The Service Sector in the Chinese Economy: A Geographic Appraisal

A U.S.-based economic geographer and observer of China's economy examines the rapid expansion of the country's largely overlooked service sector, at both the national and regional levels. A particular focus of the author's research is on identifying regional variations in the development of services within the country and exploring some of the more important contributing factors. Based on the findings, the paper also discusses structural shifts that occurred in China's regional economies, disclosing inter alia that inequality in the contribution of services to GDP did not follow the same trajectory as that of employment in services. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L800, O180, P230. 6 figures, 4 tables, 82 references.     

盛世隐忧：从乾嘉文治看清朝由盛而衰

以盛世光环载入史册的乾隆朝在文治领域潜伏着重重隐忧。当时朝廷重视经学,而思想上却不认同民间汉学;虽然承袭庙堂理学,却对其内圣外王鲜有心得,并且压制朝野理学的发展。同时,统治者的信仰世界混乱、迷茫。嘉庆朝的经学政策略有调整,重新重视理学,又强调以勤简为政,但总体上缺少新意,无济于事,清中期遂成武功彰显而文治偏失的格局。这也是清朝由盛而衰的重要根源。     

Governing the inner “periphery.” Spatial security governance of the Highlands in Papua New Guinea since the colonial period

Specific regions and places are considered particular threatening and dangerous by state authorities. There, the state regularly enacts security in harsh and violent ways. In this article, I develop a pragmatic spatial framework, inspired by and combining elements from post-statist geography and Critical Security Studies, to explain patterns of spatial security governance in regions with competing local authorities and regular violence. I particularly argue for more historical analysis on the emergence and legacies of spatial security governance to understand its persistence and consequences. I illustrate the framework with an empirical investigation of the spatial security governance of the Highland regions in Papua New Guinea, and its role as a dangerous inner “periphery” for the central state since the late colonial period. The patterns of security governance in the Highlands, like the declaration of emergency zones in case of regional warfare, the use of violent punitive expeditions by mobile forces, accompanied by a securitizing discourse, have remained remarkably similar. While the post-colonial state aimed at a break with the colonial past, the spatial security governance of the Highlands has remained an important source for the legitimization of state rule and state formation. Governing the inner “periphery” is constructed as the responsibility of the state, which has been historically entangled in the “violent geographies” in the Highlands.     

The politics of discretion: Authority and influence in asylum dispersal

This paper considers how discretion, understood as both a capacity to make decisions and a form of influence that is often hidden, operates within the accommodation and support of asylum seekers. Combining critical discussions of discretion with accounts of a ‘local turn’ in migration policy, I argue that discretion plays a key role in shaping how policy is implemented and offers insight into the changing governance of asylum at national and local levels. Drawing on empirical material examining the development of the UK's asylum dispersal system, the paper extends accounts of discretion beyond ‘street-level’ to argue for a focus on how discretion reflects different claims to institutional authority. Addressing four accounts of discretion in dispersal, I argue that tracing discretion can offer insights into how ‘implementation gaps’ in asylum policy are negotiated and how tensions between national and local governments are contained. Tracing discretion in this way may advance critical interrogations of power relations in welfare bureaucracies and develop understandings of institutional agency and influence within liberal democracies.     

The socio-ecological fix by multi-scalar states: The development of ‘Greenways of Paradise’ in Chengdu

This paper examines the recent green turn in China by investigating a large-scale urban greenway project. Using the perspective of the socio-ecological fix, we demonstrate that multi-scalar states strive to upgrade environmental quality. Specifically, the local state seizes the opportunity for ‘ecological civilisation’ envisioned by the central state to carry out green infrastructure development. We reveal complex motivations to incorporate ecological changes into entrepreneurial urban governance instead of encroaching greenspace for economic growth. Our state-centred analysis reveals that such an environmental strategy, the making of Chinese green urbanism, is promoted like a political mission, despite its operation by the development corporation. We argue that, while the socio-ecological fix facilitates capital accumulation, its deployment must be understood through state politics and actors.     

Staking claims: Hybrid governance and state-making on the North Kosovo frontier

This article examines how state and non-state actors claim public authority in areas of contested sovereignty. It develops the concept of the frontier as a point of departure. As zonal spaces of weakly established or overlapping authority, frontiers have historically been sites of collaboration between state and non-state actors. Extending the concept to shed light on contemporary forms of state and non-state governing arrangements, I argue that frontiers can be can also be analysed across specific domains of public authority. I highlight three domains in particular: the symbolic domain, where the state is imagined as a collective actor; the contractual domain, which depends on the use of public services to establish a social contract; and the protective domain, the classic Hobbesian justification for the state as a provider of security. Applying the frontier framework to North Kosovo, I argue that Serbia has sustained a near monopoly over the symbolic and contractual domains in the contested region yet is severely constrained in the protective domain. As a result, Belgrade has relied on outsourcing authority to local illicit actors to maintain leverage. However, these actors have also carved out their own autonomous forms of authority and actively manipulate the ambiguous political boundaries in North Kosovo to their advantage.     

大都市区跨界地区空间演化及动力机制研究

本文结合中央—地方政府管治特征,以临沪地区为实证案例,提出大都市区跨界地区在中央政府和地方政府协调治理下经历了三个阶段的发展。现阶段发展目标和治理主体均呈现出不同于以往的新特征：在区县级地方政府和省市级地方政府以提升地区竞争力为目标的企业型治理下,跨界地区逐渐兴起并实现社会经济的快速发展;在中央政府运动型治理下,跨界地区进入以协调区域功能为主的发展阶段。随着跨界发展不断深入,跨界地区空间结构由散点式分布转为以开发区为核心的产城融合空间,最终转型为融入中心城市网络的重要节点。研究总结了大都市区跨界地区各阶段发展的时空格局,提出跨界地区发展的治理逻辑及其动力机制,对区域协同治理提供了经验借鉴。     

旅游目的地忠诚度：一个历时态的概念模型

本文在对国外相关文献中旅游目的地忠诚度概念及其测量维度进行系统梳理的基础上,从目的地忠诚度形成的阶段性和动态性出发,构建了一个基于历时态视角的旅游目的地忠诚度概念模型。在厘清了态度、意向、行为和累积行为忠诚度的概念、形成过程及影响关系后,本文认为,旅游目的地忠诚度是一个由多个忠诚度维度构成的阶段性变量,在时间上呈现为一个周期性的连续演进过程。     

基于多层次灰色方法的旅游地产项目开发风险评价模型及实证研究

旅游地产是将旅游业和房地产两大产业融合而衍生出的一种新型地产开发模式,目前已经引起各地政府的高度重视,但在实际的开发与运行中存在着很大的风险性。因此本文对于旅游地产项目的开发风险从量化的角度进行分析评价,通过构建旅游地产项目开发风险的评价指标体系,以及采用主观的层次分析法与客观的变异系数法相结合的方法确定综合权重,以此建立起基于多层次灰色模型的旅游地产项目开发风险评价模型。并以A企业为例进行了实证研究,结果显示A企业的旅游地产项目开发风险处于一般风险与较低风险之间,适合进行项目的开发与投资。     

The Magic of Money and the Magic of the State: Fast Money Schemes in Papua New Guinea

As Keith Hart (1986) articulated in his neat phrase ‘two sides of the coin’, money and the state are inextricably intertwined. However, academic discussions of the state tend to fall under the heading of ‘governance’, with implicit reference to democratic ideals, while money is regarded as ‘economics’, a field dominated by ideas of the market. In this paper, I use material from U‐Vistract, a mass Ponzi scam to show how quasi‐magical ideas of money and wealth have grown out of the disillusioning experience of the state in its failure to deliver ‘development’. These imaginings of prosperity entail a different kind of state, based on the moral reform of Christian citizens and political leaders and the reorientation of the banking system to deliver benefits to ordinary people. As the Royal Kingdom of Papala, U‐Vistract sought to be seen to be like a Christian state and so deceived its investors into thinking that they were participating in a moral project that would allow them to redress the short‐comings of the Papua New Guinean state. As the scam took on the appearance of the state, so the state came to be seen as a scam.