THE LOGIC OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF RURAL POLITICS: POLITICAL DISCOURSES ON RURALITY IN NORWAY

Two competing discourses emerge from a careful reading of parliamentary debates in Norway on rural development. One regards rural values as intrinsic, while the other regards the rural as an actor in a play about economic growth. The 'growth' discourse has economic growth as its nodal point and fo-cuses on the freedom of an individual to establish a business wherever he or she wishes, and to migrate to any preferred destination. The 'intrinsic value' discourse places the value of rural settlements and cultures as its nodal point and focuses on allegedly forced migration, a nature-based economy, and local freedom of action. During the neoliberal period, starting about 1980 the strength of the intrinsic value discourse has been increasingly displaced by the growth discourse. The latter seems to match general social changes such as neoliberalism and globalization more than the former. However, analysing the fight between these two discourses is not exhaustive. A broader analytic perspective is needed if we want to understand the logic of how the meaning of rurality comes about. The meaning of rurality in Norwegian politics is made through the way the competing discourses link up to 'nondiscursive' topics that originate and evolve outside the discourses on Norwegian rural politics. We claim that topics which include economic safety and national identity/nation-state are more or less fundamental to understanding the logic of the production of the concrete discourses of rurality in Norwegian politics. We provide evidence that rural change is contingent not only on the meaning-making process in parliamentary debates, but on the way truth claims made by politicians are linked to general national and global issues.     

十六国北朝侨州郡县与侨流人口研究引论

十六国北朝特别是十六国,频繁而大规模的内部人口流动,是由胡族统治者实施的,并以强制迁移性质为主,强制迁移的目的,是以之为兵、用之耕耘。这样的移民状况加上其他复杂因素,决定了长期、普遍、广泛设置于东晋南朝的侨州郡县,在十六国北朝境内,总体上说,是不长期、不普遍、不广泛的。十六国北朝特别是十六国的多数侨州郡县,既无土地也无人民。如十六国的侨置,多与"虚设"无异;至于北朝的侨置,则不外以下几种情形:因招抚或安置流民而置,为安置特殊性质的移民而设,备职方而立,务广虚名,以及承东晋南朝之侨置而不废者。十六国北朝侨州郡县与侨流人口的考证与研究,既要具备与东晋南朝进行比照的观点,其研究难度也较之东晋南朝为更大。     

The Sheep Project (1): determining skeletal growth,timing of epiphyseal fusion and morphometric variation in unimproved Shetland sheep of known age,sex, castration status and nutrition

The Sheep Project was designed to investigate the effects of castration, breeding age and nutritional plane on bone growth, epiphyseal fusion, tooth eruption and tooth wear in sheep. The project investigates a population of 356 unimproved Shetland sheep skeletons evenly distributed between females bred at different ages, males and castrates, raised on either high or low nutritional planes. This first instalment focuses on two aspects of our larger study, namely bone growth and epiphyseal fusion as affected by sex, castration and nutrition. Nutrition, sex and castration are shown to influence bone growth in ways that are often element-dependant and not consistent through time. We demonstrate that metric variability (variance) is strongest in males, with little difference between females and castrates, and that, in our sample, nutrition has little influence on variance in any sex cohort. Of importance to the development of models of past animal management this study demonstrates that the standard epiphyseal fusion ranges used by zooarchaeologists are too narrow in most instances and do not account for the large variation between sexes or the lesser variation between planes of nutrition. We recommend methods for recognizing castration and the presence of more than one sheep breed, or type, within the zooarchaeological record.     

CALIFORNIA IRREDENTA

Kevin Starr's Golden Dreams is the culmination to some forty years of scholarship on the unfolding theme of a “California Dream,” that imaginal component to the growth of the self‐identity and increasing international economic power of the most populous state in the American Union. Indeed, the period 1950–1963 that the book meticulously covers forms in many ways the most imposing manifestation of that Dream. This essay reviews the central features of Starr's account, particularly the infrastructural foundations in transportation, water supply, and higher education realized by a triumvirate of California governors, both Republican and Democrat, who regarded themselves as nonpartisan members of the “Party of California”; the expansion of California's major cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco; the characteristics of the Silent Generation and the culture of “cool Jazz” that dominated the period; as well as the rise of dissident elements among environmentalists, minorities, and Beats, that foretold the protest period of the 1960s. This essay then asks whether Starr has avoided the larger implications of his own narrative that California from this period on had become in most respects a putative nation‐state in its own right. From the global impact of its major media industry—Hollywood—to the continued advances of its economic clout throughout the rest of the century as at times the fifth largest economic entity in the world, California may need to be increasingly regarded as a world civilization in itself rather than as a regional civilization to which Starr's historical narrative has so far constricted it.     

坚持以事业成就人 建设高素质的人才队伍

做好新形势下的人才工作,应遵循社会主义市场经济规律和人才成长规律,坚持科学发展观,牢固树立以事业成就人的理念;要搭建高起点的事业平台,以优秀的机制环境吸引和激励人才;构建高效、合理的人才功能结构,使其才尽其用、各得其所,推进事业的科学发展。同时,应注重发挥党组织在人才队伍建设中的作用,用科学理论指导人才工作、用科学制度保障人才工作、用科学方法推进人才工作,不断提高人才工作水平。     

Restructuring of Beijing's Social Space

Four China-, U.S.-, and UK-based senior specialists on the urban geography of Beijing team up to present the results of their investigation of the change in the city's social landscape on the basis of restricted subdistrict-level data covering the period from 1982 to 2000. Adopting a factor ecology approach, the authors seek to identify the extent to which factors that shape urban social landscapes in Western countries have played a role in Beijing during a period of economic transition (e.g., from administrative toward market allocation of housing). Similarly, they investigate the relative strength of processes of social differentiation vis-à-vis mixing accruing from the restructuring of Beijing's physical space (e.g., housing cost differentiation and accelerated in-migration that lead to the emergence of concentrated areas inhabited by migrants and/or minorities, and of relatively low density suburbs) revealed by the 2000 Census. The paper includes a section on developments since 2000, citing data (through 2006) on population, scarcity of affordable housing, traffic congestion, and industrial and residential relocation, relating in part to the forthcoming Olympic Games in 2008. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I31, O15, O18, P20. 6 figures, 7 tables, 93 references.     

Reflections on Ukraine's Current Economic Dilemma

A prominent specialist on economic transition in the former Soviet Union presents an overview of Ukraine's economic dilemma in the aftermath of the most recent elections in that country. The author, a former economic advisor to Ukraine's government and co-chair of the UN's Blue Ribbon Commission for Ukraine, relates his insights into the causes of three acute problems (inflation, corruption, and the lack of structural reforms). Focusing on the state of economic affairs in 2008, the paper, which includes data on economic growth and exchange rates, discusses inter alia the hryvnia's peg to the dollar and the potential consequences of rising food and commodity prices. Included in the analysis is a comparison with Russia. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E58, E60, O52, P26. 34 references.     

Comparing Projection Assumptions of Fertility in Six Advanced Asian Economies; or ‘Thinking Beyond the Medium Variant’

The United Nations' (UN) World Population Prospects are perhaps the most widely used population projections in both academic and policy discourses. In this short research note, we examine six advanced Asian economies, and compare the fertility assumptions used by the UN with those derived from local statistical offices (LSOs). We identify a significant divergence between them. When translated into total projected population size of younger age groups (0–14 years), the use of the UN rather than the LSO ‘medium’ projection can increase the total projected population size by up to 50% by 2040.     

Health prospects of older persons in Thailand: the role of education

ABSTRACT

Thailand’s population is aging rapidly and the number of older adults suffering from health limitations is expected to increase. Making use of several rounds of the Survey of Older Persons, we look at the education-specific prevalences of three health indicators over time and find a positive education gradient for difficulties with ADLs and poor self-rated health, but not for functional limitations. Combining these age-, sex- and education-specific prevalences for each indicator with population projections up to 2050, we see a lower projected number of persons with difficulties with ADLs or bad health as compared to an approach when we only account for differences by age and sex. Still, irrespective of the approach taken, we project a significant increase in the number of persons 50+ that have at least one ADL difficulty, at least one functional limitation or suffer from poor health. Our results provide estimates for future care needs and illustrate the possibly preventive effect of education.