India,developmental multilateralism and the Doha ministerial conference

Despite its growing status as an ‘emerging’ power, perceptions of India’s current and future role in multilateral organisations continue to be overshadowed by its reputation for blocking rather than supporting progress in multilateral negotiations on grounds of national sovereignty and Third Worldism. In this article we suggest a more positive interpretation of India’s role through a close analysis of its diplomacy during the 2001 Doha Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (wto). The Indian delegation attempted proactively to shape the agenda of the negotiations and to promote a form of developmental multilateralism that might correct the perceived imbalances within the substantive commitments to and structure and processes of the wto. India failed to get its way at the time, but the ongoing deadlock at Doha demonstrates the continuing salience of such alternative conceptions of global justice.     

Privatization and elite defection in de facto states: The case of Transnistria, 1991–2012

What factors determine the timing of elite defection in conditions of post-Soviet personalistic presidentialism? How do relations with a powerful patron state affect this process? This article analyzes these questions on the basis of a case study of Transnistria, a de facto state with strong links to Russia. It argues that privatization processes involving actors from the patron state provide a unique opening for elite defection by heightening tensions between the rent-seeking interests of the personalistic president and those of new owners; direct or indirect signals from the patron state may also affect elite's perceptions of incumbent durability and their corresponding decisions.     

Framing yourself into a corner: Russia,Crimea, and the minimal action space

A long-held axiom, political leaders are said to favour an action space sufficiently wide to allow them, as a minimum, a face-saving exit. This makes it particularly interesting for us to study those rare cases where political leaders seem to be deliberately reducing their policy options to the point of having merely one line to pursue. The handling by Russian President Vladimir Putin of the early 2014 crisis over Crimea, eventually leading to the annexation by Russia of the Ukrainian Peninsula on 21 March 2014, seems to represent such a rare case. Through the use of state-controlled media, a highly dichotomized framing of the crisis was presented to the Russian audience, essentially leaving Putin with just the one option of acting to “save” the Crimeans from the Ukrainian Government by bringing them into Russia.     

Observatory's linguistic landscape: semiotic appropriation and the reinvention of space

Using a longitudinal ethnographic study of the linguistic landscape (LL) in Observatory's business corridor of Lower Main Road, the paper explores changes brought about by the influx of immigrant Africans, their artefacts and language practices. The paper uses the changes in the LL over time and the development of an “African Corner” within Lower Main Road, to illustrate the appropriation of space and the unpredictability, which comes along with highly mobile, technological and multicultural citizens. It is argued that changes in the LL are part of the act of claiming and appropriating space wherein space becomes summarily recontexualized and hence reinvented and “owned” by new actors. It is also argued that space ownership can be concealed through what we have called “brand anonymity” strategies in which the identity of the owner is deliberately concealed behind global brands. We conclude that space is pliable and mobile, and that, it is the people within space who carve out new social practices in their appropriated space.     

‘But this is a park’! The paradox of public space in a Buenos Aires ‘no man's land’

Drawing upon qualitative fieldwork, this paper analyzes the occupation of an abandoned park in the south of Buenos Aires by the city's urban poor, delineating the implications of this incident for notions of citizenship in the context of deeply fragmented social rights. While public space has historically been understood as an expression of the universality of rights bearing membership in a political community, I show how this universalism became the object of struggle during a conflict over the park between the local middle class and squatters, many of which were of immigrant origin. The discourses mobilized by various social groups blurred the distinction between citizenship as a set of legal–formal rights versus a project of normative inclusion. While public space is juridically constructed as universal, particularistic claims to these spaces are imbued with increased legitimacy in a context in which social rights – conceived as a set of provisions guaranteed by the state under a regime of liberal citizenship – are unrealizable. By claiming this space for particularistic uses, squatters drew attention to the contradictions embedded in public space's democratic pretensions in a setting in which putatively universal rights are ignored by the state.     

“警务云”模式与网络安全决策支持系统

针对虚拟空间的系统属性分析了网络＂实-虚＂空间的行为特征,从虚拟计算的角度介绍了云计算的意义和＂警务云＂模式。运用网络系统自组织理论、网络系统非平衡控制方法,分析和设计了网络安全决策支持系统的基本框架和运行机制。研究结果表明,网络警务模式是一个基于经验与知识的信息融合模式;网络安全监控系统是一种非平衡的自组织系统;网络安全决策支持系统是一个基于警务云的协同管理系统。     

国家电子政务统一网络空间:内涵、框架及建构

本文通过对政府部门类型、组织关系、业务流类型进行分类研究,得出政府系统内的业务通道需求,从而从技术上指导虚拟专网建设和业务系统的部署;通过对业务操作中的数据操作行为和业务数据进行分类研究,从逻辑上规定网络平台数据管理中心的设计和管理的内容,从而改变各部门传统的信息资源共享与交换方式。此外,国家电子政务统一网络空间的管理体制机制的建立和完善迫在眉睫。     

地方政府创新与政府体制改革

文章分析了地方政府创新的客观空间和动力,探讨了它在坚持与推广方面存在的问题、原因及对策,论述了地方政府创新与政府体制改革之间的关系。     

网络媒介的公共领域治理潜能及其障碍——基于公共空间的构建和政策议程设置的探讨

本文从政府治理的视角切入，从规范的层面研究理想的公共领域对于公民社会不断发展背景下的政府治理所具有的价值和功能，具体包括公共空间的构建和政策议程设置模式的转变。然后从经验层面选取网络媒介，分析网络媒介在中国语境下实现上述两点公共领域的治理价值上所具有的潜能以及阻碍其潜能充分实现的多种障碍因素，在此基础上提出相应的纠改方法以求网络媒介的治理潜能能够得到最大限度的发挥。     

探讨老年住宅户外空间的宜人性

随着中国老龄化的来临，老龄人口的生活成为一个社会关心的问题，老年人户外活动也将是影响他们生活质量的一个重要方面，老年人生活的区域是社区、敬老院，这些设计要适应老年人的娱乐、散步、休憩、静观以及健康的需要。