Neoliberalism,Authoritarian Politics and Social Policy in China

This article explores the relationships among neoliberalism, social policy expansion and authoritarian politics in contemporary China. It argues that in the era of neoliberalism, rising new right and authoritarian governments, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to retain power by shifting politically to the right and promoting neoliberal-looking economic policies. These policies have raised average living standards but also increased insecurity for most of the Chinese population, while new social policies have facilitated marketization. Social policy expansion includes minimal cash transfers as well as social old-age and health insurance for hitherto excluded sections of the population. These policies have begun to erode long-standing urban–rural segregation, but they have added new, underfunded, social programmes rather than widening participation in existing ones, re-segregating provision so that urban elites and formal sector workers enjoy much more generous provisions than many people working informally and those without work. These social policies’ most significant dark sides thus include compounded income inequalities and the segmentation and stigmatization of the poorest. Authoritarian controls have enabled the Communist Party to avoid redistributive policies that would undermine its urban support, so that politics in China differ from the right-wing populism of new, anti-establishment authoritarian regimes.     

从“杨月楼案”看晚清社会伦理观念的变动

1873年上海租界发生了一起良贱为婚案件,此案引起民间人士在《申报》上展开了一场争论。这一争论反映出当时人们在社会生活方式的变动中,关于良贱等级身份观念、乡党关系与宗族观念以及法律公正观念的变化,揭示了社会平等观念、家庭独立观念及依律执法观念等近代趋向的社会伦理观念的演生轨迹。生活方式的变动是这些观念演生的社会基础,非正统的民间伦理是其内在源流,而把西方作为富强榜样,则使这种观念变动与学习西方的近代社会变革相联系,反映了与西方近代社会伦理观念相汇合的趋向．     

The Sensitivity of Country Ranks to Index Construction and Aggregation Choice: The Case of Immigration Policy

How sensitive are country ranks to the aggregation function used in index construction? This paper tests whether different aggregation functions come to different results in regard to the ranking of countries. Indices within the field of immigration and integration policy are analyzed, yet, the results pertain to index building across the social sciences. The paper discusses three aggregation methods: the arithmetic mean, the geometric mean, and a noncompensatory/non‐linear aggregation function based on the Condorcet method. In the empirical part, these three aggregation functions are applied to the family indicators for the year 2010 of the Immigration Policies in Comparison (IMPIC) dataset, a new dataset which measures immigration policies’ restrictiveness, as well as to the eight policy strands of the Migrant Integration Policy Index for the year 2014. Results show that the methods react differently to extreme values and thus result in different rank orders in the middle range. In the politicized field of immigration and integration policies, country ranks play a crucial role and this is shown to have profound real‐world implications. The paper thus urges researchers to be reflective of the assumptions of different aggregation functions, as these lead to different results.     

The Politics of Crime Control Policy

Books reviewed in this articles:
Ann Heinz, Herbert Jacob, and Robert L. Lineberry (eds.), Crime in City Politics
Stuart Nagel, Erika Fairchild, and Anthony Champagne (eds.), The Political Science of Criminal Justice
James Q. Wilson (ed.), Crime and Public Policy     

The Politics of Greek Environmental Policy

This article serves a dual purpose. Its substantive goal is to provide an account of Greek environmental policy formation and implementation over the last twenty years. Its theoretical goal is to examine the relative impacts of specific political factors, as contrasted with aggregate levels of socioeconomic and institutional development, in shaping environmental policy in an industrializing country. such as Greece. More specifically, it is argued that certain aspects of state-society relations and of the internal organization of the Greek state are frequently the major reasons behind the country's difficulties in formulating implementable preventive policy and in implementing adequately constructed policy.     

Structural Change,the Social Policy Environment and Female Employment in Turkey

Since the 1970s, a series of demand and supply related changes have led to significant labour market transformations which have brought about a sustained increase in female employment throughout the world. While similar transformations have also been underway in Turkey, the country appears to be one of the rare exceptions to worldwide trends. During the last two decades both female labour force participation and female employment rates have declined at national level. In this article, two sets of questions are posed to explore the factors likely to influence female labour force participation. One set of questions pertains to the society‐specific dynamics of structural change in employment patterns in Turkey, with particular reference to the level and composition of employment in the service sector. A second set of questions is posed to examine labour market relations and the social policy environment in Turkey, and their impact on the demand for and supply of female labour. Current changes in the prevailing policy environment are considered to highlight a certain contradiction in the attitudes of decision makers who seem to be faced with a trade‐off between continuing adherence to conservative patriarchal values and the objectives of increasing labour force participation and combating poverty.     

The Effectiveness of Policy Conditionality: Eight Country Experiences

This article analyses the effectiveness of the setting of policy conditions in exchange for aid. Given the emerging consensus that this process is not effective, this article focuses on explaining why not. In analysing the experiences of eight countries — Bangladesh, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia — an ‘augmented’ principal–agent framework proved valuable in explaining why policy conditionality is not effective in these countries. The article concludes that donors should focus on some simple policy outcomes (ex post) instead of extensive policy conditions (ex ante).     

Re-emergence of Suburbia: The Case of Izmir Turkey

In Turkey, suburbia has become a subject of debates since the 1990s relative to the reconfiguration of urban environments due to transnational economic relations, formation of new upper income groups, social polarization and changing consumption habits. With the help of a case study in the city of Izmir, this paper examines the extent of suburbanization in Turkey in relation to the theoretical works about this subject. The studies have shown that the emergence of suburbia in Izmir goes back to the periods of integration to the capitalist economy during the seventeenth century. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxon type suburbia in Izmir has reemerged especially in the recent decades and along the motorways to the city. However, this paper claims that these areas are not fully established in the case of Izmir due to costs of suburban life and lack of social and infrastructural facilities.     

江淮东部新石器时代末期社会生计个案分析——以东台开庄遗址为例

东台开庄为江淮东部一处内涵明确的以龙山文化时期遗存为主体的新石器时代末期遗址,兼有少量良渚文化遗存.通过对遗址开展的浮选获得了水稻和粟等农作物,狗尾草和藜属等杂草类种子,芡实、菱角、栎果等其他可食遗存.稻作是开庄遗址良渚文化晚期和龙山文化时期最重要的农耕生产内容.农业在聚落生业中不占绝对优势,先民采集狩猎作为食物的重要...