博弈问题的哲学分析

自纳什以来,非合作博弈理论已经广泛应用于经济学、政治学、社会学、生物学等领域.本文从哲学角度分析了博弈中的理性和合作问题,试图指出,博弈论关于理性和合作的理解是非常单薄的,基本上局限于经济学的理解,而这可能误解人类行为.     

How did the euro area survive the crisis?

Six recent books differ in their explanations as to how the euro area survived the crisis. In this review it is concluded that strong supranational institutions rather than German or Franco-German leadership, shared identity or the popular legitimacy of central institutions have been the crucial condition. Popular support for the euro has remained relatively high in many member states. While the crisis led to some expansion of the intergovernmental method, survival of the euro area required a great expansion in the powers of supranational institutions.     

Volk oder Parlament: Wer entscheidet nachhaltiger? Eine vergleichende Untersuchung von Nachhaltigkeitsabstimmungen in der Schweiz

Based on the example of Swiss semi‐direct democracy, this article addresses the question to what extend Swiss voters and the Swiss parliament tends to vote in favor of inter‐ and intra‐generational sustainable issues. The comparative empirical analysis of 109 relevant sustainability‐related proposals, which were presented to both Swiss voters and Swiss National Council during the years 1980 to 2014, reveals three main findings. First, Swiss voters as well as Swiss National Council voted – contrary to theoretical expectations – in most of the cases in favor of sustainability. Second, in comparison to Swiss voters, Swiss parliament displayed a higher willingness to vote accordingly to sustainable issues. Third, particularly with regard to votes about intra‐generational sustainable issues – especially about the rights of out‐groups such as foreigners and asylum seekers – Swiss parliament voted more likely in favor of sustainability than Swiss voters. On the part of Swiss voters a closer investigation of recent ballots on sustainability, taking cantonal difference into account, also draws attention to the impact of the economic capacity and the age structure of the canton of residence.     

言语习惯与安全困境:超越物质主义与理性主义的思考

在国际无政府状态下,追求安全的行为体往往陷入"安全困境"的悲剧。国际关系文献强调,理性行为体为了保障物质安全而采取的物质行为最终导致自身安全的下降,这种物质主义和理性主义理论却不足以解释国际关系现实。一方面,行为体之间的冲突不能完全归咎于物质因素,也需要从非物质因素,如从言语行为中寻找原因;另一方面,行为体的行为有很大一部分源自习惯,而非有意识的理性。因此,文章试图超越物质主义和理性主义理论框架,从言语习惯的角度探究安全困境的形成机制,指出旨在寻求安全的行为体会形成特定的言语习惯,而按照言语习惯说话行事却容易使其他行为体感到不安全并采取措施加以应对,最终导致行为体自身安全的恶化,文章以冷战为例说明言语习惯如何导致美苏陷入安全困境,强调言语习惯的存在和作用,不仅可以丰富安全困境研究,还可以促使行为体反思、改变和建构自己和他人的言语习惯,以期化解安全困境及构建安全共同体。     

Understanding the Hermit Kingdom As It Is and As It Is Becoming: The Past,Present and Future of North Korea

North Korea, a Cold War remnant in East Asia, has long been treated as an impenetrable mystery and an excruciatingly difficult subject to comprehend given its closed system, under which it has maintained its isolation even from its closest allies and neighbours. The idiosyncrasies that revolve around North Korea do pose challenges for understanding the country through the “conventional wisdom.” Nonetheless, as acknowledged by the scholarly works reviewed in this article, the regime in Pyongyang must be dealt with as it is and as it is becoming so as to better understand both the challenges and opportunities for the country. The difficult task for the United States (US) and its allies in East Asia, however, is to be pragmatic in terms of dealing with the regime in Pyongyang and to project strength in a way that promotes long-term regional and global peace as well as the betterment of people in the country. The books reviewed are Charles Armstrong, Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950?1992, Andrei Lankov, The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia and the collection edited by Kyung-ae Park and Scott Snyder, North Korea in Transition: Politics, Economy, and Society.     

Sustainability reporting: How consistency and interdependence in financial and managerial accounting enhance eco-controls

Sustainability reporting requires consistency and interdependency of financial accounting and managerial accounting. Accounting is closely entangled with the eco control (EC) in organisations. The quality of (sustainability) reporting and the disclosures is only as good as the quality and consistency of accounting data captured. Therefore, accounting choices and practises have an important role to play in sustainability reporting. This study explores the mechanism through which accounting informs EC. Through the independent and serial use of two levers, first ‘interdependency’ between financial accounting and management accounting and second, though the use of ‘digitalized information’ as a moderating variable, it is probed as to how EC are shaped. An empirical investigation is undertaken by carefully curating primary data, analysed through partial least squares structural equation modelling technique to inform broader debates in the ‘sustainability reporting’ literature concerning the mechanisms through which EC, are influenced by accounting mechanics, choices and disclosures. Sound EC contributes to sustainability accounting and governance to meet needs of the firms direct and indirect stakeholders without comprising the firm's ability to meet the needs of future stakeholders. The study established that the interdependency between the financial accountants and the management accountants output, mediates the effect of a consistent financial language on EC practises and this effect is independent of the firm size or the industry category. This article brings to the fore, the interplay of FA and MA in informing the environmental controls. The under researched perspective addressed by this study is that EC are highly interdependent with the consistency and comprehensiveness of accounting that informs it which in turn is effected by the cooperation and coordination (interdependency) between FA and MA information providers.     

美国的东南亚民主战略与《东盟宪章》背后的困境

冷战结束之后,美国大肆向全世界推销其民主制度和价值观,一直将民主外交作为其非常重要的外交手段之一。在世界各地,美国都通过扶持所谓的民主力量,大力施展其"软实力",推进全球民主战略。这其中,东南亚是美国长期重视的地区,为了抵消中国、日本等国在东南亚地区天然的地缘优势上的影响,美国更是在该地区推行民主战略方面下足了功夫。而东盟作为该地区发展最为成功、对团结东南亚国家贡献最大的组织,一直以来都在其现实需要与美国压力之间进行平衡,最终将不干涉内政和推进民主人权都写进了作为其重要里程牌的文件《东盟宪章》之中。然而,由于东盟成员国的经济发展水平和政治文化制度参差不齐,这种矛盾性的策略反而使其陷入困境。如何在发展多元化民主政治的同时维护其政治安全,达成其一体化目标,这是值得东盟进一步思考与实践的难题。     

United Nations "Policy": An Argument with Three Illustrations

This article explores whether and in what sense there is a "United Nations policy," a topic unexplored in the literature. The UN's universal character provides legitimacy, a precious asset in formulating global public policy. It is thus the forum of choice for regime negotiation and norm promotion for contested contemporary challenges, reflecting its comparative advantage and its unique ability to formulate policies that aspire to universal application and relevance. This essay explores the UN's particular contribution to global problem solving for terrorism, sustainability, and controlling pandemics in order to show, through these three illustrations, how the United Nations contributes to the advance or retreat of global governance.     

The North Korea Problem: Perspectives on the Nuclear Debate,Economic Reforms and Beyond

ABSTRACT

Despite a plethora of research on North Korea, understanding and managing the challenges posed by the country have long been complicated with no simple solution to put an end to this decades-long security and economic predicament on the Korean Peninsula. With the potential for international conflict, attention must be given to the converging messages emerging from the scholarly works reviewed in this article: Glyn Ford, Talking to North Korea: Ending the Nuclear Standoff, Van Jackson, On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War and William Overholt’s collection North Korea: Peace? Nuclear War? These works speak to the need to: take seriously the risk of nuclear war; consider the connectedness of the North’s decades-long security and economic reform dilemmas; and to acknowledge that the mistrust that is deeply rooted on all sides must be mitigated to bring peace. These books are published at a critical juncture of increased tensions following a highly publicised but remarkably short-lived effort at a breakthrough on the Korean nuclear issue, Pyongyang’s rapidly evolving security posture and its perennial domestic challenges. Each of these volumes provides valuable insights on these challenges for North Korea and internationally.     

Retention Practices for Engineering and Technical Professionals in an Australian Public Agency

Retaining employees with core business skills is a key human resources (HR) activity. This article examines retention of engineering and technical (E&T) professionals in an Australian public service agency by collecting data from 670 E&T professionals to compare attraction, retention and turnover intention by age and occupation. It was hypothesised that the influencers would vary by age, in line with the research on generational differences and employment patterns ( Chaminade 2005 ; Kyles 2005 ). This hypothesis was largely supported. It has also been suggested that intention to leave is influenced by job opportunity ( Hwang and Kuo 2006 ) and we thus sought to examine the influencers for turnover intention for the differing occupations in the E&T group surveyed. There were no significant differences by occupation, except for location, although this may be because occupational groups were aggregated due to the small numbers in some occupations. The current findings address the call for evidence‐based data on the influencers for attraction, retention and turnover intention ( Allen, Bryant and Vardaman 2010 ), and suggests that retention strategies need to take into account generational differences.