'The heart and home of horror': The great London fogs of the late nineteenth century

This article centres on the unprecedentedly severe fog crisis which afflicted London between the 1870s and the mid-1890s. An overview of meteorological developments prefaces an interrogation of the mid-Victorian origins of environmental cost-benefit analysis and the only slowly dawning awareness that adverse weather conditions might make a significant contribution to mortality and morbidity from respiratory disease. At the same time, exceptionally degraded air quality came to be associated with the threat of physical and psychological degeneration in the poorest inner and eastern districts of the city. Perceived as a totality, these bodies of knowledge and ideology - economic, epidemiological and social Darwinistic - reinforced and legitimated a catastrophist fin de sicle vision of almost unbearably debilitating social, economic and cultural relationships between 'darkness at noon' and the potential implosion of the late nineteenth century metropolis.     

The role of governments in 21st century governance: A concluding essay

This essay concludes a special symposium on governance issues. All of the symposium articles raise serious questions about whether or not and how well governments in the United States are playing the several important roles they have in the governance process. This essay is about three changes that could lead to more effective, efficient, and equitable governance. Three interrelated ones are discussed: (1) Realizing a sustainable future, a new vision, and (2) initiating new decision making processes needed to deal with complex, inter-connected, conflict provoking issues, (3) requires new leadership.     

Reputation and influence in charitable giving: an experiment

Previous experimental and observational work suggests that people act more generously when they are observed and observe others in social settings. However, the explanation for this is unclear. An individual may want to send a signal of her generosity to improve her own reputation. Alternately (or additionally) she may value the public good or charity itself and, believing that contribution levels are strategic complements, give more to influence others to give more. We perform the first series of laboratory experiments that can separately estimate the impact of these two social effects, and test whether realized influence is consistent with the desire to influence, and whether either of these are consistent with anticipated influence. Our experimental subjects were given the opportunity to contribute from their endowment to Bread for the World, a development NGO. Depending on treatment, “leader” subjects’ donations were reported to other subjects either anonymously or with their identities, and these were reported either before these “follower” subjects made their donation decisions. We find that “leaders” are influential only when their identities are revealed along with their donations, and female leaders are more influential than males. Identified leaders’ predictions suggest that are aware of their influence. They respond to this by giving more than either the control group or the unidentified leaders. We find mixed evidence for “reputation-seeking.”     

公司治理制度与文化关系探讨

公司治理作为公司治理文化的基础，是一种创生秩序，主要调节人的自然属性，治理完备契约。而公司治理文化作为公司治理制度的升华，是一种自生秩序，更注重调节人的社会属性，治理非完备契约。公司治理制度与文化两者之间是既互补又替代的关系，因此在治理企业时，要把治理制度的设计与治理文化的构建有机结合起来才能奏效。     

Inheritance in Australia: family and charitable distributions from personal estates

This article provides unique empirical evidence of post mortem giving in Australia, through a random sample of probate records in Victoria in 2006. The records show that decedents overwhelmingly leave their estates to their immediate family; first spouses, and then children in equal measure. They also show that there is a significant discrepancy between common practice in the transmission of estates and intestacy laws; that about one in five decedents exercise some measure of testamentary freedom; that about one in twenty decedents leave a charitable bequest; that more than two in three charitable bequests are left by decedents without surviving children; and that (unlike in the United States) wealthier decedents leave a smaller proportion of their estates to charity than their less wealthy counterparts. The article provides an empirical foundation for debates around the relationship between charitable giving and social capital, civil society and the role of government in advanced capitalist societies.     

Social governance: Corporate governance in institutions of social security, welfare and healthcare

Corporate governance is a concept that attracted the attention of jurists and economists in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. It has become widespread in Belgian company law since the 1990s. Lately, corporate governance elements have popped up in other fields as well. When applied to social institutions, this model is referred to by the term "social governance". The corporate governance concept can be very valuable in the social area. After all, the debate on corporate governance is much more fundamental than the debate on the relationship between shareholders and management and between minority and majority shareholders. The essence of corporate governance can be found in the pursuit of a situation of "checks and balances", which gives the stakeholders the possibility of complementing and controlling each other. We analyse the existing social governance elements in social security and welfare law. We conclude that the implementation of a social governance model should have a positive influence on the policy and practice of social institutions.     

The Future of the West

This article describes, compares, and assesses inertia, rentier, mobilization, and modernization strategies to guide Russia's socioeconomic development.     

西方历史哲学的焦点——历史认识的客观性问题

历史认识的客观性问题不仅是批判的历史哲学 ,而且也是整个历史哲学的一个重要而又具有争论的焦点问题。西方历史哲学经过长期争论 ,这一问题至今仍未真正解决。然而这一问题又是关系到历史哲学 ,甚至整个社会科学的一个根本性问题 ,一个不能不解决的重要问题。     

社区治理：公民社会的微观基础

本文试图通过一种分析视角,在一定程度上显示中国城市基层社区中公民社会的微观基础,以及这种微观基础与“社区共治”及社区“治理结构”之间的微妙联系,同时也提醒读者在深刻揭示这种微妙联系时必须把研究视角聚焦到具体行动空间的权力关系及协调机制。     

两种自我的概念:东方的和西方的

文章通过对东、西方文化中两种不同的自我概念的考察 ,区分了假定我和真我以及与此相关的小我和大我、本我和自我等概念。文章认为 ,从假我中心性 (盲目的自我关怀 )转变为与终极实在相关的真我 ,是一种创造性的转变 ,是从一种原子主义的实体到整体之必然的组成部分的转变