The Regulatory Role of Social Policy: Macao's Social Security Development

Central to the regulation theory of social policy is the argument that the welfare state has played a key role in the maintenance of the proper working of capitalism. Starting from the core argument of the theory, this article attempts to demonstrate that the Social Security Fund, a cornerstone of Macao's social security system, achieved three major regulatory functions in relation to the perpetuation of capitalism from the establishment of the fund in 1990 to 2005: legitimisation, reproduction and disciplinisation. There was a watershed year in 2002 in which the predominant regulatory forms displayed a qualitative shift from legitimisation to reproduction and disciplinisation. The shift is explained in terms of different interplays of the political and economic forces within the basic structural constraint of the capitalist social system.     

日本金融商品推介销售行为的法律规制--兼述金融商品交易的忠实义务与善管义务

随着金融市场的专业化、复杂化程度日益提高,在信息、能力、财力等方面处于弱势的金融消费者与金融业者的交易不对等地位凸显。文章主要以日本金融业者的金融商品推介销售行为规制为研究对象,结合日本金融商品交易法的共通行为规范及忠实和善管注意义务进行了分析,认为基于金融消费者的特殊性、金融商品的特殊性以及金融商品交易双方地位的不对等性,应立足于实质的公平和正义的价值取向,在传统民商法的基础上通过矫正交易双方的权利义务配置,通过监管保护、行为规制、权利救济等层面的制度完善和有效运作,以期今后为中国相关立法提供参考。     

Looking from South Africa to the World: A Story of Identity for our Times

The article is a consideration of the question of identity in South Africa, and also in a global context. Just as South Africa has looked to the world in order to understand its place, so too the world might look to South Africa to illuminate patterns less immediately visible elsewhere. Far from being unrepresentative in the apartheid period, South Africa was the ‘state of exception’ that incarnated and concentrated global realities; equally in the current era the reciprocal relations between the South African and the global evoke haunting concerns. The article begins with a consideration of the ‘classic’ generation of anti-apartheid activists, including figures such as Nelson Mandela and Bram Fischer, as they fashioned a new sense of South African identity. Yet it goes on to consider what happens when the classic period is over, and older definitions and oppositions are no longer available. Here the navigations of fiction, both in South Africa and elsewhere, become significant, and the article examines the work of writers from Gordimer, Coetzee and Ndebele, to Caryl Phillips and W. G. Sebald. It ends with a contemplation of the current period, nearly twenty years after the democratic transition in South Africa. In the era of the Marikana massacre and other pressing developments, both music and fiction open up some of the ambiguities and obligations. Drawing on Agamben, I suggest the intrinsic mutuality of the ‘home’ and the ‘foreign’ in establishing a more promising—and challenging—sense of belonging and identity both in South Africa and the world.     

Implications of foreign direct investment for national sovereignty: The Wal-Mart/Massmart merger as an illustration

The Wal-Mart/Massmart merger has caused concern about its possible influence on the South African economy, employment and the autonomy of the state. This study analyses strategic considerations for states that allow foreign corporations to engage in their domestic markets. Globalisation and transnational harmonisation have led to an impetus for corporations to extend their activities across national borders and foreign markets. Based on the theory of sovereignty, this is evaluated against a trilateral background of home country, host country and corporation. The outcome that emerges is that in some cases states have lost a significant share of sovereignty to multinational authorities. With the Wal-Mart/Massmart merger, role-players such as the government, competition commission and trade unions got involved early on and ensured maximum advantage to the country and its citizens. The final conclusion is that such partnerships between host, home governments and transnational corporations can minimise the loss of national sovereignty, but this can only be achieved against a backdrop of economic, societal and political stability and co-operation.     

Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria: The international dimension

The terrorist group Boko Haram, or the self-described People of the Tradition of the Prophet (SAW) for Preaching and Striving, continues to terrorise Nigeria, with horrible consequences. Clearly, study of the problem cannot be disconnected from the complex nature of Boko Haram itself, considering the group's unclear agenda and its shadowy sponsors — internal or external. A key question regarding the nature of Boko Haram is whether it has a transnational dimension or not. This paper examines the nature of Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria. It argues that Boko Haram's terrorism does indeed have a transnational dimension, demonstrating that its agenda and targets transcend Nigeria, and that there are international links to the operations of Boko Haram. Given this international dimension, what concerns does Boko Haram generate for countries outside Nigeria, and what are their responses to the group's continued acts of terrorism? This analysis is contextualised within the charged debate on the definition of terrorism and the modern trend of religious terrorism in the international arena.     

Dual citizenship and sovereignty

Multiple and dual citizenship in the past decades have become widely accepted worldwide. Leading scholars in citizenship studies claim that the growing tolerance of dual citizenship signals the weakening of state sovereignty and the emergence of transnational, post-national or cosmopolitan norms. This paper argues that multiple citizenship standards are neither universally accepted, nor normatively compelling. The cases referred to are intended to demonstrate that contrary to the above assessments, dual citizenship is also used by states to increase their sovereignty, for example promoting national interest abroad through expatriates and trans-border minorities. It is also argued that, in addition to the classical territorial sovereignty- and security-related dilemmas, dual-citizenship policies may violate the norms of democratic equality and popular sovereignty. The paper concludes that the inevitably growing toleration of non-monogamous state-citizen relationships should not be interpreted as a normative justification of promiscuous citizenship policies.     

Water Management in France: Delegation and Market Based Auto‐regulation

Abstract

In this paper, we show that the principle of equal access in the French legal code and the explicit flexibility of the actual delegation contract concerning prices and responsibility for risk have created the conditions for an effective system of market based, auto‐regulation that maximizes community welfare while maintaining a fair return for the delegated firm. The system is market based because auto‐regulation occurs within price–profit interval over which delegation is acceptable to both parties. For the system to be effective, the threat to revoke must be credible and the conflict of interest between the mayor and the commune must be resolved.     

European‐Chinese relations in the Nineties

In recent decades, there have been many international campaigns on numerous issues. In turn, scholars have analysed the activist networks promoting human rights, environmental quality and global justice, developing theories of transnational advocacy, strategies and outcomes. However, analysts have seldom noted that the ‘progressive’ networks on which these theories have been based seldom act unopposed. Instead, on numerous global issues leftwing groups face fierce opposition from networks of rightwing activists. This article provides examples of such clashes, focusing on these understudied conservative networks. In addition, it outlines a theory for understanding the conflict of networks over many policy issues.     

National democratization theory and global governance: civil society and the liberalization of the Asian Development Bank

Contributing to a growing literature on democracy beyond the nation-state, this article draws on aspects of national democratization theory in order to analyse empirical processes of democracy. By combining insights from transition theory and the theory of political opportunity structures, the article examines the case of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). While the ADB for a long time has been described as a closed, unresponsive and unaccountable international organization, a recent evaluation praised the Bank for its good practices concerning transparency, participation and accountability. The article uses the analytical framework to highlight the interaction between hard-liners and soft-liners within the ADB and explores the role of different transnational civil society actors in the processes that seem to have strengthened the democratic credentials of the ADB. While finding significant divisions within the ADB as well as amongst civil society actors targeting the bank, overall the article argues that transnational civil society actors, interacting with soft-liners within the ADB, have contributed to the implementation of reforms, which in turn create political opportunities for further civil society activism. The reform processes, however, are best described as processes of liberalization – rather than democratization.     

Preventive Policing and Security Plans: The Reception of New Crime Prevention Strategies in Three Finnish Cities

In Western countries today, security is seen predominantly as a problem of public places. This has given rise to a growing demand for new strategies of governing public places, the most popular of which are crime prevention, community policing (e.g., zero tolerance) and partnership. Their aim is to encourage the public sector, voluntary organizations and market actors to work more closely with the police in a local effort to create and maintain a safe living environment. This article looks at what kind of reception the new methods of governing public places have received in three Finnish cities (Helsinki, Lappeenranta, and Tampere) by reviewing their newly formulated security plans and programmes. The analysis of this document material makes use of the concept of moral regulation. The analysis focuses on the kind of local security problems that are identified in these security plans as targets of moral regulation; what kinds of techniques they propose for addressing and resolving these problems; and in what kind of crime prevention role they position the subjects of moral regulation (police officers and police partners) and the objects of moral regulation. The analysis shows that Helsinki aims to regulate the problems occurring in public places by emphasizing a neo­liberal ethos. Lappeenranta, on the other hand, walks a tight­rope in its security plan between communitarian and welfare state ambitions. Tampere, for its part, responds to the security threat in public places by adopting a neo­leftist stance (cf. the Third Way).