The Chinese developmental state during the Cold War: the making of the 1956 twelve-year science and technology plan

Abstract

In 1956, the government of the People’s Republic of China made a 12-year plan for scientific and technological developments (‘The Long-term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology for 1956–1967’), often credited as a visionary blueprint for its nuclear weapons programs and industrialization. Yet, this study suggests that the plan was not the logical manifestation of a unified national leadership, but rather the result of political contestations and compromises among the Communist party-state leaders, especially between Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and between the state and the scientific–technological elite. It further indicates that the making of Chinese science and technology policy was shaped by the cold war geopolitics, national developmental aspirations and transnational influences, especially from the Soviet Union and the USA.     

Planning Culture—A Concept to Explain the Evolution of Planning Policies and Processes in Europe?

Abstract

This article examines the complex relations between spatial planning and its cultural context (including the specific socio-economic patterns and related cultural norms, values, traditions and attitudes). To be able to analyze the extent to which spatial planning adapts to external pressures such as Europeanization, a “culturized planning model” with the three dimensions “planning artefacts”, “planning environment” and “societal environment” is used. It can be observed that the “harmonization” of spatial planning practices can result from external pressures such as EU regulations as well as (horizontal) collective learning processes. However, “harmonization” does not necessarily result in convergence. Adaptational pressures such as Europeanization often result in the customization of existing structures, frames and policies (“planning artefacts” and “planning environment”) but do not fundamentally change the underlying core cultural traits (“societal environment”). These cultural traits are quite resistant to change and help maintain a diversity of planning cultures and policies in Europe.     

从“北方谈话”到“‘三中全会’主题报告”——邓小平与中国改革开放决策的酝酿

从1978年9月访朝归来到12月举行党的十一届三中全会,从"北方谈话"到"‘三中全会’主题报告",邓小平不仅明确提出了改革开放的时代课题,而且多方面地阐明了为什么要实行改革开放、要在哪些方面改革开放和如何实行改革开放等重大问题,实际完成了中国改革开放决策的酝酿,为"三中全会"最终作出实行改革开放的伟大决策,做好了充分的思想理论准备。回顾我国改革开放决策的酝酿过程,重温邓小平当时关于改革开放的论述,对在新的历史起点上全面深化改革开放具有多方面的意义。     

明代浙江永嘉盐场的赋役改革与地方变迁

文章从明代两浙盐政变革的制度背景出发,考察永嘉盐场成弘时期的盐课改折、嘉靖前期的盐课转嫁、嘉靖后期的私盐倭乱、隆庆年间的赋役改革等历史事件,探讨该过程中州县官府与盐场地方势力之间的复杂利益博弈。对永嘉盐场的个案研究,或许有助于增进我们对明代盐场赋役制度运作和东南沿海社会变迁的理解。     

美国对建立拉美无核区问题的立场与对策(1962—1968)

为了避免核武器、核军备竞赛再次在拉美出现,古巴导弹危机之后,一些拉美国家提出了建立拉美无核区的设想。对该提议,美国经过考察发现此举同样有助于满足其国家安全需求,这使得约翰逊政府原则同意支持按照美国标准建立。然而,由于美国政府不同部门之间对建立拉美无核区的细节问题存有分歧,使得美国虽然促成了拉美无核区条约的缔结,但它最终却没有签署该条约。     

明代勋爵承袭与勋臣宗族活动初探

明代公、侯、伯勋爵承袭遵照一套完整的勘验制度,以诰券、宗图为准,由五府、吏部执行。在这种制度的整肃下,勋贵家族组织在形式上向上古封建宗法礼制靠拢,部分族众的宗族意识不断提高,明皇朝的统治秩序与政权合理性亦借此彰显。但随着明代中后期勋臣家族生齿日繁,兼之勋爵袭封制度出现纰漏与畸变,勋贵子弟争袭爵位的现象频繁发生,宗族的秩序性受到冲击,勋臣宗族组织僵化复古,依附于国家强权而缺乏自我调节功能的特性暴露无遗。     

湘淮集团与19世纪60年代上海的崛起

19世纪60年代,是上海从"江南的上海"向"上海的江南"过渡的关键时期。这一时期,湘淮集团一方面通过解除太平军对上海围困,解决在此过程中产生的诸多社会问题,有效控制了上海的军政大权;另一方面通过采取系列的手段和措施,以处理日显复杂的上海中外关系,为上海的发展创造了一个相对安定和平的环境,从而成为了19世纪60年代上海崛起的一个重要因素。     

Public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This article reviews publications on public administration in the Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS). A distinction needs to be drawn between public administration as a discipline and as a field of inquiry that engages specialists from several areas. The latter has been more significant in Australia in contrast to Europe and the United States. The questions discussed in the AJPS cover changes in the field and practice of public administration; the state and government; the structures of local government, public organisation and federalism; interfaces between public administration and other sectors and institutions; and issues with public sector reform and accountability. Despite the emphasis on governance in discourse and practice, the role of government continues to be central, and what emerges from experiments in new governance is that the authority of government and the significance of hierarchy (compared to markets and networks) very often remains pivotal.     

Masculinity and political geographies in England,Ireland and North America

Historians have recently turned their attention to the place of masculinity in the politics of early-modern England. This essay widens that exploration to include the imperial settings of Ireland and North America. Drawing upon a range of English- and Irish-language sources – including political treatises, maps, state papers and court poetry – it contends that manhood, as a relational value between men, helped structure the form and character of politics in the metropole, the kingdom of Ireland and the American colonies. In all of those settings, the definition of acceptable male behaviour was different, the effect being that political action and theory in each place took on unique features. Consequently, the essay cautions against studying England and its colonies as distinct units of historical analysis and calls for further exploration of the particularities of colonial settings and their influence on the imperial centre. Moreover, the essay aims to demonstrate that masculinity, particularly contest over its proper expression, is an agent in historical change, in this case helping to shape political theory and practice as England developed into a multiple monarchy and budding imperial power in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.     

The geography of transnational adoption: kin and place in globalization

International adoption involves crossing borders; it invokes space and geography as adoptive parents imagine distant countries, as children are moved from one nation to another, and as adoptees and their families return to their countries of origin. The spatiality of belonging and identity – but also of trauma and violence – are central concerns for the people involved and to the operations of their cultural, political, and legal practice. Yet surprisingly, cultural geographers have not yet developed a conceptualization of transnational adoption that theorizes it as a constitutive aspect of geographies of migration, domestic geographies, and geography of childhood. In this issue we seek to set out an agenda for the cultural and political geographies of transnational adoption. We do so by discussing three interrelated themes: the adoption-migration nexus, geographies of relatedness, and the biopolitics of mobility.