Direct democracy and intergenerational conflicts in ageing societies

To evaluate the potential effects of population ageing on the outcomes of direct democracy, we analyze the effect of age on voting decisions in public referendums. In a case study of the Stuttgart 21 referendum on one of the largest infrastructure projects in Germany, we find that support for the project decreased significantly in age. A quantitative review of the relevant literature affirms that similar lifecycle patterns appear to be the norm in referendums on projects that require initial expenditures and pay off in the long run. Population ageing, thus, presents a potential threat to investment-like reform projects.     

Sustainable management of metallurgical forest on Mont Lozère (France) during the Early Middle Ages

Mont Lozère, located in the French Massif Central region, provides an exceptional context in which to research the impact that charcoal production and metallurgy had on woodlands, along with the role that these activities played in changing the mountain landscape. This study provides an insight into the land use, forest management methods and metallurgical practices in the area during the Middle Ages (11th to 15th centuries). Medieval charcoal burning platforms, archaeological remains that have often been neglected in the past as a source of historical information, along with nearby smelting sites, were identified, sampled and analysed. In this paper, spatial analyses, radiocarbon dating and anthracological and dendro-anthracological studies have been combined in a unique manner. The results reveal that charcoal burners practiced beech coppicing, where the species and diameter of wood used remained the same over a period of four centuries. It is proposed that this form of metallurgical forest management be considered an early example of a sustainable utilisation of natural resources.     

What Can Causal Process Tracing Offer to Policy Studies? A Review of the Literature

Causal process tracing (CPT) has emerged as an important method of causal inference in qualitative social science research, most notably in case study research designs. There is now a considerable literature on the aims, philosophical groundings, and methods of process tracing. This paper reviews the CPT literature to assess what new directions it may suggest for policy studies. The first part of the paper sets out the methodological advantages CPT offers in building and testing theories of policy change, most notably in supporting a theoretical pluralism to address the problem of complexity in policy studies. Building on recent scholarship across the social sciences, the second part examines step by step the recently minted “best practice” for undertaking CPT in policy studies. This part includes discussion of the possible pitfalls of CPT as a method; common errors involved in its use are set out and minimization strategies offered. In particular, while acknowledging the usefulness of Bayesian tests for causality as heuristic devices, we emphasize the limitations of applying such tests in practice. Possible correctives are suggested. The final part of the paper speculates more generally on the potential of CPT to improve our investigation of patterns of policy change over time.     

Publications briefly noted

China

ANGELA ZITO. Of Body and Brush: grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth‐Century China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. xix, 311 pp. US$17.95, paper.

JAMES D. SEYMOUR and RICHARD ANDERSON. New Ghosts Old Ghosts: prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. xvii, 313 pp. Bibliography, tables, charts, maps, index. No price given, hardcover.

ANDREW NATHAN. China's Transition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. xiv, 313 pp. US$27.50, paper.

Y. M. YEUNG and DAVID K. Y. CHU (eds). Guangdong: survey of a Province Undergoing Rapid Change, 2nd ed. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998. xviii, 536 pp. HK$310.00, hardcover.

Japan and Korea

STEVEN D. CARTER (ed & trans). Unforgotten Dreams: poems by the Zen Monk Shotetsu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. xxx, 232 pp. US$19.00, paper.

LAURA HEIN and MARK SELDEN (eds). Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. 300 pp. US$19.95, paper.

ROY STARRS. An Artless Art: the Zen Aesthetic of Shiga Naoya. Surrey: Curzon Press, 1998. 261 pp. US$47.00, hardcover.

VICTOR ARGY and LESLIE STEIN. The Japanese Economy. London: Macmillan, 1997. 379 pp. £47.50, hardcover; £17.50, paper.

MARISAKO and HIROKI SATO (eds). Japanese Labour and Management in Transition: diversity, Flexibility and Participation. London: Routledge, 1997. 344 pp. £50.00, hardcover; £14.99, paper.

KEVIN WATKINS. Economic Growth with Equity: lessons from East Asia. Oxford: Oxfam, 1998. 160 pp. £6.95, paper.

South Asia

S. W. R. DE A. SAMARASINGHE and VIDYAMALI SAMARASINGHE. Historical Dictionary of Sri Lanka (Asian/Oceanian Historical Dictionaries, no. 26) Lanham, Md. and London: Scarecrow Press, 1998. xliii, 214 pp. Chronology, appendices, bibliography. US$38.50, hardcover.

Southeast Asia

HERMAN C. KEMP. Bibliographies on Southeast Asia. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998. Bibliographical Series no 22. xix, 1128 pp. NLG 175, paper.

DAVID LEE (ed). Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937–49, volume XV: Indonesia 1949. Canberra: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1998. xxv, 675 pp. A$57.50, hardcover; $37.50, paper.

J. TH. LINDBLAD (ed). Historical Foundations of a National Economy in Indonesia, 1890s‐1990s. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen, 1996 (Verhandelingen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, deel 167). viii, 427 pp. NLG 95, paper.

MANUEL F. MONTES. The Currency Crisis in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, third reprint (updated), 1998. xxxvii, 88 pp. US$24.00, hardcover; US$17.90, paper.

DANG PHONG and MELANIE BERESFORD. Authority Relations and Economic Decision‐making in Vietnam: an Historical Perspective. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 1998. 117 pp. £30.00.

BOB REECE. Masa Jepun: Sarawak under the Japanese 1941–1945. N.p.: Sarawak Literary Society, n.d. xix, 254 pp. No price given, hardcover.

D. S. RANJIT SINGH and JATSWAN S. SIDHU. Historical Dictionary of Brunei Darussalam. Lanham, MD and London: Scarecrow Press, 1997. xliv, 179 pp. Asian/ Oceanian Historical Dictionaries no. 25. 9 maps. US$64.00, hardcover.

C. VAN DIJK and J. LEEMBURG‐DEN HOLLANDER. European Directory of South‐East Asian Studies, x, 618 pp. NLG 40.

JORGE MANUEL DOS SANTOS ALVES. O Dominio do Norte de Sumatra. A historia dos sultanatos de Samudera‐Pacem e de Achem e das suas relacoes com os Portugueses (1500–1580) . Lisbon: Sociedade Historica da Independencia de Portugal, 1999.

General Asia

TON OTTO and AD BORSBOOM (eds). Cultural Dynamics of Religious Change in Oceania. Verhandelingen 176. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997. viii, 144 pp. NLG 40, paper.

RONG‐I WU and YUN‐PENG CHU (eds). Business, Markets and Government in the Asia Pacific: competition Policy, Convergence and Pluralism. London: Routledge, 1998. x, 348 pp. Bibliography, figures, tables, index. £19.99, paper.

DARRELL Y. HAMAMOTO and RODOLFO D. TORRES (ed). New American Destinies: a Reader in Contemporary Asian and Latino Immigration. London: Routledge, 1997. 350 pp. £16.99, paper.

RUTH HAYHOE and JULIA PAN (eds). East‐West Dialogue in Knowledge and Higher Education. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. xvii, 316 pp. US$72.95, hardcover.

EVA‐MARIE KROLLER, ALLAN SMITH, JOSUA MOSTOW, ROBERT KRAMER (eds). Pacific Encounters: the Production of Self and Others. Vancouver: Institute of Asian Research, 1997. 217 pp. CAN$19.95, paper.

INSTITUTE OF ASIAN RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. The Empowerment of Asia: reshaping Global Society. Vancouver: The Institute, University of British Columbia, c. 1998. 137 pp. CAN$10.00, paper.

ROBERT ALDRICH and JOHN CONNELL. The Last Colonies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xiv, 335 pp. A$59.95, hardcover.

R. F. WAITERS and T. G. McGEE, with GINNY SULLIVAN (eds). Asia‐Pacific: new Geographies of the Pacific Rim. Bathurst, NSW: Crawford House Publishing, 1997. xxi, 362 pp. No price given, paper.

HAIDER A. KHAN. Technology, Development and Democracy: limits of National Innovation Systems in the Age of Postmodernism. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1998. x, 198 pp. £49.95, hardcover.     

Local Government Policymaking and Management in Russia

Local government in Russia is characterized by the collapse of traditional relationships between legislative and executive powers and between different levels of executive and legislative hierarchies. The re-definition of these relationships involves a struggle for power pursued against a backdrop of radical systemic change in the economic and social spheres. These changes are accompanied by a breakdown (and gradual realignment) of the system of distribution, which has accelerated the process of economic and social destabilization in the larger cities. The response of local administrations to the problems generated has been hampered by the fiscal crisis that affects both national and local levels of government. This article reviews the changing relationship between governmental levels and between legislative and executive powers in the context of these broader developments, and in the context of Russian and Soviet traditions of local government. Overall the article notes the perceived failure of the democratization of the legislature at local level to deal with the crisis, and the consequent shift of power towards a strengthened executive.     

Shifting narrative strategies: How monument advocates change their stories in response to conflict over time

This paper expands the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) by employing an exploratory case study approach to examine the construction of narratives temporally. A large-N Twitter dataset concerning the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments controversy is utilized to examine the question: how does the use of narrative strategies change over time? Through the application of change-point analysis, we determine time points of significant shifts towards use of the devil-angel shift, scope of the conflict, and causal mechanism strategies. Overall, we find that organizations do not vary their use of narrative strategies over the course of a policy conflict but instead demonstrate discrete changes in response to certain policy events. Based on our findings, we conclude with suggestions for refining and expanding NPF hypotheses. Specifically, we recommend a more contextual analysis of shifts in narrative strategy use in response to specific events over time.     

上海市空间扩展与环境演化的若干问题

首先分析了上海城市地域结构变化的特点,指出其动因是产业结构的变化;然后结合21世纪上海国际性和现代化的发展方向探讨了上海区域环境的现状问题,究其原因是老市区工业、人口的过度集中和基础设施、绿化不足,并有针对性地提出了若干措施。