistance providers in the international community who have responsibility for the design of democratic assistance projects in states at risk of electoral violence.     

我国国际竞争力的发展状况及提升对策

我国加入WTO以后,参与国际竞争的范围增大、层次加深,面对国际强大的竞争对手和发达国家成熟的市场经济,我国正在发展中的市场经济的方方面面,将会带来更大的困难和挑战。因此,充分认识国际竞争力的内涵,了解我国国际竞争力的发展状况,对我国国际竞争力的优势和劣势进行分析,找出提升国际竞争力的对策,尽快树立竞争优势地位,成为我国急待解决的重要课题。     

关于吉林省确立“现代工业立省”核心发展战略的建议

在十一届三中全会以来的29年中,吉林省没有明确"现代工业立省"(或"现代工业强省")的"核心发展战略"[1][2]。目前,国内迅速"产业集聚"和分工的趋势告诉我们:吉林省己经站在十字路口上,既有成为"现代工业省"的前景,也有成为"农业省"的可能。我们无论如何要实现前者,而不是后者。吉林省经济社会发展的基本矛盾是"世界现代工业化发展水平与吉林省工业化发展程度相对落后("工业化初期阶段"、"农业省"[3])的矛盾",解决这个基本矛盾的根本方法是确立"现代工业立省"(或"现代工业强省")的"核心发展战略",并贯彻在全省上下党和政府的一切决策和执行之中,以此凝聚全省干部和群众,加快实现现代工业化。同时建议,就"吉林省以什么立省"的问题进行一定范围的讨论。     

论GATT1994第3条国民待遇原则中“同类产品”的认定——以日本酒税案、智利酒税案、韩国酒税案、欧共体石棉案为视角

同类产品的认定是正确实施国民待遇原则的前提。GATT边境税调整工作组报告提出了确定同类性的个案标准和四个具体因素,日本酒税案提出了手风琴理论。WTO争端解决机构通过若干判例表明,第3条第2款第1句的同类产品应从严解释,第2句的直接竞争或替代产品包括同类产品,第4款的同类产品应从宽解释。由此,同类产品的认定没有统一标准,WTO争端解决机构享有相当的自由裁量权,国民待遇原则正确适用的争议解决具有一定的不确定性。     

Competitive partners in development financing: China and Japan expanding overseas infrastructure investment

Abstract

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, with the world in search for new economic engines, China and Japan have explicitly given their answer through their expansion of overseas infrastructure investments. This study focuses on the flagship sector of high-speed railways (HSR) and examines what kinds of development financing China and Japan have adopted in making these investments. It asks the following questions: What similarities are there in the Chinese and Japanese approaches to investments in overseas infrastructure, and how do they differ from traditional Western development financing? Also, in what ways have China and Japan changed their approaches to overseas infrastructure projects during this process? It argues that in the process of expanding overseas infrastructure investments and competing for infrastructure projects, China and Japan have become ‘competitive partners’ in challenging the traditional norms of development financing represented by the Washington Consensus and the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). To be more specific, China and Japan have adopted each other’s practices of tied commercial financing, heavy government involvement, focusing on physical infrastructure and industrialization, and showing respect for host-country forms of governance. In particular, by joining China in the new game of exporting infrastructure and through its own ‘quality infrastructure investment’ initiative, Japan has broken out of the constraints of DAC norms as an aid donor and endorsed some fundamental Chinese approaches to development and development cooperation, which in their turn were inspired by earlier Japanese practices.     

Why Mussolini turned on the Jews

ABSTRACT

Mussolini's abrupt turn towards antisemitism in October 1938 is conventionally explained by virtue of external factors, most importantly, as an aspect of Fascist Italy's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany. Adler explores a complementary hypothesis that accounts for racism in terms of factors internal to the dynamics of Italian Fascism itself, namely, a progressive radicalization of the regime during the 1930s aimed at the realization of a new imperial-totalitarian state, one that, in turn, would create a new homogeneous nation and indeed a New Man, a uomo fascista. Unlike Nazi racism, oriented backward towards the preservation of a given racial purity, Fascist racism categorically rejected Italians as they had been constituted historically. Instead, it was oriented towards a future project, an anthropological revolution that would create nothing less than a new race. Jews were seen as obstacles to this cultural transformation because they were historically bound to the decadent liberal state, as well as to the corrupting bourgeois spirit that informed it.     

创投引入后的主体行为对企业成长的影响机制

宏观上,创业投资产业的繁荣和创业企业的蓬勃发展成为相互促进的力量。微观上,创投的引入是一把双刃剑,创投的资金支持和增值服务是促进企业成长的重要力量,但其"逐利动机"和潜在的道德风险也可能损害企业的成长性。基于行为的视角,文章分析了创投引入后,企业家和投资者的6类行为对企业成长的影响,并分析了企业家行为的中介作用。研究显示:企业家和投资者行为对企业潜力绩效有显著影响,企业家的生产行为和投资者的监督行为对企业竞争绩效有显著影响,企业家行为在投资者行为对创业企业成长的影响过程中发挥了部分中介效应。研究结论对全面认识投融资双方在创业企业成长中的作用发挥有重要意义。     

辨析经济全球化与经济一体化的关系

二十一世纪经济全球化与经济一体化共同发展是客观趋势。经济全球化与经济一体化具有不同的含义、主体和运行过程,同时,既有联系,又有区别,是互补性的竞争关系。