Decentralization and Democracy in Indonesia: A Critique of Neo‐Institutionalist Perspectives

This article assesses some of the major premises of neo‐institutionalist explanations of decentralization policy and practices, but focuses especially on the relationship between decentralization and democracy, in the context of the recent and ongoing Indonesian experience with decentralization. In the last two decades ‘decentralization’ has become, along with ‘civil society’, ‘social capital’ and ‘good governance’, an integral part of the contemporary neo‐institutionalist lexicon, especially that part which is intended to draw greater attention to ‘social’ development. The concern of this article is to demystify how, as a policy objective, decentralization has come to embody a barely acknowledged political, not just theoretical, agenda. It also suggests alternative ways of understanding why decentralization has often failed to achieve its stated aims in terms of promoting democracy, ‘good governance’, and the like. What is offered is an understanding of decentralization processes that more fully incorporates the factors of power, struggle and interests, which tend to be overlooked by neo‐institutionalist perspectives. The current Indonesian experience clearly illustrates the way in which institutions can be hijacked by a wide range of interests that may sideline those that champion the worldview of ‘technocratic rationality’.     

《楚辞》解诂五则

《楚辞》历来难懂,很多地方至今未有确解。本文选取《离骚》的“中情”、“民生”、“岂埕美之能当”、“折琼枝以为羞”和《九章》的“惜诵”、“惜往日”,在前哲时贤的基础上加以考订,作较为深入的探讨、分析,从而给出了新的解诂。     

American Democracy and Democracy Promotion

As America inaugurates its 43rd president it enters a period of reflection. The danger is that an emphasis on voting procedure will silence a long-standing and ultimately more significant criticism of American democracy and its policy of democracy promotion. The separation of economics from politics and the promotion of so-called 'market democracy' does a disservice to the wider democratic project and is potentially self-defeating. This article reviews three books to argue that America's declining international reputation can be traced to its own democratic shortcomings. It explores the possibility of a popular working-class movement to address these failings and examines the implication this may have on the liberal international order.
Books reviewed:
John B. Judis, Paradox Of American Democracy: Elites, Special Interests And The Betrayal Of Public Trust
Michael Zweig, The working class majority: America's best kept secret
Ruy Teixeira and Joel Rogers, America's forgotten majority: why the white working class still matters     

Deliberating the Holocaust and the Nakba: disruptive empathy and binationalism in Israel/Palestine

This article develops a theoretical framework for shared and inclusive Jewish and Palestinian deliberation on the memories of the Holocaust and the Nakba. It argues that a joint Arab-Jewish public deliberation on the traumatic memories of these two events is not only possible, however challenging and disruptive it may be, but also fundamental for producing an egalitarian and inclusive ethics of binationalism in Israel/Palestine. In order to develop this conceptual framework, we first present some examples, most notably Elias Khoury's epic novel Gate of the sun (Bab al-Shams), which bring the memories of the Holocaust and the Nakba together in a fashion that disrupts the dominant, antagonistic and exclusionary Israeli and Palestinian national narratives. We then interpret Dominick LaCapra's notion of ‘empathic unsettlement’, which transforms ‘otherness’ from a problem to be disposed of into a moral and emotional challenge, as a political concept that best captures and explains the disruptive potential of a joint deliberation on these traumatic events. The figure of the refugee, constitutive of Palestinian and Jewish histories and identities, we suggest, serves as a herald of this binational and disruptive ethics. We conclude that ‘empathic unsettlement’ also has a productive and transformative potential which gives further (however partial and initial) meaning, shape and content to the ethics and democratic politics of binationalism heralded by the refugee.     

丁道谦在二十世纪四十年代研究贵州经济的五部著作

丁道谦西南联大毕业后回到贵阳。先后出任贵州企业股份有限公司专员室专员、经济研究处干事等职务。先后撰写出版的《贵州经济研究》、《贵州经济地理》、《贵州的衣食问题》、《贵州地方财政概况》、《中国的奴隶制度与商业资本主义》等书;对贵州经济建设、资金筹集以及贵州自然地理、民族构成、人民情况、交通运输;农村经济、工业分布等作了详细的分析。特别是对贵州人民生活中的衣、食、住、行、育、乐和金融银行诸方面提出了相当精辟的见解。这些宝贵的建议为解放初期的贵州经济的恢复和发展起到了借鉴的作用     

管窥张闻天从个体农业经新民主主义走向社会主义的构想

张闻天关于农村合作经济的思想是他为我们党留下的精神遗产的一部分。张闻天所说的供销合作社与生产合作社 ,是以私有制为基础的各种类型的劳动互助组织 ,发展供销合作社与劳动互助组织 ,为农业集体化准备条件 ,经过长期的说服教育 ,在经济上必须实行一条无产阶级的领导路线 ,以最终引导农民走向社会主义。搞新民主主义建设 ,张闻天提出发展合作社的道路 ,是从供销合作到生产合作。在这条道路中 ,发展农村供销合作社占有重要的地位和作用。供销合作社是把小生产者与国营经济结合起来的桥梁和纽带 ,担负着改造小生产者社会制度的历史任务。需要坚持自愿互利原则 ,反对强迫命令 ;保护农民的私有权 ;正确处理和资本主义的关系     

洛阳周公庙与五贤祠的兴衰

洛阳周公庙始建于隋末,位于隋唐东都洛阳宫城应天门东侧,后代历经修缮.五贤祠位于周公庙旁边,从某种意义上说它是周公庙的补充和延伸.文中披露有关文献和近年出土的碑刻文物,见证了洛阳周公庙与五贤祠的兴废.     

Political Phenomenology: Radical Democracy and Truth

Abstract

In light of the "theological turn" in recent phenomenology, a question arises for contemporary thought of how the relationships among philosophy, religion, and democratic politics might be recontextualized and understood from a specifically phenomenological perspective. Essential in addressing this question is a critical examination of the method of reduction, or epoche instituted by Edmund Husserl as the original, core practice of phenomenology. Reinterpreting the epoche in terms of its social, historical, and political dimensions, later phenomenologists Enzo Paci and Jan Patocka demonstrate how phenomenology's conception of truth is necessarily coordinated with a commitment to collective democratic praxis. In Paci, the practice of epoche initiates critical resistance to ideological and idolatrous social and political forms through contrast with the infinite openness of truth's real universality. In Patocka, phenomenological method as applied to historically-embedded religious and philosophical traditions helps to clarify what in particular distinguishes democratic from autocratic forms of life. By drawing the insights of Paci and Patocka into conjunction, a new conception emerges of the unique religio— the collective, existential commitment— of phenomenology as such: to express the experience(s) of truth through democratic praxis in collaboration with other analogous philosophical, religious and scientific traditions.