对外依存与中国外交的战略自主

改革开放四十年,中国经济得到长足发展,与此同时也带来了对外依存度偏高的风险,而经济上的对外依存与战略自主之间存在密切的相互影响关系。回顾一些大国的对外战略可以看出,相互依存直接影响对外战略,对外依存度过高会导致战略自主性的下降,从而极大缩减战略选项,甚至在一些关键节点不得不诉诸战略冒险。中国的对外依存与战略自主的关系也经历了复杂的演变过程。新中国成立后,中国一度采取"一边倒"的对外政策,在一定程度上影响了战略自主。改革开放之后,中国经济对外部市场、技术和能源的依存度不断上升,也在一定程度上限制了中国对外战略的全面自主发展。因此,中国的大国战略必须在外向与内顾、国际与国内之间保持适当的平衡,更为合理地协调对外依存与战略自主之间的关系,将全面深度改革开放与全方位外交布局紧密联系在一起。唯其如此,中国未来的大国外交才能行稳致远。     

越南外国投资优惠法律政策研究

越南是我国企业进军东盟的必由之路.自越南改革开放以来,越南的外商投资的法律不断得以完善,投资程序日趋简化,投资环境日益宽松,投资优惠政策也增多.外资在越南投资前景广阔.     

Risk,politics, and development: Lessons from the UK's democracy aid

Political risks are inescapable in development. Donors keep them in check with a range of tools, but existing options provide little guidance about how political forms of risk can—or should—shape programme design. This paper presents a novel framework that offers practical guidance on how to think about and manage some of these risks. This is based on a review of programmes delivered by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which provides a specific type of aid: democracy assistance. Political forms of risk have a strong influence on that aid, so it provides a valuable example. Our framework centres on two trade‐offs inherent in the provision of aid for democracy support. The first relates to the type of approach employed in a programme; should it focus on a thematic issue or a specific event, or should it focus primarily on an institution and its processes? The second concerns the scope of a programme in terms of who it includes. Understanding the costs and benefits of these trade‐offs will help development practitioners to make decisions about political risks in a more rigorous and transparent way and, potentially, to shift from a culture of risk aversion, to one of informed risk‐taking.     

Clarity of responsibility and foreign policy performance voting

Do voters’ assessments of the government's foreign policy performance influence their vote intentions? Does the ‘clarity of responsibility’ in government moderate this relationship? Existing research on the United States demonstrates that the electorate's foreign policy evaluations influence voting behaviour. Whether a similar relationship exists across the advanced democracies in Europe remains understudied, as does the role of domestic political institutions that might generate responsibility diffusion and dampen the effect of foreign policy evaluations on vote choice. Using the attitudinal measures of performance from the 2011 Transatlantic Trends survey collected across 13 European countries, these questions are answered in this study through testing on incumbent vote the diffusion‐inducing effects of five key domestic factors frequently used in the foreign policy analysis literature. Multilevel regression analyses conclude that the electorate's ability to assign punishment decreases at higher levels of responsibility diffusion, allowing policy makers to circumvent the electoral costs of unpopular foreign policy. Specifically, coalition governments, semi‐presidential systems, ideological dispersion among the governing parties and the diverse allocation of the prime ministerial and foreign policy portfolios generate diffusion, dampening the negative effects of foreign policy disapproval on vote choice. This article contributes not only to the debate on the role of foreign policy in electoral politics, but also illustrates the consequential effects of domestic institutions on this relationship.     

To revise or not to revise: the ‘peace constitution’, pro-revision movement,and Japan's national identity

Why do conservative nationalists in Japan continuously seek to revise the constitution despite the past failures, and what is the likelihood of successful revision and its impact on Japan's norm of pacifism and its use of force? The article offers an analytical framework for the issue based on national pride and national security, and argues that the ‘revisionists’ seek to create a new national identity, one that infuses a greater sense of national pride among the public and enables the exercise of collective self-defense, thereby removing Japan's postwar psychological and institutional limitations on nationalism and military activities. The LDP's 2012 draft is most explicit and ambitious in this regard, with the current revision attempt under Abe having the highest chance of success since the 1950s. Successful revision would significantly expand Japan's security activities, particularly within the framework of the US–Japan Security Alliance, and entail the end of Japan's unique postwar institutionalized pacifism, although the norm of pacifism will linger on as a constitutional principle. For a smoother return to the international military scene, the Japanese government must distance itself from historical revisionism and utilize its enhanced military role to promote regional public goods rather than merely protecting its narrow national interests.     

Do People Really Lack Knowledge About the Economy? A Reply to Facchini

Facchini uses a behavioural approach to analyse the political beliefs of French people, who he believes are ‘more or less incompetent’ in economics. In this article I focus on his premise that the public are incompetent and that therefore their views, such as being opposed to the market in the case of the French people, should be interpreted as ‘perception bias’. Other economists may echo Facchini, claiming that people who voted Leave in the UK and for Trump in the USA did so because their lack of economic knowledge contributed to an ‘anti‐foreign bias’. However, I argue here that the existing empirical research showing that people lack economic knowledge is flawed. Many economists adopt a questionable approach to the interpretation of public knowledge and the evaluation of what knowledge is important.     

The structure of foreign policy attitudes in transatlantic perspective: Comparing the United States,United Kingdom,France and Germany

While public opinion about foreign policy has been studied extensively in the United States, there is less systematic research of foreign policy opinions in other countries. Given that public opinion about international affairs affects who gets elected in democracies and then constrains the foreign policies available to leaders once elected, both comparative politics and international relations scholarship benefit from more systematic investigation of foreign policy attitudes outside the United States. Using new data, this article presents a common set of core constructs structuring both American and European attitudes about foreign policy. Surveys conducted in four countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany) provide an expanded set of foreign policy‐related survey items that are analysed using exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM). Measurement equivalence is specifically tested and a common four‐factor structure that fits the data in all four countries is found. Consequently, valid, direct comparisons of the foreign policy preferences of four world powers are made. In the process, the four‐factor model confirms and expands previous work on the structure of foreign policy attitudes. The article also demonstrates the capability of ESEM in testing the dimensionality and cross‐national equivalence of social science concepts.     

Public support for coercive diplomacy: Exploring public opinion data from ten European countries

Scholarship has increasingly acknowledged the importance of public attitudes for shaping the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy. Economic sanctions emerged as one of CFSP's central tools. Yet despite the emergence of sanctions as a popular instrument in the EU foreign policy toolbox, public attitudes towards sanctions are yet to be studied in depth. This article explains public support for EU sanctions, using the empirical example of sanctions against Russia. It looks at geopolitical attitudes, economic motivations and ideational factors to explain the variation in public support for sanctions. The conclusion suggests that geopolitical factors are the most important, and that economic factors matter very little. Euroscepticism and anti‐Americanism play an important role in explaining the support for sanctions at the individual level.     

Intervention Theatre: performance,authenticity and expert knowledge in politicians’ travel to post-/conflict spaces

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of official travel activities by politicians to post-/conflict spaces in German foreign policymaking. Starting from the observation that official travel justifications stress the value of authentic insights and unfiltered information, while journeys in practice are meticulously planned and staged, it asks what kind of knowing is possible, how actors make sense of the staged nature of field trips, and how multiple performances create and/or undermine notions of authenticity and first-hand expertise. The article shows that official on-site visits are composed of multiple conscious performances by all actors involved, but that these performances do not undermine the notions of authenticity and expertise. On the contrary, knowledge authenticity—or truth claims on the basis of authentic insights—and related expert authority are produced through travel-as-performance. The emphasis policymakers put on on-site presence and (the performance of) localized knowledge contradicts intervention literature’s generalized finding of a prioritization of technocratic over localized knowledge. The article draws on politics and performance scholarship and authenticity theories in tourism studies to make sense of a wealth of empirical material on the claims, practice and functions of German MPs’ journeys to post-/conflict spaces as part of broader political struggles over policy knowledge.