THE ASSUMPTIONS OF POLICY ANALYSIS

The preconditions of policy making are a concern in a human mind about some situation, actual or hypothetical, which is perceived as important and the conceived possibility that human action could make it better. Perceptions of the situation and of its origins and of the scope if any for acting on it and the actions conceived as available vary immensely with the culture of the society involved; and they change with time. This theme is illustrated by a brief summary of British political and cultural responses to poverty and to unemployment in the last hundred years.     

Trade and Power in Ancient Egypt: Middle Egypt in the Late Third/Early Second Millennium BC

Middle Egypt provides a unique insight into the organization of power, politics, economy, and culture at the turn of the third millennium BC. The apparently easy integration of this region into the reunified monarchy of king Mentuhotep II (2055–2004 BC) was possible because the interests and the local lineages of potentates were preserved. Trade and access and/or control of international exchange networks were important sources of wealth and power then. And Middle Egypt appears as a crossroads of diverse populations, as a hub of political and economic power, as a crucial node of exchanges through the Nile Valley, and as a power center whose rulers provided support to the monarchy in exchange of local autonomy and considerable political influence at the Court. In the new conditions of early second millennium, potentates from Middle Egypt succeeded in occupying a unique advantageous position, not matched elsewhere in Egypt, because of the concentration of wealth, trade routes, new technologies, political power, and autonomy in the territories they ruled.     

THE HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY RESEARCH AGENDA

Substantial opportunities exist for social scientists, humanists practitioners, and other scholars to contribute to research on higher education policy. Not only is the university or college an interesting study objective itself but also with higher education in the United States and worldwide so immersed in public policy considerations, the relations between academe and government raise many political, economic and other Questions. Some issues currently on the research agenda are listed here. The consequences of higher education policy research are also considered.     

论内战前美国南部奴隶主群体的社会位置与社会控制力

在内战之前的美国南部蓄奴州,奴隶主是一个人口规模很大但地理分布不均衡的社会群体。他们占有了南部社会的大部分经济财富,控制着南部绝大部分政治职位,是南部地区实际上的统治集团。奴隶主群体庞大的社会规模和优越的社会地位使得南部社会形成了支持奴隶制的广大社会基础,但奴隶主人口的地理分布不均衡在一定程度上制约了奴隶主在不同地区对白人社会进行控制的能力。在奴隶主人口稠密地区,奴隶主群体能够实现对白人社会的绝对控制;在奴隶主人口稀少地区,他们的社会控制能力就受到极大削弱。     

China's strategic partnership with Latin America: a fulcrum in China's rise

China has over the last two decades been committed to creating a strategic partnership with Latin American states by persistently extending its economic and political involvement in the continent. China's efforts in this regard reflect not only its desire to intensify its economic cooperation and political relations with nations in Latin America, but also its strategic goals of creating its own sphere of influence in the region and enhancing its ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power in order to elevate China's status at the systemic level. With access to Latin American markets, resources and investment destinations, China may sustain its economic and social progress that bases its long cherished dream of restoring its past glory of fuqiang (wealth and power) and rise as a global power capable of reshaping the current world system. The enormous economic benefits deriving from their economic cooperation and trade may persuade Latin American nations to accept the basic premise of China's economic strategy: that China's rise is not a threat, but an opportunity to gain wealth and prosperity. This will help China gain more ‘soft’ power in and leverage over its economic partners in Latin America, and thereby help it to rise in the global power hierarchy.     

良渚文化图像玉璧试析

图像玉璧是良渚文化玉器的一种特例 ,对于图像玉璧的探讨亦已有许多大家发表了他们的力作。但是就目前所见 ,人们更多地将视点聚于图像上 ,少了对图像玉璧总体的把握 ,因此很难对这类玉璧的性质等问题形成明确的认识。本文拟对此作一些探讨 ,以求教于方家。一、良渚文化玉璧之功用玉璧是良渚文化的玉质重器之一 ,在良渚文化的大中型墓中可出几件至几十件不等 ,如反山Ｍ 2 0出土 39件、Ｍ 2 3出土 54件、寺墩Ｍ3出土 2 4件、福泉山Ｔ4Ｍ 6出土 4件。近年来 ,玉璧的功用一直是学术界探讨的热点之一 ,这个问题一旦解决 ,无疑有助于对良渚文化时…     

POLITICAL RISKS IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND FOOD POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

This article analyses agricultural and food policies in the Middle East. The author finds that they are inescapably political. He attributes them primarily to governmental decisional styles that are impatient with incremental solutions yet wedded to minimal risk strategies.     

Thomas Piketty's Global Tax on Wealth

Thomas Piketty's concern with growing economic inequality leads him to propose a global tax on wealth. While he recognizes that the efforts of individual nations to tax wealth will prove ineffective since wealth is mobile, he does not seriously confront the collective action problems that will impede national efforts to cooperate in more effectively taxing global wealth. To what degree are more radical forms of political integration required to overcome these collective action dilemmas? Piketty provides partial and inadequate answers for these questions with regard to European integration. To be persuasive the economic analysis of Capital in the Twenty-First Century would have to be supplemented with a political economy comparable in depth and sophistication to that provided by The Federalist Papers regarding the political and economic integration of American states at the time of the American Founding. Piketty's failure to address questions of political economy makes his project vulnerable to the charge that nothing less than a world state would suffice to impose a global tax on wealth, and thus that his project is hopelessly visionary and susceptible to misappropriation for tyrannical purposes.     

春秋时代五等爵制的存留及其破坏

西周、春秋时期,诸侯列爵五等：公、侯、伯、子、男。五等爵是分封制度下诸侯的法定身份。西周时期,诸侯阶层内部依据五等爵规定的等级制原则分配权力、财富并确立对天子承担的不同义务。迨至春秋,五等爵仍被奉为重要的外交准则,对列国的朝聘会盟活动发挥一定的影响。然而,随着天子的衰微和诸侯的强大．春秋列国开始依据实力强弱进行权力和财富的再分配,五等爵原有的政治功能逐渐丧失。战国时代,五等爵制退出了历史舞台。     

ARISTOCRATIC WEALTH AND INEQUALITY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY: SWEDEN, 1750–1900

The role of the European nobility and their ability to retain their political and economic power are part of the debate on the modernization of Europe’s economy. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the wealth of the Swedish nobility as the country evolved from an agrarian to an industrial economy. We use a sample of 200+ probate inventories of nobles for each of the benchmark years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900. We show that the nobility, less than 0.5 per cent of the population, was markedly dominant in 1750: the average noble was 60 times richer than the average person, and the nobles held 29 per cent of all private wealth. 90 per cent of the nobles were richer than the average person. By 1900 the advantage of the nobles’ wealth had declined; the group held only 5 per cent of total private wealth. At the same time, stratification within the nobility had increased dramatically. One group of super-rich Swedish nobles, often large land owners from the high nobility, possessed the biggest fortunes, but a large minority of nobles were no richer than the average Swede.     

AGAINST POWER? DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN ACQUISITIVE RESISTANCE AND SUBVERSION

Critiques of contemporary political‐economic formations, while grounded in an array of theoretical traditions, have often centered on strategies for relocating power (as embodied in accumulated wealth, control of labor and corporate entities, or the state) in institutions that are nominally more egalitarian or democratic. Such alternative institutions are intended to better represent those who have been historically harmed by the use of power. This article argues for an analytical distinction between such strategies of capturing power on behalf of those without it, and strategies for reducing power differentials directly or annihilating the capacity to accumulate power. We adopt the analytical term subversion to describe these latter efforts to reduce the intensity of, and undermine the capacity to reproduce or deepen, power relationships. Rather than focusing on redistribution or inversion of asymmetrical power relations to benefit the disempowered, subversive strategies work toward decreasing the possibility of accumulating power or, in the extreme case, completely evacuating existing unequal power relations. Thinking about political engagement in terms of limiting the possibility of asymmetrical power relationships (regardless of who holds that power) helps to illuminate a distinction between reactive politics against injustice and proactive politics that pursue alternative, increasingly just conceptual norms. We draw on threads in critical, political, and urban geographies to articulate a particularly geographic concept of “fleeing‐in‐place” as subversive resistance to hegemony, the undermining of the possibility of asymmetrical socio‐spatial power relations within existing contemporary political economies. We propose strategies for research that better highlight the differences between resistance and subversion.     

Industry Influence in Stakeholder‐Driven State Climate Change Planning Efforts

Drawing from the literature on public participation and stakeholder collaboratives, this article investigates the influence of power and wealth, as well as political and economic context on the output of stakeholders advisory committees convened to formulate state greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies. Using small sample regression techniques, we analyze the outputs of stakeholder groups in 18 states that have completed Climate Action Plans to reduce GHGs. We find that an increase of 1 percent in the number of energy industry representatives that participate in Climate Action Councils significantly predicts a 4 percent reduction of GHG mitigation targets for the energy sector. More surprisingly, the results also show that where the utilities represent a larger share of the state economy, the Climate Action Plans identify more aggressive GHG reduction goals for the energy sector. We also find that the political orientation of the executive of the state is not correlated with GHG mitigation requirements for the energy sector, suggesting that GHG mitigation is less partisan at the state level than in Washington, DC. We find no evidence that state wealth is associated with GHG mitigation requirements. Finally, we suggest additional research needed to clarify the role of stakeholder participation processes in the evolving arena of climate change policy.     

THE LIMITS OF OTTOMAN PRAGMATISM

In this paper I reflect critically on the concept of pragmatism as it is used in Ottoman historiography. Pragmatism has gained increasing currency over the last ten to fifteen years as one of the defining features of the Ottoman polity. I argue that unless it is properly defined from a theoretical‐philosophical perspective, and carefully contextualized from a historical perspective, pragmatism cannot be used as an explanatory or comparative category. When used as a framework of explanation for historical change, pragmatism blurs more than it clarifies an essential aspect of the Ottoman polity that it seeks to define, namely, the political. It is essential to reflect on the difference between the political and politics because whereas the political refers to the configuration of the power relations that organize a society as a legitimate entity, politics refers to the strategies, practices, institutions, or discourses whose purpose is to construct and retain hegemony within a polity. Through an analysis of the concept of pragmatism in Ottoman historiography, I show that for most proponents of Ottoman pragmatism, pragmatism pertains to politics rather than to the political. From a perspective rigorously confined to political theory, I argue that much like the discourse of modern tolerance, pragmatism in Ottoman historiography posits a problematic periodization, relegates the political to the background, and depoliticizes essential power relations.     

ALTERNATIVE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS IN HAZARDOUS WASTE REGULATORY POLICY

The articles in this collection serve to illustrate that problems of hazardous waste disposal are amenable to analysis from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Understanding the interplay between high-risk policy problems, changing political and economic circumstances, and actions taken by political actors with a stake in decisional outcomes should yield information of substantial value to public administrators as well as students of the public policy process.     

PUBLIC PERSONNEL POLICY IN A POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT: AN OVERVIEW

Although frequently treated as apolitical by social scientists and practitioners, public personnel administration has always been infused with political considerations. Today, it is more widely recognized that personnel policy choices can have political ramifications of major consequence. However, this policy realm is characterized by a number of competing values espoused by different governmental institutions and private groups. The civil service reforms of 1978 created more coherent personnel policy and greater clarity among the various competing interests and participants. Nevertheless, the political environment of public personnel administration remains so complex that the issue of whether it is possible for public managers to manage lively is legitimately raised.     

空间生产视角下我国城市行政区划调整的三元互动逻辑

在空间生产的视角下,行政区划调整不仅包括地域层面上对城市空间的重新划分,而且包括尺度层面上对社会关系和制度结构的系统重塑。将政府、市场与社会的行动和权力、资本、权利的三重逻辑整合起来,可以为分析城市行政区划调整提供一个全新的工具。在实践中,合作与互制是政府（权力）和市场（资本）的互动逻辑,监督与回应是政府（权力）和社会（权利）的互动逻辑,嵌入与互渗是市场（资本）和社会（权利）的互动逻辑。城市行政区划的调整不仅是政府、市场、社会主体相互博弈的结果,而且会不断重塑三类主体自身以及相互关系。     

POLICY COMMUNITIES: THE BRITISH AND EUROPEAN POLICY STYLE

It seems possible to formulate broad characterizations of the British and European policy processes in terms of the relationship between government and interest groups. There is a preferred type of machinery in Britain, reflecting normative values, which is to avoid electoral politics and public conflict in order to reach consensus or “accommodation” in the labyrinth of consultative machinery. This style is aptly labelled “bureaucratic accommodation” and is a system in which the dominant actors are groups and government departments. Departments readily recognize the “relevant” groups in a given policy area and seek to mobilize the community around agreed policies. The predilection for the avoidance of conflict seems equally apparent in other Western European nations.     

针对突发灾害:大城市的人居安全及其政策

非典事件折射出了大城市在应对突发灾害时抗灾能力低下的脆弱性以及严重的人居安全问题。大城市的人居安全问题与其规模、密度和形态的不协调有关。基于人居安全的城市政策应该是规模、密度、形态三位一体的城市政策。规模过大会引起安全问题,技术进步使人们解决城市问题的能力不断增强,因而城市规模的极限也不断被突破。但是,连续的、密集分布的城区终究不应该是无限放大的,从这点上看,城市形态的不佳将加重规模和密度过大所导致的问题。现阶段我国的城市政策几乎是不存在的,城市安全意识尚未发展成为全局性的"城市安全观",目前大城市的规模、形态、密度的失控是缺乏有效制约的市场力量作用的结果,规划失效的原因之一是没有清晰的城市政策,因而市政当局过分迁就开发商。新的城市政策对于大城市尤其要严格控制其密度,对城市提出明确的形态要求,制止城市蔓延,推进有组织的"都市区化"。     

LABOUR AND LANDSCAPES: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LANDESQUE CAPITAL IN NINETEENTH CENTURY TANGANYIKA

In a long‐term and global perspective irrigated and terraced landscapes, landesque capital, have often been assumed to be closely associated with hierarchical political systems. However, research is accumulating that shows how kinship‐based societies (including small chiefdoms) have also been responsible for constructing landesque capital without population pressure. We examine the political economy of landesque capital through the intersections of decentralized politics and regional economies. A crucial question guiding our research is why some kinship‐based societies chose to invest their labour in landesque capital while others did not. Our analysis is based on a detailed examination of four relatively densely populated communities in late pre‐colonial and early colonial Tanzania. By analysing labour processes as contingent and separate from political types of generalized economic systems over time we can identify the causal factors that direct labour and thus landscape formation as a process. The general conclusion of our investigation is that landesque investments occurred in cases where agriculture was the main source of long‐term wealth flow irrespective of whether or not hierarchical political systems were present. However, while this factor may be a necessary condition it is not a sufficient cause. In the cases we examined, the configurations of world‐systems connections and local social and economic circumstances combined to either produce investments in landesque capital or to pursue short‐term strategies of extraction.     

Theatres of Violence on the Ottoman Periphery: Exploring the Local Roots of Genocidal Policies in Antep

This article explores how and why deportation and elimination of the Armenians of Antep were carried out during World War One (WWI). In particular, it scrutinizes the political and social context in which local authorities, provincial elites, and ordinary Muslims radicalized their views and policies against Armenians. It highlights the crucial role played by local elites and actors who prospered through acquisition of Armenian property and wealth. In this respect, the article argues that the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)’s genocide and deportation decision enjoyed a certain level of social support through the practice of effective power and control mechanism(s) at the local level.