The New Washington Consensus: Millennial Philanthropy and the Making of Global Market Subjects

This paper outlines the emergence of a New Washington Consensus associated with leading philanthropies of the new millennium. This emergent development paradigm by no means represents a historic break with the market rationalities of neoliberalism, nor does it represent a radical departure from older models of early 20th century philanthropy. Rather, it is new in its global ambition to foster resilient market subjects for a globalized world; and new in its employment of micro‐market transformations to compensate for macro‐market failures. Focusing on reforms pioneered by the new philanthropic partnerships in education and global health, the paper indicates how the targets of intervention are identified as communities that have been failed by both governments and markets. The resulting interventions are commonly justified in terms of “return on investment”. But the problems they target keep returning because the underlying causes of failure are left unaddressed.     

The Ethics of Philanthropy

Abstract

This essay considers the ancient antecedents to the “new field” of the ethics of philanthropy, arguing that key questions such as “to whom should we give our money?” have already been explored by ancient authors and that the answers they give to these questions can be quite different to the answers given by contemporary scholars. By analysing the treatment of giving in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Cicero’s De Officiis, and Seneca’s De Beneficiis, I argue that the focus of ancient thinkers upon giving within one’s own community can be viewed as a possible response to a number of issues that have been raised by modern scholars, including the “problem of acting at a distance” and the “problem of accountability.” Moreover, these ancient thinkers have additional, positive reasons for thinking that philanthropy should take place within one’s own community, based upon their ideas of man’s natural duty to his political community, and the social benefits that can be derived from local philanthropy. The integration of ancient perspectives, then, into these modern debates, can serve to complement and broaden research in this emerging field.     

民国政府慈善行政体制的演变与慈善立法

民国时期是中国慈善事业由传统向近代转型的重要时期。随着政权的确立与巩固,民国政府逐步建立起具有近代意义的慈善行政管理体制,并由此推动了慈善立法工作的展开,渐次颁行了一系列有关慈善事业的法律法规。总的来说,民国慈善立法取得了一定成效,其法规内容已基本涵括慈善组织监管、慈善捐赠褒奖与税收减免等三个方面,体系较为完备。     

The Protection of the Site: Discursive Formation and Self-identification in Contemporary Society

The paper argues that rescue archaeological activities in Japan create a discursive space where the future protection and management of the site is debated, notably between academic archaeologists, developers (the financial/administrative force) and the media. This discursive space is more and more dominated by the media agenda, to which the academic force largely conforms.This is connected with the nature of the stability of the lives of the rescue excavation officers themselves, in contradistinction to that of the general public.     

The New Zealand Historical Atlas

The New Zealand Historical Atlaswill be published late in 1997. The project is dscribed and placed briefly in the broader contexts of other historical atlases, of recent New Zealand historiography and of critical perspectives on cartography.     

The New Zealand Environmental Movement and the Politics of Inclusion

Engagement with the state has rarely been a comfortable association for environmental movement groups. As Dryzek (1996) illustrates, the conditions for the benign inclusion of environmental and other social movement groups are quite complex, usually requiring not just an intersection between movement and state aspirations but also the continued presence of movement groups in civil society as a democratic counterweight to state power. New Zealand's environmental movement, after a decade of relative political obscurity, may once again be presented with opportunities for political inclusion following the election of a LabourAlliance coalition and seven Green Party representatives in late 1999. This article reflects on the New Zealand environmental movement's past engagement with the state in the light of Dryzek's criteria for benign political inclusion, highlighting the extent of the challenge presented to groups in the movement and the opportunities for future reconciliation with the state.