Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of Scale

This and the subsequent papers in this special issue set out the contours of Marxian urban political ecology and call for greater research attention to a neglected field of critical research that, given its political importance, requires urgent attention. Notwithstanding the important contributions of other critical perspectives on urban ecology, Marxist urban political ecology provides an integrated and relational approach that helps untangle the interconnected economic, political, social and ecological processes that together go to form highly uneven and deeply unjust urban landscapes. Because the power-laden socioecological relations that shape the formation of urban environments constantly shift between groups of actors and scales, historical-geographical insights into these ever-changing urban configurations are necessary for the sake of considering the future of radical political-ecological urban strategies. The social production of urban environments is gaining recognition within radical and historical-materialist geography. The political programme, then, of urban political ecology is to enhance the democratic content of socioenvironmental construction by identifying the strategies through which a more equitable distribution of social power and a more inclusive mode of environmental production can be achieved.     

布赞和利特尔《世界史中的国际体系》笔谈

历史学与其他人文社会科学的交叉和融合已经成为一种发展趋势 ,国内外相关学术著作不断出现 ,但其他学科通过对世界历史的重新诠释来重构本学科基础的大作却很难发现。牛津大学出版社 2 0 0 0年出版的巴里·布赞教授和理查德·利特尔教授的《世界史中的国际体系 :国际关系研究的再构建》就是这样一本著作。这本书的中译本 2 0 0 4年春由高等教育出版社出版。本刊特邀部分该书的译者和读者就该书的思想、理论和方法进行了讨论 ,以期吸收和借鉴国外学术界的最新成果。热忱欢迎专家、学者对该书及其相关论题发表见解。     

International relations and foreign policy in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

The Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS) has evolved from a publication that deliberately relegated articles in international relations (IR) to a secondary status to one that has defined and encouraged leading-edge contributions to that field. This development can be attributed to successive AJPS editorial teams’ realisation that contemporary political problems are increasingly interconnected and that emerging approaches to IR reflect this condition. Several recent and key IR debates that have emerged within the journal’s pages are assigned special attention here: the linking of Australia’s domestic politics to that country’s foreign policy interests and behaviour; in-depth discussions that relate to ongoing trends in the international political economy; critical analysis of national defence and regional security postures; and diverse theoretical perspectives that are increasingly shaping the IR field’s paradigmatic identity. It is concluded that the AJPS is now a leading source of IR thought and discourse.     

The Political Ecology of Extraction and Extractive Reserves in East Kalimantan,Indonesia

Extractive reserves established in the Amazon have given development professionals hope for solving two critical problems in conservation and development: the empowerment of indigenous people and the conservation of tropical forests. The extraction of non-timber forest products has provided an important part of the livelihood strategies of rainforest dwelling people and of the regional economy of East Kalimantan for some two millennia. The specific political-economic and environmental circumstances of Indonesia and interior Kalimantan, however, preclude applying the Amazonian model for extractive reserves. Using a political ecology framework, this article analyses sociological and environmental factors emerging over the past two and a half decades and influencing contemporary rattan production and trade. Based on this analysis, the author concludes that the politics of forest management, at both the national and local levels, are more conducive to village level extractive reserves than to regional, labour-based organizations.     

International Trade Fairs and Global Buzz,Part I: Ecology of Global Buzz

This paper investigates the importance of temporary face-to-face (F2F) contact and the physical co-presence of global communities in establishing a particular information and communication ecology during international trade fairs, referred to as “global buzz”. International trade fairs bring together agents from all over the world and create temporary spaces for presentation and interaction. Within a specific institutional setting, participants not only acquire knowledge through F2F communication with other agents, but also obtain information by observing and systematically monitoring other participants. The fact that firms do not necessarily have to be in direct contact with a specific source of information to get access to this knowledge makes participation in these events extremely valuable. International trade fairs have become important expressions of new geographies of circulation through which knowledge is created and exchanged at a distance. This paper analyses the constituting components of global buzz and aims to dismantle the complexity of this phenomenon in a multi-dimensional way. When applying this concept to Internet trade fairs, the question arises whether a similar information and communication ecology, or virtual buzz, can be established. We explore similarities and differences between both forms of buzz, using the same classification scheme.     

Razi on Reason and Political Authority: A Study in Medieval Persian Political Thought

The Philosopher of Rey, Mohammad-e Zakariya-ye Razi and his Ismaili adversaries, Abu Hatam-e Razi and Naser-e Khosrow, share a political understanding of religion according to which religion is a theologico-political system of domination. However, they are at odds over the political philosophy appraisal of religion qua a system of authority. The paper explicates the latter disagreement in part based on Razi's and his opponents' conflicting ideas about the nature of the faculty of Reason and its distribution among men. Consequently, the paper underlines a democratic implication of Razi's thesis on the makeup of the human intellect.