Political Power and Policy Design: Why Are Policy Alternatives Constrained?

Little research examines the stage of the policy process during which policy alternatives are formulated. Using quantitative and qualitative data from Swedish local politics, we address this deficiency by analyzing the process by which the number of specific policy alternatives is reduced. The findings suggest that, in approximately 20 percent of issues, more than one alternative will reach all politicians making the binding decisions. Most local politicians, in both the majority and opposition factions, think that they lack sufficient information on alternative policy designs. We also find a “political bias,” that is, alternatives are discarded at an early stage because they are deemed not politically feasible. Politicians outside the inner circles, especially those with higher education, would like to see more policy alternatives to discuss and from which they can make choices.     

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.     

唐代“六胡州”州城的建置及其运用——“降户”的安置和役使的一个类型

唐朝在突厥降户中贾胡的处理上采取把他们安置在适合生活的地方,并对之进行驱使的办法。这典型的表现在"六胡州"州城的建置及其运用之上。六胡州设于"河曲"之地的中西部一带,介于六州中的灵州、夏州之间,是指鲁、丽、塞、含、依、契等六小州。在突厥降户中,主要是贾胡降户被集体安置在这些州城之内。这些州城位于今内蒙古自治区河套地区的最南段一带,以及长城以北较为狭窄的地区,属于北方著名的湖泽地区,利于养马。六胡州民之所以主要由贾胡降户来组成,是因为他们具有养马等技术特长。他们在六胡州的州城内受到统治,并受驱使从事养马的工作。六胡州在高宗调露元年建置,这时唐朝正好遭遇养马大量丧失的危机,这是建置六胡州的重要原因。此外,六胡州因"以唐人为刺史",而不称羁縻州。六胡州民居于州城内的"坊"里。他们不一定都一直活动在州城之内,但应"编籍"在州城中一定区域的名称之下。     

Trajectories for Greening in China: Theory and Practice

This edited volume argues that China's development poses the greatest ever environmental challenge for the modern world in terms of speed, size and scarcity. The volume is organized around the greening of the Chinese state and society: can the inclusion of sustainable development principles into governance, management and daily practices by social actors lead to sustainable development per se? This introduction sketches the different scholarly camps around greening and sustainable development, ranging from sceptical to radical environmentalism. The contributions demonstrate that China is showing clear signs of greening as new institutions and regulations are created, environmental awareness increases and green technologies are implemented. However, the question remains whether this is sufficient to effectuate long‐term sustainable development. The key factors here are the sheer speed of China's economic growth, the size of its population, and the relative scarcity of its natural and mineral resources. Chinese development presents compelling reasons for rethinking the viability of greening. It is necessary to move beyond both alarmist visions of an environmental doomsday, and optimistic notions that incremental changes in technology, institutions and lifestyles are sufficient for sustainability. It might be more fruitful — and not only for China — to consider ‘precautionary’ rather than ‘absolute’ limits to growth.     

Greening Without Conflict? Environmentalism,NGOs and Civil Society in China

This article argues that the specific features and dynamics of China’s environmentalism can be attributed to two factors: the ‘greening’ of the Chinese state at the time when environmentalism emerged, and the alternating politics of toleration and strict control of social organizations. As a result, environmentalism has developed in a gradual way, encompassing the various forms of ‘green’ NGOs that we see in the West and the ex–socialist states of Eastern and Central Europe. Yet, on the other hand, environmentalism was also robbed of the opportunity, as well as the immediate urgency, to openly confront the government. This is where it deviates from environmentalism in the West and the former Eastern–bloc countries.     

School accessibility and academic achievement in a rural area of Taiwan

This study empirically analyzes the influence of school accessibility on student academic achievement in a rural area of Taiwan. The sample population comprised elementary and junior high-school students in Pinlin, a small village outside Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan. Data were obtained through a questionnaire survey and analyzed via linear regression and ordered logit regression for continuous grade point average and discrete letter grade, respectively. Compared with previous research, this study presents the following new findings: (1) similar to elementary-school children, travel obstacles also negatively affected learning achievement of junior high-school adolescents; (2) travel obstacles affected academic achievement more significantly for adolescents than children; and (3) travel obstacles affected letter grades more significantly than grade point averages in children. The empirical evidence indicates that travel obstacles explain the academic achievements of children and adolescents with moderate or weak significance.     

What Accounts for the Resilience and Vulnerability of Clusters? The Case of Istanbul's Film Industry

In this paper, the film cluster in Turkey's cultural capital, Istanbul, is examined with the ultimate purpose of contributing towards a better understanding of the dynamics shaping the resilience and vulnerability of clusters. The paper seeks to shed light on the issue of how and why, in the face of a similar set of threats, Hollywood has proved so resilient but Istanbul's film cluster so vulnerable. Scrutinizing the emergence and the subsequent lock-in of the particular path followed by the Istanbul cluster and investigating the attributes of the proximate business environment that have been shaped along the way reveal that sustainability of a cluster seems to depend on three interrelated factors: how the cluster participants strategically respond to the upcoming threats, the structural capacity of the cluster to overcome such threats, and finally, the macro-socio-economic conditions (both at the national and global levels) against which the challenges occur and which mitigate or exacerbate them.     

Networks and Neolithisation: sourcing obsidian from Körtik Tepe (SE Anatolia)

This paper details the use of obsidian sourcing to reconstruct networks of interaction (or ‘communities of practice’) amongst populations of south-eastern Anatolia and the Near East in the context of ‘Neolithisation’ during the late 11th–early 10th millennia BC. EDXRF was used to elementally characterise 120 artefacts of Epi-Palaeolithic – Pre-Pottery Neolithic A date from Körtik Tepe in south-eastern Anatolia. Four eastern Anatolian sources are represented, mainly Bingöl A/B and Nemrut Da?, plus the first evidence for the use of Mu? obsidian. When the source data is integrated with the artefacts' techno-typological attributes it is possible to locate the assemblage within an Upper Tigris tradition (with some interesting local differences), which stands in stark contrast to contemporary practices in northern Mesopotamia and the Levant. These local and regional distinctions support recent views of the Neolithic being much more heterogeneous, with a ‘mosaic’ of community-specific/local traditions of subsistence practices, raw material choices and lithic technologies during the Younger Dryas–Early Holocene.