The Role of Legal System and Socioeconomic Aspects in the Environmental Quality Drive of the Global South

The increasing environmental challenges associated with the Global South is potentially associated with the socioeconomic changes amid potential institutional deficiencies such as the weak or inefficient environmental regulation. Thus, this twenty-first century challenge has increasingly necessitated more climate action from the Global South as championed by the developed economies. On this note, examines the environmental aspects of law and order (LO) vis-à-vis legal system and socioeconomic (SE) indexes of the Political Risk Services for a panel of 80 selected Global South countries over the period 1984–2014. Additionally, by employing the economic growth vis-à-vis the Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPC) as additional explanatory variable, the study employs the more recent experimental techniques of Mean Group Estimator (MG), the Augmented Mean Group Estimator (AMG) and the Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG). Importantly, with the more efficient CCEMG, the study found that the strength of the legal system in the Global South (although not statistically significant) is a crucial factor to mitigated carbon emission in the panel countries. However, the study found that an improved socioeconomic condition and economic expansion is detrimental to the Global South’s environmental quality. Furthermore, the Granger causality result implied that each of LO, SE and GDPC exhibits a feedback relationship with carbon emissions. Hence, the study suggests the need for a stronger implementation of environmental regulations through a revitalized legal system and some concerted socioeconomic policies that address poverty and unemployment among other factors.

     

国际新闻与传播研究中女性主义知识议题及研究启示——基于CiteSpace知识图谱的可视化分析

女性主义作为广泛影响当前社会的主要思潮流派,以其蓬勃发展的性别议题、知识话语和运动空间,深刻影响着国际新闻与传播研究格局.国际范围中女性主义相关议题的研究成果不断增长,针对既有科研文献提炼女性主义在新闻与传播研究中发挥的作用和转化效果,探索女性主义在具体学科研究中的综合价值,为促进国内新闻与传播研究事业发展提供性别话题.基于科学知识图谱对SSCI收录的21世纪以来相关期刊论文进行科学计量,结果显示女性主义在国际新闻与传播研究中的影响主要聚焦于女性形象、性别权力、赛博叙事、凝视关系等知识议题.女性主义思想资源为我国新闻与传播研究提供了经验借鉴和知识启迪,为创新国内相关领域研究提供了变化契机.     

Changes in Social Exclusion Indicators and Psychological Distress Among Homeless People Over a 2.5-Year Period

Although homelessness is inherently associated with social exclusion, homeless individuals are rarely included in conventional studies on social exclusion. Use of longitudinal survey data from a cohort study on homeless people in four major Dutch cities (n = 378) allowed to examine: changes in indicators of social exclusion among homeless people over a 2.5-year period after reporting to the social relief system, and associations between changes in indicators of social exclusion and changes in psychological distress. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was applied to investigate the associations between changes in indicators of social exclusion and changes in psychological distress. Improvements were found in various indicators of social exclusion, whereas financial debts showed no significant improvement. Changes in unmet care needs, health insurance, social support from family and relatedness to others were related to changes in psychological distress. This study demonstrated improvements in various indicators of social exclusion among homeless people over a period of 2.5 years, and sheds light on the concept of social exclusion in relation to homelessness.