Japan's FTA politics and the problem of agricultural trade liberalisation

Japan's willingness to negotiate Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) is not matched by a readiness to liberalise agricultural trade. Japan has used a variety of mechanisms to limit the extent of agricultural concessions in FTAs. Public choice theory predicts that FTAs are a more effective instrument for opening Japan's agricultural market than the WTO because they reshape the domestic politics of Japanese trade in ways that are conducive to further market opening. FTAs do this by altering the domestic politics of trade policymaking on the demand side as well as some aspects of the supply side. On the demand side, business groups mobilise even more strongly to demand an end to agricultural protection, whilst on the supply side, the value of FTAs for broader state interests are recognised by politician-leaders. Various structural obstacles in the policymaking process, however, prevent the altered demand and supply-side dynamics from necessarily delivering free trade outcomes.     

Quenching the Thirst: The Cost of Water in Fragile Environments

Public policy has often addressed the problems of water supply and sanitation from the supply side to the neglect of demand side aspects in developing countries like India. This policy has not only rendered a large number of projects financially unviable but has also resulted in inadequate coverage of aspects such as population and ecological unsustainability. This article, based on household level information from six villages in a water scarce region of India (Rajasthan state), examines inter- and intra-village variations in water use and the costs, direct and indirect, involved in obtaining water. It also estimates households' willingness and ability to pay for water, using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Using qualitative as well as quantitative methods, it is argued that it is the failure of government policy and of institutions which has led to severe water shortages in harsh environments rather than supply or financial bottlenecks per se. While the estimates of price elasticity of water use indicate the feasibility of water pricing in the rural areas, the willingness to pay estimates question the general assumption that rural households are willing to pay 5 per cent of their income/expenditure for water. Various economic and extra economic factors such as household income, low opportunity costs of women and children, and attitudes towards female labour and public goods are vital in influencing the households' willingness to pay for water.     

A View of Their Own: Women's Committee Leadership Styles and State Legislatures

Analysis of survey data from 291 state legislative committee chairs suggests that professionalization has important gender implications not previously explored. Legislatures are gendered in the sense that culturally masculine and feminine committee management styles are more at home in some legislatures than in others. "Citizen" legislatures seem to be more hospitable to "feminine" behaviors of inclusion and a motivation focused on people-oriented concerns. Professionalized legislatures–promoted in large part on the basis of a masculine vocabulary of independence, rationality, expertise, and competition with the executive–discourage inclusive or collegial committee strategies and public-minded motives. Professional legislatures may be positive environments in which to nurture policy leadership, but their committee leaders eschew public participation.     

重新解读旅游动力机制与管理供给

本文针对中国旅游发展在供给侧、需求侧以及两者交互下市场方面出现的问题及其折射出学术研究的人本性学理的缺陷,从新公共管理学学理出发,依据社会科学人本观“正负反馈机制”的方法论,结合人文地理学的空间结构价值理念,首次系统探讨旅游发展动力层次与层次替代范式及其层次动力间的交互机制。在此基础上又提出人本价值下旅游驱动力范式的相互交互反馈机制。包括：旅游需求侧的社会驱动力机制与流动交互转向规律、旅游管理侧的供给驱动机制与交互错位供给的失效规律、旅游消费文化市场与管理供给、社会需求交互的引领阻尼规律,以及旅游供给、需求与市场动力交互的反馈机制与范式。在上理念下论证了旅游发展是多元范式下的范式交替转移规律,并提出区域旅游管理的社会价值与空间体系耦合的旅游经营理念以及在此基础上的区域旅游公正机制管理、控制与规划路径。     

Educating Citizens or Defying Federal Authority? A Comparative Study of In‐State Tuition for Undocumented Students

Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of state government policies addressing immigration‐related issues. This article addresses an example of state policy regarding immigration: since 2001, 11 state legislatures have granted undocumented high school graduates in‐state tuition status should they wish to attend public post‐secondary schools, while 18 others have considered, and rejected, the same policy. We argue that these outcomes are largely explicable by the manner in which the policy is presented and debated within state legislatures, especially the terms in which policy targets are socially constructed and state jurisdictional authority is framed. We apply this framework to two states (Kansas and Arkansas) that, in spite of demographic institutional similarities, reached different outcomes on in‐state tuition bills. The different outcomes can be traced to the manner in which policy deliberations in Kansas focused on positive evaluations of undocumented high school students, portraying them as “proto‐citizens,” while in Arkansas debate became centered on the state's jurisdictional authority to enact such a policy, an issue frame that effectively killed the legislation. This article suggests the importance of both social constructions and issue framing when state legislatures become the lead actors in crafting immigration policies.     

2018年湖北省旅游供需的空间结构特征分析——以A级景区为例

以湖北省内A级景区和客源地为研究对象,运用数理统计和空间计量方法系统探究旅游供需的空间结构特征.结果表明:①湖北省旅游供需要素具有较强的集聚分布态势,供需状况整体较差且区域差异显著,呈现明显的资源和人口指向性;②客源密集的江汉平原腹地和交通不便、高等级景区稀疏的外围边缘山区供需联系强度较低,高等级景区集聚的区域供需联系...     

GIS辅助城市用地结构分析与用地调整的应用初探

面对复杂的城市问题,单一学科的理论和方法往往束手无策,交叉学科的研究是近年来城市问题研究的主要趋势之一,特别是随着GIS的发展,借助GIS及相关学科的研究方法和手段进行城市现状分析和预测将是城市学领域发展的重要方向之一。本文以湖北省崇阳县白霓镇为例,借用经济学供需基本概蓬和分析方法,结合社会学的调查研究方法,利用系统工程方法和GIS技术,在深入调查的基础上,开创性地提出城市用地供需度的概念,并从它们与区位之间关系的角度出发分析用地结构,探讨了GIS在城市用地结构分析与辅助用地调整方面的应用,旨在抛砖引玉,引起同行们对新技术条件下传统研究方法革新的重视。     

Moves and Countermoves: Countermovement Diffusion of State Constitutional Amendments

Policy diffusion literature generally studies the adoption of similar policies across jurisdictions, but often overlooks how opposing policies or legal constraints may influence the enactment of rigid state constitutional amendments. The current study models the spread of state constitutional amendments designed to prevent future policy change. Using conditional event history analysis on all states from 1999 to 2011 the empirical models analyze the spread of same‐sex marriage prohibitive amendments across the United States. Findings suggest that the nearby adoption of opposing policies encourage state legislatures to introduce prohibitive amendments. The regional diffusion effect suggests that policymakers “protect” their jurisdiction from nearby diffusion forces or seek electoral gains by symbolic protection by committing an already existing policy into the rigid state constitutional framework. Regional policy diffusion may, therefore, be explained by a countermovement mechanism unique to the state constitutional amendment process. This protective strategy among state legislatures and citizens may explain why many policy areas are frequently codified in state constitutions.     

State Support for Higher Education: A Political Economy Approach

This research examines state support for higher education by first ascertaining the amount supplied and demanded of this service. The approach assumes that supply and demand occur simultaneously, and that each is affected by higher education spending policies among the states. We argue that enrollment is the most satisfactory proxy for both supply and demand. State policy is measured as expenditure effort. We estimate three time-series equations using two-stage least squares regression with data for the years 1986–95. In the final equation, supply/demand (enrollment) emerges as the strongest predictor of state spending effort. Commitment to higher education (effort) is also especially sensitive to variations in the number of employees (per student). Employee costs clearly are a major factor in fueling increases in state higher education spending effort. State per capita income exerts a negative effect on the final dependent variable. Poor states exert greater financial effort in support of their colleges and universities than do more affluent states.     

Agricultural Transformation and the Politics of Hydrology in Northern Thailand

Tensions over water resources in upland areas of northern Thailand are often attributed to reductions in water supply caused by forest clearing. This article argues that the hydrological evidence for such reductions in supply is very weak and that, rather, the key hydrological issue in upland catchments is a significant increase in water demand, especially during the dry season. The arguments are illustrated with a detailed examination of the Mae Uam catchment, located in Chiang Mai province, where the development of dry–season soybean cultivation appears to have tested the hydrological limit of the catchment, and even exceeded this limit in drier years. The author argues that a shift in focus from water supply to water demand has fundamentally important political implications. As long as the focus of public debate is on water supply, the regulatory focus will be on those resident in the forested upland areas that are seen as being crucial in securing downstream flows. But if the water management focus is shifted to water demand, then regulatory attention must shift to the diverse sources of demand that exist throughout the hydrological system.     

Lights and Shadows of Urban Water Demand Management: The Case of the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona

The economic, social, and environmental limits of supplying water to metropolitan areas through conventional means (reservoirs, water transfers, etc.) have resulted in growing consideration of demand management actions as well as in the use of non-conventional sources of supply. In terms of demand management, economic instruments (pricing and taxes), domestic water-saving technologies, and educational campaigns to encourage water saving during periods of drought have received special attention. While demand management policies have an effect on conserving water and therefore should be welcome, they present problems and uncertainties as well. Using the example of the metropolitan region of Barcelona, in this article I argue that water demand management policies may be insufficient for reaching their ultimate goal of controlled water consumption when confronted with structural changes in urban development such as the expansion of low-density growth, the multiplication of the number of households, or gains in income, all of which lead to a potentially greater demand for water. This calls for more integration of water policies with land use and urban development policies.     

The Colonial Roots of Forest Extraction: Rosewood Exploitation in Southern Belize

In 2013 there was a spike in the illegal export of rosewood, a highly‐valued tropical hardwood, from Belize. Hewn by Maya workers at night, logs were sold to Chinese buyers. Although protected by international conservation agreements, container‐loads of rosewood were exported unprocessed, unmarked and untaxed. This article examines the rosewood exports, providing a critical analysis that seeks its underlying causes and lessons for development. Drawing on extensive archival research, interviews with multiple actors, and data on China's rosewood imports, the authors show that the exports reflect a long‐standing pattern: the extraction and export of unprocessed primary commodities from Belize's forests. However, contemporary patterns are not simply repeating colonial history. On the demand side, the recent rosewood boom was triggered by a rapid rise in demand from urban, middle‐class consumers in China, stimulating a new commodity chain. On the supply side, the ‘rosewood crisis’ was facilitated by a peculiar legal‐political conjuncture: it occurred during a period after the Maya communities had won legal rights to their forests through the courts, but before the state had recognized those rights. Thus the incomplete recognition of indigenous land rights collided with long‐standing patterns of forest extractivism and explosive demand in China.     

Equality‐led Development and the Demand‐ and Supply‐side Effects

This contribution to the Forum Debate on global development focuses on the dimension of functional income distribution between labour and capital and its demand‐side and supply‐side effects. The article summarizes recent literature that has sought to explain the reasons behind the global fall in the labour share. It then discusses the demand‐side effects of the declining wage share on growth, based on the post‐Keynesian/post‐Kaleckian literature. The author presents an alternative policy scenario for the G20 based on a mix of increasing wage share and public investment, before discussing the supply‐side effects of rising inequality. The article concludes with some policy implications for equality‐led development.     

Cultural Tourism: Marketing Challenges and Opportunities for German Cultural Heritage

Because of the generally precarious state of public finance in Germany, at federal, state and community levels, expenditure for cultural purposes is being reduced constantly. Therefore, cultural institutions such as heritage sites are virtually compelled to find additional sources of funding to improve their financial situation and ensure their long‐term survival. One of the more suitable means of increasing the revenue situation on an ongoing basis is to improve and expand the cultural tourism offerings. Despite this significance of cultural tourism, an empirical study established that German heritage sites have by no means exploited the real potential of cultural tourism in a comprehensive manner. Thus, the objective of this paper is, on the basis of a well‐founded delineation of the concept and demand‐side situation, to demonstrate the potential success factors for developing cultural tourism and to do so from a marketing perspective.     

The Hungarian and Slovak sources of archaeological obsidian: an interim report on further fieldwork,with a note on tektites

This report describes the results of fieldwork carried out in the Zemplén Mountain area of north-eastern Hungary in 1975. The aim of this work was to locate and sample geological sources of obsidian which may have been used by prehistoric man. These sources are of increased importance since the work of Nandris (1975) showed that the Romanian “sources” do not produce workable obsidian. During the fieldwork three sources in Hungary were visited and sampled; one of these was the previously unlocated source of Csepegö Forräs. A number of other possible localities for geological obsidian are mentioned in 19th and 20th century geological and archaeological literature, and the present state of knowledge with regard to these is summarized. Further sources exist in central and in south-eastern Slovakia. These sources were not visited but material has been obtained from both areas. The central Slovak sources do not produce workable obsidian and are not therefore relevant to archaeological studies. Obsidian from three localities in south-eastern Slovakia is of good glassy quality and further fieldwork is now needed to check the validity of these localities as geological sources. Reference is made to obsidian sources in the western U.S.S.R., and the problem of the use of tektites in archaeological sites is discussed.The obsidian samples obtained during this work are currently being analyzed using neutron activation, in order to characterize the sources on the basis of their trace element analysis and thus to relate them to archaeological obsidian from central and eastern Europe.     

北京市公共服务设施供需协调发展的时空演化特征——以教育医疗设施为例

公共服务设施的优化配置是构建和谐社会、改善民生的内在要求。本文通过构建协调发展度模型,对北京市2001年和2012年16个区县教育医疗设施供需关系及二者协调发展的时空演化特征进行研究。研究认为:①教育设施"供不应需",供需差距增大;协调发展等级总体较低且有下降趋势;协调发展水平由"东高西低"向"南高北低"格局演变,空间差异增大。②医疗设施"供不应需",供需差距缩小;供需协调发展等级较低但有上升趋势,空间格局由"中心集聚"向"南高北低"演变,空间差异减小。     

The Attitudes of State Legislators and State Medicaid Policies Related to AIDS

As the Medicaid programs become increasingly important payers of AIDS-related care, state governments will face difficult policy choices in allocating limited Medicaid resources among many competing health needs. The state legislatures will play a critical role in these allocation decisions. This research presents the results of an analysis of attitudes concerning Medicaid coverage of AIDS-related care among state legislators serving on health-related committees in all 50 states. The model employed includes characteristics of the state legislators, their districts, and their states to explain the legislators' allocation choices and attitudes relating to Medicaid coverage of AIDS-related care. The relationship of these factors to the actualization of AIDS-related state policy also is examined. The model identified political ideology, party affiliation, and sex of the state legislator as the most important predictors of attitudes about AIDS-related Medicaid policies. AIDS prevalence, constituency characteristics, and legislator attitudes are the most important predictors of actual state policies.     

Getting the Most out of Progress Files and Personal Development Planning

Global supply chains play an increasingly important role in the economy and should therefore be addressed within geography coursework, especially given concerns that geographers have not fully explored various angles of globalization. This article explores the use of an online case study on supply chains and their vulnerability to natural disasters in two entry-level, undergraduate courses. Results from a post-study survey suggest that students increasingly prefer online sources of information and that online case studies can foster a greater understanding of global economic processes such as supply chains and how these can be influenced by natural phenomena at different scales.     

The role of molluscs in coastal economies: The results of midden analysis in Australia

Complementary techniques of midden analysis have been applied to large oyster mounds on the Richmond River, New South Wales, in order to quantify the dietary contribution of the molluscs. The results are compared with modern data on oyster yields and ethnohistorical data on diet and population size and suggest that, if oysters were the primary food supply while the shell mounds were in use, the sites would have been occupied, on the average, for as little as one week/year. The implications of this for the interpretation of molluscs as a food resource and for the use of shell middens as sources of information about economy, settlement pattern and material culture are discussed.     

Use and Usefulness of Performance Measurement in State Science and Technology Programs

Over 40% of state science and technology programs are evaluating their results in some way. Programs have adopted performance measurement systems both for their own information purposes and to justify their activities to external audiences, usually legislatures. Performance measurement activities may have contributed to the evolution of these programs toward economic objectives, which can be measured in business activity. The most common performance measures are job creation and retention.