State power and protected areas: Dynamics and contradictions of forest conservation in Madhya Pradesh, India

The traditionally coercive and state-controlled governance of protected areas for nature conservation in developing countries has in many cases undergone change in the context of widespread decentralization and liberalization. This article examines an emerging “mixed” (coercive, community- and market-oriented) conservation approach in managed-resource protected areas and its effects on state power through a case study on forest protection in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The findings suggest that imperfect decentralization and partial liberalization resulted in changed forms, rather than uniform loss, of state power. A forest co-management program paradoxically strengthened local capacity and influence of the Forest Department, which generally maintained its territorial and knowledge-based control over forests and timber management. Furthermore, deregulation and reregulation enabled the state to withdraw from uneconomic activities but also implied reduced place-based control of non-timber forest products. Generally, the new policies and programs contributed to the separation of livelihoods and forests in Madhya Pradesh. The article concludes that regulatory, community- and market-based initiatives would need to be better coordinated to lead to more effective nature conservation and positive livelihood outcomes.     

The political ecology of recovery from armed conflict: the case of landmines in Mozambique

The devastation wrought by landmines on local populations is well known. However, the broader effects of mine presence on postwar recovery, and the progress of a ‘peace process’, remain largely unexamined. Both the academic and the practitioner literature regarding landmines lack a framework within which the mix of economic, political, social, agricultural, and ecological repercussions of mine presence in a context of postwar recovery can be investigated. Here, we consider the utility of political ecology to examine the influence of landmine presence on the socioecological relations important to postwar recovery in Mozambique. Landmines constitute the primary obstacle to the reconstruction and development in Mozambique. Because mine presence influences different aspects of recovery differently, we have selected three cases in the country where mine presence has impacted important components of recovery: agriculture, transportation corridors, and international investment. Peace process and recovery efforts by the international community do not presently address the broader, non-medical influences of landmine presence on recovery, and it is the intention of this article to contribute to an initial examination of these issues.     

Defining invasive alien species from the roots up: Lessons from the ‘De-eucalyptising Brigades’ in Galicia,Spain

Social and cultural perspectives are increasingly considered in the literature on invasive alien species (IAS), after decades of being underexplored. However, within this growing body of research, there is little investigation into the role and knowledge of everyday rural and environmentalist networks in defining and engaging with or against the expansion of IAS. This paper contributes to debates on the political and spatial implications of this concept, through a critical examination of the bottom-up initiative of the ‘De-eucalyptising Brigades' (Galicia, Spain), which aims to remove eucalyptus trees from community-based property lands. A survey of participants of this movement paired with semi-structured interviews show the relevance of social-cultural dynamics in defining IAS. Our results also show how investigating activism against forestry involving a potential IAS sheds light on the everyday conflicts around who defines IAS and how they are defined.     

Characterizing and evaluating rival discourses of the ‘sustainable city’: Towards a politics of pragmatic adversarialism

For many, shifting economic and social contexts have created the conditions for a radical reappraisal of the orthodox image of the 'sustainable city'. However, in assessing such potentialities, there is insufficient knowledge about the way in which local actors construct, live out and are gripped by this signifier. This article responds to this deficit by exploring how key actors engaged in urban development actually interpret the challenges of the 'sustainable city'. In part, using a Q methodology study in Bristol and Grenoble, we discern and construct three distinctive discourses of the sustainable city, which we name progressive reformism, public localism, and moral stewardship. Our findings challenge previous critiques of sustainable urbanism. We observe no consistent support for mainstream conceptions of sustainable urban development, but neither do we find significant support for entrepreneurial or radical green localist discourses of the sustainable city. Instead, we identify a common indifference to the tenets of ecological modernization (and, by extension, entrepreneurialism), and a shared skepticism of local self-sufficiency. We thus argue that such discourses offer uncertain foundations upon which to construct new visions of the 'sustainable city'. In our view, this is because of the transformation of the 'sustainable city' from a relatively fixed idea into a floating signifier, coupled with the practices of local practitioners as policy bricoleurs. We conclude that efforts to develop new visions of 'sustainable cities' are best served by fostering an agonistic ethos of 'pragmatic adversarialism' amongst strategic leaders and stakeholders, which foregrounds politics and the right to difference.     

Environmental violence and crises of legitimacy in New Caledonia

This paper addresses the question of what factors besides resource abundance or scarcity play crucial roles in conditioning resource-related violent conflict, by investigating the responses of residents of villages near a mining project in New Caledonia to Rhéébù Nùù, an indigenous environmental protest group. An overlooked and yet crucial factor in local support for Rhéébù Nùù was a lack of faith in the government and, more fundamentally, in the democratic system through which representatives were elected. Instead, villagers put their faith in a revitalization of customary authority. Thus, environmental violence is not driven simply by resource abundance or scarcity; in this instance, it masked a crisis of political legitimacy, grounded in a history of opposition to the colonial power. This leads to the paper's second question: What constitutes a basis for political legitimacy, and how is this legitimacy – and its contestation – mediated by socio-cultural concerns? This study suggests that legitimacy requires the achievement of three elements: representation of people's interests, coherence with cultural identity, and popular acceptance of methods used to exert power. The protest group was more successful at achieving these elements of legitimacy, and thus the support of the local residents, than was either the government or the mining company. However, not all community members felt that Rhéébù Nùù indeed had the support of customary authority, and many disagreed with the group's violent tactics. Thus, protest groups may be subject to the same criteria of legitimacy as the governments or other bodies that they oppose.     

中国的政治地理环境分析及外交对策探讨

本文从政治地理学的角度分析了当今中国的政治地理环境特点,认为中国在地缘政治上处于亚太地区的枢纽位置,海陆邻国众多,国际关系错综复杂,潜在性的不稳定因素较多,政治地理环境比较严峻。鉴于这种特殊的政治地理环境和中国目前的国力等实际情况,提出了因势利导、放眼未来的外交方略与对策,即理智而妥善地处理好中美关系,积极争取欧洲、转化美国,立足亚太\"舞台\",发挥大国作用。认为当今中国迫切需要的是继续争取一个良好的发展环境,坚持不懈地走强国之路。     

微生物分子生态学技术在文物保护中应用的进展

微生物分子生态学技术近年来在文物保护研究中得到了广泛的应用,已经成为控制文物被微生物侵害的一个不可或缺的工具。本研究较系统地总结了国内外利用微生物分子生态学技术进行文物保护研究的进展,为更有效防治微生物危害侵蚀文物,进而长久的保存文物提供理论支持。     

Flows from beyond the Pyrenees. The Rhône River and Catalonia's search for water independence

The mobilization of water has been key for the reconfiguration and modernization of the Spanish state. During the Francoist dictatorship (1939–1975), the hydro-social reengineering of Spain was central to Franco’s political mission but failed to provide for subnational, regionalist aspirations which subsequently pursued their own agendas for water development. In this paper we examine the (failed) project of transferring water from the Rhône River in France to Barcelona promoted by the regional government of Catalonia as an example of using large infrastructures in order to strengthen and consolidate the role of Catalonia as a nation. While we basically concur with Swyngedouw's arguments on the relevance of water for building modern nation states we also attempt to expand the debate in at least three points. First, the implications of the Rhône project in the rescaling of water politics away from the Spanish State and closer to the European Union through the production of a new scale of water supply based not on national but on sub-national cooperation. Second, the view of nationalism that may not be as monolithic as Swyngedouw depicts for Spain but more heterogeneous and fragmented as in Catalonia, with important implications for the acceptance of the Rhône project. And finally, the idea that nation building through water development does not necessitate large scale hydraulic works but that may be achieved through smaller scale socioenvironmental projects. These arguments show that particular society- nature relationships (i.e. different approaches to the mobilization of water resources) are fundamental in the process of building political entities.     

中国近代企业史研究概述

在建国以前,中国企业史的研究未受到学术界广泛关注,相关成果极为有限。至五六十年代,厂史作虽然数量大增,但研究过分注重为政治服务的指导思想,制约了对企业经营运作经验教训的客观总结。“革”之后,中国近代企业史研究受到重视,并于洋务企业、商办企业、金融企业、行业史、中国近代实业家、外国在华企业等方面的成果不断涌现。但既有论普遍着力于企业的经营史分析,而对企业制度建设关注不多,须加以改进,尤其是近代中国的公司制度以其特有的学术价值与现实意义更应引起学界的广泛重视。     

论孙中山对训政时期的政治设计

训政思想是孙中山关于中国革命与建设思想中的重要内容。孙中山在这一思想中对训政时期的民主政治建设进行了全面规划和设计,这是对中国的民主政治建设道路所进行的理论探索和框架性的建构设想,其中所体现的一些基本精神和原则是积极的、可贵的,但也有不足之处。