A New Energy Age in Pacific Russia: Lessons from the Sakhalin Oil and Gas Projects

A noted British specialist in Russia's economic geography and the Far East region presents a comprehensive account of the development of the onshore and offshore oil and gas deposits of Sakhalin. Following a review of early multinational activity in geological surveying and exploration during the 1970s, he charts subsequent changes in the entities formed to develop and exploit the deposits (Sakhalin-I and -II) later in the Soviet period and during the first two decades of Russian independence. These changes have responded to improved knowledge of the geology of the deposits and changing relations between the Russian central government and Sakhalin regional authorities. Also analyzed are efforts by the Russian side to overturn or otherwise modify terms of previous agreements deemed unfavorable, and maneuvering by China and Japan to secure increasing sources of supply for their markets. With Sakhalin's two core projects now entering the active production phase, the author distills a number of key issues that have shaped the development of the island's offshore hydrocarbon resources and will have a bearing on prospects for a future generation of less spectacular new projects (incremental development); he also outlines wider lessons that have been learned over the life of Sakhalin's projects. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F210, L710, L950, P330, Q400. 4 figures, 2 tables, 45 references.     

Urban planning in Russia: towards the market

The article discusses the recent transformation of the Russian system of urban planning from the socialist system to a market one. The focus is on new problems of the Russian planning system, the relationship between the new and old systems, and the role of the bureaucracy and participation. A case study of the city of Moscow develops the subject at a metropolitan level. It is argued that Russian planning in transition has been planning in crisis and it is only now becoming an effective and pluralistic social institution. The recent revival of planning has been much dependent on Russia's regions; a diversification of planning systems throughout the country is expected.     

新史料与清前中期中俄关系再研究

当今世界以经济主导社会。然而在一个凸显政治道德的中国传统社会里,经济却永远处于为政治目的服务的次要地位。很不幸的是,迄今为止,大多数关于近代社会到来抑或到来前夕的中国对外关系方面的历史叙述,却忽略了上述事实。例如,清前中期阶段的中俄关系并非双方处于均势状态,在更多情况下,可以说由清朝在操纵。笔者借助重新查阅清官方典章资料和利用新近内部出版的资料集《故宫俄文史料》,重新阐明清朝立场下的中俄关系状态,以及清朝操纵中俄关系所要发展的方向。     

Moscow in the 1990s: Market Reform and the Central City

The built environmental reflects in tangible ways the values of the societies of which it is a part. Soviet cities developed in accordance with the precepts of socialism for more than half a century, and nowhere were the consequences more palpable than in the central city. The present paper examines changes in urban development and management now under way in Moscow as a consequence of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the advent of fundamental economic and political restructuring. More specifically it explores the impact of the new political economy on central Moscow's employment structure, housing stock, and land use, and assesses the attitudes of business representatives and residents to these changes. 5 figures, 2 tables, 25 references.     

论社会主义市场经济条件下民族关系的新格局

在社会主义市场经济条件下．中国的民族关系发生了许多重要变化,出现了新的格局。本从民族分布格局．民族自治地方经济地位和比重的变化、民族共同因素增多,民族团结的新发展和“两个离不开”观念深入人心五个方面,对民族关系的现状进行了论述．阐明了社会主义市场经济对民族关系发展的促进作用。     

论社会主义市场经济对城市和散杂居地区民族关系的影响

改革开放和社会主义市场经济体制确立,使我国少数民族散杂居的程度有了进一步发展,加强了我国原有的“大分散、小聚居、交错居位”的情况,强化了散杂居地区各民族之间的联系,同时民族纠纷增多,散杂居地区民族关系成为影响我国民族关系的重要方面,对此,应给予充分重视采取积极对策,发展民族地区经济和化,加强关于民族团结的宣传教育。     

New Moscow: An Exploratory Assessment

An American geographer specializing in Russia examines the unprecedented plan announced in mid-2011 by the country's President Dmitriy Medvedev to expand the territory of Moscow and move government offices to newly annexed areas. The plan aims to increase the land area of the capital by 155 percent, mainly by annexation of a vast tract southwest of the city. The author demonstrates that while "New Moscow" is envisioned as a multi-polar and low-density urban site, the historic core would likely focus on tourism. He discusses the official reasons given for the immense undertaking, the potential problems raised by urban specialists and local media, as well as the results of public opinion polls detailing the attitudes of Muscovites toward the city's proposed transformation.     

近代东北亚国际关系史研究的新进展——读姜龙范著《近代中朝日三国对间岛朝鲜人政策研究》

姜龙范《近代中朝日三国对间岛朝鲜人政策研究》全面系统地从法理上、政策上对“问岛朝鲜人”问题进行了深层探讨。具有结构严谨、重点突出。资料翔实、立论可靠。博采众长、富于创见。联系现实、经世致用四个特点。     

Monumentality in Urban Design: The Case of Russia

A prominent American urban geographer and observer of the Russian urban scene provides an overview of grand planning and monumental urban design in Russia and the former Soviet Union through the lens of four themes outlined in a previous paper by Larry Ford (2008). In the process, he adds two more themes relevant to Russia and the former USSR: town building and architecture intended to define and legitimize state power, and the shaping or remodeling of society to reflect a regime's ideology. Noting the obstacles in the West to getting large urban projects planned, accepted, and completed, he argues that monumental urban landscapes appear to demand some degree of sustained, centralized, authoritarian leadership. The latter has been present in Russia and the USSR during much of the past millennium, including the present, but the emergence of new commercial/corporate forces in urban land development also bears scrutiny in studies of the processes promoting urban monumentality. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, R14, R52. 10 figures, 44 references.     

Reto's Chance: State and Status in an Urban Papua New Guinea Settlement

According to the ‘state‐in‐society’ model developed by Joel Migdal, states cannot be analytically regarded as separate from the societies they govern and have to be viewed in their social contexts. Migdal's model has been well received by scholars discussing governance and, especially, social control, in Melanesia. An anthropological qualification which could be applied to the model is that local elements of state in Melanesia are socially permeable, since their employees are likely to come from the communities they serve. This permeability arguably contributes to a mutually transformative relationship between state institutions and local groups whose praxis is informed by exigencies of kinship and community. Heuristically viewing the colonially planned ‘village court system’ in Papua New Guinea as an element of state in terms of Migdal's model, this paper presents a narrative of the appropriation of a village court into community sociality and individual aspirations for status in an urban settlement in Port Moresby. Ethnographically, it suggests that an application of the state‐in‐society model in the Papua New Guinean context, at least, must allow recognition of the way colonially and neo‐colonially introduced institutions have been appropriated into the praxis of local communities, and thus must preserve a sense of the transformations both of the institutions and the social life of those communities, to be analytically viable.     

全俄统一市场究竟形成于何时

十月革命后的苏联,历史学家常常有意无意地成为官方对以往注释的简单注释者和说明者。有关17世纪俄国市场说就是图解列宁一些论述的典型例子,但也有一些勇于进取的苏联学者靠扎扎实实的研究,对此作出了重要修正,令人信服地证明了有关18世纪末俄国国内统一市场形成的问题。     

布列斯特和约签订后的俄德关系(1918年3-11月)

布列斯特和约签订之后,德国并没有放弃侵略苏俄的政策,苏俄政府在军事和外交上仍面临着德国的重压,战争危机险象环生。为了维持俄德关系的现状,恢复经济,休养生息,苏俄奉行了妥协与抗争相结合的对德外交,布列斯特和约补充协议的签订集中表现了苏俄政府维护和平斗争的艰难性和外交工作的务实性。喘息时间的准战时性以残酷的方式昭示了苏俄国策的难点,在被动中为千头万绪的要务的展开指明了重点,从而为未来反协约国武装干涉做了主动的准备。     

1992年中俄关系略论

在中俄关系的发展史上,1992年是关键的一年。在从中苏关系顺利过渡到中俄关系后,由于俄罗斯在1992年上半年推行全面倒向西方的“一边倒”政策,造成了俄罗斯外交政策的失衡,中俄关系的发展受到了一定的干扰。在这种情况下,由于中国始终坚持同俄罗斯发展睦邻友好关系,不搞意识形态的争论;另一方面,俄罗斯外交也做出了调整,提出了既面向西方、又顾及东方的“双头鹰”政策,朝着有利于中俄关系的方向发展。因而,尽管出现了一些波折,但并未对中俄关系产生重大的影响,使1992年成为中俄关系发展的“承上启下”的一年。     

Market Relations as Wuwei: Daoist Concepts in Analysis of China's Post-1978 Market Economy

This paper shows how wuwei (effortless action) and associated concepts drawn from Daoist thought are applied in analyses of the Chinese market economy and state-economy relations published in recent issues of social science and Communist Party journals in the People's Republic of China. Such use of traditional concepts partially displaces Marxist terminology from “diagnostic economics”. In discussing the use of these concepts in 5 articles published between 2000 and 2008, the economic theory of Daodejing is also presented.     

中非关系的发展与非洲中国新移民

本文从新移民的规模、特点、构成类型及其与当地社会关系等方面,简要分析了中国在非洲新移民群体所普遍存在的问题。认为中国新移民与当地社会某些阶层经济利益上的竞争关系、中国新移民相对封闭的文化和生活方式、所在国的政治斗争和政治动员以及西方媒体的渲染歪曲等因素,影响到新移民与当地社会的关系。就目前情况来看,除少数的移民个人具有较为突出的成就外,新移民群体还没有达到足以在非洲各国产生影响的程度。语言、文化和价值观念的差异可能会妨碍新移民融入当地社会。