Obtaining redress for abuse of office in Russia: The Soviet legacy and the long road to administrative justice

This article examines the options for redressing abuse of office available to citizens in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. I consider the courts, the procuracy, and the complaint mechanism as sites for citizens to lodge claims against abuse of office in late-Soviet and post-Soviet times. After the collapse of the Soviet system there was an attempt to overcome the Soviet legacy, to strengthen legal institutions and establish administrative justice. Analysis of Soviet and post-Soviet normative documents and statistical data allows us to argue that opportunities for Russian citizens to combat service crimes in the courts have improved substantially. However, the system for coping with abuse of office remains imperfect, and retains features of the Soviet legacy despite vague legislation about administrative justice and dual ways of coping with abuse through legal and quasi-legal mechanisms. The re-establishment of the complaint mechanism in the conditions of contemporary Russia exacerbates this imperfection. Overall, the complaint mechanism occupies a significant place in people's options for making claims against officials, especially claims against high-ranking officials.     

Civil society knowledge networks: how international development institutions reshape the geography of knowledge

What role have the processes and institutions of international development played in creating and propagating ideas around the world? This paper demonstrates that networks of development-focused civil society institutions can form global epistemic bridges even where communication technology, global markets, infrastructure, or state services do not reach. Given the penetration of these ‘civil society knowledge networks’ throughout the world, it is crucial to understand how these networks form, and how they create and spread ideas, mediating between global discourses and local needs. This paper builds on a multi-sited case study of one such civil society knowledge network, which includes an international foundation, its partner non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Kenya, and one village where these NGOs run a forest conservation project. The case study provides a closely textured analysis of the mechanisms of knowledge production and consumption in the network, including personality politics, language, technology, political connections and the power dynamics of knowledge flows. It demonstrates the ways remoteness and disconnection are overcome through the epistemic reach of institutional networks involved in development interventions.     

Flying bananas: small producer tactics and the (un)making of Philippine banana export chains

Global production network (GPN) analysts argue that workers actively contribute to the shaping of GPNs through different forms of agency. In this contribution I extend this argument to the tactical agency of small producers. By focusing on the phenomenon of side-selling among Filipino banana contract farmers, I show that these tactics have contributed to the emergence of alternative trade networks that undermined traditional lead firm behaviour and inspired new struggles over chain governance. However, as a diverse and ambiguous group of growers engages in this tactical agency, predominantly as small capital, they also contribute to the continuation of broader dynamics of capital accumulation and labour exploitation.     

The ox fall down: path-breaking and technology treadmills in Indian cotton agriculture

ABSTRACT

Although India’s cotton sector has been penetrated by various input- and capital-intensive methods, penetration by herbicide has been largely stymied. In Telangana State, the main obstacle has been the practice of ‘double-lining’, in which cotton plants are spaced widely to allow weeding by ox-plow. Path dependency theory primarily explains the persistence of sub-optimal practices, but double-lining is an example of an advantageous path for cash-poor farmers. However, it is being actively undermined by parties intent on expanding herbicide markets and opening a niche for next-generation genetically modified cotton. We use the case to explicate the role of treadmills in technology ‘lock-in’. We also examine how an adaptive locked-in path may be broken by external interests, drawing on recent analyses of ‘didactic’ learning by farmers.     

Plantation rubber,land grabbing and social-property transformation in southern Laos

This paper critically examines theories of accumulation, dispossession and exclusion for analyzing the agrarian transformations that result from contemporary large-scale land acquisitions across the Global South. Building upon Marx's primitive accumulation, Harvey's accumulation by dispossession and Hall et al.'s Powers of Exclusion, conceptual lenses are developed through which to examine how land grabs transform property and social relationships of resource-based production. I examine the concession of 10,000 hectares by the central government of Laos to a Vietnamese corporation for extracting timber and planting rubber in the southern province of Attapeu. This acquisition has excluded farmers from land and resources that constituted their primary sources of (re)production, reconfigured rural property relations, altered the peasant relationship to land and produced new exploitative forms of wage labor.     

试论娱乐服务场所公安机关治安管理的机制建设——以沐浴行业治安管理为例

入世以后,我国娱乐服务场所在扩大就业、提高人们生活质量、方便群众需求等方面发挥了积极的作用。但由于法律法规不完善、场所自管意识不强、治安主体关系模糊等原因,导致场所管理秩序混乱,持续发展乏力。以沐浴行业为个案,分析沐浴行业公安机关治安机制中存在的问题,探讨构建符合时代要求的娱乐服务场所治安管理工作的新机制。     

和谐社会视角下的公安机关网络舆情预警工作研究

舆情预警是公安机关正确决策、化解矛盾、维护稳定的重要前提。改进舆情监测工作,健全网络舆情预警机制,是构建社会主义和谐社会的必然要求。网络舆情预警机制是一个系统工程,公安部门需要做好舆情规划、舆情收集、分析处理、舆情预警四个环节的工作,把网络舆情信息汇集分析作为重点,同时利用先进技术作为保障。对于公安新闻的处理,公安机关可通过互联网平台与网民直接沟通来解决。     

氧化还原机制在中医体质研究中的应用

[摘要]氧化还原平衡体现了阴阳平衡思想,氧化还原机制与体质学基本原理及体质三级预防理念有着相似之处,氧化还原机制的多样性研究为体质分类研究提供了切入点。对不同体质的人群进行氧化还原状态检测,一方面可诠释体质理论的科学内涵,另一方面可为“治未病”提供可供参考的指标体系。     

对劳动价值源泉的现代经济分析

世纪之交,劳动价值论面临着社会经济现实的严峻挑战。本文通过对现代价值形成的各类问题的分析,证明了劳动仍是价值的唯一源泉,剔除了劳动价值论中某些不符合实际的传统结论,澄清了人们对这一理论的某些简单化理解,肯定了劳动价值论仍具有巨大科学意义,足以充当现代经济分析的基础理论和基本工具。     

调解的重构(下)——以法院调解的改革为重点

调解作为中国自古就存在的一种纠纷解决方式 ,甚至是社会治理的一种制度性或体制性存在 ,在现代仍然有着极为重要的意义。本文采取一种综合各种功能的多元价值论 ,主张客观地认识调解的各种功能和价值。同时 ,力图通过对于以法院调解改革为重点获取的实证资料的分析 ,提出一种有关我国调解的功能和价值的建设性的意见或理论框架 ,实现一种对于调解的重构 ,以使其获得现代转型和重生。