印尼民主化进程、中国印尼关系及国际形势评析

应暨南大学的邀请,2006年5月27-30日,印尼前国家领导人———印尼人民协商会议(MPR)主席、印尼国民使命党前任总主席、穆罕默迪亚前任总主席、现印尼国民使命党荣誉主席、印尼知名学者阿敏.赖斯教授(Prof.Dr.HM Amien Rais)对暨南大学进行了为期3天的学术访问,并被聘请为暨南大学客座教授。期间,阿敏.赖斯教授做了两场学术报告,分别就印尼民主化进程、中国印尼关系、国际形势等诸多问题发表了看法。参加学术报告会的有暨南大学东南亚研究所暨国际关系学系师生、印尼留学生、广东外语外贸大学印尼语专业师生和广州市、中山市、珠海市的印尼归侨代表等130人,东南亚研究所所长曹云华教授主持了学术报告会。现对其主要观点和看法进行整理,以飨广大     

Delegation and Institutional Design in Health‐Care Rationing

The delegation of decision‐making powers to nonmajoritarian, independent agencies has become a significant phenomenon in more and more policy areas. One of these is the health‐care sector, where decisions on the range of services covered within public systems have, in most developed countries, been delegated to specialized bodies. This article offers an analytical framework that seeks to grasp the empirical variety and complexity of delegative processes and appointed institutions. The framework is used to describe decision‐making processes and institutions in six countries: Austria, Germany, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. We find that, although constrained by preexisting institutional structures and traditions, delegators enjoy a considerable degree of discretion in their institutional design choices and engage in strategic design and redesign of appointed bodies.     

Constructing the Nation’s Enemy: Hindutva,popular culture and the Muslim ‘other’ in Bollywood cinema

This paper aims to investigate how in contemporary India the process of ‘othering’ of the Muslim minority has been the product of politically motivated and manipulated majoritarian cultural assertiveness, reflected in the Hindu right’s clamour to underline the significance of drawing the geographic and cultural boundaries of what its ideologues call the Hindu nation. Situating cinema as a crucial distribution source of popular culture, the paper contends that Bollywood cinema has exhibited an overt bias towards producing films that capitulate to this radical nationalist discourse professed by the Hindutva ideologues. Making a discourse analysis of selected films produced by Bollywood since the 1990s, the premise of this contention is interrogated by examining how Hindi cinema’s portrayal of the image of Muslims has been carried out in a pejorative manner which stems from the strong grounding of its stories in a Hindu majoritarian setting. The paper concludes by arguing that, with such a penchant, Bollywood cinema has actively engaged in the politics of nationalism engendered by the right-wing neo-fundamentalist Hindutva movement.     

Women targeted and women negated. An aspect of the environmental movement in Bangladesh

There are many ways to solve environmental problems. In this article the issue of energy consumption in Bangladesh and the rapid introduction of improved stove projects illustrates the importance of involving women in decision making that directly involves their lives. 82% of total energy consumption is based on traditional, renewable resources such as firewood, agricultural residues, tree residues, and dung. It is argued that resource depletion is related to population growth, the introduction of high yield seeds and related agricultural practices, and the lack of a sound basis for social and natural forestry. Improved stoves were introduced in order to reduce the depletion of resources. It was assumed that women would understand the value of preserving national natural resources and that energy resources for cooking were becoming scarce. The improved technology had the advantage of saving energy and saving women's time and effort in biomass and fuelwood collection. What was not considered in the decision was the design of the stove which was not adaptable to traditional cooking tools and pots and was more time consuming. The new stoves produced ash too quickly that needed to be removed before the combustion process was obstructed. The stove required straight straw or fuelwood, when available supplies were irregularly shaped. The ash residues could not be recycled, whereas potash could be used as fertilizer. Stoves required the use of a trained and sophisticated user. Stoves were expensive commodities. Women's time was obstructed because the stove needed tending and the usual chores could not be performed while food was cooking. The women in several projects rejected the stoves based on technological, cultural, and economic factors. It is argued that the environmental movement in Bangladesh conceptualized the environmental problem in economic terms but solved the problem technologically. The failure was in imposing new technology on women and in an inappropriate understanding of the situation.