Suchergebnisse

In China, illegal evictions disenfranchise farmers and threaten agricultural development. The government claims to have introduced the world's strictest measures to protect farmland and improve farmers' lives, but with minimal results. As rural land remains in the hands of the state, is land privatization the solution?

China has reached a critical point in its development. Widespread poverty and growing social inequality are posing daunting challenges for social stability. The Chinese government seems aware of this, but needs to do more to empower the people to participate in the reform process.

Boys' Love (BL) is a global by-and-for women genre of youth culture focused on male-on-male sexuality and romance. Incest relationships are not uncommon in BL yet there is no research on what kinds are of most interest to the audience, and with which sub-demographics, and none offer an intercultural comparison. We address this lacuna analyzing data from the largest BL audience survey to date in both Anglophone (N = 1715) and Sinophone (N = 1922) regions. CATPCA reveals a strikingly similar component structure across the two cultures with a preference hierarchy descending from non-blood relationships, blood intergenerational, then brothers. For both regions, it is the avid fans who tend to consume incest material while, for the Sinophone, it is the less socially empowered who appear most engaged: women, the other-gendered, and the nonheterosexual. Moreover, Sinophone fans are more concerned about legal issues than are Anglophone. Other subtle cultural differences suggest Sinophone BL fans focus on family rules and roles and the Anglophone on the intimacy of brotherly bonds. As young women have increasing opportunity to create and consume sexuality explicit material geared to their particular tastes and needs, our study provides important information to inform debates about the forms, functions, and legislative context around pornography.

Our aim is to compare comprehensive data on the engaged demographics of female-oriented male-male erotica in Anglophone regions and that of the greater China area. Our study constitutes the largest such data set in each region (Anglophone N = 1707; Chinese N = 1498). Data were analysed from our online Boys' Love (BL) fandom survey: one version in English and an almost identical version in Chinese. We confirm that the engaged Anglophone demographic includes more men, people with a wider range of sexual orientations, lower proportion of heterosexual identification, and a wider and older age range. We provide greater detail than ever before and demonstrate engagement with BL by young straight men and questioning of sexual identity by female fans, at least in the Anglophone West. Finally, we provide novel evidence that a broad demographic of young people in the greater China area is familiar with BL as a casual interest in contrast to Anglophone regions where it is more of an intense and niche pass-time. We offer important insights into a global erotic entertainment by-and-for women which is influencing the mainstream but under increasing legislative scrutiny.

In the past two decades, landscape archaeology has undergone a paradigm shift from traditional theoretical methods to being practically oriented, with the advent of the widespread application of philosophical theories (such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, and others) and the emerging new technologies in social sciences. Nevertheless, landscape archaeology has not been able to garner the attention it requires from Chinese archaeology, which fails to understand its significance behind the systematic regional survey methods. Rather, for a long time, the study of the man-land relationship has been considered to be a part of environmental archaeology. Besides, the landscape elements in archaeological excavations were often considered as mechanical interactions between people and the environment, resulting in a lack of holistic and systematic research on a selection of archaeological sites. The focus however has remained restricted to the earthen remains and relics in the archaeological process. The Northern Wei Dynasty was the first nomadic regime to control the Central Plains in the Chinese history and moved its capital three times for the purpose of sinicization. The recent archaeological excavations of the ancient city of Shengle, imperial palaces, tombs, sacrificial sites, gardens, Yinshan palaces, and the border defense facilities during the Shengle period of the Northern Wei Dynasty have revealed several phenomena and evidence of the cultural integration of the various ethnic groups. As mentioned earlier, the limitations in the research horizon have led to the in-depth analysis and research of archaeological relics and archaeological data during this period seeking the desired attention. This study considers landscape archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and history as the primary research methods pertinent to the above situation. It considers archaeological relics and archaeological data from the prosperous period as the research object and thoroughly analyses the relationship between the people and the earthen landscape relics, to reveal the social culture, the religious beliefs, the politics, and the military behind the integration of the multi-ethnic culture, along with the cognition of the natural environments, the social structures, and the religious spaces. Simultaneously, the analysis results would also endeavor to integrate the artifacts, the relics (space, structure, layout, and locational relationship), road grids, surrounding environment, and several other surface space elements to restore and reproduce the prosperous social and cultural situations scenes of the bygone period. The final outcome shall become a typical research case. By comparing and combing the archaeological discoveries of the Northern and the Southern Dynasties of China and the pertinent archaeological data, we could further understand and explain the multi-ethnic cultural development and evolution while providing an essential theoretical basis for the present social and cultural research on the Northern Wei Dynasty in China.

Consistent with the Minsky hypothesis and the "volatility paradox" (Brunnermeier and Sannikov, 2014), recent empirical evidence suggests that financial crises tend to follow prolonged periods of financial stability and investor optimism. But does financial stability/tranquility always call for more stringent regulation over time? We examine this question using a simple portfolio choice model that features the interaction between learning and externality. We evaluate the potential of a macroprudential policy to restore efficiency, and characterize the necessary and sufficient condition for the countercyclicality of the optimal regulation/macroprudential policy. Our paper implies that policymakers should not only consider the cyclical indicators "on the surface" (for example, credit growth), but also closely examine the deep structural change of the resilience of the system. The paper also highlights the importance of assigning the macroprudential policy function to independent agencies with technical expertise rather than to relatively uninformed politicians.

Abstract: One of the underlying objectives of the reformed civil justice system in Hong Kong is to facilitate the settlement of disputes. The court is now under the duty of active case management to encourage and promote the use of an alternative dispute resolution procedure where appropriate. Facilitative mediation was generally practised in Hong Kong before the Civil Justice Reform. By issuing a specific practice direction on mediation, the judiciary has given a strong boost for this process to the extent that parties may even be penalized in costs if they unreasonably refuse to mediate. The continuous transfer of conflict resolution from the hands of the judge to the parties gives rise to an increasing risk that information disclosed in mediation may be used to the parties' disadvantage in subsequent legal proceedings. This paper examines the precise scope of three common law principles that protect confidentiality of mediation communications. Drawing upon the approaches of local institutions, the US Uniform Mediation Act and the EU Mediation Directive, it considers the arguments that might be relevant in deciding what law should govern the issues at present not covered by the existing legal framework, a question that has become more pressing in view of the fact that negotiations have begun on a proposed mediation ordinance to deal with it. ; published_or_final_version

Mediator immunity has been identified as one major issue for possible future mediation legislation in the 2010 Consultation Paper released by the Hong Kong Government. So far there is no uniform stance on the issue around the world. This paper analyses relevant methods for determining mediator liability and the scope of that liability in different countries. Hong Kong's revised Arbitration Ordinance has taken a forward through its qualified immunity position with respect to the issue of mediator liability under the arbitration framework. This position is commendable for adapting to the current trend of dispute resolution. The paper concludes that a similar approach should be adopted in future mediation legislation in Hong Kong. ; published_or_final_version