Truncated Decision Making and Deliberative Implementation: A Time-Based Policy Process Model for Transitional China

The time dimension has not attracted enough attention in policy process research in China, yet speed is the most distinctive feature of China’s recent development. This article, based on observations of China’s policy practices, proposes a new research perspective for understanding how the Chinese government has been able to address policy challenges in an era of rapid transition. The approach adopted by the government allows decision makers to respond quickly to serious problems with a truncated decision-making process, and then implement the decisions through a more gradual deliberative process. The article examines China’s coal-mining industry reform as an empirical case to illustrate how this governance approach has been used to achieve major policy reform, namely property rights reform for coal mines, while simultaneously maintaining stability, regulating production safety, and stimulating industrial development. The article concludes with a discussion of the broad implications of this pattern for improving the effectiveness of public policy both in and outside China.     

BEYOND THE GPN–NEW REGIONALISM DIVIDE IN CHINA: RESTRUCTURING THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY,REMAKING THE WENZHOU MODEL

This article attempts to advance the research on industrial districts and regional development through a study of the restructuring of the clothing industry in Wenzhou Municipality, a regional driver of the Chinese economy. Wenzhou is known for the Wenzhou model of development traditionally centred on family‐owned small businesses embedded in local institutions. The clothing industry is one of the leading industries in Wenzhou, and a cluster with national significance has emerged, where most of the production components can be purchased locally. However, the industry has been scaled up nationally and internationally, with the expansion of sales networks and production facilities across China, and to a lesser extent, abroad. This restructuring has changed the endogenous nature of industrial clusters/districts. The restructuring challenges the orthodox notion of the Wenzhou model and the New Regionalism literature, particularly the orthodox notion of Marshallian industrial districts that overly emphasizes small firms and local assets, and the global production network perspective that highlights coupling with global lead firms in regional development.     

青海古代文化遗址时空分布特征

本文对青海古代各历史时期的文化遗址及文物进行了分析与探讨,提出了青海古代文化遗址有着分布的集中性、石器时代的完整性以及多元结构的民族文化特点;论证了以上特点是由地理环境及历史的各民族文化活动所致。     

Cattle Slaughter Industry in Qing China: State Ban,Muslim Dominance,and the Western Diet

Cattle slaughter and beef consumption are barely mentioned in the literature on Chinese economic, food, or animal history. This is possibly due to the widely held popular and scholarly assumption that beef was avoided and even considered taboo in the daily diet of Chinese people in premodern times. This article investigates the tangible regulation and practice of cattle slaughter in Qing China—the period when the beef taboo was argued to be formally subsumed into Chinese morality. I ask the following questions: To what extent did the Qing state ban cattle slaughter? How was the ban enforced in the localities? Did Chinese people slaughter cattle for consumption? Were there lawful beef markets in Qing China proper? How did increasing beef-eating Western sojourners since the mid-19th century impact this sector? Accordingly, I demonstrate that with the leeway provided by the state, the cattle slaughter industry developed in many regions of China proper, especially large cities. In this sector, Chinese Muslim merchants played a dominant role, even though the Han merchants could outnumber them. Their efforts have prepared the state and Chinese merchants to better cope with new circumstances since the mid-19th century. Broadly, this paper sheds light on how different religious, ethnic, and national groups affected the economy and the practice of law in the Qing dynasty.     

广西玉林市博物馆馆藏七件铜鼓的初步分析研究

迄今已有2 700多年历史的铜鼓,是南方少数民族地区节日、喜庆、兵事、婚丧、祭祀、礼乐等场合使用的一种重器。为了对锈蚀状况做出科学的现状评估,为器物保护修复技术路线的制定和修复工作的开展提供科学指导,对玉林市博物馆馆藏7件铜鼓综合运用了体视显微镜、金相显微镜、激光显微拉曼光谱仪(RS)和环境扫描电镜及能谱仪(ESEM-EDAX)等仪器进行了金相组织和合金成分分析以及锈蚀产物的分析。分析结果显示:7件器物皆为泥范铸造成型,未见热、冷加工处理现象。7件铜鼓皆为铅锡青铜合金,总体呈低锡高铅的特点。组织形态呈典型α固溶体树枝晶偏析,锡含量处于6.0%～12.2%,分布较为集中,处于中等含量水平(5%≤Sn15%);铅含量处于14.4%～28.2%,铅含量普遍较高且分布较为集中,处于中高铅(10%≤Pb15%)和高铅含量(Pb≥15%)水平,合金中高铅含量配比应为工匠有意合金配比选择;铜鼓的腐蚀类型为α固溶体富铜相优先腐蚀,保存环境主要是富氧、少氯,铜鼓表面锈蚀产物主要为绿色孔雀石和蓝色蓝铜矿以及氧化物,有少量白色白铅矿。在保护修复工作中对于这些无害锈可保留,不予处理,并注重防氧。对于铜鼓表面夹杂泥土,需进行清洗去除。研究结果可为器物保护修复技术路线的制定和修复工作的开展提供科学指导。     

Research collaboration beyond the boundary: Evidence from university patents in China

Geographical distance constitutes friction in searching for research collaborators. Taking advantage of a quasinatural experiment featured by High-Speed Railway (HSR) lines in China, this paper employs the difference-in-differences model to identify the causal impact of a substantial improvement in the intercity transportation infrastructure on collaborative innovation across cities. The data pertain to a universe of patent applications filed by Chinese universities and their citations. We find that HSR contributes to a substantial increase in the innovation quantity and quality of collaborative patenting innovation between universities and corporates. It contributes to industry collaboration by utilizing university academic disciplines in the related technology fields. Lastly, HSR facilitates universities to search for new research partners with better quality beyond the geographical boundary.     

In Search of Competitive Efficiency: Labour Process Flexibility in Canadian Newsprint Mills

This paper focuses on the strategies for production and work reorganization pursued in the Canadian newsprint industry during the 1990s. Many newsprint mill managers view new pulping technologies and increased labour process flexibility as the important keys to success in their never-ending quest to remain competitive in the U.S. market. These strategies are discussed in the context of two underlying themes: the nature of the particular competitive pressures faced by Canadian newsprint producers in the early 1990s and the specific nature of the labour process in newsprint mills. Evidence points to the central importance of achieving functional labour flexibility in newsprint mills and to the fact that numerical labour flexibility is not a viable strategy, given the continuous-process nature of the industry.
The Economics of Production, Technological Change, and Cost Competitiveness in the Newsprint Industry
Work Practices and Labour Conventions in the Newsprint Industry
Flexibility and the Quest for Competitive Efficiency in Canadian Newsprint Mills     

多伦多都市区的居住空间结构研究

本文采用因子生态分析方法剖析多伦多都市区的居住空间结构。主成分分析表明,家庭构成、年龄构成、职业构成是形成城市居住分异的主要因素。聚类分析表明,家庭构成和年龄构成的分异呈同心园格局,职业构成的分异呈扇形格局。形成这种居住分异格局的机制包括动力机制、管理机制和行为机制三个方面。     

Lost Country Houses in Lancashire: Reappraisal and Analysis

The ‘destruction of the English country house’ in the period since the late nineteenth century looms large in popular consciousness, and has received increasing attention from historians in recent years. There is no doubt that demolitions did occur on a large scale, especially in the middle years of the twentieth century, but it is arguable that most research has placed too much emphasis on the economic problems faced by estates arising from the great Agricultural Depression: the narrative so far, that is, has had too rural a focus. This article examines the phenomenon in Lancashire, a county characterized by industrialization, demographic expansion, and rapid urbanization. This regional perspective suggests reasons for country house losses that are subtly but significantly different from those pertaining in the more rural counties of England, which have been the primary focus of previous studies.