Unmaking the Middle Eastern working classes: labour and the politics of historiography

This article surveys recent developments in academic approaches to the history of the working classes in the modern Middle East and argues that the decline of scholarly interest in Middle Eastern labour history is a product of the confluence of political, cultural and disciplinary transformations. Labour history thrived among historians of the Middle East in the late 1970s and 1980s but produced only a small handful of important texts in the following two decades. The marginalization of organized labour by post-populist authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, the sudden rise of political Islam as the dominant paradigm of political opposition to the state, and the general abandonment of class analysis by historians in the wake of the ‘cultural turn’ have all contributed to this decline of academic interest in the lives of Middle Eastern workers. These problems have been exacerbated by the political instability of the region and the corresponding difficulty of accessing state archives. The political spark provided by labour activism and agitation in the years preceding and following the ‘Arab Spring’, however, is once again bringing questions of labour and class to the attention of historians.     

国际收支结构变动的理论和实践及其对中国的政策含义

国际收支平衡问题主要是围绕经常项目的平衡来展开。经常项目里主要有贸易项和投资收入项。根据国际收支克劳瑟模型理论,一国在发展过程中要经历不同阶段,随着一国国民收入水平的变化,这个国家的国际收支将发生一系列的变化。美国和亚洲国家国际收支情况的演变过程,基本符合克劳瑟模型理论,但中国是一个例外。东南亚金融危机后,中国成为世界上最重要的资本输出国,却以投资收入逆差为代价。这不仅造成巨大的福利损失,还导致了一系列的发展难题。中国应考虑是否还要继续充当资本输出国和继续积累外汇储备。     

Power and the gendered division of contraceptive use in Western European couples

Recent research has approached contraceptive use, or “fertility work”, as another household task that is primarily managed by women. Building on the theoretical frameworks of relative resource theory and gender perspectives, this study investigates the association between partners' power (measured as their relative education, division of housework and decision-making) and the choice of male versus female, or no contraception. Data from the Generations and Gender Survey for four Western European countries (Austria, Belgium, France and Germany; 2005–2010) are used to examine the hypotheses with multinomial logistic diagonal reference models. The results show that man's and woman's educational level are equally important predictors for a couple's contraceptive method choice. Furthermore, the findings suggest that households in which the man performs more housework or the woman has more say in decisions are more likely to rely on male methods or female sterilization, rather than on the more commonly used female reversible methods.     

Newcomers to Like‐Minded Aid and Donor Darlings: The Strange Case of Spain in Vietnam

This article analyses the motives behind the relations between Spain as a donor and Vietnam as a recipient of international aid. The main hypothesis is that this relationship does not respond to the traditional causes for international aid, as identified by the academic literature. On the basis of qualitative data collected in interviews with elites, the article suggests instead that a ‘learning factor’ and an ‘image factor’ might be at play in the Spanish presence, as well as herd behaviour on the part of the donor community.     

Understanding top managers’ careers: How does career variety impact tenure on the board?

Career variety has recently received attention in management literature in general, and top management literature in particular. While existing publications have predominantly linked career variety to individual adaptability, agility or competences, this paper focuses on the relationship between top managers’ career variety and their tenure on the board. We rely on the boundaryless career approach and argue that there is a negative relationship between career variety and board tenure. Drawing on a sample of executive directors in UK FT 100 firms, we provide empirical evidence that increased career variety leads to shorter tenure on the board. We also reveal that this relationship is further strengthened with international educational experience. In addition, we show that in-house work experience mitigates the negative association between career variety and board tenure. We contribute to the literature on top managers’ careers by unravelling the consequences that career variety during early and mid-stages of a career has on tenure on the board – and hence on career stability in later stages of a career.     

专利国外优先权制度研究

优先权制度起源于《保护工业产权巴黎公约》，产生之初就是国外优先权。随着专利制度的发展，产生了以国内首次申请为基础之优先权。区别起见，以国外首次申请为基础之优先权称国外优先权。国外优先权之取得须符合法定条件，优先权之期限因在后申请对象之不同而不同。新版《专利合作条约实施细则》进一步扩充了国外优先权规则，为专利的国际申请提供了更多便利。     

Recession,austerity and gender: A comparison of eight European labour markets

The collapse in GDP brought about by the global economic crisis in 2008 affected female employment less than male employment, whereas austerity has been particularly harsh on women, a gendered impact described in the literature as “he‐cession to sh(e)‐austerity”. This article analyses gendered trends in the labour markets of eight European countries, decomposing quarterly changes in labour participation of women and men and in employment by sector. The “he‐cession to sh(e)‐austerity” scenario is not observed in all countries. Other channels through which austerity policies can jeopardize gender equality and women's rights are identified with reference to a typology of such policies.     

Bologna and student mobility: a fuzzy relationship

The national ministers in charge of higher education of the majority of European countries agreed in the late 1990s to embark on reforms on the way towards a “European Higher Education Area”. The major aim was to increase and enhance international student mobility, whereby the establishment of a convergent system of “cycles” of study programmes should be the major operational objective. Actually, the spread of the bachelor-master structure seems to have triggered an increase of degree mobility from outside Europe to Europe in the early years of the so-called “Bologna Process”. This, however, slowed down subsequently. Moreover, the Bologna Process has not led to a growing pace of intra-European degree mobility. Since 2009, a new target is in the limelight: By 2020, 20% of graduates should have had international experience through study or internship in another country for at least some period. Actually, however, the rate of the event of student mobility during the course of study had been already quite high in many European countries around 2000 and did not increase further substantially thereafter. Thus, the quantitative target is a challenge for some countries with low outwards mobility. Altogether, the Bologna Process rather seems to have improved the conditions and the quality of intra-European mobility more substantially than its quantitative development.     

列宁反对第二国际修正主义的斗争及其当代启迪

列宁在反对第二国际修正主义斗争的历史过程中，按照马克思主义的原则，在团结群众斗争、马克思主义具体化时代化、党建方面坚持和发展了马克思主义。尽管列宁在这一斗争领域的思想及路径、策略还有很多，但上述几个方面具有代表性。把这几个具有代表性的思想用来指导批判当代社会主义现代化建设过程中出现的各种问题和矛盾所滋生的各式各样的反马克思主义思潮，将使我们得到莫大的启迪。