‘The Next Wave of Italians Has Come to America’: Italian Investments and Business in the United States, 1980-2013

Abstract

This article examines the economic and socio-cultural impact of Italian investments and business in the United Stated from the 1980s onwards. It investigates flows, networks and ideas that have cut national boundaries and politically-defined spaces. The article argues that the last three decades of Italian investments and business in the USA have re-defined the symbolic space held by Italy and Italians in the American imagination. It also argues that the distinctive Italian contribution to the American business environment lies in the so-called ‘fourth capitalism’ and in the family business aspects of Italian Capitalism.     

Resource nationalism or resource liberalism? Explaining Australia's approach to Chinese investment in its minerals sector

Since 2005, a burgeoning wave of Chinese investments has set off a new ‘minerals boom’ in the Australian iron ore and coal mining sectors. While normally a welcome development, the state-owned and strategic nature of the investors has raised concerns in Australia about how these should be regulated. As a result, in February 2008 the Australian government declared an intention to more closely screen foreign direct investment (FDI) from state-owned sources, which both supporters and detractors alike have claimed is evidence of ‘resource nationalism’ in Australia's approach towards its trade and investment relationships with China. This article challenges this understanding through an examination of the characteristics of Chinese mining FDI, the dilemmas these present to the Australian government, and the relatively restrained nature of its response. Through this, Australia's FDI policy is explained as a defensive move against the potential for strategic behaviour by Chinese investors resulting from their state ownership, rather than any national program to subject minerals trade and investment to political control. On this basis, the article argues that Australian government policy instead evidences a ‘resource liberalism’ approach, which intends to ensure that the governance of Australia's minerals trade and investment with China remain market-based processes.     

浅谈新课程对农村中学外语教学所形成的挑战与思考

农村中学外语教学在新课程中将面临一系列新的挑战,如何认识与应对这些挑战,走出应试教学的阴影,适应课改新形势的发展需要,全面推行素质教育,大面积提高农村中学英语教学质量,有若干问题需要思考与解决。     

THE GOVERNMENT’S BUSINESS?

The engagement of Swedish industry in the Liberian American–Swedish Minerals Company (LAMCO), which mined iron in Liberia between 1963 and 1989, was the largest Swedish commercial investment in Africa during the Cold War. In this paper I investigate how political and administrative actors of the Swedish government conceptualized the link between private and public interests in the context of LAMCO’s operations, and how this shaped Swedish government policy towards the company and Liberia. I identify two phases: a phase of almost unanimous political support for LAMCO and close Swedish–Liberian relations from ca. 1955 to 1965, and a more fragmented phase following 1965, during which LAMCO was increasingly understood as a political liability. My findings show how business interests could figure into Swedish foreign policy during the Cold War, highlighting the coherence with which Swedish industry and government acted in relation to the commercial interests in Liberia before ca. 1965, but also the lack of coherence – between government and industry as well as within the state apparatus – that followed the turn to a more activist policy after the mid-1960s.     

Foreign Banking in China: A Study of 279 Branch Units in 32 Cities

Two China-based geographers examine the gradual relaxation of restrictions on the activity of foreign banks in China as a prelude to a more focused investigation of the concentrated locational pattern of foreign banking in that country. The study, which embraces 32 Chinese cities, emphasizes the factors that have attracted foreign banks to particular cities and regions of China, including the existence of special banking opportunities, the so-called "follow-the customer" strategy, externalities associated with major financial centers such as Beijing and Shanghai, relaxed banking regimes in particular urban centers and special economic zones, and exposure to international trade and to a variety of foreign business enterprises. The locational preferences of foreign banks in relation to their countries of origin are addressed in some detail.     

The Impact of Global Financial Crisis on the Mechanism of Economic Growth in Russia

A noted specialist on the Russian economy presents an assessment of the impact of the global financial crisis on the mechanism of the country's economic growth. Focusing on the demand side of the economic ledger, the author explores the question of whether Russia will be able to re-attain the high economic growth rates of the period from 2000 to 2007 after recovering from the crisis. The paper analyzes the sharp drop in production in 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, attributing most of the damage to liquidity problems and declines in the price of oil. Empirical evidence is based primarily on data collected by the author from the Central Bank of Russia and the country's federal bureau of statistics (Rosstat). Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E010, E200, E660, F210, G010. 11 figures, 3 tables, 29 references.     

Emerging Chinese Role in Shaping St. Petersburg's Urban Landscape: Interscalar Investment Strategies in the Development of a Residential Megaproject

The paper, by an American geographer, discusses the origin and development of a Chinese-financed residential megaproject (Baltic Pearl) located southwest of St. Petersburg's historical district. Viewing Baltic Pearl as reportedly the largest investment project undertaken outside China by a government-sponsored Chinese consortium, the author places it in the context of state-level Sino-Russian relations and Russian unease over the influx of Chinese migrants and culture. Reflecting the author's extensive field work in St. Petersburg and Shanghai, the focus of the paper is on the way the consortium was forced to adopt interscalar (i.e., both state and municipal/urban) strategies responsive to local conditions, providing a potentially useful precedent and model for Chinese and other investors seeking to penetrate Russia's urban markets.     

China's Exchange Rate Controversy: A Balanced Analysis

A noted American authority on China's economy and monetary policy presents a statistical as well as theoretical analysis of a variety of perspectives on the controversy surrounding China's currency, basing his paper on both. The author provides the historical background and comprehensive summaries, focusing on different viewpoints about whether China's currency is undervalued, and thus may contribute to global imbalances. In the paper, he divides observers involved in the controversy into two main camps, namely the ones who find China's trade balances to be sensitive to price effects through exchange rate adjustments and those who emphasize other factors as bearing the responsibility for China's large surpluses, including the U.S. credit bubble emerging before the global financial crisis, as well as a version of Dutch disease.     

International relations and foreign policy in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

The Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS) has evolved from a publication that deliberately relegated articles in international relations (IR) to a secondary status to one that has defined and encouraged leading-edge contributions to that field. This development can be attributed to successive AJPS editorial teams’ realisation that contemporary political problems are increasingly interconnected and that emerging approaches to IR reflect this condition. Several recent and key IR debates that have emerged within the journal’s pages are assigned special attention here: the linking of Australia’s domestic politics to that country’s foreign policy interests and behaviour; in-depth discussions that relate to ongoing trends in the international political economy; critical analysis of national defence and regional security postures; and diverse theoretical perspectives that are increasingly shaping the IR field’s paradigmatic identity. It is concluded that the AJPS is now a leading source of IR thought and discourse.     

开埠初期上海租界的水环境治理

以往学界对开埠初期上海租界水环境治理,一般采取填浜筑路的视角,而本文通过对档案资料的考察发现,租界当局对租界内的河浜采取了灵活的治理办法,对于挡路和阻碍市政的死水河浜进行填埋,而对于一般的潮汐河浜和航运河浜采取了清淤、疏通的保护措施,挖掘开通了新河浜,从而使河浜水系的功能得以延续。为了排水需要,租界当局辟建了下水道系统,其治理办法却借鉴于治河方法。