INTRODUCING PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

This article provides an editorial introduction to the following three related articles on the growing use and influence of social science research in family law. It first considers why this has become problematic and identifies some common strategies used by advocates, sometimes under the guise of scholarship, to destroy the standing of research findings contrary to their ideological or political position. Then it discusses briefly the remedies proposed to mitigate these kinds of problems within the following three articles.     

我国城乡居民消费价格指数差异分析

在刚刚过去的一轮通货膨胀中,农村的CPI涨幅持续高于城市。这种现象的存在不仅给农民带来更重的负担,也会阻碍国民经济的全面协调可持续发展。究其原因,一是根据一价法则,农村市场价格有向城市市场价格加速收敛的需要;二是农村市场自身不完善;三是政府的财政投入政策和宏观调控政策对农村市场不利。面对这种局面,要从财政投入、完善和规范农村市场制度以及调整宏观调控政策等方面入手解决问题。     

The Creative Industries Concept: Stakeholder Reflections on Its Relevance and Potential in Australia

The creative industries concept or term continues to attract attention in both developed and developing economies worldwide. However, it is not universally applied, with other terms such as cultural industries, arts and culture, copyright industries, or the experience economy used in various global locations. There is also ongoing debate and critique in relation to the creative industries concept, given that it emphasises employment and wealth creation and gathers together a range of disparate disciplines. This article explores these issues via interviews with twenty-two key leaders representing fifteen different industry organisations, advocacy groups, and government funding bodies in the Australian creative industries sector. The findings reveal only a moderate level of understanding and application of the creative industries concept, with a range of views on its relevance and utility for those working in the sector. In addition, the findings propose that there is significant potential and need for the sector to work towards a stronger advocacy position and profile within the broader economy. However, this represents a major challenge for the creative industries sector, given the existing vertical and horizontal power structures within this complex and diverse area of the economy.     

我国发展消费信贷的对策探讨

消费信贷在我国还是一个新事物,它是市场经济社会中货币信用发展到较高水平时的必然产物.鉴于我国经济发展的特殊性,消费信贷的出现是针对经济活动中有效需求不足引起的通货紧缩而推出的.目前,我国已经结束了短缺经济,进入了买方市场,启动消费信贷的条件已基本成熟.我国潜力巨大的消费需求现状为消费信贷业务提供了广阔的市场前景.因此,开发消费信贷品种,完善金融工具,建立中小型消费信贷机构和消费信贷中介机构,进一步改善消费信贷环境已成为加快改革需要面对和解决的问题.     

Education of the countryside at a crossroads: rural social movements and national policy reform in Brazil

This contribution explores the strategies used by popular movements seeking to advance social reforms, and the challenges once they succeed. It analyzes how a strategic alliance between the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) transformed the Ministry of Education's official approach to rural schooling. This success illustrates the critical role of international allies, political openings, framing, coalitions and state–society alliances in national policy reforms. The paper also shows that once movements succeed in advancing social reforms, bureaucratic tendencies such as internal hierarchy, rapid expansion and ‘best practices’ – in addition to the constant threat of cooptation – can prevent their implementation.     

高绩效人力资源管理系统与员工创新行为 ：建言行为的竞争机制研究

如何促进员工的创新行为对组织的发展至关重要。本研究通过多源、多时点调研方式,对我国技术型企业的人力资源部门负责人及其下属员工进行问卷调查,探讨了组织实施的高绩效人力资源管理系统对员工创新行为的影响,并检验了促进性建言与抑制性建言的竞争性中介作用及心理安全感的调节作用。研究结果表明：组织实施的高绩效人力资源管理系统对员工创新行为有显著正向影响;促进性建言和抑制性建言在高绩效人力资源管理系统与员工创新行为间表现出部分中介作用;心理安全感调节了高绩效人力资源管理系统与促进性建言之间的关系;同时,心理安全感还调节了促进性建言对高绩效人力资源管理系统与员工创新行为关系的中介作用。     

NGO networks in Central Asia and global civil society: potentials and limitations

Based on research carried out by INTRAC (International NGO Training & Research Centre) in 2006–2007 in four countries of Central Asia for Oxfam–Novib, the article investigates NGO networks and their international links in the context of current theory on civil society and global civil society. Three case studies of NGOs working in service delivery, community development and free media are examined to show the diversity of aims and the potential and challenges of networking in the region. Civil society advocacy at national and international levels is analysed with a fourth case study on the campaign conducted in Kyrgyzstan against joining the World Bank's Highly Indebted Poor Countries programme. This example shows a more radical, alternative mode of civil society activism. The article emphasizes the importance of national- and regional-level networking and poses the question of whether NGOs in Central Asia can shift from their current positions on the periphery of global movements and debates.     

From boomerangs to minefields and catapults: dynamics of trans-local resistance to land-grabs

This paper explores the political processes that activists engaged in contesting land grabbing have triggered to connect claims across borders and to international institutions, regimes and processes. Through a review of cases of land-grab resistance that have led to project cancelation or suspension, I argue that contextual elements of the land grab and shifting geopolitics highlight the need for adaptation and refinement of models of transnational advocacy, historically structured in North–South patterns. For example, while some elements of the boomerang pattern of transnational advocacy are still relevant, changing realities call for new empirically enriched models. To this end, I outline two typologies of political contention that can help us conceptualize multi-scalar interactions between activists to demonstrate the impact of local resistances at larger scales – ‘the catapult effect’ and the ‘minefield effect’. This paper contributes to calls for further theorization to understand how feedback processes between international discourses, meso-politics and conflicts and resistance at local sites of production impact the implementation of contested land deals.     

Advocacy Coalitions in Ontario Land Use Policy Development

In 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada's largest conurbation. This article examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter‐actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the ACF's Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter‐actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy‐relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem—an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers' coalition—as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross‐coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF.