Negotiating hybridity in highland Bolivia: indigenous moral economy and the expanding market for quinoa

Scholars often highlight the capacity for cooperation and reciprocity as one of the most outstanding features of Andean peasants, but also raise concerns that these traditional strategies necessarily wither and fade as Andean people and places are increasingly incorporated into capitalist markets and processes. This study examines how non-market cooperative and reciprocal economic practices are affected as rural Bolivians expand production to meet a growing international demand for the Andean pseudo-grain quinoa. Based on the grounded experiences of rural Bolivians who are negotiating the modernisation and martketisation of agricultural production for the first time, I find that increasing incorporation into global markets need not undermine the moral economy of rural people, and may in fact strengthen their commitment to reciprocal and cooperative strategies. In contrast to claims that the spread of modern markets and technologies will weaken and ultimately replace cooperative strategies, I argue that reciprocity practices are important components in the construction of a new, hybrid economic space. Within this space, where economic strategies are based on moral sentiments as well as market logic, reciprocity provides a socially and ecologically appropriate ‘toolkit’ with which rural people negotiate their uneven incorporation into global capitalistic processes.     

Plantation rubber,land grabbing and social-property transformation in southern Laos

This paper critically examines theories of accumulation, dispossession and exclusion for analyzing the agrarian transformations that result from contemporary large-scale land acquisitions across the Global South. Building upon Marx's primitive accumulation, Harvey's accumulation by dispossession and Hall et al.'s Powers of Exclusion, conceptual lenses are developed through which to examine how land grabs transform property and social relationships of resource-based production. I examine the concession of 10,000 hectares by the central government of Laos to a Vietnamese corporation for extracting timber and planting rubber in the southern province of Attapeu. This acquisition has excluded farmers from land and resources that constituted their primary sources of (re)production, reconfigured rural property relations, altered the peasant relationship to land and produced new exploitative forms of wage labor.     

Why are public offices sold in Kyrgyzstan?

Why are public offices for sale in Kyrgyzstan? To address this question, this article attempts to set out a new logic for understanding the motives, nature, and consequences of corruption in the country. Rather than securing access to a single favor through bribery, officials invest in political and administrative posts in order to obtain access to stream of rents associated with an office. Political and administrative corruption is organically linked in this system, and corruption stems not so much from weak monitoring as from being a franchise-like arrangement, where officials are required to pay continuous “fees” to their bosses. The key is to be the public official influencing the redistribution of rents as well as participating in the informal market where “public” goods are privatized and exchanged for informal payments. Thus, instead of control over the pure economic assets of the state, influence over the state's institutional and organizational framework is the dominant strategy for earning and investing in the country.     

芬兰二战后经济发展与社会保障的特点与启示

作为一个北欧小国,从自然禀赋上看,芬兰不具备优势,除林业资源和渔业资源外,现代经济发展中关键的煤和石油奇缺。但进入21世纪以来,在世界经济论坛每年所做的全球经济竞争力的排名中,芬兰一直名列前茅,甚至有4次名列榜首,成为最具有经济竞争力国家,这则更加体现出较好的研究和参考价值。芬兰在二战后独特的混合经济体制以及社会保障福利国家体系,构成了芬兰在二战以来经济和社会诸多方面的发展特点。这些特点对中国和其他发展中国家未来的发展道路有着较强的启示和借鉴作用。     

The political economy of global firms from India and China

This article attempts to build a bridge between contemporary studies of global firms from emerging economies and existing theories in comparative political economy. It argues that given the primacy of the state as an economic actor in developing countries, the variety of capitalism literature could provide a theoretical foundation for firm-level analyses of emerging market multinationals. For example, the authors suggest that China and India may be moving towards a ‘hybrid market economy’. They also offer a typology of Indian and Chinese corporates to demonstrate an empirical approach to analysing domestic business–government relationships and the ways in which these firms are shaped by the peculiarities of their respective institutional setting. Finally, they identify some of the likely pitfalls of doing cross-national comparisons of emerging market multinationals, particularly with respect to the reliability of corporate data.     

知识经济时代图书馆面临的机遇、挑战及发展战略

图书馆是伴随着社会对知识的需求产生和发展起来的,当社会经济进一步发展,人类社会进 入知识经济时代,知识对社会的进步将发挥前所未有的重要作用,也使图书馆面临全新的机遇和挑战。 图书馆应制定新的发展战略,以适应知识经济的挑战。     

西部大开发进程中新生代农民工的法治保障

当前,新生代农民工成为农民工群体的主体,在社会经济发展和城市建设中扮演着重要角色。随着西部大开发进程的推进,这一群体有向西部地区回流聚集的趋势,并因此产生了新的特点和需求。在此背景下,基本民生权利保障不足、刑事犯罪率控制不严、市场经济服务不够,成为困扰这一群体的主要问题。因此,有必要针对新生代农民工的特点,构建健全合理的法治保障体系,以保障他们的合法权益,维护社会稳定,促进科学发展。     

推动吉林省民营经济创新发展的对策

党的十八届三中全会首次提出,使市场在资源配置中起决定性作用,深化经济体制改革,这必然为民营经济带来新一轮蓬勃发展的机遇。吉林省民营经济只有创新发展才有生存空间和立足之地。本文针对吉林省民营经济创新发展存在的＂四个不够＂、＂六多六少＂和＂六个困难＂等问题,提出了树立创新理念和培育创业精神,培养和引进创新型人才,营造公平、和谐、宽松的发展环境,选择适合发展的产业和经营方式以及适时转型和提升传统产业的创新发展等对策。     

市场经济条件下公民社会监督行政权力的新思考

从公民社会角度出发，审视现阶段行政监督的现状，还存在着监督主体转型缓慢、被监督者制约发展、监督参与渠道尚不完善等障碍性的因素。因此，应以公民社会建设为突破口，从公民、政府和渠道三个角度系统地思考新的建设道路，以完善行政监督模式架构。     

“零碳排放”校园建设的综合效果分析——以特里尔应用科技大学贝肯费尔德校区为例

德国特里尔应用科技大学通过开发各种可再生能源技术,在贝肯菲尔德校区建设＂零碳排放＂校园,实现了电能与热能供应的二氧化碳＂零排放＂。该文系统分析了＂零碳排放＂校园的主要做法及其效果,提出了中国发展低碳经济和开发利用可再生能源的对策。