Understanding Federalism

Abstract

Communitarians have expressed deep suspicion over the burgeoning project of human biological enhancement. This is hardly surprising because the best defenses of enhancement have largely treaded on libertarian-consequentialist grounds; they have ignored sentiments that communitarians prize most: features like love, care, belongingness, and solidarity. But defenses of enhancement need not necessarily rely on the liberal image of moral agents; it is possible to defend even evasive biological alterations in ways congenial to communitarian sympathies. The sentiments are elusive things, and they invariably motivate human action in often surprising and unobvious ways. Looking to the history of political thought, a close read of Adam Smith reveals that he defended technological artifice as a means to protect the human propensities toward love and belongingness.     

China’s new Eurasian ambitions: the environmental risks of the Silk Road Economic Belt

China is moving ahead with the Silk Road Economic Belt, an ambitious infrastructure development agenda with the distinct promise of regional and sub-regional economic development. However, the initiative will create new environmental risks across the entire Eurasian continent, especially in countries with predominately poor records of environmental governance, including the former Soviet republics and Russia. Concurrently, on the domestic front, the Chinese Government has launched a new policy paradigm, “ecological civilization,” to dramatically improve environmental regulations, reduce pollution, and transform industries by adopting new green technologies and higher environmental standards. But does China’s intention to go through a “green shift” domestically resonate with these new transborder infrastructure development mega-projects? This paper will attempt to answer this question by juxtaposing China’s new domestic policy paradigm with environmental standards currently proposed in its global outreach projects focusing on China-northern Eurasia and China-Russia, including trade exchanges in natural resources.