The Trade Goes,and the Flag Follows? British State Intervention and Natural Resource Extraction in Colombia, 1989–2010

During the 1960s, agents of the Colombian state began carrying out a counterinsurgency campaign against elements of the domestic population considered ‘subversive’. Subversion, according to US counterinsurgency manuals, largely translated to involvement in social organisation. As a result, trade unionists, political activists and human rights defenders in Colombia became aggressively targeted. While violence in Colombia's past has been widely documented, recent British involvement has not. The official justification for British military and police assistance, beginning in 1989, was within the context of the drug war. By drawing on a wide range of sources including newly declassified documents from the UK National Archives in Kew, this article posits that British counter-narcotics assistance was contentious in nature and ineffective in outcome. Meanwhile, this assistance lent structural and active support to the counterinsurgency conflict. In this light, the protection of British capital interest in Colombia – specifically that of British Petroleum – is analysed as a persuasive underlying motive for British military and police assistance. Finally, British Petroleum's private security strategy in Colombia is investigated as a case study in the utilisation of counterinsurgency, with the result of the near-total elimination of social organisation within its areas of operations.     

Network position and innovation capability in the regional innovation network

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the positioning of actors characterized by different natures in a regional innovation network and explores how these actors improve their innovation capabilities by assuming prominence or brokering positions. Innovation capability is widely seen to be the driving force in building regional competitive advantage, therefore investigating how the positioning of actors improves their innovation-related activities is relevant in terms of regional competitiveness. This paper builds on a survey conducted on the Sicilian regional area in Italy. A questionnaire was used to collect data concerning the relationships established between actors and the extent to which these relationships impact actors’ innovation capability. Results suggest that regional actors cannot be considered as a homogeneous group regarding their positioning in a regional network and that the innovation benefits of assuming different network positions depend on their nature. This paper offers some theoretical implications to the literature on regional innovation network and practical suggestions to organizations and regional policy makers.     

Fixing the territory,a turning point: The paradoxes of the Wichí maps of the Argentine Chaco

Indigenous mapping is a powerful political tool for long-marginalized populations to create visibility and establish land claims. In the case of Argentina, a country that was built on a denial of the presence of Indigenous peoples in the national territory, the emergence of these maps stemming from participatory processes coincided with the recognition of these communities' territorial rights in 1994. However, this mapping of Indigenous territories freezes extremely dynamic and complex socio-spatial realities just as it inflects their representations. In this paper, I reassess the weight and the role that Indigenous cartographic representations play in the evolution of these populations' spatial capital. Paradoxically, they give rise to more contradictions than they clarify. These paradoxes demonstrate the varied relationships different generations maintain with their territory, just as they concern its structure and its cartographic form. Therefore, based on the case of the Wichí of the Argentinian Chaco, this paper contributes to the understanding of contemporary issues of indigeneity by adopting a critical approach to Indigenous cartography. Whereas in Argentina cartographic knowledge is undergoing a process of decolonization, this does not apply to the legal system or to society as a whole.     

菲律宾华商网络中“头家制度”的经济学探析(1834—1942)

论文借助“博弈论”工具,结合案例分析,探讨了自1834年马尼拉开港到1942年二战菲律宾沦陷期间,“头家制度”的形成及其稳定性。研究显示,“头家制度”是建立在血缘、地缘以及华商之间信任和利益关系基础上的,其与西方基于契约基础上的信用有着本质的区别。在“头家制度”中,通过委托各地的代理商,头家一方面获得了用以出口的产品,另一方面又将进口商品通过代理商顺利地销售到菲律宾各地,不仅解决了货物流通问题,而且有效降低了交易成本。“头家制度”与华商网络之间的良性互动,最终实现了菲律宾华商杰出的商业成就。由于菲律宾华商非常注重信用和长期利益,他们之间的商业联系牢固而稳定,这不仅有效降低了华商之间的交易成本,提高了商业活动的效率,而且最终形成了一个由马尼拉向菲律宾各地辐射的菲律宾华商网络。     

环南海区域跨境航空网络空间结构演化

本研究收集2000、2010、2018年环南海区域各国家/地区间国际机场的跨境客运、货运航线和航班数目,探究近20年该区域跨境航空客运和货运网络的整体结构与空间格局演化特征,并综合客运和货运网络分析枢纽机场体系演化。研究发现：①该区域跨境航空网络的整体结构具有覆盖范围扩大、“小世界”效应明显和“无标度”特征显著的特点,但客、货运网络的演化存在差异。②该区域跨境航空客运网络具有明显的轴—辐组织结构特征,并呈现“多核心化”的演化趋势,而货运网络中以香港、新加坡为枢纽的轴—辐组织结构与局部性的“点—点”航空货运联系并存,尚未形成全局性的轴—辐组织结构。③该区域的区域客、货运枢纽机场发展呈现综合化、专业化趋势,香港（HKG）和新加坡（SIN）长期以来保持优势地位。     

Analyzing Policy Networks Using Valued Exponential Random Graph Models: Do Government‐Sponsored Collaborative Groups Enhance Organizational Networks?

This paper examines collaborative management groups from the perspective of policymakers seeking to increase coordination within a policy network. While governments often support collaborative groups as a tool to address perceived network failures such as a lack of coordination, the net impact groups have is unclear. I use valued exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to model relationships of varying strength among a regional network of organizations involved in 57 collaborative groups. This provides a unique opportunity to study the interplay between numerous groups and organizations within a large‐scale network. Valued ERGMs are a recently developed extension of standard ERGMs that model valued instead of binary ties; thus, this paper also makes a methodological contribution to the policy literature. Findings suggest that participation in collaborative groups does motivate coordination and cooperation amongst individual network organizations; however, this effect is strongest for: (i) organizations that are not already members of another group and (ii) organizations that do not have a preexisting tie. These results support a transaction‐cost–based perspective of how government‐sponsored collaborative groups can influence network coordination; further, they also provide an empirical example of the Ecology of Games, in which multiple collaborative institutions have interactive effects on one another within a policy network.     

Network analysis of tourist flows: a cross-provincial boundary perspective

In contrast to the extensive research regarding tourist flows on the international, intranational, interregional, intercity, intracity and tourism-spot scales, little attention has been paid to the cross-provincial boundary perspective. In view of the fact that China's provincial administrative boundaries have a long history and a profound influence on the society, culture and economy of neighboring provinces, this study focuses on tourist-flow networks in China that cross ‘provincial’ boundaries. Tourist-flow data from a questionnaire survey and travel-agency-recommended routes were acquired, and the social network analysis method and boundary effect analysis were adopted for the first time to study the cross-boundary tourist flows. Lugu Lake in China was selected for the case study. The spatial distribution and impact factors of cross-boundary tourist flows are discussed, and a scientific basis for future collaborations among cross-boundary tourism destinations is provided. The following conclusions are reached. (1) The spatial structure of cross-boundary tourist-flow networks is complex. There is a core–periphery structure, and each node assumes different roles and functions. (2) Cross-boundary tourist flows are significantly influenced by the boundary-shielding effect, and the properties, direction and extent of the effects are diverse and depend on accessibility, resource endowments, resource heterogeneity and the extent of regional integration. (3) Cross-boundary tourist flows are affected by a boundary-mediating effect, and structural holes play a critical role in the boundary-mediating effect and drive the integration of regional tourism.     

Estimating Antebellum Passenger Costs: A Hub-and-Spoke Approach

Abstract

Over 30,000 miles of railroad and 4,000 miles of canals were constructed in the United States between 1815 and 1861. However, the lack of data has prevented the study of this “transportation revolution” for most cities. This article thus enables a closer study of antebellum travel improvements by constructing a hub-and-spoke network that is capable of estimating the cost of passenger travel from New York City and Philadelphia to any U.S. city in 1836, 1850, 1856, 1859, and 1867. The semi-parametric approach provides an accurate cost estimate by using available historical information to determine the travel cost to all other cities.     

Reconceptualizing Major Policy Change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework: A Discourse Network Analysis of German Pension Politics

How does major policy change come about? This article identifies and rectifies weaknesses in the conceptualization of innovative policy change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework. In a case study of policy belief change preceding an innovative reform in the German subsystem of old‐age security, important new aspects of major policy change are carved out. In particular, the analysis traces a transition from one single hegemonic advocacy coalition to another stable coalition, with a transition phase between the two equilibria. The transition phase is characterized (i) by a bipolarization of policy beliefs in the subsystem and (ii) by state actors with shifting coalition memberships due to policy learning across coalitions or due to executive turnover. Apparently, there are subsystems with specific characteristics (presumably redistributive rather than regulative subsystems) in which one hegemonic coalition is the default, or the “normal state.” In these subsystems, polarization and shifting coalition memberships seem to interact to produce coalition turnover and major policy change. The case study is based on discourse network analysis, a combination of qualitative content analysis and social network analysis, which provides an intertemporal measurement of advocacy coalition realignment at the level of policy beliefs in a subsystem.     

我国旅游网站的网络结构研究——基于社会网络分析法

本文选择Google为检索工具确定154个旅游网站为研究对象,使用SocSciBot3收集上述154个网站的链接数据,采用PAJEK绘制我国旅游网站的网络结构图,并用UCINET社会网络分析软件,从网络密度、中心度、凝聚子群以及核心-边缘结构等角度对我国旅游网站的网络结构进行研究。通过研究发现我国旅游网站网络密度较低且平均距离较小、部分旅游网站的中心度较低、凝聚子群的规模不大且密度偏低、处于核心位置的网站较少等,为此建议在加强旅游网站自身建设的同时,多与其他旅游网站进行合作,加强链接,特别是友情链接的建立。