The place of politics and the politics of place: Housing,the Labour Party and the local state in England

This paper argues that geographical research needs to pay greater attention to political parties and their relationship to local governing. In returning to, and updating the concept of the local state, analysis of local socio-spatial and political relations reveals the quieter registers of political power in local governing, and in turn what this means for the condition of local democracy. The long-term housing regeneration of a neighbourhood in Gateshead, North East England is used here as an optic to do just that. Through moments of housing activism, the social and political relations between and within a local Labour Party and local state are considered. A local manifestation of a growing trend that questions the representation of mature structures of power that the Labour Party holds in deindustrialised areas of the UK is considered through struggles over decision-making, belonging, representation and legitimacy. Such accounts of the local scale are critical in relation to global political trends; where apathy, cynicism, lack of expectation and representation and insurgent populist parties are increasingly framed as potential political crises of mature western democracies.     

文明“早熟”与中国古代亲属称谓的泛化

中国古代的亲属称谓不仅标识特定的血缘与姻亲关系,同时以多种途径泛化并用于政治及社会领域。泛化的亲属称谓加强了非亲属成员或组织之间的联系,同时在非亲属成员或组织之间构建了等差有序的责权规范和行为准则。泛化的亲属称谓,旨在凭借血缘组织的力量强化政治控制和社会交往,体现了古人以“循名责实”的方式推进政治、社会关系“血缘化”的尝试和结果。在不同文明或民族中,亲属称谓泛化现象的程度和面貌不尽相同,这与血缘组织在该文明或民族在国家产生过程中扮演的角色,尤其是与血缘组织在国家时代政治生活中的地位高低相关。中国古代国家产生的独特方式所导致的文明“早熟”,决定了亲属称谓泛化现象在国家时代具有普遍性和典型性。     

Narratives and expert information in agenda-setting: Experimental evidence on state legislator engagement with artificial intelligence policy

Are narratives as influential in gaining the attention of policymakers as expert information, including for complex, technical policy domains such as artificial intelligence (AI) policy? This pre-registered study uses a field experiment to evaluate legislator responsiveness to policy entrepreneur outreach. In partnership with a leading AI think tank, we send more than 7300 U.S. state legislative offices emails about AI policy containing an influence strategy (providing a narrative, expert information, or the organization's background), along with a prominent issue frame about AI (emphasizing technological competition or ethical implications). To assess engagement, we measure link clicks to further resources and webinar registration and attendance. Although AI policy is a highly technical domain, we find that narratives are just as effective as expert information in engaging legislators. Compared to control, expert information and narratives led to 28 and 34 percent increases in policymaker engagement, respectively. Furthermore, higher legislature professionalism and lower state-level prior AI experience are associated with greater engagement with both narratives and expert information. Finally, we find that policymakers are equally engaged by an ethical framing of AI policy as they are with an economic one. The findings advance efforts to bridge scholarship on policy narratives, policy entrepreneurship, and agenda-setting.     

Universalism within: The tension between universalism and community in progressive ideology

Social-democratic parties face a dilemma between the universalist ethos of their socialist tradition and the nationalism that they share with the other political actors of the state where they act. In this paper, we examine comparatively the position of the Spanish party Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and the Catalan party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) on three political debates that pertains to the link between welfare and identity in Spain. We show how these parties experience opposite tensions between nationalism and the universalism of their left-wing ideology. Whereas ERC calls for a withdrawal from the Spanish system of social security, the PSOE advocates imposing on Catalonia a symmetric form of solidarity with the rest of Spain, despite recognising the region's different identity. Above all, both parties take identity for granted as a pre-political factor that ‘naturally’ justifies differential treatment, according to ERC, or equalising federalism, in the case of the PSOE.     

Recent Advances in Maya Archaeology

This paper focuses on the discoveries of the last decade in Maya archaeology, and assesses their impact on previous models and synthetic frameworks. Although the bibliography includes 700 items published during the last 10 years, it is not exhaustive; on the contrary, a frustratingly large number of discoveries had to be omitted. Two areas exploding with new research are (1) the elicitation of a greater variety of data from hieroglyphic texts, and (2) a series of chemical and biological breakthroughs in the analysis of human burials. The former make it easier to assess the role of elite actors or agents in processes of sociopolitical change. The latter hold out the hope of documenting warfare (through skeletal trauma), migration (by tracing tooth enamel isotopes to ground water), status or gender differences in diet (through bone chemistry), and biological connections of individuals to each other and to earlier populations (through DNA). By combining these new data, we are on our way to integrating humanism and science, and to treating Maya polities as case studies in primary or secondary state formation.     

苏秉琦重建中国古史框架的努力和中国文明起源研究--苏秉琦与中国文明起源研究之五

从考古学角度研究中国古史,是苏秉琦晚年学术研究的主要奋斗目标,但明确提出考古学研究要直接面对中国古史,则是在他论述了重建中国史前史之后.1992年9月苏秉琦在<迎接中国考古学的新世纪>一文中全面阐发了构建中国古史框架的重要学术思想,提出了中国国家起源发展经历了"古国--方国--帝国"三个阶段和对中华民族多元一体格局形成与发展的宏观认识,肯定玉器的出现作为"上万年的文明启步",辽西地区由民族向国家发展的转折点的时间在距今七八千年,开始将红山文化"坛、庙、冢"等遗存的文化性质确定为早期城邦式原始国家,即古国,并将陶寺文化的社会定位于方国进而又改定为古国.     

徐州狮子山汉墓墓主考略

从墓葬形制、随葬器物及建筑耗时几方面考察,狮子山汉墓墓主为西汉第二代楚王刘郢(客)。若此,对于探讨西汉横穴崖洞墓的起源及形制演变具有重要意义。     

黄山市入境国外旅游市场亲景度与竞争态分析

国际旅游客源市场的规模与质量直接影响旅游地旅游业的外向度,而外向度的提高是旅游地塑造国际化品牌形象,增加外汇收入,提高经济效益的基础。本文依据黄山市入境国外旅游市场1995-2005年的相关统计数据,通过亲景度、竞争态以及亲景度与竞争态的相关分析,认为客源市场亲景度的差异是导致市场竞争态差异的主要原因之一。最后文章对黄山市今后拓展入境国外旅游市场提出了对策与建议。如开通直航包机,多参加国际性旅游交易会,在境外召开产品说明会或旅游推介会,邀请境外旅行商和主流新闻媒体来黄山市考察,联合其他旅游城市共同促销等。     

Tracing Imaginations of the State: The Spatial Consequences of Different State Concepts among Asylum Activist Organisations

Abstract: This paper examines the spatial consequences for activism of viewing the state through either a statist or post‐structural lens. It is argued that understanding the state in different ways produces very different spatial strategies among activists. Drawing upon detailed case studies of two asylum‐seeking activist organisations in the UK, the connections between imaginations of the state, spatial strategies towards institutionalised authority, and the pros and cons of these strategies for activism itself are examined. Through these cases, the paper emphasises the importance of everyday theories about the state not only for understanding what the state is, but also for understanding how relationships with the state are formed and points towards the constructive power of imaginations of the state in their own right.     

Challenging New State Spatialities: The Open Marxism of Henri Lefebvre

Abstract: It is possible to identify a subterranean tradition within Marxism—one in which dialectical thought is harnessed not only to expose the necessarily exploitative and inherently crisis‐prone character of capitalism as an actual system of social organisation, but also to critique the very categories that constitute capitalism as a conceptual system. This paper argues that Henri Lefebvre's work can be included within this tradition of “open Marxism”. In demonstrating how Lefebvre's work on everyday life, the production of space and the state derives from his open approach, the paper flags a potential problem of antinomy in an emergent new state spatialities literature that draws upon Lefebvre to supplement its structuralist–regulationist (“closed”) Marxist foundations. A Lefebvre‐inspired challenge is therefore established: that is, to develop a critique of space which does not substitute an open theory of the space of political economy with a closed theory of the political economy of the regulation of space.