THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST AND REFORM IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S IDEOLOGICAL IMAGINATION

ABSTRACT. In pursuit of its foreign‐policy goals, the administration of President George W. Bush has attempted a dramatic reshaping of the vision of the Middle East in the American mind. References to the “new” or “greater” Middle East now include countries far outside traditional concepts of the region, including those in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. The administration argues that this region is defined not by cultural (Arab) or religious (Islam) characteristics but by a lack of democracy; hence a grand strategy is needed to execute reform. This article examines current U.S. efforts to achieve reform in the region, the components of the ideological construction of the New Middle East, the perceived role of Iraq, Turkey's potential role as a “model” for the region, and responses from the region to current U.S.‐led reform efforts.     

全球化视角的区域主义与区域一体化理论阐释

区域一体化作为重要的区域发展模式, 历来是地理学者关注的焦点。本文通过对区域一体化相关概念的辨析, 回顾区域主义发展历程, 并概括全球化赋予区域一体化的新内涵, 提出目前区域一体化研究的不足之处, 以期为区域经济发展研究提供有益的启示。区域主义与全球化是塑造当今世界经济格局的两种重要的力量, 自19世纪以来, 区域主义就伴随着全球化的趋势产生了4 次思想浪潮的变革;与此同时, 区域一体化的理论趋于系统化, 从早期的关税同盟理论、自由区贸易理论、大市场理论等以国际贸易为重点, 转而向空间、制度等方面扩展, 引入了新区域主义、新经济地理理论和新制度经济学等研究视角。随着区域行为主体的多元化、合作领域的深化、组织机制的复杂化, 形成了全球化背景下区域一体化新的内涵。根据国外的研究进展和国内区域一体化的现实需求, 未来应该对主权国家内部跨界一体化理论、内涵等方面加强研究。     

中国城市全球化与地方化程度分析

全球化和地方化以及伴随的全球空间和地方空间是新经济时代城市发展的重要外部环境,即全球化过程中的全球体系优势源泉和地方化过程中的地方据点优势源泉。中国城市加速其全球化进程的同时,城市竞争以及城市一区域一体化也在不同地区、不同程度地加剧和加速,城市发展取决于其全球性的链接程度以及区域竞争力的高低和地方根植程度。该文分析新经济时代全球化和地方化过程中城市发展和城市竞争的基本特征,通过主成分分析等方法分析中国城市的全球化和地方化程度。结果表明,中国东部发达地区的全球化和地方化作用相对显著;中西部地区由于区域整体竞争力低、城市区域整合度差,影响了该区域的城市竞争优势。     

Development and Governmentality

The subjectivity of individuals, the so‐called speakers and hearers of political discourse, who actually, or even ideally, populate a state, needs to be understood in terms of enunciative modalities ‐ the statuses, sites, and positions ‐ of their existence as political subjects. Enunciative modalities refer to the ways a discursive practice is attached to bodies in space (Clifford, 2001:56).Governmental thought territorializes itself in different ways… We can analyze the ways in which the idea of a territorially bounded, politically governed nation state under sovereign authority took shape… One can trace anomalous governmental histories of smaller‐scale territories… and one can also think of these [as] spaces of enclosure that governmental thought has imagined and penetrated… how [does it] happen that social thought territorializes itself on the problem of [for example] the slum in the nineteenth century (Rose, 1999:34–36)?     

中东水问题成因、合作与冲突

中东战略位置重要、石油资源丰富但水资源短缺,常常被人们形容为“干旱的宝地”。水问题不仅严重制约着该地区的经济发展和社会进步,而且同该地区错综复杂的民族矛盾、边界纠纷、领土争端和教派分歧等紧紧纠缠在一起,形成一枚随时被引爆的炸弹,时刻威胁着该地区的政治稳定,不断影响着该地区的外交和国际关系,使一触即发的中东局势火上加油。因此,西方国家、尤其是北大西洋公约组织已将中东水问题作为重大军事战略问题来研究。本文初步分析了中东水问题的成因、简要介绍了几种解决措施,并基本澄清了有关问题。     

Food Safety and Contract Edamame: The Geopolitics of the Vegetable Trade in East Asia

This paper examines how the proliferation of the new Japanese food‐safety regime has influenced the edamame industries of China and Taiwan—the two largest producers of edamame beans in the world. Edamame is not only a popular cuisine in the Asia‐Pacific region, it is also responsible for the largest‐scale frozen vegetable flow in East Asia. This study addresses how the interaction between geopolitical realities and the subcontracting of edamame crops has created an access regime governing the vegetable trade in East Asia. By addressing the complexity of the geopolitics related to contract farming, this study considers the extent to which the Japanese edamame trade has subordinated edamame producers in multiple places in Asia, while Taiwan's edamame industry has positioned itself to obtain preferential access to the edamame flow between Japan, Taiwan, and China.     

Kenya's regional ambitions or China's Belt‐and‐Road? News media representations of the Mombasa‐Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway

Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), and its construction and financing by China, exemplifies the prominence accorded to mega‐infrastructural projects in contemporary economic development, as well as the dependence this has engendered on external loans. Alongside, multiple geographies intertwine in the SGR which is both a component of China's global ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI), as well as an East African regional link between coastal Kenya and neighbouring landlocked countries. In most popular and academic analyses, the role of China is emphasized over the SGR's positioning within East Africa. Does this then lead to an undermining of the meanings that are attached to the SGR within Kenya? This article seeks to add Kenyan perspectives to the debate over China's infrastructural loans by examining the range of news media discourses that have emerged around the SGR. Utilizing the theoretical lens of South‐South cooperation and African agency, this study analyzes how material infrastructure becomes meaningful within the context of a political superstructure. For Kenya, this political superstructure is shaped not only by Kenya‐China relations, but also by infrastructural competitions within East Africa, as well as within Kenya itself.     

Regionalism in the Asia Pacific: is Geography destiny?

The renaissance in geographical 'bloc' development in the 1990s has generated expectations that prevailing international regionalism is compatible with the dominant global integration model. Nascent regionalism in the Asia Pacific best captures this trend with regional initiatives being established on the basis of 'open' regionalism as opposed to 'closed' regionalism that is associated potentially with institution building and regional governance. In this paper, I examine the shape and nature of Asia Pacific regionalism. I show how countries here favour a process of regime building that is centred on network building among state and private actors without any goal towards institution building. Asia Pacific regionalism is less concerned with the production and governance of regional space than the assertion of a collective Asian political culture that preserves state sovereignty.     

地缘政治视角下“伊斯兰国”兴起后的两伊关系变化探究

历经“阿拉伯之春”后,中东多国在动荡与冲突中难以自拔,而反政府武装组织“伊斯兰国”却趁机兴风作浪。“伊斯兰国”的肆虐不仅使得中东地区的地缘政治格局更复杂,也给世界和平的维护带来了巨大挑战。“伊斯兰国”长期活跃在伊拉克-叙利亚边境地带,它的兴起将会对平淡的两伊关系带来重要变数。论文从地缘政治的视角归纳了IS兴起后两伊关系在宗教、经济、外交、军事等四大方面的变化,并指出中东地缘政治格局变化是促使两国关系变化的根本原因。“伊斯兰国”兴起后两伊关系迅速改善,促进中东三大地缘集团鼎立新格局的形成,也引起域外各国势力的政策变化。     

THE MORPHODYNAMICS OF THE MONT BLANC MASSIF IN A CHANGING CRYOSPHERE: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW

One of the most glacierized areas in the European Alps, the Mont Blanc massif, illustrates how fast changes affect the cryosphere and the related morphodynamics in high mountain environments, especially since the termination of the Little Ice Age. Contrasts between the north‐west side, gentle and heavily glaciated, and the south‐east side, steep and rocky, and between local faces with varying slope angle and aspect highlight the suitability of the study site for scientific investigations. Glacier shrinkage is pronounced at low elevation but weaker than in other Alpine massifs, and supraglacial debris covers have developed over most of the glaciers, often starting in the nineteenth century. Lowering of glacier surface also affects areas of the accumulation zone. While modern glaciology has been carried out in the massif for several decades, study of the permafrost has been under development for only a few years, especially in the rock walls. Many hazards are related to glacier dynamics. Outburst flood from englacial pockets, ice avalanche from warm‐based and cold‐based glaciers, and rock slope failure due to debuttressing are generally increasing with the current decrease or even the vanishing of glaciers. Permafrost degradation is likely involved in rockfall and rock avalanche, contributing to the chains of processes resulting from the high relief of the massif. The resulting hazards could increasingly endanger population and activities of the valleys surrounding the Mont Blanc massif.     

SPATIO-TEMPORAL ASPECTS OF LAND USE AND LAND COVER CHANGES IN THE NIAH CATCHMENT, SARAWAK, MALAYSIA

This paper focuses on the large‐scale land use and land cover changes that have taken place in Sarawak state, East Malaysia over the three decades of 1972‐2002. Results are presented from a detailed land use and cover change (LUCC) study in the Niah River catchment using satellite imagery, questionnaire surveys and interviews. Successive waves of land cover changes have taken place. Large forest areas have been logged and gradually replaced by oil palm plantations, which now occupy more than 40 per cent of the total land area in the catchment. Concurrently, small‐scale farming systems have also changed. Formerly dominant Iban shifting cultivation practices are increasingly being replaced by cash crop production on permanent fields and impacted by off‐farm activities involving many ethnic groups. It is argued that land cover changes are continuous and complex processes involving a large number of variables which can be analysed for different time periods at various scales.     

中国在东亚地区的合作与竞争

合作与竞争并存是地区经济一体化乃至经济全球化过程中的重要特征，是当今世界各国在经济发展过程中必须处理好的重大课题。本文简要分析了中国同东亚其他各主要经济体之间合作与竞争关系的现状，预测了其发展前景，并提出了若干战略措施，以使中国同上述经济体的合作进一步加强，竞争更加有序。     

Governing through mobilities and the expansion of spatial capability of Vietnamese marriage migrant activist women in South Korea

This paper revisits the debate on marriage migration by highlighting the role of governing power and individual response in the process of migration decision‐making and post‐settlement of Vietnamese marriage migrant activist women in South Korea. It contributes to current marriage migration debates by employing the lens of ‘governmobility’ and ‘spatial capability’. The research looks at how female migrant activists maneuver coercion, resistance, and activism, both governed by nation‐state politics, but also actively deciding their fate amidst pressures of the global marriage market. Based on in‐depth interviews with 21 Vietnamese marriage migrant women who have worked in mentoring, counselling and translating for other Vietnamese migrants, our findings demonstrate that marriage migrants are positioned in between two nation‐states whose perspectival focus is on relieving the tensions of their own domestic job and marital markets. At the same time, these women have broken free from the inertia of socio‐familial status quo and state intervention to become self‐governing agents of mobility in various stages of their migration and adaptation. Fueled on by their position as activists, the marriage migrants then expand their spatial capability to place‐making—shifting the notion of freedom from simply taking part in mobility to reshaping their locale.     

Elite discourses of regional identity in a new regionalism development scheme: The case of the ‘Mountain Region’ in Norway

Norway's regional structure is under debate as questions about territorial boundaries, scale, scope of tasks and responsibilities, and decision-making structures have become an issue in Norwegian politics. This tendency of changing the scale of public action with regard to governmental structures, economic politics, welfare, and civic society has been termed ‘new regionalism’. New regionalism often comes under criticism of being too neo-liberalistic or too economically orientated, leaving in its wake debates of democratic accountability and the neglect of ‘soft factors’ (i.e. socio-culture, identity, consciousness, and participation). In this article the authors investigate whether new democratic or semi-democratic regional organisations as advocated by new regionalist schemes require identification amongst the local population in order to be successful and enduring governmental structures. Further, it is shown how too simplistic understandings of the social processes, and their inherent power aspects, involved in the implementation of the new regionalist development scheme ‘Mountain Region’ distort the undertaking. The authors find that a more complex relational and contextual understanding is in demand, one in which regionalisation is not only recognised as a process which diffuses across time-space, but also takes an asymmetrical place across society's social fabric, and one where ‘soft factors’ such as ‘regional identity’ are not sidestepped.     

Economic globalization and regional disparities in the Philippines

This paper empirically tracks the Philippine (policy) path following the mantra of economic globalization over the past 25 years. Specifically, it investigates the resulting regional growth‐inequality relationships and development footprints accompanying the restructuring of political economy and livelihoods. The Philippine case thereby shows how globalization can simultaneously cause the selective dismantling of (economic) barriers and enhancement of mobility and growth, as well as a deterioration of socioeconomic inequalities in space and society. In an increasingly deregulated and contested environment these development divides do not just pose serious threats to regional balance and national cohesion but, ultimately, undermine state capacity to achieve avowed goals of inclusive growth, stability and equality for citizens.     

土耳其“中间走廊”倡议:基础、动因及地缘政治影响

土耳其地跨欧亚大陆,具有独特的区位和地缘政治优势。土耳其立足自身需求和交通基础,提出“中间走廊”倡议,旨在欧亚大陆跨国运输和经贸往来中充分发挥枢纽功能,提升区域大国影响力,“中间走廊”倡议对周边地区和国家具有潜在的地缘政治影响。“中间走廊”倡议进一步强化土耳其、阿塞拜疆、格鲁吉亚等国之间的政治联盟关系,存在孤立亚美尼亚嫌疑,对俄罗斯的交通区位优势和地缘政治影响力有一定的冲击;对中亚地区的影响具有多维性,既有积极因素,也有潜在风险。在欧亚大陆互联互通层面,“一带一路”倡议与“中间走廊”倡议存在合作基础,二者战略对接过程中,中国需要根据时局变化,充分认识和评估彼此的战略诉求和利益布局,以及文化和历史差异,求同存异,寻求利益契合点,规避潜在的地缘政治风险。     

网纹红土的成因及其研究意义

本文阐述我国网纹红土的分布和特征,着重讨论网纹红土的形成原因,指出网纹红土可表征我国南方中更新世以来新构造运动的幅度和性质,并可作为我国东部是否存在古冰川作用的佐证.     

Water resource conflicts in the Middle East

This article discusses the causes and sources of water resource conflict in the 3 major international river basins of the Middle East: the Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile, and the Jordan-Yarmuk. The physical geography of the Middle East is arid due to descending air, northeast trade winds, the southerly location, and high evaporation rates. Only Turkey, Iran, and Lebanon have adequate rainfall for population needs. Their mountainous geography and more northerly locations intercept rain and snow bearing westerly winds in winter. Parts of every other country are vulnerable to water shortages. Rainfall is irregular. Water resource conflicts are due to growing populations, economic development, rising standards of living, technological developments, political fragmentation, and poor water management. Immigration to the Jordan-Yarmuk watershed has added to population growth in this location. Over 50% of the population in the Middle East lives in urban areas where populations consume 10-12 times more water than those in rural areas. Water is wasted in irrigation schemes and huge dams with reservoirs where increased evaporation occurs. Technology results in greater water extraction of shallow groundwater and pollution of rivers and aquifers. British colonial government control led to reduced friction in most of the Nile basin. Now all ethnic groups have become more competitive and nationalistic. The Cold War restrained some of the conflict. Israel obtains 40% of its water from aquifers beneath the West Bank and Gaza. Geopolitical factors determine the mutual goodwill in managing international water. The 3 major water basins in the Middle East pose the greatest risk of water disputes. Possible solutions include conservation, better management, prioritizing uses, technological solutions, increased cooperation among co-riparians, developing better and enforceable international water laws, and reducing population growth rates.     

Deciphering exhumation and burial history with multi‐sample down‐well thermochronometric inverse modelling

The ability of thermochronometric data to shed light on the geologic history of samples and localities through thermal history inverse modelling is enhanced by the degree to which additional geological information can be incorporated into the modelling process. In this contribution, we describe a new set of methods and processes implemented in the HeFTy modelling software for specifying the stratigraphic relationships between samples down a well or borehole, allowing them to be modelled simultaneously, and demonstrate their use in bringing better definition to both predepositional and burial histories. Data from two wells in the Colombian Andes are examined, one in the Middle Magdalena Valley that experienced not only fast Miocene burial but also features a Mio‐Pliocene unconformity, and one in the eastern foothills of the Eastern Cordillera in which burial was accomplished by a combination of sedimentation and overthrusting. Multiple‐sample modelling in both wells considerably refines the results that are obtained from single‐sample modelling. We also demonstrate how to use these methods to pose and evaluate distinct hypotheses concerning the geologic history. As a general rule, it is best practice to set up thermal history inverse models to pose specific geological questions while ruling out geologically impossible or inconsistent solutions.     

Co‐inhabiting public spaces: diversity and playful encounters in Darwin,Australia

When fear and anxiety circulate in public spaces of diverse western cities, heightened surveillance can provide a sense of safety and comfort. These measures of surveillance that target bodies that are ‘out of place’, however, are limited in animating public spaces. This paper focuses on Darwin, a small but rapidly growing north Australian city where the visibility of Aboriginal people from Greater Darwin/regional communities and migrant newcomers from countries in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East often circulates fear and anxiety and deadens public spaces. I argue that playful events or spontaneous multisensory encounters of humans, non‐humans and material things, however, have the potential to animate these public spaces. The paper focuses on these events in a Drop‐in open‐air café‐community garden‐Op shop in a culturally diverse northern suburb of Darwin. It suggests that the vibrancy of matter and the vitality of non‐human forms of life can inform how we co‐inhabit cities of difference and unsettle policies of social cohesion that focus on integration into a dominant white majority culture.