Gender relations in Bedouin communities in Israel: local government as a site of ambivalent modernity

In this article, we examine the perceptions towards women and gender relations maintained by male, local authority officials within two Bedouin towns in Israel. As such, the current research lies at the intersection of local politics, gender, space and culture. We argue that analysis of these perspectives provides insights into the ambivalent nature of modernity: into the tension between the desire to preserve the traditional role of women in maintaining the family, and the recognition of the powerful potential of women to act as agents of change. Based on an analysis of personal interviews, the study traces the ways in which both power and vulnerability impact the attitudes and perspectives of these men officials. By applying narrative analysis, gendered power structures are examined within Bedouin society in the context of the local authority – zooming in on the narratives provided by the male authority officials. The findings reveal that the officials maintain a series of ambivalent and conflictual attitudes towards the role of women. Bearing in mind their potential impact on the quality of women's daily lives in local public spaces, it seems vitally important to account for the entire matrix of tensions and vulnerabilities that impact the municipal policy instruments at their disposal. The findings are relevant beyond the Bedouin communities in Israel and may serve as a platform for a wider discussion of the dilemmas of minority women in rapidly changing cultural environments, and ambivalent modernity.     

全球—地方视角下西安市软件产业集群的创新效应研究

全球—地方关系为产业创新研究提供了新的视角。本文基于全球（通道）—本地（蜂鸣）关系视角构建了软件产业集群创新效应研究的理论框架。以西安市软件产业集群为例,采用Stata13定量分析不同尺度创新合作的创新效应及其影响因素。研究发现,本地和国际创新合作均对集群创新具有积极的影响,且后者比前者的创新效应更强,说明搭建外部通道对集群创新的必要性;本地与国际创新合作交互对不同规模的软件企业产生的创新效应不同,对小型软件企业存在减法效应,对中型软件企业存在加法效应,对大型软件企业具有乘法效应。建立领先软件企业带动的开放创新系统,是西安市软件产业集群提升创新效应的有效路径。     

Polarization and the growth of low‐skill service jobs in Spanish local labor markets

This paper analyzes the long‐term transformations of the occupational structure in 50 provinces of Spain with a view to ascertain the existence and assess the extent of employment polarization. The peculiar characteristics of this country, namely rigid labor markets and the relatively recent transition to democracy, make for an interesting addition to existing studies on this topic. In line with previous literature on other countries, we find a strong association between the decline of “routine” mid‐skill jobs and the expansion of low‐skill service employment as well as differential labor market outcomes by levels of formal education. Results are robust to various controls and instrumental variables that account for long‐term industry specialization. We also find a positive local multiplier effect of high‐skilled workers on the demand for nontradable service jobs.     

Local Institutions and Environmental Outcomes: Evidence from Wetlands Protection in Massachusetts

Community‐based efforts to address environmental problems occupy an increasingly large space on the environmental policy landscape. Advocates argue that local environmental institutions (LEIs) can deliver both procedural and environmental quality benefits. Yet, despite over a decade of expansive support, the performance of LEIs remains largely unknown, particularly with regard to environmental outcomes. In this article, we consider new environmental outcome data we compiled from local efforts to implement the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act. We find that stronger forms of LEIs generate both quantitatively and qualitatively better environmental outcomes, which suggests that LEIs may live up to their advocates’ expectations.     

明清时期广东五邑地区政区变迁研究

广东五邑地区以潭江流域为中心,是一个相对独立的地理单元,但该地的政区边界却打破了自然山川的界限。从明代到清初顺治年间,为了应对以民变为首的地方政治危机,朝廷先后在潭江流域设置了恩平、新宁、开平三县。这些县级政区的边界大致与潭江流域的地理分界线重合,地理单元的独立性开始作用于政区划界中。清代雍乾年间,形成了新会、鹤山、新宁、开平、恩平五县分治潭江流域的格局。同时,随着新会县核心政区地位的巩固,流域内各县整合为一个统县政区的倾向开始加强,为后世潭江流域的政区整合奠定基础。明清时期潭江流域的政区变迁体现了地理环境和地方政治局势在政区格局形成过程中的根本性作用。     

Assessing Seismic Behavior of a Masonry Historic Building considering Soil-Foundation-Structure Interaction (Case Study of Arge-Tabriz)

ABSTRACT

Historic heritage buildings are a part of historic basis of each society and an economic resource. Therefore, preserving and maintenance of these buildings are cultural, economic and social demand. This research investigates the seismic performance of a historical building named Arg of Tabriz (Arge Alishah) that dates back to 14th century and is located at the city center of Tabriz (NW of Iran). Static, modal, and finally nonlinear dynamic (time history) analysis were performed by both “Considering Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI)” and “fixed base (ignoring SSI)” Cases.

It is found from the results that, SSI extremely affects mode shapes and their frequencies and depending on the frequency content of the records, can has an incremental or decremental effect on structural responses. As expected, the building of Arg could carry gravity loads easily and despite its stability against earthquake loading in fixed base case, showed a weakness (especially in eastern and western walls direction) and overturned when it was analyzed in SSI case because of yielding of the surrounding soil.     

The re-emergence of wardship: Aboriginal Australians and the promise of citizenship

In this paper, I suggest that the category of ‘ward,’ a designation used for Aboriginal Australians in the 1950s and 1960s, has re-emerged in contemporary Northern Territory (NT) life. Wardship represents an in-between status, neither citizens nor non-citizens, but rather an anticipatory citizenship formation constructed by the Australian state. The ward is a not-yet citizen, and the deeds, acts, and discourses that define the ward's capacities to act as a political subject can maintain their anticipatory nature even as people ‘achieve’ formal citizenship. Wardship can be layered on top of citizen and non-citizen status alike. Rather than accounting for the grey areas between ‘citizen’ and ‘non-citizen,’ therefore, wards exist beyond this theoretical continuum, demanding a more nuanced accounting of political subjectivities and people's relationships to the state.I trace the emergence of the category ‘ward’ in the 1950s and 1960s in Australia and its re-emergence for Aboriginal Australians impacted by the 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response legislation. The promise of citizenship offered by the status of ‘ward’ is built upon expectations about family life, economic activity, and appropriate behaviour. These assumptions underscore an implicit bargain between individuals and the state, that neoliberalised self-discipline will lead to both formal citizenship rights and a sense of belonging. Built-in impediments, however, ensure that this bargain is difficult, if not impossible, to fulfil.     

Prefiguring the State

Merging means and ends, prefigurative politics perform life as it is wished‐for, both to experience better practice and to advance change. This paper contributes to prefigurative thinking in three ways. It explores what it might mean to prefigure the state as a concept; takes its inspiration from a historical episode rather than imagined time ahead; and addresses what, if anything, prefigurative conceptions can do when practiced. Central to my discussion is the plural state—taking shape as micro, city, regional, national and global formations. Plural state thinking makes room for divergent kinds of states but does not necessarily foreground progressive ones. Thus, to explore in more detail a transformative left conception of the state, discussion turns to 1980s British municipal radicalism. Taking up this adventurous episode in governing as a “thinking tool”, an imaginary of the state as horizontal, everyday, activist and stewardly emerges.     

The Street Corps of Changsha around 1920

The Changsha Street Corps originated in the local militia during the period of the Taiping Rebellion, and it played an important part in Changsha’s urban social management at the grassroots level. However, the role and influence of the street corps underwent changes during the process of modernization and the building of the modern nation–state. By 1920, although the street corps of Changsha still worked as the agent of the state at the grassroots level, its autonomy had been curtailed, and its social influence weakened. In the new social environment, even the maintenance of neighborhood interests became a challenge for the street corps. This article illustrates the readjustments in geopolitical and industrial relations during the process of urban modernization. It also illustrates how a new form of state power, namely the police, infiltrated the social management system, affected the traditional social structure, and complicated the interaction between modern state and society.