Electoral Behavior in the Russian Far East, 1995-2000: Contextual and Compositional Effects

A group of political scientists specializing in Russia's post-Soviet electoral behavior explores the question of whether genuinely regional effects of voting behavior can be discerned (and at what scale) by controlling for variations in compositional characteristics measured by aggregate social and economic data. The paper seeks to identify situations in which contextual effects may be operating, using a scale of analysis that is intermediate between regional (oblast)-level case studies and nationwide surveys—that of the Russian Far East macroregion. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O50, Z10. 4 tables, 40 references, 1 appendix.     

China's Response to Pandemics: From Inaction to Overreaction

Two U.S. specialists (on the governance and foreign policy aspects of China's public health issues as well as its human and medical geography) examine how two different sets of policies implemented by the government of China have affected both the geography and political ecology of pandemic disease outbreaks (HIV/AIDS, SARS, and H1N1) over the past two decades. More specifically, they argue that: (1) broad development and reform policies largely responsible for China's rapid modernization/urbanization and increasingly successful perfomance in the global economic arena have generated unexpected side-effects in terms of the location, incidence, and spread of pandemics as well as the state's capacity to mount an adequate health care response; and (2) politically motivated public health policies implemented in response to the spread of specific pandemics in China have had unanticipated impacts on the progression of disease outbreaks and their outcomes. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H510, H750, I180. 3 figures, 2 tables, 76 references.     

基于SARIMA模型的SARS对中国入境旅游收入影响的定量分析

本文通过建立中国入境旅游外汇收入的SARIMA模型,定量分析了SARS对中国入境旅游收入的影响程度及影响时滞,克服了采用传统“同期比”方法分析该问题时不考虑旅游业自身发展趋势的不足,以期能得到关于SAILS对中国入境旅游收入影响的客观认识。     

Governing the Sick City: Urban Governance in the Age of Emerging Infectious Disease

Abstract: Based on a case study of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Toronto, Canada, this article suggests that we may have to rethink our common perception of what urban governance entails. Rather than operating solely in the conceptual proximity of social cohesion and economic competitiveness, urban governance may soon prove to be more centrally concerned with questions of widespread disease, life and death and the construction of new internal boundaries and regulations just at the time that globalization seems to suggest the breakdown of some traditional scalar incisions such as national boundaries in a post‐Westphalian environment. We argue that urban governance must face the new (or reemerging) challenge of dealing with infectious disease in the context of the “new normal” and that global health governance may be better off by taking the possibilities that rest in metropolitan governance more seriously.     

针对突发灾害:大城市的人居安全及其政策

非典事件折射出了大城市在应对突发灾害时抗灾能力低下的脆弱性以及严重的人居安全问题。大城市的人居安全问题与其规模、密度和形态的不协调有关。基于人居安全的城市政策应该是规模、密度、形态三位一体的城市政策。规模过大会引起安全问题,技术进步使人们解决城市问题的能力不断增强,因而城市规模的极限也不断被突破。但是,连续的、密集分布的城区终究不应该是无限放大的,从这点上看,城市形态的不佳将加重规模和密度过大所导致的问题。现阶段我国的城市政策几乎是不存在的,城市安全意识尚未发展成为全局性的"城市安全观",目前大城市的规模、形态、密度的失控是缺乏有效制约的市场力量作用的结果,规划失效的原因之一是没有清晰的城市政策,因而市政当局过分迁就开发商。新的城市政策对于大城市尤其要严格控制其密度,对城市提出明确的形态要求,制止城市蔓延,推进有组织的"都市区化"。     

分析SARS:在我国的地理扩散和地理障碍

SARS疫情在我国的迅速传播已经对我国的社会和经济生活造成了重大的影响,也为我们观察和分析地理扩散提供了难得的机会。SARS的扩散显然是一种地理过程,这个过程的第一个特征是以等级扩散为发展方式的,第二个特征是必然在扩散中遇到障碍。第一个特征的存在使疫情在一段时间里在我国得以迅速的蔓延,但是当采取各种医疗、隔离和防护措施后,SARS的扩散在出现障碍的条件下受到抑制。文章描述了疫情扩散的方式,在我国形成的地理格局(以广东和北京为源地),认为这个地理格局的形成与我国流动人口的分布、人口流动的条件有关。同时指出,在疫情扩散的地理格局中,在中心城市形成的高度集中是一种令人担忧的现象。因为这样的集中已经对这些中心城市的包括"医疗中心"在内的行政、经济、交通等核心地的功能产生严重影响。为此,文章注意到我国一些没有发现疫情的地区的地理条件,认为存在着如地理距离(距离衰减)、地理环境、产业特征等地理障碍。通过对这些障碍的分析,文章最后提出了防治疫情及其继续扩散的措施。