Sustainability and virtual water:The lessons of history

This article aims to show that virtual water has historically been an adaptation strategy that enabled some arid regions to develop a prosperous economy without putting pressure on their scarce water resources.Virtual water is referred to as the total amount of water that is consumed to produce goods and services.As an example,in arid central Iran,the deficiency in agricultural revenues was offset by more investment in local industries that enjoyed a perennial capacity to employ more workers.The revenues of local industries weaned the population from irrigated agriculture,since most of their raw materials and also food stuff were imported from other regions,bringing a remarkable amount of virtual water.This virtual water not only sustained the region’s inhabitants,but also set the stage for a powerful polity in the face of a rapid population growth between the 13th and 15th centuries AD.The resultant surplus products entailed a vast and safe network of roads,provided by both entrepreneurs and government.Therefore,it became possible to import more feedstock such as cocoons from water-abundant regions and then export silk textiles with considerable value-added.This article concludes that a similar model of virtual water can remedy the ongoing water crisis in central Iran,where groundwater reserves are overexploited,and many rural and urban centers are teetering on the edge of socio-ecological collapse.History holds an urgent lesson on sustainability for our today’s policy that stubbornly peruses agriculture and other high-water-demand sectors in an arid region whose development has always been dependent on virtual water.

Imaginations and Reimaginations of National Origin——A Case Study of the Two Times that the Gaxian Cave was Discovered

Hailed as one of the most significant breakthroughs in the studies of the Tuoba Clan of the Xianbei Tribe since modern times, the discovery of the Gaxian Cave has advanced our understanding of Xianbei Tribal history. The discovery has created a sensation and had such an impact because of the accurate and reliable historical authenticity it contains. Notably, the elegiac address inscribed on the cave walls during the Northern Wei Dynasty serves as the best evidence for the authenticity.(1) If the historical record that Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty ordered courtiers to pay respects to the “ancestral stone cave of the Xianbei Tribe” can be regarded as the first discovery of the Gaxian Cave, the fact that an archaeological team led by Mi Wenping found the inscription on the cave walls during a field trip in 1980 should mark the rediscovery of the Gaxian Cave. Because the origin and migrations of the Tuoba Clan of the Xianbei Tribe were the focus of previous studies on the discovery of Gaxian Cave, the origin history studies that has become an inevitable part of nation history studies has showed a colorful and interesting trajectory of highs and lows in the case of Gaxian Cave, and highlighted the inherent characteristics and dilemmas of national history discipline in theoretical methods in a general sense.

State,Society and Environmental Security in International Relations Theory

As emerging non-traditional security issues in global politics such as environmental crises offer new avenues of research on the state-society behaviour in non-western political orders,this study applies an integrated conceptual framework of Copenhagen School’s securitization,constructivism and green theory in international relations theory(IRT).One of the key objectives of the study includes to provide a theoretical explanation on the role of non-state agencies in ameliorating the environmental condition.With the support of an illustrative case study,the researcher argues in line with the finding of Acharya and Buzan(2007)that there is no need to replace Western IRTs,but they should be enriched with more voices from non-western political orders.In other words,the emerging non-traditional issues in global politics are not“noises”to weaken existing IRTs but“voices”to strengthen their theoretical foundation.

Communication,Computation,and Governance:A Multiscalar Vantage on the Prehispanic Mesoamerican World

Writing has often been put forth as one indicator of civilization.This correspondence dovetails with the even broader cross-species expectation that the degrees of social complexity and levels of computational communication should closely correlate.Although in a general sense across human cooperative arrangements,a basic relationship between these variables undoubtedly exists,more detailed and fine-grained analyses indicate important axes of variability.Here,our focus is on prehispanic Mesoamerica and the means of computation and communication employed over more than three millennia(ca.1500 BCE-1520 CE).We take a multiscalar and diachronic analytical frame,in which we look at 30 central places,six macroregions,and Mesoamerica as whole.By unraveling elements of“social complexity”,and decoupling computation from communication,we illustrate that institutional differences in governance had a marked effect on the specific modes and technologies through which prehispanic Mesoamerican peoples communicated across time and space.Demographic and spatial scale,though relevant,do not alone determine time/space diversity in media of computational communication.This article is part of the theme issue“Evolution of Collective Computational Abilities of(Pre)Historic Societies”.

The costs of socializing with government officials:A new measure of corporate political connections

We construct a new measure to capture corporate political connections, which is based on the amount a corporation spends on socializing with government officials. We examine the validity of this measure using the exogenous turnover of top local officials and find that firms increase their political networking expenditures when top local officials are replaced. Compared to state-owned enterprises(SOEs), non-state-owned enterprises(non-SOEs) react more aggressively to changes in local officials, which implies that non-SOEs have stronger incentives to build political connections with officials through social intercourse. We also find that firms located in regions with low levels of marketization react more aggressively to the turnover of local politicians. In addition, we find a positive effect of corporate political socializing expenditures on corporate performance and valuation, which suggests that political connections built through social intercourse benefit corporations.

The Intellectual as a Free and Rational Man:On Mills’ The Sociological Imagination

作为米尔斯在学术界影响最为持久的著作,《社会学想象力》一直被当作一本学术经典,为社会学及其他领域提供研究理念和方法。但这本书的价值并不仅仅在于它提供学术指导和参考,还在于它本身就是一本米尔斯的学术和思想自传。在这本自传中,米尔斯通过自己的学术经历和对美国历史与社会的观察,认为知识分子应该作为自由而理性的人与普遍存在的异化作斗争,并打破学术与公众间的界限,实现其在大众(甚至还包括知识分子的同僚)中培养理智而审慎的公众的社会责任。因此,《社会学想象力》也为知识分子进行自我反思提供了范例。

Selected Speeches at First Sino-Indian University Students Forum

The First Sino-Indian University Students Forum jointly sponsored by the Chinese People’ s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries,the China-India Friendship Association,and the Center for India Studies under Peking University,was held at Peking University from May 20 to 23,2009. Seventy students from top Indian and Chinese universities took part in the forum.With the theme of"China-India cooperation is in our hands",the participants exchanged views on issues of common concern including politics,economy and culture and held discussions.

New development of USA's Rebalance to Asia and its impacts to regional Situation

Since July 2010,U.S.Secretary of the Department of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Return to Asia when she was attending the annual ARF,the Obama administration has taken comprehensive measures including military,political,economic and cultural instruments to influence countries in the West Pacific region.Obviously,USA has witnessed quite a few achievements which are very concerned