Rural and Regional Policy: A Case of Punctuated Incrementalism?

The rural policy environment has many of the conditions that might suggest a tendency towards punctuated equilibrium. The Commonwealth has little direct power over rural space and industries, there has been a long tradition of state support for agriculture and decision‐making has generally been kept within a tight policy community, dominated by rural interests. In our review of the PAP data and policy history, we find instead an underlying movement across time and governments towards an expectation of self‐reliance for rural businesses and communities. On top of the long‐term incremental movement towards this expectation, issue attention has shifted according to political, climatological and market conditions, rather than necessarily in line with changes in policy content.     

The limits of policy

This article uses public documents and first-hand accounts of late 19th and early 20th centuries child life to examine attempts by public policymakers in the United States and New Zealand to change the quality of rural child life in those countries through compulsory schooling and other related measures. These attempts, however, largely failed due to the demands of the farming economy and the unwillingness of public officials to go to extraordinary lengths on behalf of farm children, as opposed to urban children. Rural children's lives would be changed, not by policy, but by technological developments and the vagaries of the farm economy.     

Crime and Psychiatry in Problematic Coexistence: Four Domestic Homicides and the Nineteenth-Century Courts

Four domestic murder cases of a fairly similar character are described: a man killing his child or children, and in one case also his wife. They occurred in three neighbouring rural parishes in northern Sweden in the mid-nineteenth century within a period of about 20 years.

The four offenders showed all the signs of being seriously mentally deranged. Three of them made either unsuccessful attempts to commit suicide or expressed the intention of committing suicide. The motives of the offenders contain elements of a father's wanting to spare his children from social, economic, or religious suffering.

The key question is why the outcomes of the similar cases differed. Legal, religious, medical, and some popular, normative standards are considered. As well as elements used in the medico-legal examinations, other considerations obviously contributed to the different outcomes, such as the various backgrounds of the offenders and whether they showed regret or not in court.

The different outcomes illustrate a recurring problem, namely how to reconcile ideas emanating from various professional traditions and standards. This is of current interest as evidenced by the number of recent cases where a legal way of thinking is sometimes contrary to prevalent medical ones.     

A farm‐sizewise analysis of irrigation distribution in India

This article analyses and describes the relationship between the size of operational holding on the one hand and various irrigation and irrigation‐related variables, on the hand, using cross‐section regression analysis of farm‐sizewise/statewise Indian data. The overall conclusion that emerges from the analysis is that irrigation development in India as a whole seems to be such that its propagation and diffusion among agricultural households seems to be somewhat in favour of larger farms. Even though the government predominantly controls the development and distribution of flow‐sources of irrigation, especially of canal irrigation, it does not seem to have produced any significant positive impact on reducing the level of inequity involved in the distribution of irrigation across farm‐size groups.     

新农村建设中农村合作金融组织创新若干法律问题研究

农村金融是农村经济发展的关键。农村合作金融组织是符合我国农村经济现实的一种有效的金融机制,是农村金融体系的核心内容和重要基石。在新农村建设中,合作金融组织在促进农村经济的发展、构建农村和谐社会中发挥积极作用的同时,也日益暴露出诸多问题和矛盾。合作金融组织的创新和发展问题需要在认识和分析这些问题的基础上通过制度创新加以解决。     

“迎法入乡”与“接近正义”——对中国乡村“赤脚律师”的个案研究

在职业法律服务队伍加剧了法律系统与社会生活之间距离的时候,目前在中国一些乡村存在的“赤脚律师”铺设了一条“接近正义”的桥梁。赤脚律师主动的“迎法入乡”,并不仅仅是简单地在农村法律服务体制中发挥拾遗补缺的功能,而且是在乡村社会重建了“法律服务”的概念,即以长远的人情交换而非现时的金钱交易为基础的法律服务。因此,赤脚律师与单求经济利益的黑律师有着本质的差别,他们对中国的法治化进程以及公民社会的塑造具有重要的意义。但由于国家对乡村社会的治理方式与乡村社会自生自发的利益表达方式之间面临着冲突,所以,赤脚律师还面临着一些深层次的困惑,也即所谓“周广立式的困惑”。     

农村社区民主自治的条件和机制

对北京市远近郊区五个农村社区村委会的调研说明,经济发展和民主意识是村民自治的基础条件。经济层面主要在于集体经济所有制、农村集体经济的发展和农村股份合作制改革三个方面,经济的独立性决定了村民自治的必要性;意识层面则由于农村土地制度和农民的生产方式、二元化的户籍制度和农村社会保障体系的建立,使村民在心理上具有强烈的自治意识和要求,村民自治的组织体制和运作机制包括静态和动态两个方面,前者指村民自治的组织体系,后者则是以“四个民主”为基础的村民自治运行机制。     

“后发效应”：我国农村合作组织发展的理论启示

从我国农业发展的产业要素来看，农村合作组织发展不仅存在着资源与劳动力成本低廉、组织制度模仿、政府政策支持等诸多后发优势，同时也存在着资本稀缺、市场缺位、产业结构失衡等方面的后发劣势。因此，我国农业合作组织的发展不仅要充分发挥后发优势。而且还应该在发挥后发优势的同时尽量避免后发劣势所带来的负面影响。从而促进农村合作组织的持续快速发展，使后发优势变成现实的后发利益，为我国建设社会主义新农村、全面建设小康社会奠定坚实的组织基础。     

关于农村乡土人才资源开发的几点思考

振兴农村经济,关键是要搞好农村乡土人才资源的开发。农村乡土人才根植于农村经济建设第一线,为农村经济发展发挥了不可替代的作用。确立“人才资源是第一资源”的观念,加大农村乡土人才资源开发力度,搭建农村乡土人才施展才华的平台,对于实施科技兴农战略,实现农村经济增长方式转变,推动农村经济社会全面发展,具有重要的现实意义。