中国"反贫困"社会救助法律制度——农村最低生活保障制度实施的制度障碍分析

中国农村最低生活保障制度的建立是"反贫困"进程推进的必然结果,也是促进社会公平,构建和谐社会的必然要求.虽然我国早在20世纪90年代初期就开始了农村低保的试点工作,但各地农村低保制度在实施过程巾遇到了诸多障碍,很多地区的农村低保工作都处于基本停滞状态.我国各地地方政府应拓宽农村最低生活保障资金来源渠道,科学划定农村最低生活保障线,合理选择农村最低生活保障救助对象,不断完善本地区的相关制度,推进农村低保工作的顺利进行.     

The moral economy of EU relations with North African states: DCFTAs under the European Neighbourhood Policy

The EU has loudly voiced its intention to facilitate poverty reduction and democratisation in North Africa. In particular, it seeks to conclude Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements (DCFTAs) with Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. These are seen as a vital response to the Arab Spring – integrating North African countries into the globalised economy. Applying a moral economy perspective, this article argues, however, that, while ‘Normative Power Europe’ seeks to build more tranquil societies in the region, its trade policies nevertheless threaten to exacerbate poverty and social unrest. The prospect of de-industrialisation in the wake of FTAs will do much to entrench economic asymmetries between the European metropole and its neighbours.     

Bolsa Família and democracy in Brazil

The conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme Bolsa Família (Family Allowance), introduced in Brazil in 2003, is one of the largest such programmes in the world. Bolsa Família has played a role in the recent reduction of poverty and income inequality in Brazil. But what has been its impact on democracy? An assumption in the literature on social policy, derived from the European experience, is that targeted programmes such as Bolsa Família divide citizens, erode trust between citizens and between citizens and the state, and weaken democracy. This article challenges that assumption, showing that there is considerable evidence that Bolsa Família has strengthened the citizenship rights of the poor and enhanced democracy. The Brazilian experience suggests that, in highly unequal developing countries under conditions of 21st-century capitalism, the argument that targeted social programmes will inevitably undermine democracy is incorrect.     

The Nurturing Neighborhood: The Brownsville Boys Club and Jewish Community in Urban America, 1940–1990, by G. Sorin

Abstract

Corporal punishment (CP) refers to the deliberate infliction of physical pain on children in response to an apparent disobedience or disapproved behavior. It is still used in educational settings in numerous nations worldwide, including Bangladesh. Despite the government’s efforts to ban corporal punishment in Bangladesh, the practice is prevalent, with children routinely enduring various punishments in the school system. Questions remain related to how widespread this practice is and whether certain groups of children (e.g., low income or rural) are being affected more severely than others. This article explores the use of physical punishment in Bangladeshi elementary schools and the socioeconomic variables that may be predictors of its use. The primary research questions that guide this article are: (1) do socioeconomic characteristics (i.e., gender, age, education, school type, parental socio-economic status) predict physical punishment in the school system in Bangladesh? and (2) is there a statistically significant relation between poverty and physical punishment for elementary school children in Bangladesh? Findings indicate that of the 450 children included in the sample, more than 86.6% were subjected to at least one form of physical abuse (e.g., hit with a stick or slapped) and types of abuse varied by their demographics. Findings also show that poverty status is a strong predictor of physical punishment in the school within Bangladesh.     

Who is poor in China? A comparison of alternative approaches to poverty assessment in Rural Yunnan

Despite widespread recognition of the multidimensionality of poverty among social scientists and policymakers, the monetary approach still dominates poverty assessment. However, it is possible that different poverty assessment methodologies identify dissimilar households as poor, leading to disparate policies for poverty reduction. This empirical research applies four approaches to poverty identification to the same population of rural households in Wuding County, Yunnan Province, PRC. These approaches include China's official poverty identification method, participatory poverty assessment (PPA), the monetary approach to poverty assessment, and use of multidimensional poverty indicators (MDI). This study discovered that these four approaches generate different aggregate poverty incidences, identifying different households with distinctly different characteristics as poor. Each approach evaluates different aspects and dimensions, highlighting some characteristics while concealing others. There is very little overlap among the poor households identified by each methodology. This has implications at the conceptual, methodological, and policy levels. The conceptual understanding of poverty should be broadened to include multidimensional and multidisciplinary socioeconomic indicators. Multiple approaches must be applied in order to avoid marginalising some aspects of poverty. Poverty reduction strategies should shift from promoting short-term income-generating activities to a broader combination of strategies that address the inter-linked structural causes of poverty.     

Reconsidering the links between poverty,international labour migration,and agrarian change: critical insights from Nepal

The role of international labour migration in processes leading to the (re)production of rural poverty in the rural South continues to shape critical academic and policy debate. While many studies have established that migration provides an important pathway to rural prosperity, they insufficiently analyse the profound effects that migration and remittances have on agrarian and rural livelihoods. This article uses the case of rural Nepal, where over half of the households are involved in foreign labour migration, as a ‘window’ to understand the processes shaping how migration effects poverty. The paper analyses how migration generates outcomes across the domains of rural people's changing relationship to land and agriculture, their experience of migration, and rural labour markets to advance our arguments. First, it argues that migration leads to the commodification of land, generating changes in patterns of land uses and tenancy relations. With respect to rural people's engagement with agriculture, migration generates both processes of ‘deactivation’ and ‘repeasantization’. Second, foreign migration offers an exit from poverty for some while also creating processes of deeper impoverishment for others. Third, migration leads to structural changes in rural labour markets, reducing the supply of agrarian labour. Consequently, in contrast to the simplifying ‘narrative’ accounts of a migration pathway out of poverty, this paper concludes that the effects triggered by migration are highly contradictory, providing an exit from poverty when linked to diversification strategies, while engendering rising inequality and rural differentiation.     

The government of poverty and the arts of survival: mobile and recombinant strategies at the margins of the South African economy

The paper is concerned with marginal populations affected by the ‘truncated agrarian transitions’ of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: people displaced out of land-based employment without reasonable prospects for accumulation in the non-farm economy. It analyses the forms of economic agency of people living in the migrant routes and networks connecting the shantytowns of Cape Town and the rural Eastern Cape in South Africa. It describes the artful and hybrid nature of their livelihood strategies – strategies that involve the integration from ‘below’ of urban and rural spaces, formal and informal income, and which simultaneously take shape outside the regulatory spaces conferred by the state, and make use of the rights and opportunities created by law and formality. Far from being reduced to the ‘outcast’ condition of ‘bare life’, marginalized and poor people in South Africa pursue inventive strategies on uneven terrain, cutting across the dichotomies of official discourse and teleological analysis. This allows a more nuanced analysis of the nature and specificity of the agrarian transition in South Africa.     

简论新时期湘西州推进扶贫开发思路创新

确保全体人民共享改革发展的成果是新时期扶贫开发的战略目标,作为国家扶贫开发的重点区域与湖南省扶贫开发主战场的湘西州,必须树立全新的扶贫开发意识,创造特色的扶贫开发新路,继续稳步地推进扶贫开发工作再上新台阶。     

农村反贫困中的文化障碍及突破——以甘肃省为例

贫困文化是对贫困的一种适应,一旦形成贫困文化,陷入其中的人将内化为行为方式和价值观念,在外人看来他们就是"安于贫困",缺乏"进取精神"。基于这一认识,本文认为,当今反贫困的方式不能仅限于救助生活的反物质贫困,而更应注重贫困人口的心理层面和文化氛围的反文化贫困。