Intra-ethnic fissures in ethnic movements: the rise of Mohajir identity politics in post-1971 Pakistan

The article charts the rise of Mohajir identity politics in Pakistan since 1971. Most accounts of Mohajir identity politics have focused mainly on one actor, that is, the Mohajir (now Muttahida) Qaumi Movement and their politics and secondly, have remained silent on intra-ethnic fissures within the Mohajir community. The present article builds on and criticises such accounts for their partiality and presents a more nuanced understanding of politics within the Mohajir community. On the theoretical plane, it criticises modernist and primordialist accounts of ethnicity and nationalism, both of which portray a homogenous picture of ethnic groups as based on unity and shared aims. It is shown that unity and shared aims are at best, a chimera, and that intra-ethnic fissure is as important to understand as is inter-ethnic conflict when it comes to analysing ethnic movements.     

Consolidation and fragmentation in environmental scanning: A review and research agenda

Environmental scanning is a broadly defined concept, having first received attention from scholars in the late 1960s. Over the years a number of similar and overlapping constructs have emerged in management literature. The aim of this study, via a systematic review and thematic analysis of relevant empirical research, is to consolidate foundation environmental scanning knowledge, demonstrate how scanning research has developed and fragmented over time, and propose an agenda for future research. The first contribution of our review is a new typology of environmental scanning research made up of five discrete research views, which provides a more comprehensive and contemporary overview of the field than previous studies. The second is a proposed agenda for future research that explicitly acknowledges the role of technology, an area that is presently underdeveloped in foundation scanning literature. The third contribution is to signpost future directions for research on scanning and organisational performance using a number of theoretical perspectives. The overall outcome of our review is to move scanning research on from increasingly incremental contributions concerned with context to a place where the changing role of technology and the mechanisms through which environmental scanning contributes to competitive advantage can be more thoroughly understood.     

更富裕是否意味着更幸福?基于横截面时间序列数据的分析(2003-2013)

四十年前,经济学家伊斯特林提出了“幸福感悖论”:短时期内个人和国家的财富水平与幸福感都正向相关,而在长期背景下,经济增长并不会显著提高整体幸福感水平。本文使用横跨十年的全国代表性横截面时间序列数据直接检验了财富与幸福感的关系,结果证实了“幸福感悖论”。研究发现,虽然在短时期内,无论是家庭人均收入还是省份的人均生产总值都与幸福感有显著的正相关,但在经济高速发展的十年内(2003-2013),省份人均生产总值的变化与幸福感的变化之间并没有显著相关。     

相对收入与主观幸福感:检验农民工的多重参照群体

尽管社会经济地位低于城市居民，农民工的主观幸福感却更高。这种客观经济地位与主观福利评判的不一致有两种解释：同质性参照群体假设和向上流动期望假设，暗示农民工在进行社会比较时会选择不同的参照群体。基于一项大规模全国代表性的调查数据，本文通过建构农民工的多个参照群体检验了上述假设，结果验证了同质性参照群体假设：控制个人收入后，同省其他农民的平均收入越高，农民工的生活满意度越低；加入农民的平均收入后，农民工相对于城市就业居民的生活满意度优势消失，甚至转为劣势。向上流动期望假设未获支持：城市就业居民的平均收入对农民工的生活满意度没有显著影响，而且这样的“零效应”可能并非由于向上流动期望的压抑影响造成的。     

The use of hypothetical cohorts in estimating demographic parameters under conditions of changing fertility and mortality

The indirect methods of demographic estimation available to date are often inadequate to estimate levels in the presence of trends. The use of measures relative to hypothetical cohorts to minimize the effectsoftrends and estimate period levels is described. Procedures allowing the estimation of intersurvey levels of fertility, child mortality and adult mortality are illustrated using data from Thailand and Peru.     

Measuring the impact of the Web: Rasch modelling for survey evaluation

In 2012, the World Wide Web Foundation launched for the first time the Web Index (WI), which combines the existing secondary data with new primary data to rank countries according to their progress and use of the Web. Primary data are gathered via a multi-country specifically designed questionnaire. The aim of our analysis is (1) to evaluate the measurement properties of the expert assessment survey and to provide survey designers with some insights into possible problematic questions and/or unexpectedly behaving countries and (2) to assess the experts’ perception of the state and the value of the Web. To do so the Rating Scale Rasch model is employed. Results show that about 10% of survey questions are detected as misfitting and need to be reworded. Possible reasons are: counter-orientation with respect to the WI polarity, difficulty in understanding the question's words or binary instead of the multiple response scale. Country analysis shows that no country can be considered as an outlier due to notable unexpected pattern of answers. Since the survey is to be expanded in future editions of the WI, the results of our analysis are very important in pin-pointing the questions most in need of refinement for the next edition of the Index.     

人口与气候变化相关吗

气候变化涉及人口问题。把与气候变化相关的研究、政策制定和建议同人口动态结合起来,这对理解全球温室气体排放、制定和实施应变措施,以及在全球和国家层面努力应对这种威胁,有着重要的作用。在过去的15年里,气候变化已经上升为全球环境问题中的一个重要问题,被提到议事日程上来。但人口问题与气候变化之间的关系却慢慢淡出人们的视线,常常被忽视。2009年6月24～25日,联合国人口基金、国际环境和发展研究所联袂联合国人居署、联合国人口司,共同主办了一个人口动态与气候变化专家小组会议。在这次会议上,著名的人口和气候变化专家从方法论和实际情况上介绍目前该领域的一些相关知识,如人口增长、人口规模以及气体排放、人口的脆弱性和适应性、移民和城市化等,回答了人们的诸多疑问,如是气候决定了人类的命运,还是人类活动引发了地球危机?等,阐述了决策者在全球、区域和国家的层面,都需要将人口动态纳入其应对气候变化的反应之中。这次会议的发言通过遴选后被编辑成《你与全球气候变化》一书,为了帮助广大读者扩大和加深对各种人口与气候变化关系的理解,本刊从2011年第一期开始将陆续刊登该书的摘要。