The International Political Significance of Chinese and US Foreign Aid: As Seen in United Nations General Assembly Voting

The effect of China’s rapid development on Sino-US relations and the existing international order is an important theoretical issue in current international relations research. We use empirical research methods to explore whether and how China has influenced the results of US “vote-buying” in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) through foreign aid. We find that through the mechanisms of foreign policy preferences, vulnerability and credibility, Chinese foreign aid has decreased US manipulation of UNGA voting. However, this is not a subjective strategic choice on China’s part but the objective result of Chinese economic development. Taking the game of Sino-US foreign aid in international politics as the entry point and squarely facing the structural contradictions and competition that exist between China and the US will help us understand not only the problems and obstacles China will encounter on its future developmental path, but also the necessity and difficulty of risk control in Sino-US relations.     

Environmental Aid: Driven by Recipient Need or Donor Interests?*

Objective. This study investigates the trends in the distribution of environmental aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. foundations, and a multilateral donor, the Global Environmental Fund (GEF), to determine whether aid is driven by donor interests or recipient need. Methods. Data from USAID, the Foundation Center, GEF, and other secondary sources are analyzed using logistic and OLS regressions. Results. Traditional donor interests (politics, economics, and security) and donors' environmental interests (those favoring "global" environmental concerns over local ones) explain which nations receive environmental aid and which do not and how much nations receive. In general, the allocation of environmental aid differs from that of official development assistance. The United States does not demonstrate a middle–income bias; multilateral aid is not more "humanitarian" than bilateral aid. Foundations' allocation patterns favor traditional donors interests. Conclusions. Environmental aid does not target the nations that are most in need of abating local pollution. Instead, environmental aid donors favor nations with whom they have had prior relations (economic and security), nations that are democratic, and nations with unexploited natural resources. In short, donor interests outweigh recipient need.     

Correcting misconceptions about the development of social work in China: a response to Cunfu Jia

In this brief debate article we respond to Cunfu Jia's criticism of our article ‘Defining the Profession?’ (International Journal of Social Work 16: 382–389). We address the issue of ‘evidence’ and the issue of the applicability to China of the global definition of social work. We suggest that although debate articles by their very nature risk generating false dichotomies, they provide an important and welcome opportunity to explore commonality and difference and to develop our knowledge and thinking as a result of an international exchange of views.     

“一带一路”视域下中国对巴基斯坦援助研究

巴基斯坦是中国对外援助的重点国家,中国对巴基斯坦援助涵盖了战略性援助、发展性援助和人道主义援助等类型,援助领域主要集中在经济基础设施方面.经过实证分析,中国援助带动了巴基斯坦国内生产总值、中国与巴基斯坦双边贸易额以及中国对巴基斯坦直接投资的增长,给巴基斯坦经济发展带来了切实的帮助,但这也容易让巴基斯坦形成对中国的“援助依赖”.巴基斯坦国内的不稳定因素和国际局势变化会影响中国对巴基斯坦的援助效果.共建“一带一路”之际,中国需适时调整对巴基斯坦的援助策略,努力打造更加紧密的中巴命运共同体,开辟合作共赢新征程,共享合作发展新成果.     

美苏“新冷战时期”日本的安全政策论争及启示CSSCI

美苏“新冷战时期”,日本学者围绕本国的安全政策展开了论争。以高坂正尧为首的“日本型现实主义者”秉持以“基础防卫力”与“综合安全保障”为核心概念的“综合安全保障论”,主张坚持《防卫计划大纲》与“综合安全保障战略”。冈崎久彦、佐藤诚三郎、清水几太郎等学者则立足于“传统安全保障论”,向“综合安全保障论”发起了挑战,认为只有大幅强化军事力量才能应对苏联的威胁,呼吁修改《防卫计划大纲》、废除防卫费不超过GNP 1%的限制。思考这一时期日本的安全政策论争,不仅可以反思先行研究与西方国际关系理论存在的问题,还有助于深入理解当前日本安全政策的内在逻辑。     

Deforestation and the Environmental Kuznets Curve: A Cross-National Investigation of Intervening Mechanisms

Objective . We draw on ecological modernization theory and international political economy arguments to examine the sources of an environmental Kuznets curve (or EKC) that produces an inverted U-shaped rate of deforestation relative to economic development. Method . We use ordinary least squares regression with White's (1978) correction for possible heteroskedasticity to examine the rate of deforestation (1980–1995) in less developed countries. Results . Net of controls for initial forest stock and the quality of deforestation estimates, we find strong evidence for an EKC driven by (1) agglomeration effects linked to the level of urbanization, (2) rural-to-urban migration that partially offsets rural population pressure, (3) the growth of services-dominated urban economies, and (4) strong democratic states. We find little evidence that foreign debt or export dependence influence the deforestation rate. Conclusions . Although deforestation continues to pose pressing and potentially irreversible environmental risks, there is evidence of self-corrective ecological and modernization processes inherent in development that act to mitigate these risks.     

Applied general equilibrium analysis of trade liberalisation on land-based sectors in Malaysia and Indonesia

This paper presents general equilibrium evaluations of forest sector trade for Southeast Asian exporters. The four scenarios examined range from the 1994 Uruguay Round tariff reductions to a complete liberalisation of forest and agricultural products trade. We find that simultaneous reductions in forest and agricultural sector tariffs make Indonesia and Malaysia worse off. For Indonesia, this is due to the fall in forest rent and agricultural tariff revenues. Malaysia has the highest ratio of agricultural imports to total land-based sector imports, the rise in agricultural prices thus hits Malaysian consumers the hardest.We find that terms of trade effect omitted from the partial equilibrium framework may reduce the welfare calculations for Malaysia and Indonesia in the forest sector trade by as much as 106 and 58%, respectively. This points to the importance of general equilibrium modelling in the logging industry. The same applies to other sector specific analyses where trade is concentrated between few countries.     

Policy transfer and role of policy entrepreneur in international aid: exploring international development cases of Korea and Vietnam

This paper looks at how an innovative policy comes to be transferred to another country and be successfully implemented. We explore three key dimensions (time, location, and people) in policy transfer studies using two cases of international aid (Saemaul Undong and e-Government projects). Utilizing a case study method, this paper upholds the predominant role of the policy entrepreneur over the environment (different time frame and different social, political, economic systems). The stakeholder analysis shows that policy entrepreneur’s role is critical in making policy transfer successful. In part, this argument is in line with previous “Advocacy Networks” studies, such as that of Keck and Sikkink (1998), highlighted the importance of policy entrepreneurs being able to navigate in the networks of international development. This paper aims to contribute to the literature by applying Dolowitz and Marsh’s policy transfer framework in the international aid context and calls for further empirical research employing the network analysis method.     

Time preferences and risk aversion: Tests on domain differences

Understanding how individuals discount and evaluate the risks of environmental outcomes is a prime component in designing effective environmental policy. We use an incentivized experimental design to investigate whether subjects’ time preferences and risk aversion across the monetary and environmental domains differ. We find that subjects’ time preferences are not significantly different across the two domains. In contrast, subjects exhibit a higher degree of risk aversion in the environmental domain. Furthermore, we corroborate earlier results, documenting that women are more risk averse than men in the monetary domain, and show this finding to also hold in the environmental domain.     

International Nongovernmental Organizations and Deforestation: Good,Bad, or Irrelevant?*

Objective. This research adds to our understanding of environmental degradation by evaluating the “contested” role international nongovernmental organizations play in managing environmental problems. Methods. I use cross‐national data for a sample of up to 70 nations to examine the effect of international nongovernmental organizations on deforestation for the period of 1990 to 2000. The models also include relevant controls for gross national product, economic growth, population growth, democracy, government expenditures, domestic investment, forest stocks, exports, multinational corporations, and structural adjustment. Results. The main findings indicate that nations with higher levels of international nongovernmental organizations presence have lower levels of deforestation. I also examine the effects of international nongovernmental organizations at different levels of democracy by including an interaction term between international nongovernmental organizations and democracy. In doing so, I find that international nongovernmental organizations continue to reduce deforestation. However, they reduce deforestation more at higher rather than at lower levels of democracy. Conclusions. This research illustrates that international nongovernmental organizations reduce deforestation despite claims to the contrary. However, their effectiveness appears to be affected by the level of democracy in a nation.     

Deterring domestic violence: Do criminal sanctions reduce repeat offenses?

This study presents an empirical analysis of domestic violence case resolution in North Carolina for the years 2004 to 2010. The key hypothesis is that penalties at the level set for domestic violence crimes reduce recidivism (re-arrest on domestic violence charges or conviction in 2 years following an index arrest). We use state court data for all domestic violence-related arrests. Decisions to commit an act of domestic violence are based on a Bayesian process of updating subjective beliefs. Individuals have prior beliefs about penalties for domestic violence based on actual practice in their areas. An individual’s experience with an index arrest leads to belief updating. To address endogeneity of case outcomes, we use an instrumental variables strategy based on decisions of prosecutors and judges assigned to each index arrest in our sample. Contrary to our hypothesis, we find that penalities, at least as set at the current levels, do not deter future arrests and convictions.     

Impacts of USAID and development assistance toward counterterrorism efforts: Empirical evidence in context of Pakistan

This article studies whether the pursuit of foreign aid for counterterrorism purposes militarizes or mitigates terrorism. It focuses on the USAID and official development assistance (ODA) flows to Pakistan, which recently has experienced an increase due to the presence of deadliest terrorist organizations. By using the time series data from 1985 to 2016, the paper investigated the foreign aid and terrorism nexus for pre‐9/11 and post‐9/11 periods. The empirical estimations of autoregressive distributed lag bound testing approach reported that an increase in military expenditures fuels terrorism in post‐9/11 period and the ODA helps to control terrorism from the country. On the contrary, USAID reported insignificant response toward terrorist attacks in pre‐ and post‐9/11 periods, suggesting that the foreign aid from the United States has no significant impact on counterterrorism policies for Pakistan. The outcomes of the current study can be utilized in policymaking of counterterrorism and to explore the nexus between foreign aid, terrorism, and military expenditures. The paper concludes that the concerns about the use of foreign aid as counterterrorism tool are warranted, but that actual manifestations are nuanced.     

Regulatory review of environmental policy: The potential role of health-health analysis

Health-health analysis (HHA) posits a seemingly unassailable criterion for regulatory assessment: policies intended to protect human health ought to exhibit positive health benefits. Despite the apparent logic of this criterion, it is important to ask whether it would aid in the quest for better public policies. In the context of environmental issues, we find that HHA can be useful by reminding us that it is thenet health impact of a proposed regulation that can be important. However, we also find that in most applications the health impacts of regulatory compliance costs are unlikely to be significant. Conventional benefit-cost analysis ought to remain the principal tool of economic assessment of environmental laws and regulations.     

Do remittances reduce school dropout in Bangladesh? The role of government’s administrative and structural support

In the development literature, the impact of remittances on educational outcomes is a contentious topic and remains at the heart of policy discussions on enhancing quality education in developing countries. Bangladesh being one of the world’s top remittance recipients, it’s crucial to understand the influence of remittances on educational outcomes and school dropout rates. In this study, we examine the impact of internal remittances (from inside Bangladesh) and international remittances (from outside Bangladesh) on school dropout at the household level using a unique, national, and two most recent datasets covering migration and remittance-related information from the Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES). Considering the methodological issues such as endogeneity sources and self-selection, we used the Instrumental Variable Cox Proportional Hazard model and included asset scores in the models as a proxy measure of households’ wealth index. Furthermore, all the outcomes using the econometric approaches were segregated into three groups: i) those who received no remittances, ii) those who received internal remittances, and iii) those who received international remittances for both HIES 2010 and HIES 2016. This analysis provides a critical picture of the influence of remittances on school dropouts in Bangladesh by giving us a significant positive outcome of the remittances as a whole on education. With the increase in remittance inflows in Bangladesh, the risk of children aged 6-18 dropping out of education are more likely to fall. Aside from the positive impact, this study suggests that government should take the initiative of reducing the costs of sending remittances to Bangladesh. Moreover, the government should provide procedural and structural support to migrants.     

Goals as reference points in marathon running: A novel test of reference dependence

In a large-scale field study of marathon runners, we test whether goals act as reference points in shaping the valuation of outcomes. Theories of reference-dependent preferences, such as Prospect Theory, imply that outcomes that are just below or just above a reference point are evaluated differently. Consistent with the Prospect Theory value function, we find that satisfaction as a function of relative performance (the difference between a runner’s finishing time goal and her actual finishing time) exhibits loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity in both predictions of and actual experienced satisfaction. However, in contrast to Prospect Theory, we observe that loss aversion is partially driven by a discontinuity or jump at the reference point. In addition, we find that a runner’s time goal as well as their previous marathon times simultaneously impact runner satisfaction, providing support for the impact of multiple reference points on satisfaction.     

Population-conflict models: blaming the poor for poverty

International security is increasingly concerned with environmentally-induced regional conflicts. The standard approach to this field posits population growth as the primary cause of environmental scarcity and/or degradation, which then results in violence. This paper seeks to demonstrate how a limited focus on population growth per se disguises the violence that is inherent within the unequal distribution of social resources. The focus on population growth thus ends in blaming the poorest of the earth’s citizens for environmental scarcity. We draw on the agent/structure debate on violence in addition to ecofeminist and feminist critiques of the population-conflict models to draw attention to how the dominant culture maintains and normalizes the violence of social domination.     

Costly and discrete communication: an experimental investigation

Language is an imperfect and coarse means of communicating information about a complex and nuanced world. We report on an experiment designed to capture this feature of communication. The messages available to the sender imperfectly describe the state of the world; however, the sender can improve communication, at a cost, by increasing the complexity or elaborateness of the message. Here the sender learns the state of the world, then sends a message to the receiver. The receiver observes the message and provides a best guess about the state. The incentives of the players are aligned in the sense that both sender and receiver are paid an amount which is increasing in the accuracy of the receiver’s guess. We find that the size of the language endogenously emerges as a function of the costs of communication. Specifically, we find that higher communication costs are associated with a smaller language. Although the equilibrium predictions do not perform well, this divergence occurs in a manner which is consistent with the experimental communication literature: overcommunication. We find that the sender’s payoffs, relative to equilibrium payoffs, are decreasing in the cost of communication. We also find that the receiver’s payoffs, relative to equilibrium payoffs, are increasing in the cost of communication. Finally, we find imperfections in coordination on the basis of the experimental labels.     

Towards a critical discourse analysis of New Zealand security policy in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

Rather than ask why New Zealand supported the intervention, this paper focuses on how representations of New Zealand and the international terrorist threat resulted in public acquiescence to a pre-emptive strike by the world's sole superpower against one of the poorest, most war-torn countries in the world. The paper concludes that legitimacy was achieved through the blending of themes of terrorism and war, national interest and democracy, rule of law and human rights, to produce an ambiguous ‘international campaign against terrorism’ that allowed for picking and choosing of the most convenient position on different matters. The alternative—to refuse moral and material support for the United States-led ‘war on terror’—was to risk New Zealand's membership of the United States-led international community and a ‘seat at the table’ in future international trade and security negotiations. As such, any campaign benefits appear to have accrued to New Zealand rather than Afghanistan or the Afghan people, especially given the parlous state of that country in 2018. A wide-ranging debate within New Zealand on the purpose of such interventions is needed before similar commitments are made in the future.     

A comparison of approaches for estimating the effect of women's education on the probability of using modern contraceptive methods in Malawi

The aim of this study is to estimate the effect of education on the probability of married Malawian women using modern contraceptive methods by accounting for both observed and unobserved confounders. We conduct a sensitivity analysis and compare the results of naive models with instrumental variable models to account for the potential endogeneity of education. Our findings demonstrate conflicting results between the two modelling approaches. The naive models report smaller education effects on the probability of using modern contraceptive methods compared to instrumental variable models. We also find that by relaxing the functional form assumption on the effect of continuous covariates, using a flexible instrumental variable model, the education's effect follows a positive, nonlinear pattern. This finding is not observed with a classic instrumental variable model.     

新中国初期北京市农业政策述评

新中国成立后,北京市对农业政策进行了多项改革。土地政策方面考虑首都土地的长远发展,没收地主、富农土地收归国有,并在一定程度上保护了富农的利益;建立了互助组,出现了土地不分红的高级社;在爱国增产、生产救灾以及农业税收、农业贸易等方面均制定了卓有成效的政策。在各项政策的支持下,北京市的农业生产逐渐恢复。