Policy Theory, Policy Theory Everywhere: Ravings of a Deranged Policy Scholar

The field of policy theory abounds with numerous theories, with each theory having a set of practitioners that are working independently of the others. Resolving conflicts among policy theories as a result is difficult. This essay has a more modest goal of posing some questions and suggesting some avenues for future research. Key points include defining the purpose of policy theory, incorporating management into our theories, making strategic choices about areas of study, addressing the parsimony-comprehensiveness tradeoff, and providing a more nuanced role for institutions.     

Theory and the history of cartography

Abstract

Cartographic history has been dominated by an empiricism that treats the nature of maps as self‐evident and which denies the presence of any theory. In contrast, this paper argues that theories lie at the root of all empirical study whether or not they are acknowledged. The linear, progressive model of cartographic development, for example, is not a law deduced from historical evidence; if it were it would be easily and quickly dismissed. It derives instead from our cultural beliefs concerning the nature of maps, which is to say from our unexamined theories. Historians of cartography need to be critical of their assumptions and preconceptions. Theoretical discussions in the history of cartography must address not whether we should use theory at all but to which theories we should adhere. It is inadequate simply to knock theories down. We must establish a debate in which old understandings of maps, of their creation, and of their use are replaced by better (that is, more consistent and coherent) theories.     

Reflections on the Latin American Contribution to Development Theory

ABSTRACT During the last decade a series of essays by prominent development theorists were published in which it was argued that development theory was in crisis. In my view the First World bias of development theory has contributed to its shortcomings. This bias is evidenced by the failure of development theory seriously to examine and incorporate into its mainstream the theories emanating from the Third World. In this paper I deal with the Latin American contribution to development theory. While development theorists have given some attention to dependency studies and structuralism, far too little appreciation has been given to the writings on marginality and internal colonialism. However, the significance of the structuralist school for development thinking and practice has yet to be fully acknowledged. Furthermore, dependency theory has been much distorted and key dependency writers have been completely ignored, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. The following themes of the multi-stranded Latin American development school are examined: the debate on reform or revolution, the structuralist or centre-periphery paradigm, the analyses on internal colonialism and marginality, and the dependency studies. Wherever relevant the key differing positions within the Latin American school are presented. I then proceed to examine the shortcomings as well as the contemporary relevance of these Latin American theories of development and underdevelopment.     

论文化生态学的理论发展与新构架

本文本着批判地吸收不同学科领域有关文化生态的理论和方法,在系统论与生态观的指导下,积极发挥地理学研究文化生态学的优势,对文化生态学从基本概念到核心理论进行了重构,阐发了以文化生态系统为其研究对象、现代文化生态学的宏观、中观、微观研究领域观点。试图籍此完善文化生态学的理论体系并进一步增强其实践性。     

The Political Discourses of three Contemporary Muslim Scholars: Secular,Nonsecular, or Pseudosecular?

It is well‐known that the quest for an Islamic state was a desire common to most Islamists of the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries. This article discusses three contemporary political theories that stand in sharp contrast to the Islamists’ theory of an Islamic state. These political theories are developed by three prominent contemporary Muslim scholars, Nasr Hamid Abū Zayd, Ablodkarim Soroush, and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari. The article attempts to discuss the common themes between the views of these scholars concerning governance. It argues that the political theories presented by them significantly differ from those developed by most Islamists, who share the idea that Islam is a self‐sufficient political system. It also argues that while these political theories challenge the idea that incorporates the maximal role for government in religious matters and thus are close to certain aspects of regulations of governance in Western countries, they are different from those political theories in the West that focus on a sharp distinction between religion and state because religion, for such scholar, plays an important role in developing civil society.     

中国特色革命理论和中国特色社会主义理论的形成及历史启示

中国共产党在88年的奋斗历程中,创立了两个特色理论：中国特色革命理论、中国特色社会主义理论。这两大理论的形成和发展既有深刻的时代背景,又有一个逐步形成的历史过程。两个特色理论,不仅内涵丰富博大精深,富有中国特色,而且赋予我们深刻的历史启示。     

Beyond the Stereotype: Restating the Relevance of the Dependency Research Programme

This article evaluates the relevance of dependency theory for understanding contemporary development challenges, especially in the light of changes in the global economy over the past 50 years. In order to do so, the article rectifies previous misunderstandings of the scholarship and offers a new definition of dependency theory as a research programme, rather than a singular theory. Four core tenets of this research programme are identified: a global historical approach; theorizing of the polarizing tendencies of global capitalism; a focus on structures of production; and a focus on the specific constraints faced by peripheral economies. While each of these elements can be found in many contemporary theories, what makes dependency theory unique — and a particularly strong research programme — is the combination of these elements. The article demonstrates how this approach provides a deep and broad understanding that is necessary to appreciate the persistence of uneven development with reference to two case studies, namely successful industrialization in South Korea, and how the fragmentation of global value chains has impacted industrialization in Indonesia. Finally, the article argues that approaching these kinds of cases through a dependency research programme can contribute to a fruitful renewal of development studies.     

Conceptions of Space and Crime in the Punitive Neoliberal City

The entrenchment of neoliberalism in the United States has coincided with an unprecedented expansion of punishment practices that intensify social divisions rooted in class and race. We explore the political culture of this hyperpunitiveness through a discussion of two popularized explanations for urban crime: broken windows and situational crime prevention. These popular criminological theories help legitimate the deepening of social and spatial divisions. They also rest their precepts upon the foundation of a particular geographic imagination. We use this paper to reveal and critique the core assumptions about space upon which each of these theories critically relies. We suggest that each theory understands society–space interactions too simplistically to provide comprehensive insight into the dynamics of landscape construction and interpretation. We argue further that the logics and practices of broken windows and situational crime prevention possess significant elective affinities with social dynamics characteristic of neoliberalism. For these reasons, these popularized criminologies both reflect and reinforce the processes through which neoliberalism exacerbates social differences.     

Moralism in theories of secession: a realist perspective

Moral reasoning is the most common approach to secession in political philosophy. Just‐cause, choice and liberal‐cultural theories rely on moral conceptions of political authority. This article examines an alternative view through an exploration of moral theories of secession from a realist perspective. Realism has recently seen a revival as a form of normative political philosophy and focuses on political disagreement and legitimacy rather than rights and moral analysis. I claim that realism would reject utopianism and moralism present in theories of secession. Instead of regarding secession as a right, realism would frame secession as a political option. According to this view, this article explores a realist theory of secession that would be based on the priority of politics and disagreement among other concepts. This would be a middle‐ground theory, compatible with liberal values and existing moral theories.     

Towards a Dynamic theory of Ethno-Religious Conflict

Abstract. The existing body of theory explaining how religion contributes to conflict is inadequate. This is because no existing theory is both sufficiently comprehensive, in that it describes most of the ways in which religion can become involved in conflict, and sufficiently dynamic, in that it takes into account the interrelationships between the various components of the theory. Also, few attempts are made to integrate such a theory into the general literature on conflict, and few such theories are tested, or even testable, in a large-n format (the use of statistical methodology to analyse a large number of cases in order to test theories and look for general trends). A more comprehensive and dynamic theory of religion and conflict is developed here based on the argument that religion has four basic functions in politics, society and conflict: to provide a value-laden belief system; to supply standards and criteria of behaviour based on that belief system; to organise adherents through its institutions; and to legitimate actors, actions and institutions. This theory is then integrated into Gurr's theory of ethnic conflict in a dynamic format that is testable in a large-n format.     

农村现代化道路的理论探源——对马克思、恩格斯关于农民理论的重新审视

中国农村的现代化实践是一场以马克思主义为指导的探索活动。本文力求将马克思主义关于农民问题的相关理论和实证分析结合起来,论述了马克思等关于农民理论的立足点及其发展,分析了农业集体化道路及其挫折,通过对经典理论的重新审视,进而得出对社会主义农业现代化道路的启示.     

相对成熟的西方边疆理论简论(1871-1945)

1945年前的80多年间,西方国家涉及边疆(含边界)问题的理论进入相对成熟的时期,主要是国际法和地缘政治学的相关理论发展迅速,美国、俄国、英国、日本等国的相关理论都得到较为全面的发展。这些理论内容广泛,又具有鲜明的时代性,大多数带有“强权即公理”的特点,或者为帝国主义瓜分世界的种种现象进行解释,或者公然地为大国主宰世界、扩张疆土服务。     

A spatial analysis of crime in Vancouver, British Columbia: a synthesis of social disorganization and routine activity theory

This article investigates the spatial dimension of automotive theft, break and enter, and violent crime in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1996. The article uses and synthesizes social disorganization theory and routine activity theory as a theoretical backcloth and employs a spatial autoregressive regression procedure that accounts for spatial autocorrelation between crime rates and socio-economic characteristics at the census tract level. Strong support is found for synthesizing these two most common spatial theories of crime. In particular, high unemployment (social disorganization theory) and the presence of young populations (routine activity theory) are the strongest predictors of criminal activity.     

Integrating Delegation into the Policy Theory Literature

Public policy scholars have developed a number of theories of the policymaking process. Their work has come to define what some now refer to as the "policy theory" literature. Our task is to identify theoretical and empirical courses of study that will advance this research program. We limit ourselves to identifying an existing theory that already provides such an advance and discuss some of its theoretical benefits and empirical support. Specifically, we make the case that there exists a well-developed theory of delegation that rivals what we deem to be the best of the existing policy theories. We also suggest that existing theoretical frameworks might benefit from incorporating delegation theory explicitly and conclude that policy research has much to contribute to the development and useful application of delegation models.     

旅游研究中的三种社会心理学视角之比较

旅游是一个新兴的研究领域,需要从其他学科引入相关的理论和方法来推动自身的成熟与发展。旅游感知、态度和行为是旅游研究的重要领域之一,直接关系到旅游业的健康持续发展。在过去数十年间,社会心理学的社会交换理论和社会表征理论为这一领域的研究提供了有力的理论支撑。相对剥夺理论是一种二战以后逐渐发展起来的社会心理学理论,在社会弱势群体的心理失衡和疏导机制研究方面有较强的解释能力。本文通过对旅游研究中的既有社会心理学视角剖析的基础上,分析了相对剥夺的内涵和旅游发展中的相对剥夺现象,进而比较了相对剥夺理论与既有社会心理学理论视角的独特性和互补性。作为一种新的社会心理学视角,相对剥夺理论在旅游地相对剥夺感的表现形式、成因、疏导机制和定量测量等方面有较大的应用价值和潜力。     

Justice Not Benevolence

Abstract

Although there are many migration theories that purport to explain why people migrate, many theologies and ethics of migration rely on neoclassical migration theory, which views migration solely as the result of poverty and unemployment in sending countries. This paper reviews various migration theories in order to argue that Catholic social teaching on migration has primarily relied on neoclassical theories of migration. This over-reliance on neoclassical migration theory has led to flawed policy recommendations and ethical analyses.

Christian ethics must respond to the reality of migration as described by migration systems theory, which suggests that migration systems are actually initiated by the policies of receiving countries, primarily colonial and organized guest worker recruitment. The ethical principles required to respond to migration are not only benevolence and hospitality. Christian ethics must begin by seeing migration as a problem of exploitative relationships between citizens and migrants.     

The Implementation of Public Policy: Still the Missing Link

Although theories of public policy and theories of governance both seek to establish relationships between policymaking and its consequences, they do not complement each other very well. Public policy models tend to de-emphasize that which governance theories tend to emphasize: the influence on government performance of implementation, broadly described as the actions taken by those engaged in administration (including managers at all levels, those engaged in service delivery, and third-party agents) after a policy has been lawfully promulgated by elected officials and interpreted by the courts. A comparison of a recently developed theory of public sector performance with several prominent theories of policymaking suggests that multilevel governance theories can supply what continues to be the missing link in public policy theories. At the same time, governance theories might be enriched by the process modeling of public policy theories.     

Maize Agriculture Evolution in the Eastern Woodlands of North America: A Darwinian Perspective

David Rindos' coevolution theory remains the most comprehensive application of Darwinian theory to issues of prehistoric agriculture evolution. While his theory has drawn attention, there has been a lack of subsequent development of the application of Darwinian theory to prehistoric agricultural evolution. Combining Sewall Wright's shifting balance theory of evolution with aspects of Rindos' coevolution theory provides important new insights into the processes of crop transmission between regions. Using these theories, a model is developed for the adoption and subsequent evolution of maize agriculture in the Eastern Woodlands of North America.     

西方集群和集群政策的研究及其对中国的借鉴意义

自上个世纪90年代末以来,国内学者和政策决策者对集群的集群政策表现出日益浓厚的兴趣。由于现行的集群理论源自西方工业化国家,作为发展中的中国能否和如何吸收运用这些西方理论和研究经验成为讨论的焦点之一。本文的目的是通过探讨西方集群研究和集群政策的理论基础,以期能带给中国的相关研究一些有益的启示。本文首先对波特和经合组织两学派的集群概念的起源、发展和着重点进行了回顾。然后分析了集群起源和发展的条件、生命周期、发展机制、空间维度、类型等西方集群研究的要素,阐述了西方工业国家的集群政策概念及相关评判。相对于发达国家丰富的关于技术创新区域的研究而言,针对发展中国家创新系统和集群的理论性及经验性研究则要少得多。所以发展中国家的集群研究及集群政策需要更合适自身实际情况的理论。最后笔者以集群理论和中国实际情况为例,通过问题的分析、理论的分析和理论的调整三步骤说明新理论发展的可能途径。     

Theoretical change and therapeutic innovation in the treatment of syphilis in mid-nineteenth-century France

This article examines changes in the treatment of venereal disease in mid-nineteenth-century France in light of theoretical developments in the understanding of these diseases. It focuses on three theories of venereal disease: the orthodox theory of the "unity" of gonorrhea and syphilis; the physiological theory of Fran?ois Broussais, which essentially denied the actual existence of such a disease; and Philippe Ricord's new doctrine of venereal disease, a theory that is often credited with having established the distinction between syphilis and gonorrhea. The argument is that theoretical considerations played a major role in the evaluation of the relative merits of these theories and that any understanding of the appeal of Ricord's new doctrine must consider not only its pathological claims but its therapeutic implications as well. This was not, however, simply an instance of theory applied. These two aspects of Ricord's new doctrine, its pathology and its therapeutics, were inextricably bound up with one another, so that judgment of the one necessarily entailed judgment of the other. The argument is that therapeutic practice should not be seen simply as a downwind consequence of changes in the theoretical understanding of disease, but rather as an integral part of the process of change. These were the kinds of developments that led doctors to believe that French medicine was making very real progress at mid-century.