Voluntary Environmental Programs: A Canadian Perspective

In light of the increasing number of environmental problems necessitating government's attention and the limited scope and budget for addressing these issues, environmental protection has, and continues to evolve as more flexible approaches to regulation are being sought and embraced by governments throughout the world. Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) are a pragmatic response by both governments and business to find a more flexible way to protect the environment. We discuss the theoretical motivations for firms to adopt VEPs in general and examine Canada's experience with three types of VEPs, public, negotiated, and unilateral agreements, to assess whether the motivating factors are present. We then argue that the institutional, political, and regulatory framework governing environmental policy in Canada does not provide the conditions necessary to effectively promote superior corporate environmental protection across jurisdictions. Despite the lack of government‐directed VEPs, there has been considerable interest by both the private sector and civil society who have taken the lead by developing unilateral agreements. Using existing literature and our current research, we examine the factors that motivate firms in Canada to participate in unilateral agreements and the characteristics of firms with the higher environmental performance and suggest some policy implications.     

日本学者眼中的"文化大革命"——加加美光行《历史中的中国文化大革命》介评

“文化大革命”(以下简称“文革”)发生已40载,40年来国内外学者非常关注这一深刻影响中国社会历史发展的事件,出版了诸多成果,日本著名学者加加美光行教授的《历史中的中国文化大革命》,则是其中不可忽视的著作。加加美光行教授20多年来致力于中国“文革”问题的研究,著述颇     

Revolution,uprising, civil war: the conceptual dilemmas of 1956

There were from the very beginning two ways of conceptualising the events of 1956 in Hungary, labelling it as a revolution or a national uprising. There also emerged a third way of conceptual definition when what occurred in 1956 was named an anti-totalitarian movement. From the theoretical perspective of Begriffsgeschichte the Hungarian events of 1956 cannot simply be assumed under the notion of ‘revolution’, the term first applied to what took place in France in 1789, since it was not the kind of a forceful collective effort leading to an unknown future. The notion of ‘revolutio’ works better to describe the analytical meaning of the Hungarian anti-Soviet and anti-Communist disturbance. The reason has been that the main thrust of the Hungarian situation in 1956 was similar to the seventeenth-century English and the eighteenth-century American ‘revolutions’, to return definitively to a point of departure by regaining some of the formerly lost social and political liberties.     

评《从革命到改革》

历史是在时间中运动的过程。时间对每个国家每个民族都是公平的,谁都无法躲在时间外面当历史的悠闲看客;然而在一定的时段内,各个国家各个民族的发展却不尽相同,历史的内容千差万别各有特点。造成这种差别的不是别的,而是这些国家和民族自身及其之间的相互联系、相互作用。像走过一段路要回头看看以免前面走弯路一样,每当一个特定的时段终结时,人们总是习惯地回过头来总结历史的经验教训,这正是人类高明的天性。     

理解革命发生学的新路径和新视阈——18世纪法国的政治、话语和公众舆论研究

早在旧制度末期,法国启蒙精英阶层就已意识到公众舆论在当时政治与社会中的重要影响。19世纪以来,史学家们也在不断地谈论旧制度末期的社会精神或公众舆论,希图从中找出革命的精神源流。但直到20世纪80年代左右,法国旧制度末期的公众舆论才成为史学家专门关注的对象。西方学者或追踪政治话语的变化,或关注民众的日常言论,或研究旧制度下的公共交往机制,以把握该时期法国社会集体政治意识的转变状况。