State Livelihood Planning and Legibility in Vietnam’s Northern Borderlands: The “Rightful Criticisms” of Local Officials

Macro-level policies frequently transform and reconfigure local livelihood options. While there is a small but growing body of ethnographic work regarding ethnic minority livelihoods in Vietnam’s mountainous borderlands, there is far less research examining the state decrees and policies implemented there and the opinions of state workers who have to apply them. This article starts to address this gap. First, we examine contemporary Vietnamese state legislation regarding upland livelihoods. We focus on the directions found in 82 livelihood-related state decrees, examining their scope and edicts while critiquing what they overlook regarding upland livelihood needs and approaches. Then, from in-depth interviews with state officials in Hà Giang Province, a mountainous upland region with a proportionately large ethnic minority population, we explore the opinions of those charged with the implementation of these decrees. Building on O’Brien’s earlier work on rightful resistance in China, we suggest that a form of “rightful criticism” has emerged among upland state officials, allowing us to reveal the contours of political power in Vietnam’s borderlands. Moreover, we draw attention to the lack of acknowledgement of ethnic diversity in these uplands within policy and official practice.     

Russia's “turn to the east”: a study in policy making

Russia's recent reorientation “to the East” has gained increased urgency given events in Ukraine. Here the policymaking process surrounding the “turn to the East” is examined. The focus is on the economic dimension – the economic development of the Russian Far East and engagement with the Asia-Pacific region – rather than geostrategic and security issues. Policymaking is evaluated in terms of general approach and process, with the implications of the evaluation for Russian policymaking more generally then being explored. “Turn to the East” policymaking exhibits a strong commitment to strategic planning that is characteristic of Putin, and which in this case struggles not only with process issues but also with contradictions within the strategy and the challenging realities of the region. Regarding process, a far more institutionalized policy process than the currently dominant personalist view would lead us to expect is found, with relevant bureaucratic and non-state actors well represented in an elaborate and relatively formal process. However a considerable weakening of sign-off procedures is noted, which has lead to policy inconsistency and indeed “policy irresponsibility” among participants. The author attributes the weakening of sign-off procedures to Putin's frustration with the gridlock tendencies of strict sign-off regimes, rather than a desire to create a personalist regime of hands-on management. This suggests that improvement of the Russian policy process requires structural and procedural change, rather than simply leadership change.     

Creating Stable Agreements in Marine Policy: Learning from the California South Coast Marine Life Protection Act Initiative

In this article, we examine the California South Coast Marine Life Protection Act Initiative stakeholder process, evaluate its shortcomings, and consider what could have been done differently. Our objective is to make recommendations to improve future multi‐stakeholder marine policy processes. In our view, while the South Coast stakeholder process had many positive outcomes, it failed to reach what we call here a “stable agreement.” Our analysis is based on two of the authors’ involvement (one as a facilitator and the other as a stakeholder representative) in the process and a post‐hoc survey of participants. We find that several ill‐advised process design and management choices significantly destabilized the negotiations, leading to an ultimately unstable agreement. We highlight four major problematic process design and management decisions, including the following: representation on the multi‐stakeholder group was imbalanced, the pre‐meeting caucuses were not paired with training in interest‐based negotiation, adequate incentives to negotiate toward a consensus agreement were not provided, and the use of straw voting at one point in the process was unclear and inconsistent. As a result of these and other process design and management flaws, many stakeholders believed that the process was biased and that their ends would be better achieved by anchoring negotiations and engaging in positional bargaining. Ultimately, this meant that near‐consensus on a single cross‐interest marine protected area proposal was not reached, the scientific guidelines put forth were not fully met, the process was not and is not viewed as fair by the stakeholders directly or indirectly involved, and the marine protected area regulations lack broad‐scale support. These pitfalls of the South Coast stakeholder process could have been avoided had the management and facilitation team consistently followed best practices in dispute resolution. We recommend that future marine planning processes learn from this example, particularly those occurring in highly complex, urban ocean environments.     

Low fertility and concurrent birth control policy in China

China’s one-child policy, introduced in the late 1970s, has been in effect for over three decades. This article reviews China’s low fertility rate and the implementation of this stringent birth control policy in the context of low fertility. First, China’s fertility intention, behavior, and low fertility level trend are presented. Then, the official response to the low fertility level and the consequent misguided policy-making are investigated. Next, various obstacles to the abolishment of the strict birth control policy are discussed, including national leaders’ authority, related family planning regulations and laws, the inertia of this basic state policy under the auspices of the common good, the displacement of the family planning systems, and the necessity for social maintenance fees to keep grassroots governments in operation. After discussing the recent reform of this birth control policy in 2013 and the subsequent results, the incentives for a universal two-child policy are elucidated. These include the official acknowledgment of low fertility, the effect of birth control policy on fertility decline, the reactions of the general public, the attitudes of grassroots family planning cadres, the appeal from scholars, international experiences, the merging of population and family planning commissions, and national leaders’ attitudes. The paper concludes with an analysis of the cost of this birth control policy over the past decades.     

试论生育权

作者对生育权的概念,地位、保护其主体的权利和义务,以及生育权与计划生育的关系等问题做了较深入的探讨,以期引起读者对生育权的重视。     

论劳动报酬权的优先权属性

劳动报酬权作为社会性权利,既是契约自由的表现,也是国家干预的结果。它的权利属性,决定了它的优先权属性。劳动报酬优先权具有一般特定债权的优先权特征和社会权法定性特征。我国立法特别是劳动法应确立劳动报酬权优先实现原则。     

论中国新农村战略规划与生态环境保护的选择

新农村环境规划是解决三农问题的桥梁,是新农村战略规划的重要内涵。给予农民最大自主权才能搞好农村战略规划。不恰当的整体与局部,生态保护与自我发展的政策链接点,阻碍了环境规划的实施。借鉴外来成功的经验,立足国情,处理好发展与保护的关系,建立起公平合理的生态保护体系,农村战略规划才具有科学性、前瞻性和可操作性。     

Resource Base of Peasants in the Brazilian Amazon: Planning Solutions for Current Problems of Sustainability

Abstract — This is the second paper of a series following a study carried out in the Brazilian Amazon region of peasant livelihoods, their current character and problems of sustainability. It analyses how different people might be affected by environmental degradation in the region by looking at their social and economic activities, the degree of dependency on wild resources, land ownership and the social relations underpinning the structure of the labour force. The study covers three districts within the ecological system of terra firme. Extractivist activities generate income and contribute considerably to food supplies throughout the year. Access to these resources is not generally tied to ownership. Environmental degradation may reduce the future availability of resources or, alternatively, attack health directly. Peasants exposure to these risks is assessed and the long-term sustainability of their livelihoods examined. Possible planning solutions to problems are presented and the more recent debate on the creation of conservation units (SNUC) in Brazil is discussed.     

Hidden Costs and Deadweight Losses: Bundled Parking and Residential Rents in the Metropolitan United States

There is a major housing affordability crisis in many American metropolitan areas, particularly for renters. Minimum parking requirements in municipal zoning codes drive up the price of housing, and thus represent an important potential for reform for local policymakers. The relationship between parking and housing prices, however, remains poorly understood. We use national American Housing Survey data and hedonic regression techniques to investigate this relationship. We find that the cost of garage parking to renter households is approximately $1,700 per year, or an additional 17% of a housing unit’s rent. In addition to the magnitude of this transport cost burden being effectively hidden in housing prices, the lack of rental housing without bundled parking imposes a steep cost on carless renters—commonly the lowest income households—who may be paying for parking that they do not need or want. We estimate the direct deadweight loss for carless renters to be $440 million annually. We conclude by suggesting cities reduce or eliminate minimum parking requirements, and allow and encourage landlords to unbundle parking costs from housing costs.     

School-based linguistic and cultural revitalization as a local practice: Sakha language education in the city of Yakutsk,Russian Federation

In the 1990s, efforts were launched in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation to support the revival of Sakha (Yakut) language education. This interdisciplinary study examines the evolution of school-based Sakha language education in the city of Yakutsk over a 25-year period beginning with the launching of the first reforms in the 1990s. Language education reform in the capital city has been shaped by a dynamic interplay between federal, regional, and local factors. Grassroots social and cultural activism continues to play a key role in school-based language revitalization in Yakutsk, influencing how policies have been received and implemented at the local level. Local community stakeholders are working together to counteract federal education policies, which direct school resources away from minority language education. This case study shows that the Sakha (Yakut) language revival has taken root in the capital city, and it provides important evidence that civic activism continues to develop in urban areas of the republic.