The Importance of Household Size and Composition in Constructing Poverty Profiles: An Illustration from Vietnam

The calculation of income–poverty profiles should allow for household size and composition, but rarely does so. Failure to do this means that the poverty profile will be distorted. The appropriate adjustments are straightforward, requiring simple assumptions which, whilst arbitrary, are better than ignoring the problem. Not making these adjustments distorts not only the relationship between household size and poverty, but all aspects of the poverty profile correlated to household size. For the case of Vietnam, this article shows that, if the adjustments are not made, rural poverty is under–stated as is poverty amongst those with little education, minority ethnic groups and female–headed households. Far fewer children live in poverty than is suggested when the appropriate data adjustments are not made.     

Rural Credit in Zambia: Access and Exit

I am grateful for comments from Geoff Lamb, Paul Isenman, and Robert Chambers. ‘Exit’ is a reference to A. O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty, Cambridge, Mass., 1970, and to B. B. Schaffer and G. B. Lamb, ‘Exit, Voice and Access’, Social Science Information, December 1974.     

Growth of Rural Industries in Post-reform China: Patterns,Determinants and Consequences

The first question addressed by this paper relates to the very high growth rates achieved by China's rural industries during the post-reform period. While growth rates have undoubtedly been extremely high, they can only be put in a proper perspective when growth in different components of the sector (i.e. township- and village-owned and privately owned industries) is examined separately and compared with performance before the reforms. In this regard, an important finding of the paper is that as far as township and village industries are concerned, growth rates in the post-reform period do not represent a sudden break from the rates of the earlier period — particularly the 1970s. It is mainly in the emergence and growth of private enterprises that the growth experience of the 1980s differs substantially from that of the 1970s. The sharp decline in the growth of all rural industries in 1989 does not appear to mark a reversal in their growth environment, but the beginning of a period of consolidation and rationalization; and, contrary to popular notion, private enterprises are not the worst sufferers in this process. Finally, the paper looks at regional imbalance. Historically, rural industries in China have been concentrated more in the eastern provinces along the coast, and this regional concentration has increased during the post-reform period of high growth.     

The Nonjurors and the Counter Enlightenment: Some Illustration

The article argues, firstly, that in view of the relationship between Protestantism and the English Enlightenment it is in distinctively non-Protestant religious thought, within or without the Church of England, that the central themes of the English Counter Enlightenment are to be sought. The writings of the Nonjurors can and should therefore be seen as possessing a wider significance than that derived from the history of theology. They constitute an important part of the Enlightenment/Counter Enlightenment debates, and this flows naturally from the position they occupy in relation to the Catholic and Reformation traditions. The study exemplifies this view with reference to the writers of the Usager movement. There is, in the second part, a statement of the fundamental theological causes of the Usager schism. The third part displays the significance of these concerns to the Enlightenment/Counter Enlightenment debates and in particular to the central matter of these debates — the epistemological and institutional location of authority.     

Negotiated Environmental Governance in The Netherlands: Logic and Illustration

The Dutch consensus oriented model of negotiated environmental governance enjoys increasing popularity within the European Union because of its seemingly effective way of dealing with environmental problems. A closer look at the model does not reveal any better performance than European average. The article theoretically explains the strengths and weaknesses of the Dutch model as an iterative policy model in which three different modes of governance — competitive, cooperative, and authoritative — interact and compete to achieve effective efficient and legitimate policy results. The argument is empirically illustrated with findings of energy saving policies in the Netherlands .     

Voices from the Margins: Street Children's Subcultures in Indonesia

Indonesia has a proliferation of children living on the streets of its larger cities. To the state and dominant society, they are perceived as committing a social violation. In response to their marginalisation and subordination, street children in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia, have developed a 'repertoire of strategies' in order to survive. These include the appropriation of urban niches within the city, in which they create collective solutions for the dilemmas they confront in their everyday lives. This paper discusses a street boy community that exists within these marginal spaces: the Tikyan subculture of Yogyakarta. It presents the Tikyan subculture as a technique for street children to resist the negative stereotypes which are given to them by mainstream society. As they get older and become increasingly alienated by society, the Tikyan actively reject their 'deviant' label, and decorate street life so that it becomes agreeable in their eyes. This is achieved by deviating from dominant styles of dress and conventional behaviour, and through the development of a specific symbolic identity. These symbolic challenges to the dominant culture are communicated and dispersed within the social group and conveyed to the world via the subculture's 'specialised semiotic': their style of dress; their acts of bodily subversion or dissent (in the form of tattoos, body piercing and sexual practices); the music they play and listen to; and their use of drugs and alcohol. I describe these practices as the Tikyan 's obligatory performances, and the expected ways of behaving in order to remain accepted by the group.     

The War on Terror from the Perspective of Indonesia and Saudi Arabia

This article examines the perspective of two major Islamic nations—Saudi Arabia and Indonesia—toward the United States' War on terror and how this war shaped and influenced the behavior of the two Islamic governments toward domestic challenges and their partnership with the United States, as they have declared their support of the United States. Indeed the war against terror has developed several security concerns for both Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. However, each state has followed different methods to fight Islamic radical movements as well as a different framework of partnership with the United States on its war against terrorism.     

抗战时期的国统区农村金融--以农村合作金融事业为中心

抗日战争爆发后,南京政府认识到抗战将是持久战,持久抗战的关键之一在于农村能否持久地提供支持。因而,维持和发展农村经济就成为坚持抗战的重要一环。而维持和发展农村经济的关键又在于是否能够为农村提供金融支持。本文以台湾"中研院"近代史研究所档案馆藏有关资料为中心,特别是农林部中央农业实验所农业经济系所作的农村金融调查资料,辅以其他史料,对1939年至1944年间国统区15个省的农村金融借贷、放款利率、放款期限、借贷办法、放款机关等情况进行具体考察,分析和观察其成效与特点,并与抗战前后的情况进行比较,以期对抗战时期国统区的农村金融发展和演变情况,有一个较为清晰的认识。     

Urban Settlement Systems and Rural Sustaining Communities: An Example from Chan Chan's Hinterland

Abstract

The study of prehistoric cities has often been marked by research strategies that focus completely on urban centers and thus preclude the delineation of entire settlement systems by ignoring the interrelationships between cities and their rural sustaining communities. A major focus of recent research in the Moche Valley on the Peruvian North Coast has been on elucidating the nature of urbanrural relations between the prehistoric Chimú city of Chan Chan and contemporaneous sites located in its hinterland. Excavation at the village of Cerro la Virgen together with additional evidence obtained from other sites in Chan Chan's rural sustaining area has provided insights into Chimú lifeways in nonmetropolitan areas, as well as evidence suggesting a multifaceted plan for organizing lands outside the civic center of Chan Chan. The archaeological data indicate that an important aspect of the organization of rural argicultural zones was the restriction of settlement to villages circumscribed by the Chimú state.     

工业化前中英乡村借贷比较研究

工业化前中国与英国乡村经济中普遍存在着经常性的借贷活动 ,乡村借贷成为农村经济中不可或缺的要素。然而 ,它们历史背景、表现方式、发展状况、功能流向多有不同 ,2 0世纪上半叶中国农村为生存而借贷的传统高利贷市场 ,与工业革命前英国乡村为投资生产而借贷的现代信贷市场形成了鲜明对照。这从一个侧面反映了工业化前中英乡村社会转型的实况     

The Process of Famine: Causes and Consequences in Sudan

In the Sudan, where 200,000 children can die from diseases like diarrhoea and measles in a ‘normal’ year, the toll jumped to somewhere between 350,000 and 700,000 [in 1984]; in the next twelve months one million more could die — out of a total child population of only 6 million. UNICEF estimates that over six million sub-Saharan infants and children are endangered by famine.