美英教师工薪个人所得税税收优惠启示及借鉴

实行教师工薪个人所得税税收优惠政策不仅有利于提高教师待遇,也有利于形成全社会尊师重教的良好氛围。美国和英国在20世纪90年代,结合综合所得税制,提出了一系列针对教师的具体减免税政策和费用扣除标准,从而使教师适用更低的税率或者获得更多的退税,这对改善和提高我国教师待遇提供了良好借鉴。鉴于美英两国政府的个人所得税税收优惠法规已经形成了较为完善的税法体制,因此通过借鉴美国与英国关于教师工薪个人所得税税收优惠政策先进经验,并在此基础上提出适合我国国情的针对性建议,可以为我国教育行业吸引更多优秀人才长期从教、终身从教创造积极条件。     

“第三条道路”与朴槿惠政府对朝政策走向

朴槿惠在韩国总统竞选期间与胜选后多次指出,要改善对朝关系,既不继续大国家党李明博政府的强硬政策,也不采取民主党金大中政府与卢武铉政府的“阳光政策。’’,宣称要走“第三条道路”。本文首先分析另外“两条道路”,即“阳光政策”与李明博对朝政策之间的主要分歧。以此为背景,本文从影响朴槿惠对朝政策的因素入手,指出朴槿惠对朝政策“第三条道路”的出发点是要改变另外“两条道路”非“软”即“硬”的做法。总体方向上很可能是安全上继续保持强大威慑与高压态势,但在经济合作等层面释放更大善意与灵活性。在不降低李明博政府强硬政策“硬”的一面的同时,继承“阳光政策”“软”的一面,甚至会更软。最后部分也指出了在朝鲜第三次核试验后“第三条道路”的实施前景。     

The Method is the Message: The Current State of Political Communication Research

Formal journalism ethics, as laid out in codes of ethics by journalism associations and the like, is part of a wider debate on media ethics that has been triggered in the Middle East due to the advent of global media in the region. This study compares journalism codes from Europe and the Islamic world in order to revisit the widespread academic assumption of a deep divide between Western and Oriental philosophies of journalism that has played a role in many debates on political communication in the area. The analysis shows that there is a broad intercultural consensus that standards of truth and objectivity should be central values of journalism. Norms protecting the private sphere are, in fact, more pronounced in countries of the Near and Middle East, North Africa, and in the majority of Muslim states in Asia than is generally the case in Europe, although the weighing of privacy protection against the public's right to information is today a component of most journalistic codes of behavior in Islamic countries. Obvious differences between the West and many Islamic countries are to be found in the status accorded to freedom of expression. Although ideas of freedom have entered formal media ethics in the Middle East and the Islamic world, only a minority of documents limit the interference into freedom to cases where other fundamental rights (e.g., privacy) are touched, whereas the majority would have journalists accept political, national, religious, or cultural boundaries to their work. Despite existing differences between Western and Middle Eastern/Islamic journalism ethics and in contrast to the overall neoconservative (Islamist) trends in societal norms, formal journalism ethics has been a sphere of growing universalization throughout the last decades.     

The Barriers to Media Opening in Latin America

Despite the spread of electoral democracy, few Latin American media systems today encourage the deepening of democracy. We attribute this outcome to (a) generalized weakness in the rule of law, (b) holdover authoritarian legislation, (c) oligarchic ownership of media outlets, (d) uneven journalistic standards, and (e) limited audience access to diverse sources of information. Reforms designed to address these problems could include the appointment of special prosecutors to investigate crimes against journalists; replacement of criminal libel laws with civil procedures; legislation protecting journalists' sources and guaranteeing transparency in government; the establishment of nonpartisan boards to allocate broadcast concessions, administer state-owned stations, and distribute government advertising; user fees to expand public media; and various measures to enhance professional standards.     

Regionalist governance and transnational collective action in Latin America

Abstract

New forms of regionalism are now a central element in global governance. It is sometimes suggested that new regionalism represents an opportunity for transnational civil society activism. I explore this argument through a comparison of processes of collective action in two emerging frames of regionalism governance in the Americas, the FTAA/Summit of the Americas and Mercosur. I show that, while civil society activism has regionalized to some extent in relation to both hemispheric regionalism and sub-regionalism, this process is far more marked in the former. I suggest, further, that the influence of civil society actors in regionalist governance in the Americas is extremely limited. This is due to persistent institutional barriers to inclusion, the practical obstacles for many groups of scaling up to the regional/transnational level and the particular difficulties associated with accessing trade-based negotiations.     

Border battle line

ABSTRACT

The demarcation of a North–South boundary in the Sudan opens up the possibility of the creation of a new international border in Africa, following the outcome of the Southern Sudanese and Abyei Area referenda in 2011. The line of the proposed boundary runs through the grazing areas of numerous pastoralist peoples, and it is these peoples who will be most directly affected if the new border becomes the frontline between two states. In fact, pastoralists were mobilised to fight on either side of the boundary during both of Sudan's civil wars. This article looks at select areas of the North–South borderlands, particularly areas of shared rights, to analyse the potential impact of the new boundary. It looks at how overlapping rights claims were managed in the past, and goes on to analyse various peace-making efforts between border pastoralist peoples from the Condominium period until today. The article looks at the way the border issue has been dealt with in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, including the Abyei arbitration process, as an indicator of whether this border region will become the focus of continued conflict, whatever the 2011 referendum result.     

Rational or reckless? Georgia's zugzwang in the Caucasus

Although the 2008 Russian-Georgian war was a military defeat for Georgia, it has only reinforced Georgia's westward trajectory. One noteworthy difference from Georgia's pre-war policy is a new regional strategy – the North Caucasus Initiative – that seeks to create a soft power alternative to Russia's military dominance in the region. We suggest that this approach is rational rather than reckless, as some critics have claimed. It represents a carefully calculated strategy that is already benefiting Georgia and from which all concerned parties, including Russia, stand to gain. If the South and North Caucasus were more open and less divided – a direction in which this new initiative appears to point – the Caucasus could become more prosperous and more stable. That would serve Russia's long-term interest by significantly reducing the cost of subsidies to sustain and stabilize the volatile region.     

(Neo-)extractivism – a new challenge for development theory from Latin America

This paper addresses new challenges and identifies starting points for development theory following recent debates in Latin America on ‘new or neo-extractivism’. It focuses on the concept of neo-extractivism and the context of its emergence, and on the changing role of the state. Looking at a number of social economic indicators, we find that, even after considering differences between countries, (neo-)extractivism is not merely a temporary economic strategy in the region. Instead, it exhibits features of a consolidated development project. Empirical evidence from the region shows the fundamental implications of resource-based development paths in politics, social relations and territorial orders. To grasp these implications conceptually, we argue for a shift in theoretical perspectives related to the link between development and resource extraction. Key elements for such a shift are to be found in recent studies in rentier theory and politics and new approaches in the field of political ecology.     

The Increasing Role of Religion in State Failure: 1960 to 2004

This study examines the extent of religious conflict between 1960 and 2004 in the context of all domestic conflicts in that era based on data from the State Failure dataset. The findings show that until 2002 religious conflicts were a minority of all conflicts, but from 2002 to 2004 they were a majority of all conflicts. This study also examines the extent to which groups belonging to different religious traditions (i.e., Christianity, Islam, etc.) participate in conflict. The specific results on the relative participation in conflict by Christian and Muslim groups depend on the method used to measure conflict. However, no matter how conflict is measured, the results consistently show a rise in Islamic participation in conflict since the late 1970s. Also, for nearly the entire period covered by this study, the majority of religious conflicts involved Muslims. All of this supports contentions that rather than causing religion's demise, modernity has caused a resurgence of religion.     

Creating the National/Border Security Nexus: Counter-Terrorist Operations and Monitoring Middle Eastern and North African Visitors to the UK in the 1970s–1980s

Abstract

This article looks at an earlier episode in the history of the UK border security apparatus by examining how the immigration control system was used in the 1970s and 1980s to detect potential terrorists from the Middle East and North Africa. Using recently opened archival records, it shows that the UK government introduced a strict system of visa checks, interviews, and other measures to nearly all Middle Eastern and North African visitors to the UK to prevent the entry of suspected terrorist personnel. By using these highly arbitrary measures, it became the modus operandi of the UK authorities to treat all Middle Eastern and North Africans as potential terrorists until convinced otherwise.