The demographic transition: model and reality

Observed exponential population growth curves are short-term parts of a logistic or S-curve in demography or a product-cycle curve in technology. All human populations have the ability to adjust their rates of growth, a fact recognized by the demographic transition model. The acceleration of world population growth that began after 1650 and became conspicuous after 1850 was largely confined to industrialized countries of European culture until after World War II, when the S-curve passed the inflection point. Many signs indicate that the decline in growth rates may become striking in the 1980s or 1990s. The demographic transition agrees with the logistic curve, and since the ultimate carrying capacity of the Earth is limited, represents an intelligent adaptation. The industrial countries with the longest statistical records, such as Sweden and Finland, evidence early efforts to control fertility. The demographic transition in Sweden lasted from 1815 to 1930 and occurred without government interference. A question for postindustrial western society is whether birth rates will be adjusted to the rising death rates expected as the population ages. Birth and death rates in most formulations of the demographic transition model are typical of Western Europe at the start of the transition process but are much too low for most countries of the world. Japan's demographic transition and that of several other Asian countries have occurred much more rapidly than those of Western Europe and have demonstrated not only that the demographic transition model was applicable but that the time span could be shortened by a factor of about 10 when government policy was substituted for spontaneous development. The Indian experience however shows that the shortening of the transition cannot be imposed from above. The demographic transition is well on its way in most of Asia and Latin America, but Africa and the Muslim countries of Asia have so far done little to restrain their high fertility. It may be concluded that the actual form of the demographic transition is influenced by the point of departure and by how and when it takes place.     

The economic planning advisory council: The reality of consensus

The Hawke federal Labor government continued the process of national reconciliation and consensus‐formation begun by the National Economic Summit by institutionalizing group/government intermediation and consultation within the Economic Planning Advisory Council (EPAC). This paper looks at the development of the policy which led to the establishment of EPAC to determine what was expected of such a body. The objects and functions of the council are then examined to determine whether its operation increases the efficacy of consensus in government policy‐making. The formal institutionalization of interest groups into the policy process opens up questions about the relevance of theories of corporatism to this innovation in the Australian political system and the findings of this paper in regard to EPAC are discussed in this context to ascertain whether there is evidence of corporatism inherent in these arrangements. Finally, consideration has been given to the question of whether EPAC and consensus have changed the relationship between sectional interests and the government in the Australian political system.     

试论转型期地方电视新闻媒体的舆论主导性

新时期,党中央、国务院对电视新闻媒体工作提出了新的更高的要求。地方电视新闻媒体只有充分发挥其舆论导向作用,才能当好党和政府及人民的喉舌,弘扬时代主旋律。     

Sexual conflict in myth and reality: The Navajo case

Father Berard Haile, O.F.M. Women Versus Men: A Conflict of Navajo Emergence. The Curly Tó Aheedíinii Version. Karl Luckert, Editor. Navajo Orthography by Irvy W. Goossen. (viii + 118 pp.) Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press 1981. $14.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.     

Political sociology and political reality: The concept of democratic consensus

The investigation of consensus was a leading theme in the political sociology of democracy from the early 1950s until the late 1960s. Consensus has since become something of a suspect category of social inquiry. The consensus literature (V. O. Key, R. Dahl, H. Eckstein, S. M. Upset, G. A. Almond) has been charged by the ‘post‐behaviouralists’ as conservative politics disguised as impartial social science. This paper investigates the possibility of restoring consensus as a research category through an examination of its original use by John Stuart Mill. The link between Mill and contemporary political sociology is Edward Shils, who is here identified as one of the guiding spirits of the consensus literature. The paper compares consensus as treated in Mill's explicitly political science with Shils’ implicitly political science. The ‘post‐behaviouralists’ sought the recovery of the political as the leading theme of social inquiry. This is exactly as Mill originally intended. The consensus literature, however, took its bearing from Shils’ restatement of Mill, in which the political categories are submerged according to the demands of a novel and apolitical science of politics. The recovery of democratic consensus as a research category would greatly benefit from the substitution of Mill's original project in place of Shils's much weaker, if more influential, restatement of it.     

William Rufus: myth and reality

The commonly accepted view of the reign of William II (1087–1100) is a political myth, primarily the work of Eadmer, who depicted the king as the villain against whom St Anselm strove to impose the revolutionary Gregorian reform programme in England. Henry I, moreover, denigrated his brother's regime as a cover for furthering William's harsh but constructive policies. Eadmer's writings were quarried by subsequent twelfth-century writers in the mainstream of the English monastic historical tradition, who added their own literary embellishments. Nineteenth-century historians uncritically accepted these accounts and Henry I's gloss on the reign. They then contributed moral judgements of their own, which passed without qualification into modern secondary works.This paper re-evaluates William II's political and governmental achievements, and his ecclesiastical policy. His character is considered in the light of recent work on twelfth-century intellectual and psychological attitudes, and the accounts of more favourable chroniclers. It is concluded that the king developed his father's strong policies in every direction with considerable success, making possible the more publicized but essentially imitative work of Henry I. William's expansion and consolidation of national frontiers, his legal and financial developments, and his maintenance of royal control over the Church are revealed under the distortions of ecclesiastical and Henrician historiography.     

Writing up the region: anchor firm dismantling and the construction of a perceived regional advantage in Swedish news media

This study investigates how geographic representations and regional industrial identity in news media are used to mobilize local/regional actors and to attract inward and outward investments by mediating and narrating stories of the recovery and rebirth of a region in distress – that is, how media contribute to economic development in or of the region. The study targets media attention covering the dismantling and relocation of two regionally embedded life science and likewise anchor firms: the Pharmacia and Upjohn merger in Uppsala in 1995 and the closure of AstraZeneca's operations in Lund in 2010. By drawing on the method of framing and content analysis of news articles derived from a public media database, the analysis show that: (a) geographic representation and associations are intensified in times of media turbulence; (b) news coverage follows two subsequent phases (an initial ‘crisis’ phase and a following more optimistic ‘recovery’ phase) and (c) news media (as intermediary actors and arenas) by communicating ideas of a shared regional industrial identity contribute to the construction of a ‘perceived regional advantage’ (as understood and communicated by news media). Thus, regional industrial identity-building and how the region is perceived by internal and external audiences are important for regional development.     

The Complications of Early TV

Book reviewed:
Thomas Doherty. Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture . New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. vii + 305 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. $27.95.     

The reality of reduction experiments and the GIUR: reply to Eren and Sampson

There is no ambiguity in the existing empirical support for a GIUR as a robust predictor of mass lost from flakes through unifacial retouching. We demonstrate why the GIUR is a reliable method for inferring mass loss, in appropriate circumstances, and why it is a more powerful predictor of mass loss than touted competitors. We explain why Eren, M.I., Sampson's, G. [2009. Kuhn's geometric index of unifacial stone tool reduction (GIUR): does it measure missing flake mass? J. Archaeol. Sci.] arguments are faulty and why researchers should use the GIUR in preference to other methods of estimating the extent of unifacial retouch.     

Myth and reality: A cyclic convergence

Martin, Calvin, ed. The American Indian and the Problem of History. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. xiv + 232 pp. including cumulative bibliography. $24.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.

Bailey, Garrick, and Roberta Glenn Bailey. A History of the Navajos: The Reservation Years. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press, 1986. xx + 360 pp. including photographs, tables, appendices, chapter notes, bibliography, and index. No price.     

Japan's global environmentalism: rhetoric and reality

The 1992 Earth Summit marked the emergence of a new type of global environmentalism in which nation states increasingly sought to represent themselves as key environmental actors. Since the early 1990s, Japan has attempted to position itself rhetorically as a global environmental leader. This rhetoric must be compared to Japan's international environmental impacts, which are considerable, especially in East and Southeast Asia. Japan's domestic environmental situation is evaluated, and five key areas of international environmental impacts are discussed: official development assistance, foreign direct investment, deforestation, overfishing, and the promotion of high technology. Motivations for Japan's use of global environmentalist rhetoric including its domestic political environment, geopolitical goals, geoeconomic motivations, and the increasing globalization of the Japanese economy are analyzed. The spread of the Japanese model of development is linked to Asia's continuing environmental crises.     

网络虚拟现实技术在数字化博物馆中的应用

阐述了怎样将虚拟现实技术更有实践意义地应用到网络数字化博物馆的建设。本工作针对上海博物馆在网上虚拟场馆展示、藏品的立体全方位的数字化展示、古代绘画技法的内涵及意境表现所进行的实践 ,提供了解决目前构建网上虚拟博物馆存在的系统设计与实现中面临的困难的方法。说明了网络虚拟现实技术在数字化博物馆中应用的可行性和社会效果 ,为今后更深层次及更广泛的研究和应用工作拓展了思路 ,并提供了实践性的参考。