Trade ‘outside the law’: Uzbek and Afghan transnational merchants between Yiwu and South-Central Asia

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the trajectories of two transnational networks present in the Chinese city of Yiwu: Afghan merchants who trade goods in and out Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan; and Uzbek traders (citizens of either Tajikistan or Uzbekistan) who commercialize their merchandise in and out Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia. Our aim is to capture an ethnographically grounded understanding of informal markets and economies by analysing the notion of trade ‘outside the law’, including the contested yet widely used category of the ‘smuggler’. By paying attention to the fluidity of trading practices ‘outside the law’, we also address the uses and limitations of metaphors widely used in scholarly analysis of informal markets: notably those of ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ forms of globalization, and the transposition of formal-legal and informal-illegal exchanges onto the notions of economic ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’.     

彩票市场政府监管体制的国际比较

世界各国的彩票市场都处于政府的严格监管之下,英国、美国和法国的彩票监管体制是最有代表性的三种监管模式.通过对三种代表性监管模式的比较分析,本文认为,一个国家的彩票市场结构必须符合彩票市场技术经济特征,但彩票监管机构的设置与监管权力的配置主要是政府选择的结果,与该国的行政管理体制密切相关;而彩票公益金的使用方向则直接取决于彩票发行的目的.     

In Offense of Usury Laws: Microfoundations of Illegal Credit Contracts

Several European countries base their anti-usury laws on the definition of interest ceilings. Underlying this approach is the identification of high interest rates with the usurious nature of the relative credit contract; hence usury is nothing more than a particularly onerous credit contract. The present paper contradicts this traditional view by presenting a general micro-founded model of credit contracts that arrives at a few conclusions, before in a static and then in a dynamic contest. Firstly, it demonstrates the specificity of the usury contract with respect to the bank contract, pointing up the particular nature of those who supply and demand usurious credit. Secondly, it demonstrates that in environmental situations with little protection of property rights and a propensity to illegality, the decision of a borrower to turn to a usurer may be efficient from the Pareto standpoint and thus not the result of a rationing equilibrium in the bank credit market, as is commonly thought. Thirdly, it deduces from this the insubstantial link between interest rate level and the usurious nature of the contract. Hence two consequences for policy: (a) it is more effective to combat usury by improving the laws and law enforcement to better protect property rights, rather than introduce rate ceilings; and (b) in any case, the usury market can be reduced but not eliminated, since it is a meeting place for particular borrowers and lenders of funds.     

工程训练网上考试系统的设计与实现

随着不同学科与信息技术的不断整合发展,网上考试将是考试方式改革的重要方向。从学校教育的实际出发,引入基于.net三层架构的“工程训练网上考试系统”,可实现考生管理、网上考试、试题管理、成绩管理、随机组卷和系统维护等功能,并为工程训练考试的科学化、规范化,提高学生的知识水平提供有益的尝试。     

Religion,globalization and commodification in online world news slideshows: the dis/connection of images and texts

Lately, possibilities of producing and spreading news pictures have increased explosively through online media. Concurrently, religion has become increasingly salient in politics and news. Both processes are connected to globalization. This study encompasses globalization, religion and online images and aims to convey how online world news slideshows represent religion, and more particularly how linguistic and visual parts of picture paragraphs are interrelated, as well as related to representations of different religions. Methodologically multimodal analysis and discourse analysis are combined, focusing on composition of images and (dis-)connection of images and texts. Theories on globalization and possibilities and particularities of online news (pictures) and slideshows, frame the analysis. Tendencies to templates for different religions are found. Many religions appear as aesthetic commodities in images, whereas Islam in texts “sells” images of violence/destruction. Image–text relations are thus crucial both in the creation of meaning and of commodities in online news image culture. Two main image–text types are identified: “Religion in text, (potential) violence/destruction/despair in picture” (Islam) and “Spirituality/worshipping/aestheticism” (other religions). The world news slideshows have crucial roles as containers for these polarized image–text types, where they are related to and defined by each other in the genre's (cl)aim to cover the whole world.     

An analysis of corporate social responsibility communication on the websites of banks operating in Ghana

CSR communication has received increased attention from researchers in recent times. The extant literature indicates that philanthropy dominates the CSR communications of most firms in Africa. Furthermore, the existing literature shows that state-owned firms’ CSR communication focuses more on environmental and community issues. Thus, this study examines the differences between local and foreign banks with regard to their CSR communications. It also examines which stakeholder groups banks pay great attention to, in their CSR communication. Data were collected from the websites of 26 banks operating in Ghana. using quantitative content analysis as analytical technique, it was found that foreign banks are better at communicating customer and employee CSR information than local banks. In addition, the findings show that state-owned banks report more information on donations and philanthropy.     

No Sheriff in Town: Governance for Online Dispute Resolution

Online dispute resolution (ODR), the practice of resolving disputes via the Internet or digital applications, has been developing since the mid‐1990s. As the field has grown and gained traction, it has increasingly received attention from professional associations and industry leaders in the world of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). More recently, it has begun to receive recognition from sources outside of this field — in both the public and private sectors. As the field develops and individual initiatives become widely adopted, the attention it receives from external sources will undoubtedly focus on questions of quality, ethics, practitioner training, service provider qualifications, and monitoring. These questions — already beginning to be heard from within the field — derive, in essence, from one shared overall question, that of appropriate governance for the ODR field. In this article, we will explain what we mean when we discuss a field's governance and suggest that the field itself should investigate issues of its own governance. We explore and explain the current “low‐to‐no” state of governance in ODR — and the developments that are likely, should the field fail to actively address this issue. We discuss the costs of no governance, and the potential costs and disadvantages of employing a higher‐governance model. We ask whether ODR can, indeed, be governed at all, and illustrate why addressing ODR governance is a very complex venture, in terms of the web of factors to be addressed, no matter how beneficial internal governance may be. We do not, in this article, intend to decide any of these questions — but, rather, to pose them to the ODR field and to the wider fields of ADR and conflict management. We point out why the ODR field is at a developmental point that is highly suitable for discussing and deciding these questions — and why these decisions might have far‐reaching implications for a wide range of conflict‐related fields.     

The impact of online negative word-of-mouth on customer purchase decision for the travel websites

The major purpose of this study is to explore the impact of online negative word-of-mouth （WOM） on customer purchase decision for the travel websites in Taiwan. Online questionnaire surveys were adopted, total of 374 responses were received and 249 of them were valid. Factor analysis was applied to extract key factors, and then multiple regression analysis was used to measure the relationship amongst variables. The major findings of this study include： （1） The three features of negative WOM, including the strength of information, sender＇s expertise and the strength of relationship between sender and receiver, have significant impacts on customer purchase decision; （2） trust plays a mediator role between negative WOM and customer purchase decision; （3） involvement has partial mediator effect amongst negative WOM, trust and customer purchase decision.     

结构紧张与网络聚合:网络民粹主义的生成及疏导

脱胎于民粹主义传统、衍生于信息技术勃兴的网络民粹主义,并非是社会事件对网民情绪的随机引爆或利益主体间话语冲突的偶然跃现,而是结构性社会紧张的网络聚合与畸化涌现。在结构紧张视域下,网络民粹主义的生成理路呈现出一种“理性现实需求—非理性网络呈现”的二律背反:政治参与不畅境遇下的网络民粹主义,以网络舆论审判等极端形式发挥代偿性的民主实践效用;利益分配张力格局中的网络民粹主义,在底层符号的建构、弱势语态的倒逼中传递社会公正诉求;文化环境紊乱状态下的网络民粹主义,为抵抗主流文化、生产大众文化而构筑起反权威、反科学的反智惯习;消极心态积淀下的网络民粹主义,凭托于虚拟在场等技术支撑,在对社会焦虑、社会怨恨的释放中异变为暴力的行为展演。面对来势汹涌的网络民粹主义,亟须将其纳入“疏解”与“引导”的国家社会治理框架中,照料其现实性社会需求、引导其科学地传递诉求,以期将深层的结构性张力格局整合为有序、稳定的有机系统。