Multidimensional Governance Logic and Path to Maintain Social Stability

With China’s reform and development entering a critical period,the interweaving of various interest relations and the superimposing of the old and new contradictions have intensified social risks.Based on the concept of“pluralism,sharing,participation,cooperation and tolerance”,social stability can be maintained by the balanced protection of civil rights and the full realization of the development strategy.In addition,with the guidance of comprehensive legal thinking and core socialist values,the legal regulation of administrative behavior and rights-protection behavior is strengthened.In this way,the win-win of maintaining rights and stability can be realized in the positive-sum game that will help resolve social risks and achieve high-quality social stability.

Factors that Affect Social Stability of Rural Areas in Ganzi District

Through the sample investigation of Kangding County, Daofu County, Luhuo County and Xiangcheng County in Sichuan Province in 2010 and by combining the quantitative and qualitative methods, various kinds of indexes from the aspects of society, politics, economy and values in Ganzi District are analyzed, as well as the factors that affect the rural social stability of current Ganzi District area. The results show that rural areas of Ganzi District are stable on the whole, but the economic development level is backward; the social security measures are imperfect; disputes among rural residents still exist and most of them are economic disputes; the disputes among ethnics are mainly caused by religious belief; the autonomous situation of partial rural residents are bad and rural residents' evaluation on social justice is low. Therefore, it should establish and perfect relevant prevention and control mechanism.

Studies on Early-warning System for Social Stability: Vital to China

As a large country in the world, it is both necessary and possible to develop and operate a pre-warning system for social stability, says Prof. Niu Wenyuan, chief scientist for strate-

Quantitative analysis of the impact of droughts and floods on internal wars in China over the last 500 years

Although many large-N quantitative studies have evidenced the adverse effects of climatic extremes on social stability in China during the historical period, most of them rely on temperature and precipitation as major explanatory variables, while the influence of floods and droughts on social crises is rarely measured. Furthermore, a comparison of the climate-society nexus among different geographic regions and at different temporal scales is missing in those studies. To address this knowledge gap,this study examines quantitatively the influence of floods and droughts on internal wars in three agro-ecological(rice, wheat,and pastoral) regions in China in AD1470–1911. Poisson regression and wavelet transform coherence analyses are applied to allow for the non-linear and non-stationary nature of the climate-war nexus. Results show that floods and droughts are significant in driving internal wars in historical China, but are characterized by strong regional variation. In the rice region, floods trigger internal wars at the inter-annual and multi-decadal time scales. In the wheat region, both floods and droughts cause internal wars at the inter-annual and multi-decadal time scales. In the pastoral region, internal wars are associated with floods only at the multi-decadal time scale. In addition, the multi-decadal coherence between hydro-climatic extremes and internal wars in all three of the agro-ecological regions is only significant in periods in which population density is increasing or the upper limit of regional carrying capacity is being reached. The above results imply that the climate-war nexus is mediated by regional geographic factors such as physical environmental setting and population pressure. Hence, we encourage researchers who study the historical human-climate relationship to boil down data according to geographic regions in the course of statistical analysis and to examine each region individually in follow-up studies.

Using multilayer network analysis to explore the temporal dynamics of collective behavior

Social organisms often show collective behaviors such as group foraging or movement.Collective behaviors can emerge from interactions between group members and may depend on the behavior of key individuals.When social interactions change over time,collective behaviors may change because these behaviors emerge from interactions among individuals.Despite the importance of,and growing interest in,the temporal dynamics of social interactions,it is not clear how to quantify changes in interactions over time or measure their stability.Furthermore,the temporal scale at which we should observe changes in social networks to detect biologically meaningful changes is not always apparent.Here we use multilayer network analysis to quantify temporal dynamics of social networks of the social spider Stegodyphus dumicola and determine how these dynamics relate to individual and group behaviors.We found that social interactions changed over time at a constant rate.Variation in both network structure and the identity of a keystone individual was not related to the mean or variance of the collective prey attack speed.Individuals that maintained a large and stable number of connections,despite changes in network structure,were the boldest individuals in the group.Therefore,social interactions and boldness are linked across time,but group collective behavior is not influenced by the stability of the social network.Our work demonstrates that dynamic social networks can be modeled in a multilayer framework.This approach may reveal biologically important temporal changes to social structure in other systems.

Impacts of seismic activity and climatic change on Chinese history in the recent millennium

General history of disasters in China suggests that China has frequently experienced two major natural disasters in its long history,one is from catastrophic earthquake events,and the other is from extreme climatic events,due to its unique active tectonic environment and climatic complexity.Although these two major natural disasters have caused great damage to human society,it remains unclear whether and how they affect Chinese dynasty alternation on decadal(emperor)timescales.Based on detailed comparisons between abrupt climatic changes,catastrophic seismic activities,and the history of Chinese dynasty alternation from 1000–2000 AD,we conclude that on decadal timescales,extreme drought(and/or flood)events could indeed significantly reduce agricultural production,cause severe food shortages and famine,and result in increases in population exile,rising food prices and inflation,and insufficient supplies for military defense,which could exceed social resilience and eventually lead to financial risks and social upheavals of the dynasties.In addition,catastrophic seismic events in the densely populated,agricultural areas of China,including the 1303 surface wave magnitude(M_(s))8.0 Hongtong earthquake,the 1556 M_(s)8.25Huaxian earthquake and the 1920 M_(s)8.5 Haiyuan earthquake,caused more than 200,000casualties and millions of victims to live in exile which was almost equivalent to the order of magnitude of those extreme climatic events-induced refugees.The secondary geological hazards related to the earthquakes(e.g.,extensive landslides and soil erosion),which could last for decades,caused more casualties and reduced food production.Furthermore,great plague spread caused by the casualties could significantly increase psychological panic among the survivors,resulting in social instability.Therefore,catastrophic seismic events could also accelerate the collapse of the dynasties(e.g.,the Ming dynasty)without immediate mitigation measures.This study indicates that catastrophic seismic activities,as well as extreme climatic events,could have great effects on the social structures and thus on the Chinese dynasty alternation on decadal timescales,which highlights the far-reaching implications of geological hazard research.