The Ecology of Terror Defense

We draw on an ecological metaphor to analyze terror defense by governments and individuals. Governments can combat terror in part by targeting what we call the “stock of terror capacity” accumulated by a terrorist organization. The optimal control of terror stocks relies on both periodic cleanup and ongoing abatement, a lesson derived from the optimal control of other stocks of public bads, such as pollution. Citizens can protect themselves from terror by avoiding exposure to threats and by reducing the harm they suffer if an attack occurs—actions we call “avoidance” and “amelioration,” respectively. Such measures may exert positive or negative externalities on other individuals. A simple model shows how individual responses to collective threats may undermine the effectiveness of government policies to address such threats. The model uncovers a strong analogy between the problem of individual responses to terror and the familiar congestion externality.     

The Cultural Discovery and Practical Implications of “Chinese Values”*

The social reforms in China since the late 1970s represent an arduous process in which the Chinese nation, in its own way, has reflected upon the many disadvantages of the “civilization of modernity,” and has explored, created and practiced “Chinese values,” pursuing and shaping new spiritual convictions and new (rational) value beliefs for its national culture. In a deeper sense, “Chinese values” are endowed with a marked orientation toward practice and follow the logic of genuinely implementing society's “public values” on the basis of the intrinsic and organic integration of the personal and public and the national and cosmopolitan. This manifests the pursuit of a noble belief in justice and a commitment to a universal and genuine good life for the Chinese populace today. What “Chinese values” seek to forge is an image of “the Chinese” that manifests not only the disposition and breadth of vision of a contemporary “citizen of the world,” but also the fine traits of tolerance, benevolence, responsibility, and courage, as well as self-esteem, self-improvement, confidence, and self-reliance.     

民间传说中傅山士大夫形象的多维构建

傅山是明末清初士大夫阶层的中坚,也是明遗民的代表,得到了官方与民众的双重认可。傅山传说既进入了国家话语的“大传统”,也进入了民间文化的“小传统”。比较而言,“大传统”中的傅山形象单一而平面化;“小传统”中的傅山形象全面而立体化。文章以民间流布的傅山传说为研究对象,参考典籍文献中相关记载,探寻傅山士大夫形象在民众话语中的多维构建,挖掘此形象在明清易代之际的革新与转变。文章提出：弘扬以傅山为代表的士大夫所承载的“以天下为己任”与“明道救世”的责任担当意识,对当代中国梦的践行具有促进作用。     

技术自主性与国家形塑:国家与技术治理关系研究的政治脉络及其想象

技术治理进入国家视野是一个循序渐进的过程。相关研究先后拓展和增加了专家治国、技术官僚、信息技术和微观政治等概念，并分化为两个研究维度：一是一以贯之的国家如何以“技术性方式”进行治理；二是由“信息技术在政府应用”这一研究分支发展而来，分析国家如何将新技术手段引入治理。其中，前者是技术治理概念的逻辑起点，本文从这一起点展开分析国家与技术治理的关系，试图还原技术治理的本来面貌。基于技术治理具有自身发展和运作的自主性，国家与技术治理关系呈现三种基本形态：“吸纳”状态下国家对“可控”技术治理的应用、“扩散”状态下国家对“自主”技术治理的干预和“分途”状态下国家对“失控”技术治理的监管。最后，本文还进一步提出“超越技术治理”的两种路径构想，由此系统呈现了国家与技术治理相互形塑的整体图景，为技术治理研究提供了新的反思与关注的视角。     

Business Mobilization and Public Policy in the U.S. States*

Objective. The goal of this study is to examine how the political mobilization of business interests influences aggregate public policy outputs in the states. We examine the relationship between business mobilization and general state policy liberalism, as well as policy that we term state “business policy climate.” Methods. We construct a measure of the “business policy climate” from a number of tax and regulatory indicators in the states and examine whether business influences it and policy liberalism using ordinary least squares regression. Results. The analysis shows that business mobilization does not influence general policy liberalism but is a significant influence on a state's business policy climate. Specifically, the dominance of a state's campaign finance system by business interests makes policy more favorable toward business. Conclusions. The extent of business mobilization in a state is an important influence on public policy outputs but is constrained by the activities of other political actors such as unions.     

The preservation of multivariate comparative statics in nonexpected utility theory

This article investigates the preservation of multivariate expected utility comparative statics for “smooth” nonexpected utility representations. Specifically, we answer the following question: if an expected utility comparative statics property depends only on preferences over sure prospects, then when will a nonexpected utility maximizer with identical sure preferences also satisfy that property? We demonstrate that the effects of increased risk aversion are preserved under the “Almost Degenerate Independence” axiom, but that those of distribution changes of exogenous risks are not preserved under stringent assumptions. Hence, nonexpected utility comparative statics may diverge from expected utility, even for “first-order” properties—those whose effect is determinable from restrictions on “local” utility functions.     

Social investment effects of public education,health care,and welfare service expenditures on economic growth

The purpose of this study is to theoretically and empirically examine whether public spending in education, health care, and welfare service operates as a fruitful investment in welfare states, which has been implied in the literature of social investment arguments. Based on comprehensive review of existing literature, this study suggested a tripartite mechanism of social investment effect of such spending, that is “enhancement of human capital,” “support for labor force participation,” and “job creation.” To find the empirical evidence, a pooled time‐series cross‐section analysis was conducted with the data of 15 advanced welfare states from 1980 to 2015 using estimation technique of fixed‐effect model. The results confirmed that public spending in education, health care, and welfare service had a positive medium‐term as well as long‐term effect on economic performance, while cash‐type welfare spending had an obscure or no visible effect on economy. Government consumption that is a proxy and control variable of size of the welfare state showed a positive effect on real GDP in the medium term but a negative effect in the long run. In conclusion, this study suggests that reinforcing social services should be recognized and dealt with as essence of social investment strategy.     

A Review and Some Reflections on the Three Campaigns of Intra-Party Intensive Education since the New Century

21世纪以来, 中国共产党相继开展了农村 “三个代表” 重要思想学习教育活动, 以实践 “三个代表” 重要思想为主要内容的保持党员先进性教育活动和深入学习实践 科学发展观活动。通过这三次活动, 广大党员、干部受到深刻的马克思主义教育, 进 一步增强了对 “三个代表” 重要思想的认识。这三次活动对于在新的历史起点上推进 党的建设的伟大工程, 具有十分重要的启示意义。

关键词: 中国共产党 “三个代表” 党的建设

In the new century, the Communist Party of China has successively launched three campaigns of intra-Party intensive education: the important thought of the Three Represents education campaign in rural areas, the Party-wide education campaign to maintain the vanguard nature of Party members mainly by putting the important thought of the Three Represents into practice and the campaign to intensively study and apply the Scientific Outlook on Development. Through these activities, the majority of Party members and cadres have received profound Marxist education, further deepening their understanding of the important thought of the Three Represents. The campaigns advanced the great project of Party building at a new historical starting point, and are thus of inspiring significance.     

The aesthetic life of artificial flavors

Abstract

Artificiality is usually understood as that which is man-made and is in contraposition to the natural. The term itself is increasingly recognized as a negative pole, while the label of “natural” is exploited as guarantee of healthiness in marketing food campaigns. This article takes issue with the natural/artificial debate by emphasizing the aesthetic side of artificial flavorings – chemical substances designed to alter or enhance the taste of processed foods. Here, I reconsider the conception of artificiality as a poor imitation of nature and instead underline the link between technology and aesthetics, by examining the practice of flavorists. Through ethnographic detail I call for moving the synthetic out of the “inauthentic” and argue that the attempt to mimic natural flavors through synthesis is not only an act of imitation and resemblance (as critics exclusively contend) but can also be thought as an act of representation and interpretation (as my fieldwork illuminates).     

时间之窗与时间之创——留守经历对主观幸福感影响的时间效应

本文从生命历程视角出发,基于 2018 年“中国劳动力动态调查”数据,从累积留守时长、结束留守时长、留守阶段、留守时监护类型等维度分析了童年期留守经历对个体成年后主观幸福感的影响。 研究发现,留守经历对个体主观幸福感有长期负面影响,并具有“双重时间效应”：累积留守时间越长,对留守者成年后主观幸福感造成的负面冲击越大, 且留守者成年后主观幸福感并不会因结束留守时长的增加而回升; 留守经历对个体主观幸福感的负面影响呈现“初中留守＜小学留守＜学前留守”的逆向递增特点,即学前阶段是影响个体主观幸福感的“关键窗口”;无论是哪个阶段,单亲监护和祖辈监护都会对个体主观幸福感产生负面影响,且呈现“单亲监护>祖辈监护>双亲监护”的特点。     

社会转型中的象征二元结构:以农民工群体为中心的微观权力分析

关于中国社会结构转型需要从微观和象征的角度予以理解。从“象征社会”的分析视角看,城市社会中的一系列媒介信息与象征标记往往成为社会身份的分类工具与生产机制。随着城乡社会流动的增加,农民工群体所承载的诸多象征标记使城乡界线由“城乡之间”移入“城市之中”,进而凸显出“城市中的城乡二元结构”。这种社会结构常常是文化性的、隐秘的,可用“象征二元结构”概括之。“象征二元结构”意为表达不同群体社会身份的象征系统及其运作呈现出二元对立或两极趋势,它彰显了不同群体在身份、地位、声望等方面的二分化与不平等。“象征二元结构”所包含的“问题化农村”与“梦想化城市”的逻辑成为国家建构现代性形象的手段与策略,以弥合“客观现代性”与“表达现代性”的距离。     

Backing Barack Because He's Black: Racially Motivated Voting in the 2008 Election*

Objective. If racial considerations influenced the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, then how did they shape the campaign, why did race matter, and for whom were such considerations important? I hypothesize that various racial attitudes exert unique influences on voters' support of Obama and that the effects of these attitudes differ by race. Methods. Using a Time Magazine poll, I distinguish between “attitudes regarding Obama's ‘Blackness’” and “opinions about race relations,” and I examine such sentiments among White and African‐American respondents. Results. Regardless of race, Obama support was highest among voters who were “comfortable” with Black candidates. However, increased optimism with racial progress had no effect on Blacks' voting intentions, and it actually lowered Obama support among Whites. Conclusion. The conventional wisdom is that African Americans “backed Barack because he is Black”; I demonstrate that Obama's race mattered more to White voters than it did to Blacks.     

Moral discourse on domestic labor: gender,power, and identity in families

This paper responds to a recent article by Ahlander and Bahr (1995) on moral dimensions of housework in families. The purpose of this paper is to point out important ways in which Ahlander and Bahr’s work represents an academic form of “backlash” against feminist scholarship and leaves much social science research on housework either unsynthesized in their review or misinterpreted much of the work they did cite, particularly the work of feminist scholars. A second goal of this paper is to offer a perspective in which researchers can simultaneously examine moral dimensions of housework and explore issues of gender, power, and identity in families.     

Aberration of the Citation

Multiple inherent biases related to different citation practices (for e.g., self-citations, negative citations, wrong citations, multi-authorship-biased citations, honorary citations, circumstantial citations, discriminatory citations, selective and arbitrary citations, etc.) make citation-based bibliometrics strongly flawed and defective measures. A paper can be highly cited for a while (for e.g., under circumstantial or transitional knowledge), but years later it may appear that its findings, paradigms, or theories were untrue or invalid anymore. By contrast, a paper may remain shelved or overlooked for years or decades, but new studies or discoveries may actualize its subject at any moment. As citation-based metrics are transformed into “commercial activities,” the “citation credit” should be considered on a commercial basis too, in the sense that “citation credit” should be shared out as a “citation dividend” by shareholders (coauthors) averagely or proportionally to their contributions but not fully appropriated by each of them. At equal numbers of citations, the greater number of authors, the lower “citation credit” should be and vice versa. Overlooking the presence of distorted and subjective citation practices makes many people and administrators “obsessed” with the number of citations to such an extent to run after “highly cited” authors and to create specialized citation databases for commercial purposes. Citation-based bibliometrics, however, are unreliable and unscientific measures; citation counts do not mean that a more cited work is of a higher quality or accuracy than a less cited work because citations do not measure the quality or accuracy. Citations do not mean that a highly cited author or journal is more commendable than a less cited author or journal. Citations are not more than countable numbers: no more, no less.     

Your lying,incompetent and selfish member of Congress: Cynical appeals in U.S. Senate advertising

Scholars still do not fully understand what activates cynicism in citizens. Although many expect that negative campaigning contributes to this, no consistent evidence has been found. This research introduces a new measure of appeals to cynicism that expands the commonly used positive–negative taxonomy of tone in advertising. Through a content analyses of more than 600 political advertisements aired during U.S. Senate elections, we identify the extent to which candidates use cynical appeals and the conditions under which these are used. We find that appeals to cynicism are common, are distinct from negative appeals, and that most often, ad sponsors target opponents with cynical appeals, describing them as selfish, dishonest and incompetent. Cynicism appears to be a central part of American campaign rhetoric, used by all sorts of candidates, regardless of party, in many different situations. The prevalence of appeals to cynicism may help explain rising cynicism among the public.     

从臣民到市民：韦伯著作中的城市类型学、城市的动态演变与非正当性支配研究

韦伯“正当性支配”的概念可分为“权威主义命令权”与“正当性信仰”两个要素。在现代政治秩序的视域下，二者的失调威胁到秩序的稳定，造成了“正当性危机”，而应对之道就是重新整合“正当性信仰”，同时避免过度整合带来的对“日常需求”的破坏。本文从韦伯“非正当性支配”入手，通过对中世纪西方城市的类型学比较以及对城市市民的身份特征、生活—工作风格、政治诉求、参与法律过程的分析，发现“非正当性支配”提供了一条西方文明特有的自下而上能够保全“日常需求”的路径，从而给“正当性信仰”的整合以及“正当性危机”的解决提供了新的可能性。     

Ethnographic insights into competing forms of co‐production: A case study of the politics of street trees in a northern English city

The aim of this article is to explore the link between different notions of co‐production. It seeks to emphasise the underlying politics of co‐production in the sense of who defines co‐production, especially in relation to initial decisions concerning which specific policy areas are deemed suitable for codesigning, cocreating, or codelivering with services users or local communities. We argue that the rejection of co‐production by government may inflame political resentment and reconfirm negative pre‐existing attitudes about “the establishment.” This is particularly problematic when politicians have promoted the rhetoric of “inclusive governance,” “sharing power,” or “delegating power” but then reject the co‐productive claims emerging from such statements. The study contributes to existing work by analysing what happens when co‐productive structures are terminated or when public protests demand the reinstitutionalisation of those relationships. We make this contribution by presenting findings from an ethnographic case study involving street trees in a large English city. We suggest these specific findings have a broader relevance.     

The Achilles' heel of scale service design in social security administration: The case of the United Kingdom's Universal Credit

This article takes a critical view of the United Kingdom government's design for the delivery of the Universal Credit (UC) benefit reforms. It is argued that the UC is destined to fail because of the policy's extension into specifying the means (“digital by default”) of delivery for such services. The authors argue that an unseen but ubiquitous set of “scale” management assumptions has been allowed to infiltrate the means by which the government intends to enact its headline policy objective to “make work pay”. Following Seddon's “Vanguard Method”, a practical example of how a better service was designed in a local authority housing benefits service is then examined. Results from this service include being able to deal with up to 50 per cent more demand, with fewer resources, in half the official target time. Finally, the article will conclude with a call for more evidence‐based policy.     

“桑梓情谊”的现代转化：费孝通社会理论的情感维度

费孝通的社会理论在社会结构方面更受学界重视，而其中的情感维度尚未得到足够关注。本文试图在费孝通早年有关中国现代化的理论视域中，梳理他有关“桑梓情谊”与“亲属情谊”“乡土工业”“村镇地方团体”之间关系的探索和讨论，进而呈现费孝通社会理论中对于情感的重视。 在费孝通看来，中国的现代化应该以中国传统社会组织为基础来嫁接西方现代技术， 从而推动整个社会从传统向现代的有效过渡。 在此过程中，他尝试将既旧且新的“桑梓情谊”阐释为现代中国社会的情感基础。 文章认为，“桑梓情谊”表征并构造了本地的根源与大社会的流动以及地方与国家的人际关联， 是理解费孝通社会理论之情感维度的关键，对我们思考当代中国现代化建设也有一定的启示。     

Synesthesia and Cross-Modality in Contemporary Audiovisuals

ABSTRACT

This paper considers contemporary practice in “fused” or transcoded audiovisual art, focusing on the work of Australian artists Robin Fox and Andrew Gadow. In this practice sound and image are tightly linked by a cross-wiring of media signals. Synesthesia is often invoked around such work, proposing a parallel between perceptual and technical cross-wiring. This synesthetic analogy provides a historical context as well as an analytic frame; it is tested here through a reading of relevant neuro- and perceptual science that illustrates some striking parallels. Ultimately, however, an alternative model is proposed based on cross-modal binding, where stimuli in different modalities are “bound” into correlated wholes. Understood as cross-modal objects, transcoded audiovisuals direct us to the signal that underpins both sound and image, as well as to the map, or domain of correlation, between modalities. The wider significance of this practice, it is argued, lies in its ability to provide an aesthetic and affective manifestation of these abstract structures—structures that are central to new media culture, but largely imperceptible.