Theories of State Formation and Civilisation in Johann P. Arnason and Shmuel Eisenstadt's Comparative Sociologies of Japan

Abstract

Johann Arnason and Shmuel Eisenstadt's social theories have remarkably different origins. Yet each has moved onto common ground with the other over a period of time. They meet in historical sociology in dialogue over theories of state formation and images of civilisation. Each is engaged in a project of revising civilisations sociology that reaches an apex with the comparative study of Japan. Their groundbreaking contributions can be read critically against a wider background of debates about postcolonialism, the reputation of the notion of civilisation and the state of area studies in the humanities and social sciences.     

Second thoughts on civil society: The state,civic associations and the antinomies of the public sphere in Africa

ABSTRACT

This article offers a conceptual framework to identify and analyse the contemporary behaviour of the paradoxical government-organized, non-governmental organization (GONGO). We discuss how GONGOs’ activities fit within mainstream civil society theories and traditions. Furthermore, we compare and analyse GONGOs and NGOs in terms of their sources of power, main activities and functions, and dilemmas. Finally, we theorize the effects, and implications, the growth of GONGOs has on state and society relations globally.     

犯罪心理痕迹与犯罪心理现场关系论

心理痕迹是对物质痕迹的反映,犯罪心理痕迹是当事人等历经罪案的记忆,以及物证所反映的犯罪行为的"心理留痕"。犯罪心理现场是罪案引起的心理活动状态,近似广义的心理痕迹。心理痕迹的特点是心理载体的物质客观性、心理痕迹的意识潜在性、心理信息传递的间接性、心理要素的相对稳定性、心理面貌的独特性,心理现场的特点是精神世界的相对独立性、认识主体的主观能动性、案件信息的主观扩张性、案件意义的法律抽象性。在心理的潜隐与动静之间,体现着痕迹反应性和现场能动性、静态痕迹和动态现场、痕迹点和现场面、信息存留和信息扩展的辩证关系。犯罪心理现场重构是再现案件事实的方法,犯罪心理画像是表现作案人个性等的分析结果。犯罪心理痕迹和犯罪心理现场相互依存。     

民间法话语在中国的命运与知识引进运动

民间法话语在中国的命运与西方知识引进运动是紧密地勾连在一起的。虽然“圜道”秩序生成模式和政治主导型秩序生成模式构成原理不同,但都不存在国家法与民间法对立问题,民间法话语被构建、衰落和兴趣都与西方知识／理论在中国、中国开展的民族国家构建和现代化建设紧密地联系在一起。对民间法话语在中国命运的研究,反映出来的是中国现代化建设、社会变迁与话语力量的发展的内在逻辑和规律。     

宪法学视野下的海洋战略

海洋战略的根本性、重要性及长期性等特征决定了它属于一项基本国策。海洋战略涉及宪法调整的国家主权,凸显出国家统一和主权完整的宪法价值;涉及宪法对国家的整体调整,彰显出宪法的制度安排价值,并折射出宪法保护国防与经济安全的价值诉求。“海洋入宪”有其必要性,解决海岛海洋争端和提升我国海洋执法的正当性均需宪法提供明确的依据;十八大报告为海洋入宪创造了契机,我国的海洋主权神圣不可侵犯,修宪时可在宪法中增设涉海条款,明文规定海洋属于我国的疆域。     

Regime Shift in Japan?Two Decades of Neoliberal Reforms

This paper uses insights drawn from a paired comparison of Switzerland and Japan to give an account of the changes brought about by neoliberal policy adaptation in Japan over the last two decades. In Switzerland, notwithstanding further liberalization of the traditionally liberal regime prompted by the economic hardships of the 1990s, the referendum system helped the Social Democrats and unions to defend their rights and maintain the welfare schemes belatedly established in the 1980s. By contrast, the Japanese ruling party not only delayed liberalization of the protectionist state, but also aggravated fiscal problems by implementing a series of expansionary macroeconomic policies in the 1990s. Thus, without pursuing coherently such neoliberal policies as fiscal consolidation, privatization, or market deregulation, the Japanese state now faces a serious dilemma between the immediate need for structural reforms and the social unease that would result. Focusing on the reform packages of the Nakasone (1982‐87), Hashimoto (1996‐98), and Koizumi (2001‐) administrations, the paper reviews the sequences of reform policies as an interplay among economic challenges, actors’ aspirations, and institutional constraints, and further develops arguments about the segmented structure, peculiar to the Japanese state, that retards political changes.     

Understanding Turkish secularism in the 21th century: a contextual roadmap

ABSTRACT

This paper asserts that Turkish secularism and Islamism represent two faces of one coin – contemporary Turkish politics – when one considers their goals and strategies. The two ideological movements have shaped one another and each now seeks to impose itself as superior. This article unpacks these differences and similarities in the following steps: (a) it defines the socio-historic modes of Turkish secularism and (b) examines its social and political origins; (c) it then explores Islam’s return to the public domain as an oppositional Turkish identity; (d) and thereafter considers the diverse understandings of secularism resulting from neoliberal policies that relaxed state control over Islam, which then prompted socially-acceptable reinterpretations of Islam; and finally (e) describes how the AKP’s has re-imagined secularism while (mis)using Islam as a political instrument. The comparison highlights such commonalties as a collectivist character, a desire for state control as a vehicle to realize an ideology, intolerance of diversity and criminalization of other perspectives, and the differentiation of religion as morality in the private sphere versus its cultural role in the public sphere. It concludes that, under the AKP government, Islam is used as a tool to consolidate the power of Erdo?an’s kleptocratic regime.     

The factory and the welfare state: redundancy,benefits and workers’ organization at Alfa Romeo Arese, 1963-1986

ABSTRACT

The article tracks the relationship between the Italian welfare state and the social relations of production at a Fordist factory, showing how social policy influenced the pattern of workers’ contention on the industrial shop floor. Welfare state analysis has concentrated on the institutional aspect of social policy but neglected the role that state benefits played in industrial organization and workplace relations. The article ‘nests’ the analysis of social policy in a micro-history of the factory, using the case study of Arese – a plant owned by the carmaker Alfa Romeo – Milan, Italy. Tracking the history of Arese, the article shows how the Italian system of short-time work subsidies, the Cassa Integrazione Guadagni (CIG), served to quell industrial unrest and target unions’ organizational resources. From the late 1960s, the CIG was used by managers to suspend workers during strikes and acted as a deterrent against their mobilization. As redundancies increased during the 1980s, workers were put on short-time for prolonged periods and prevented from entering the factory. This degraded their professional identity and eroded their political ties with the workplace, curtailing the basis of unions’ organizational strength within the factory.     

普遍义务论纲

普遍义务的出现以"二战"后人权国际化和普遍化为背景,是绝对的义务,在国际义务中居于较高层次。普遍义务多为禁止性的义务,以人类社会基本价值和国际社会共同利益作为其承担义务的法理基础。普遍义务反映了国际法价值论的变化。普遍义务应促使我们对国际法体系结构和国际法效力的根据再审视,并重塑国际法中自然法的应有地位,同时也应防止对普遍义务的滥用。     

中国模式与弹性国家能力

中国模式的实质是中国在全球化背景下实现社会主义现代化的发展战略。中国模式的提出无论是对世界多元现代化模式的建构,还是对本国发展模式的自觉都有着重要的价值。中国模式最突出的特征是现代化压力下的弹性国家能力,主要表现为中性政府、渐进改革、有选择的市场经济和国家的相对自主性。