On official corruption in the Yuan dynasty

The vicious cycle of official corruption got worse unprecedentedly in the Yuan dynasty (ca. 1279–1368). Corrupt officials at all levels from the local to the central governments were “extremely shameless and greedy.” Even many court ministers got involved in the vicious cycle of corruption. The top officialdom was polluted and degenerated badly because the Mongolian nobles made their “Sauqat” (taking gifts) tradition and the Semu, both official and merchant groups, took bribes as a way to amass wealth. Although the Mongol Yuan rulers did make a set of anti-corruption policies such as detailed rules of censorship and inspection relating to corruption crimes, these didn’t work well. Of all the reasons of the Yuan official corruption, the old Mongolian steppe traditions play the most important role, which formed the context for the low salary, improper selection and poor quality of the officials and of bending the law wrongly to pardon official misconduct. __________ Translated from: Nankai Xuebao Zhexue Shehui Kexue Ban 南开学报: 哲学社会科学版 (Nankai Journal, Philosophy and Social Science Edition), Vol.5, 2004, by Zhang Weiwei     

In praise of folly: international administration and the corruption of humanity

Advocates of international administration tend to embrace conduct and utterance that proposes to vindicate fundamental human rights and freedoms by suspending an important part of its content: the principle that human beings should not be subject to coercion except where they have given their consent. This article begins by arguing that the character of this dilemma is obscured by a vocabulary of technique that divests the category 'international administration' of its normative coherence. In fact, international administration discloses two distinct modes of association—contract and trust—which presuppose different values, different obligations, and different expectations. The article proceeds in arguing that a trust instituted among equals is susceptible to objection in so far as trustee and beneficiary are necessarily joined in a coercive relationship that rules out the possibility of consent. The article concludes by arguing that recent attempts at reconciling this sort of relation with the demands of human rights entails a kind of corruption that is intelligible in making ordinary language correspond with the ideal, so that what was once described as the denial of human dignity—subjection to alien rule—is now described as the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights.     

Explaining the Failure of Thailand's Anti‐corruption Regime

Despite the presence of strong anti‐corruption policies, state and regulatory capture may persist and thrive in the highest echelons of government. This article explores such a case, that of Thailand under former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. The author argues that the primary explanation for this contradiction lies in Thailand's post‐1997 anti‐corruption framework. Because of the ascendancy of a business–politics nexus more powerful in blocking reform than Thai constitutional drafters had anticipated, and because of the decline in political contestability as a result of Thaksin's control of both the legislature and the executive, the stage was set for a dramatic increase in the levels of state capture. The author suggests that effective control of such political corruption calls for a strategy which extends far beyond the technocratic approaches used by Thai reformers in the mid to late 1990s.     

Managing the interlocking climate and resource challenges

Energy security, climate change and food and water concerns are posing serious challenges to the management of international relations in an already turbulent world. These new developments—and the corresponding risk management strategies—will change the calculus of interests, powers and strategies for all actors, with significant impacts on the global political economy. Climate change action (such as targets for emissions reductions) will challenge the existing power structures, with the transition to a low-carbon economy creating new winners and losers in the global economy. Today, there is a fresh appreciation about the consequences of bad policy choices. Comparisons have been drawn between the fallout in the global financial system and the kind of risks that unmitigated climate change may bring. Even though the pressure on some resources may have eased since the onset of the global economic downturn in 2008, it is unlikely that the longer term trajectory has been reversed. This calls for renewed understanding and appreciation of the magnitude of risks foreseen. Multiple public goods need to be generated from the same production systems or sectors. In the context of climate change, international cooperation offers the only option that can best serve even narrowly defined national interests. Ensuring human security and peaceful relations among states in the decades to come will require short-term common action within the framework of long-term strategizing and visionary leadership as well as concerted efforts to deal head-on with worst case scenarios in our forecasting and policy planning.     

On Dittmer's Popular Culture,Geopolitics, and Identity as a classroom resource

In this intervention, four geographers, all of whom have used Jason Dittmer's book, Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity, in their classes, assess its status as a teaching resource. All have had considerable success using Dittmer's book, alongside other resources, to cultivate critical thinking and critical knowledge production in a wide range of classes.     

Oil in the Arctic 1. Historical,Environmental and Regional Perspectives

Abstract

An ecologist's point of view of the historical, scientific and social background to the Alaskan pipeline and offshore oil is presented ranging over many discipline and their close interplay. Starting with a deep concern about the protection of the Arctic's unique environment and the oil industry's impact upon it, the work of the Alaska Conservation Society is reviewed. The lack of biological information about Alaska's hinterland made environmental surveillance of the pipeline difficult. The political conflict between State and Federal authorities has hindered scientific effort and the author concludes that the outlook of this many-faceted interdisciplinary impact of technology on the Arctic and Alaska is at present uncertain.     

论毛泽东与邓小平的反腐倡廉思想

反腐倡廉是加强党的建设和干部队伍建设的重要内容。毛泽东通过整党整风、率先垂范、制度建设等方面力求跳出“其兴也勃焉,其亡也忽焉”的“周期率”,但他的反腐倡廉思想缺少对党风不正、为政不廉的根源和反腐倡廉治本之策的探究。邓小平在汲取毛泽东反腐倡廉思想“合理内核”的基础上,创造性地提出了反腐倡廉的一系列治本之策,并取得了反腐倡廉实践的一个个阶段性成果。     

Tangentopoli or the democratization of corruption: Considerations on the end of Italy's first republic

Emilio Sereni (1997) History of the Italian Agricultural Landscape, translated and Introduction by R. Burr Litchfield. Giovanni Agnelli Foundation in Italian History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. i‐xliv, 1–369, ISBN 0–691012164 hardback; ISBN 0–691012156 paperback.

Peter Brand and Lino Pertile (eds) (1996) The Cambridge History of Italian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–701.

Bruno Bongiovanni and Nicola Tranfaglia (eds) (1996) Dizionario storico dell'Italia unita (Rome‐Bari: Laterza), pp. 1–1031, 95,000 lire, ISBN 88–420–5081–4.

Giuseppe Maranini (1995) Storia del potere in Italia 1848–1967, prefazione di Angelo Panebianco, 2nd edn (Milan: Corbaccio), pp. 1–530; Mariuccia Salvati (1997) Riflessioni sul Leadership nella storia dell'Italia contemporoneo (Rome‐Bari: Laterza), pp. 1–156.

Domenico Del Rio (1996) I Gesuiti e l'Italia. Storia di passioni, di trionfi e di amarezze (Milan: Corbaccio), pp. 1–522, ISBN 88–7972–111–9 hardback.

Anna Foa (1998) Giordano Bruno (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–107, 16,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06604–7.

Roland Sarti (1997) Mazzini. A Life for the Religion of Politics (Westport, Conn.: Praeger), pp. 1–249, ISBN 0–275–95080–8 hardback.

Jonathan Dunnage (1997) The Italian Police and the Rise of Fascism: a Case Study of the Province of Bologna, 1897–1925 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger), pp. i‐xvi, 1–198, $57.95, ISBN 0–275–95286–1 hardback.

Jane Slaughter (1997) Women and the Italian Resistance, 1943–1945 (Denver, Colo: Arden Press) pp. i‐xx, 1–171, $32.00, ISBN 0–912869–13–5 hardback.

Gabriele Turi (ed.) (1997) Storia dell'editoria nell'ltalia contemporanea (Florence: Giunti Gruppo Editoriale), pp. 1–503, 48,000 lire, ISBN 88–09–21236–3.

Carlo Guarnieri and Patrizia Pederzoli (1997) La democrazia giudiziaria (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–186, 18,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–05706–4 paperback.

Alessandro Brogi (1996) L'ltalia e l'egemonia americana nel Mediterraneo (Scandicci (Florence): La Nuova Italia. Editrice), pp. 1–425 pages (including appendix of documents, bibliography, and index of names), 40,000 lire, ISBN 88–221–1752–2.     

江河源文化与民族精神

江河源文化有着其博大而精深的文化艺术内涵。在这一沃土上孕育凝聚成的民族精神,千百年来激励着一代又一代的青海各族人民为建设和保卫自己美好的家园而前仆后继,不惜牺牲生命。在今天,弘扬和培育新的民族精神,对于我们实现青海经济社会的繁荣与稳定更具有积极的意义。     

Bighorn hunting,resource depression,and rock art in the Coso Range,eastern California: a computer simulation model

The extraordinary record of prehistoric rock art depicting tens of thousands of animal images in the Coso Range of eastern California provides an opportunity to study the relationship between aboriginal hunting, forager ecology, bighorn prey population levels, and the production of rock art. We review archaeofaunal evidence that the Coso desert bighorn sheep population was strongly depleted during the Newberry era after 1500 B.C. We discuss the dating of the rock art and show a correlation between bighorn depletion and increased rock art production. These data are consistent with the arrival of Numic foragers ca. A.D. 600 who competed with the Coso Pre-Numics and eventually terminated the Coso rock art tradition. An ecological predator-prey computer simulation of the human populations (Numic and Pre-Numics), the sheep population, and the rock art “population”, demonstrates these proposed interconnections and gives a reasonable fit to the observed rock art production rate.     

Oil and the House of Saud: Analysis of Saudi Arabian Oil Policy

This article analyzes the process of how the Government of Saudi Arabia determines oil policy. It focuses on oil production because it accepts that the Saudis are “price takers” rather than “price setters.” It applies economic and political explanations as determinants of how much oil is produced. Two periods of Saudi oil policy are compared—1987–1991 and 1997–2001—using open‐source data from various newspapers and newsletters. The article concludes that oil production in Saudi Arabia is, in large measure, a function of Saudi Arabian estimates of how its oil reserves may provide long‐term revenue and political stability at the risk of short‐term economic gains.     

Palace Fundamentalism and Liberal Democracy: Oil,Arms and Irrationality

With the end of the Cold War, some students of international affairs have suggested that the next field of conflict will be defined in cultural terms, between West and East, and particularly between liberal democracy and Islam. In this essay, it is argued that constructing a dichotomy between ‘rational’ Western democracy and ‘irrational’ Islam is not only dangerous but hypocritical. Support for the most backward and fanatical forms of Islamic fundamentalism has long been an element in the global geopolitical strategies of Western democracies. The trade in oil and arms has had particularly perverse social and political effects, which must be confronted in order to provide greater opportunities for the development of a modern civil society in the Arab world.     

日本石油储备的现状、措施及启示

日本是世界第3大石油消费国,而且石油对外依存度高达99％以上,作为确保石油供应安全的重要一环,自20世纪60年代初开始,日本逐步建立起了官民并举的石油储备制度。2006年石油、LPG的储备规模分别为172天和78天。本文首先从基地布局和储备数量两个方面介绍了日本石油及LPG储备的现状,在此基础上,从立法、管理体制和政府扶持3个角度阐述了日本建立石油储备的政策措施,最后在借鉴的基础上提出了完善我国石油储备体系建设的政策建议。     

Oil and Agression

Book reviewed in this article: The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and the Economics of the New World Order: Mary Ann Tétreault The Iraqi Aggression Against Kuwait: Strategic Lessons and Implications for Europe: Wolfgang F. Danspeckgruber and Charles R. H. Tripp, editors     

“民主”反腐：惩治预防腐败的新治本之策

推进党内反腐败工作和反腐倡廉建设,必须将民主理念和民主手段引入其中,将民主提升为惩治预防腐败的新治本之策,着力建立健全“教育、制度、监督、民主”并重的惩治预防腐败体系。这就必须切实关注“民主”惩治预防腐败的四大基本要素,即“民主”惩治预防腐败的机理、“民主”惩治预防腐败的机制、“民主”惩治预防腐败的机遇、“民主”惩治预防腐败的机会;