Reconceptualizing the Policy Subsystem: Integration with Complexity Theory and Social Network Analysis

The concept of the policy subsystem is an essential building block for several of the basic frameworks of policy process studies. Over time issues have become more complex, crossing subsystem boundaries, and so subsystems have escalated in their complexity as well. It is increasingly insufficient to study just one policy subsystem and so scholars have turned to studying boundary‐spanning regimes or policy networks. In this essay, we review the major contributions to developing the concept of a policy subsystem and trace its evolution into broader conceptualizations like issue and policy networks. We argue that the future for theories of the policy process is in more explicit integration of complexity theory and more effective modeling of subsystems with the utilization of social network analysis. In closing, we discuss the enduring nature of the concept of policy subsystems and highlight studies that continue using it in innovative ways.     

中国公共图书馆时空格局演变及影响因素研究

以1994-2013年中国县域公共图书馆数据为研究基础,运用数理统计和GIS空间分析方法揭示了中国公共图书馆的时空格局及其演变规律,采用多元回归分析和地理探测器分析其时空分异的影响因素及强度差异,并探究其影响机制。结果表明：①中国公共图书馆的整体发展水平持续提升,不同等级公共图书馆的数量结构特征展现出由“金字塔型”向“哑铃型”演变的态势;②中国公共图书馆在空间上的等级扩散效应较为显著,其集聚水平逐步下降,趋向空间均衡分布方向发展;③中国公共图书馆密度分布总体上呈现出逐年提高的趋势,但区域间公共图书馆发展水平的差距在进一步扩大,表现出“东高西低、南高北低”的空间分布格局;④中国公共图书馆时空分布格局是经济、社会、文化、政策等诸多因素共同作用的结果,不同时期和不同地区公共图书馆时空分异的主导因素及其作用强度存在差异。     

华北平原农村居民点演变及社会经济影响因素分析

基于遥感图像分类解译数据,利用位序-规模模型、洛伦兹曲线、景观指数,定量识别了2000-2015年华北平原农村居民点空间分布、规模与形态演变特征,分析了社会经济因素的驱动机制。结果表明：华北平原农村居民点南-北方向呈显著的空间分异与集聚特征,密度分布呈现南密北疏的态势,与面积规模分布存在局域负相关;农村居民点景观指数显示出密度增大、形状更加规则、斑块面积差异增大、斑块间邻近距离不断缩短的变化特征;总人口数量和乡村户数等对农村居民点用地扩张具有促进作用,乡村常住人口、乡村从业人员数量等的作用为负。     

陕西近年出土的水牛遗存及中国本土水牛的进化

本文分析了陕西渭河流域新出土的更新世杨氏水牛和全新世的圣水牛头骨和颅后骨,并对比了其他地区出土的水牛标本。作者根据新的资料讨论了水牛种属的分类、进化及驯化问题。渭河流域在更新世时期至少有圣水牛,它很可能是更新世短角水牛的后代。它在进入全新世之前形体也许有所减小;但全新世早、中期(距今8000-3000年),没有迹象表明它的形体有所缩小,圣水牛的这一变化应该不是受人类活动影响(如驯化)的结果,但是否为适应气候变化而发生还有待研究。     

中国城镇化进程的科学思辨

城镇化推动了我国经济社会快速发展,并大大提高了居民的生活生产条件。然而,近十年来,我国城镇化却脱离了循序渐进的原则,出现了"冒进式"城镇化的现象。本文通过合理评价我国城镇化速度、正确对待我国城镇化进程、科学分析"冒进式"城镇化与空间失控的原因等几个方面的深刻阐述之后,提出了我国城镇化健康发展的规划策略。     

平粮台龙山文化遗存分析

平粮台城址是新石器时代中晚期域址中非常典型的一个代表,本文借鉴西方环境考古与聚落考古学的理论和方法,着重从聚落形态的角度出发,用考古材料研究社会关系,具体在各种物质遗存中从政治权利、阶层分化、生产生活、组织规划、民风民俗、神灵信仰等方面抽取提炼出非物质的信息,重建其社会组织结构,复原地区聚落模式和社会复杂化进程,以取得...     

1. CONSTRUCTING A SELECTIONIST PARADIGM

In his latest contribution to the application of Darwinian evolutionary thinking to the social sciences, W. G. Runciman conceives of human behavior as resulting from three levels of selection—biological, cultural, and social. These give rise, respectively, to evoked, acquired, and imposed patterns of behavior. The biological level is hardly controversial, but to draw a distinction between separate cultural and social selective processes is more problematic. Runciman takes memes to be the variants competitively selected at the cultural level and the practices constituting rule‐governed roles to be the variants competitively selected at the social level—thus preserving separate spheres of research for anthropology and sociology. It is not clear, however, what drives cultural and social evolution. Nor are the three levels theoretically well integrated. The book's strength lies in the numerous examples provided of how the application of selectionist theory illuminates and enriches sociological and historical explanations and contributes to the construction of historical narrative.     

Scales and Skills of Monopoly Power: Labor Geographies of the 1890–1891 Chicago Carpenters’ Strike

Abstract: This paper builds upon labor geography's contributions to our understanding of the role of workers in the production of scale. In addition to examining exactly how a particular group of workers controlled the scale of their labor market, this paper theorizes the connections between that process and struggles over monopoly power. The 1890–1891 Chicago carpenters’ strike, a work stoppage of significance to both the direction of labor politics within Chicago and to the broader 8 h movement in North America at the end of the nineteenth century, serves as a case study.     

大别山解放区土改政策演变探析

大别山解放区土改政策的演变深受政治、军事环境影响。最初受我强敌弱和老区经验影响,实行彻底土改,取得一些成效。但随着后来敌强我弱,对形势估量不够和其他主观错误,没有及时转变政策,造成"急性土改",给干部群众造成很大损失。认识到错误后,在中央和毛泽东指示下又实施分地区分阶段有步骤的土改政策。最后根据中央指示重点实施统一战线性质的减租减息政策。土改政策演变过程是一个政策日趋符合实际的过程,体现着土改与军事、干部、群众等工作的互动,充满着中央和地方的思考交流,展示着毛泽东的从谏善断、邓小平的求实思考。大别山解放区土改政策的演变非常典型,为全国其他新区的土改提供了重要借鉴。     

DARWINIAN WE ARE NOT: COUNTERFACTUALISM AS THE NATURAL COURSE OF HISTORY

This article considers Peter Bowler's recent contribution to the genre of counterfactual history as exemplifying a “restrained” counterfactual framework, one that must downplay the role of contingency in the historical process in order to present what Bowler calls a more “natural course” of historical development. This restrained counterfactual methodology is discussed with reference to analogous debates within evolutionary science about the competing roles of contingency and convergence in the history of life, along with recent work done within the humanities about the more subtle nuances of counterfactual reasoning. Although there is little doubt that Bowler's study will help legitimize the genre of counterfactual history, it is argued that the role of contingency—once thought to be integral to the counterfactual—has been necessarily minimized in order to construct a narrative that is a plausible counterfactual history of science. It is in this way that Bowler's world without Darwin sheds light on our historiographical preconceptions about what makes for a plausible historical narrative.