Network Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance: A Case Study of Swiss Landscape Management

Structural characteristics of social networks have been recognized as important factors of effective natural resource governance. However, network analyses of natural resource governance most often remain static, even though governance is an inherently dynamic process. In this article, we investigate the evolution of a social network of organizational actors involved in the governance of natural resources in a regional nature park project in Switzerland. We ask how the maturation of a governance network affects bonding social capital and centralization in the network. Applying separable temporal exponential random graph modeling (STERGM), we test two hypotheses based on the risk hypothesis by Berardo and Scholz (2010) in a longitudinal setting. Results show that network dynamics clearly follow the expected trend toward generating bonding social capital but do not imply a shift toward less hierarchical and more decentralized structures over time. We investigate how these structural processes may contribute to network effectiveness over time.     

The Rationale Determining Advocacy Coalitions: Examining Coordination Networks and Corresponding Beliefs

The contemporary trend within natural resource governance sees a strong increase in collaborative management. A successful turnout of these arrangements is, however, dependent upon the formation and characteristics of advocacy coalitions. Uncovering the rationale determining coalitions is therefore a key undertaking in policy analysis and the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) has been widely applied for this purpose. This article aspires to test several important hypotheses regarding the nature of coordination networks and the formation of coalitions, treating the ACF both as an inspiration and as a framework in need of further refinement. This is done in the context of a complex and conflict‐ridden policy subsystem: the Swedish carnivore‐management subsystem. The results indicate, firstly, that perceived belief correspondence, and not perceived influence, is the driving mechanism behind coordination; and, secondly, that the catalog of beliefs shared by actors within a coalition is composed by policy core beliefs, in particular, with a more normative content, while no connection between deep core beliefs and coordination is found.     

社会资本理论对开拓农村市场的启示

社会资本是建立在人们之间的关系网络基础上的情感、信任与规范等,它能够通过推动人们之间的行动来提高共同体的工作效率。本文运用社会资本理论,分析企业应该怎样利用社会资本来开拓农村市场。农村市场有不同于城市市场的特点不能把城市中的营销手段简单地移植到农村市场。企业开拓农村市场要做到:与农村社团建立好关系;企业文化要与农村文化融合起来;与农村的联系要制度化。     

Caring for Country: History and Alchemy in the Making and Management of Indigenous Australian Land

This paper traces the history of ‘caring for country’ tropes in writing about indigenous Australian land and land management. While ‘caring for country’ initially referred to dynamic land use and ownership practices, it progressively became a less historical, more primordial, conception of indigenous land ownership, use, and management. In reviewing constructions of ‘land’ in scholarly literatures and policy debates, I seek to explain how they interact with local indigenous practices and idioms. Drawing on examples from the cultural and linguistic fields of A?angu, speakers of Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, I examine a variety of concurrent uses of ‘country’, ‘caring’, or ‘nurturance’ and ‘caring for country’. A cross‐linguistic perspective on these objectifications – in English, Aboriginal English, and central Australian indigenous languages – shows how they may attend selectively to the historical specificity of indigenous experience. But this, I argue, may be the key to their efficacy in intercultural projects. Coded messages in bilingual documents reflect a kind of agency whereby A?angu choose to leave equivocal histories unstated and thereby reconstitute government projects in terms that work for them. The referential flexibility around idioms of land and nurturance is a kind of alchemy in language and social life that is the condition of the success of actual land management activities. Terms including ‘country’ and ‘caring for country’ elide the socio‐political dynamics that otherwise complicate actual rights and uses of land. That is why they can form the social basis of common activities, the production of ‘congeniality’ both within A?angu social life and at the interface with outsiders, in land management and other fields.     

移民网络、社会资源配置与中国东北新移民--美国旧金山湾区田野调查札记

在田野调查访谈的基础上,本文以美国旧金山湾区的中国东北新移民为研究实例,对社会资本和非制度性的社会资源配置在当代中国的跨国移民活动中所扮演的具体角色进行考察和分析。本文认为,近年来迅速崛起的东北新移民已开始成为当代中国国际移民潮的主要成员之一。近10多年来东北地区之所以会出现大规模移民海外的现象,其中既有古典经济学移民理论所提出的经济层面的原因,也有中国社会内部制度变迁的深层因素。而非制度性社会资源配置机制中的强、弱两种关系网,尤其是海外新移民社会中的弱关系网络,则对当代东北人的跨境迁徙活动及其在海外移居社会寻找工作等方面做出了莫大的贡献。     

对区域社会和谐发展问题的思考

实现区域社会和谐发展是构建社会主义和谐社会的基础。我国地域宽广,不同区域在经济社会发展程度、自然资源、生态环境、历史文化传统及其所面临的问题等方面,都有自身的特点。从民主法治、公平正义、诚信友爱、安定有序、充满活力、人与自然和谐相处等六个方面入手,结合区域自身特点,切实解决区域社会和谐发展中面临的现实问题,不断推进区域社会和谐,进而由每一个区域的社会和谐,走向全社会的和谐,这可能是构建社会主义和谐社会合理的路径选择。     

构建和谐社会的社区治理路径

社区和谐是社会和谐的微观基础,构建和谐社会应该从社区治理入手。而社区居民之间普遍的信任、互惠的规范和通过自主组织所建立起来的致密的社会参与网络构成了社区居民合作所依赖的社会资本,这些社会资本既是社区治理的基础,也是实现社区发展和社会和谐的社会资源。因而有必要认清我国社会资本的现状,培育社会资本以有利于和谐社会的实现。     

Power to the people: when culture works as a social catalyst in urban regeneration processes (and when it does not)

This article focuses upon the relationship between culture, urban regeneration schemes, and their impact on socio-cognitive assets – namely, social and human capital. It examines three major urban regeneration projects in the districts of Saint Michel (Montreal, Canada), Auburn (Sydney, Australia) and Bicocca (Milan, Italy), where culture has been invoked as a main transformational driver at the economic and socio-environmental levels, but with different approaches and results. Through comparative analysis, we develop a more general reflection on the social impact of culture-led urban transformation processes, questioning the actual role of cultural initiatives – particularly those related to the creation of new cultural facilities and the programming of big cultural flagship events – and participation as a means to improve the local social milieu. We find that a key role for social efficacy is played by projects’ capacity to elicit the commitment of residents through inclusive cultural participation, as opposed to instrumental top-down initiatives mainly addressing city and neighbourhood branding and real estate marketing purposes.