Values shift in response to social learning through deliberation about protected areas

Salient, long-term solutions to address global environmental change hinge on management strategies that are inclusive of local voices and that recognize the array of values held by surrounding communities. Group-based participatory processes that involve deliberation of multiple stakeholders with varying perspectives—particularly social learning—hold promise to advance inclusive conservation by identifying and creating a shared understanding of the landscape. However, few studies have empirically investigated how the value basis of stakeholder deliberation changes over time in relation to social learning. This study provided a novel platform for local stakeholders from Interior Alaska to deliberate on landscape change and associated management practices in ways that shifted their value orientations. In particular, we used a pre-test, post-test experimental design involving mixed methods to measure how different types of values changed as a result of social learning through an online discussion forum. We found evidence that social learning: 1) activated shared values that were previously hidden through building a relational understanding of others, and 2) shifted values that spanned three levels of psychological stability. As hypothesized, social values that represented expressed preferences for landscape change were most likely to shift in association with social learning. Conversely, shifts in individual values towards self-transcendence required learning to go beyond the discussion forum and be situated within the participants’ broader communities of practice. Overall, this longitudinal study highlights how social learning facilitated through deliberation presents opportunities to identify shared values and spark value shifts across stakeholder groups, thus incorporating diverse viewpoints into decision-making about global environmental change.     

施工企业建立安全生产管理体系的探索

论述了施工企业建设现代安全生产管理体系的重要性,并总结了广东煤炭地质局建设安全生产管理体系．促进安全生产的实践经验,提出了施工企业应从以建立完善安全生产责任制为核心,健全各项规章制度．加强员工的教育培训、资金投入和安全检查五个方面为重点建立现代安全生产管理体系的思路。     

Social justice in coastal erosion management: The temporal and spatial dimensions

Coastal erosion management is primarily based on economic considerations (cost-benefit analysis). From the perspective of social justice (as a particular expression of the wider concept of human rights), however, several arguments can be advanced regarding public intervention in coastal defence management when private property is threatened by coastal erosion. In this paper we examine these arguments at both the short-term local scale and the long-term large spatial scale and consider the merits of inclusion of a social justice dimension in coastal erosion management. The coast provides a range of resources that benefit society as a whole. Coastal residents and property owners face a direct financial loss from coastal erosion but the general public also stands to incur losses other than purely financial if it there is public intervention for the benefit of these property owners. The arguments for public intervention are strongest at the local and short-term scales but they weaken (and even reverse) at geographically larger and longer time scales. At larger scales, the costs to society increase as intergenerational equity, non-coastal residents, climate and sea level change, and the environment are considered. Because of the intensity of interest involved at the local level, we argue that the necessary hard decisions must be made nationally if a sustainable policy is to be adopted. Social justice considerations provide a potential improvement on the traditional economic cost/benefit-based decision-making process of coastal erosion management but they only contribute to sustainability if viewed at the national level.     

The interplay between social welfare and competitiveness: The case of Canadian Medicare

Canadian Medicare, the government financed national health care system, is seen by many as enhancing both social welfare and competitiveness. If true, this will broaden and further existing conceptions of competitiveness in Canada and beyond. Moreover, it will have important implications for the ongoing debate in the social sciences about institutional convergence and path dependence. The central focus of this paper is to evaluate this claim: Medicare’s impact on competitiveness, evaluated by using investment attraction as a proxy, is determined through reference to detailed case analysis and the insight into investment behavior gained from interviews. This paper concludes that Medicare makes a difference for certain reinvestment decisions but no difference for location and initial investment decisions. Several implications are drawn from this finding: Medicare’s impact on reinvestment decisions may stop certain Canadian firms from investing elsewhere but likely would not attract new investment into Canada from abroad. Industries with high labor costs will extract a disproportionately large benefit from Medicare; so, this type of institution is a source of competitiveness to certain industries if not an overarching source of regional competitiveness for Canada. I conclude that, no matter the size and scope of the competitive benefit, social institutions such as Medicare must be considered when evaluating regional competitiveness, having thus far been ignored by mainstream academic competitiveness theories.     

Political ecology and the epistemology of social justice

Piers Blaikie’s writings on political ecology in the 1980s represented a turning point in the generation of environmental knowledge for social justice. His writings since the 1980s demonstrated a further transition in the identification of social justice by replacing a Marxist and eco-catastrophist epistemology with approaches influenced by critical realism, post-structuralism and participatory development. Together, these works demonstrated an important engagement with the politics of how environmental explanations are made, and the mutual dependency of social values and environmental knowledge. Yet, today, the lessons of Blaikie’s work are often missed by analysts who ask what is essentially political or ecological about political ecology, or by those who argue that a critical approach to environmental knowledge should mean deconstruction alone. This paper reviews Blaikie’s work since the 1980s and focuses especially on the meaning of ‘politics’ within his approach to political ecology. The paper argues that Blaikie’s key contribution is not just in linking environmental knowledge and politics, but also in showing ways that environmental analysis and policy can be reframed towards addressing the problems of socially vulnerable people. This pragmatic co-production of environmental knowledge and social values offers a more constructive means of building socially just environmental policy than insisting politics or ecology exist independently of each other, or believing environmental interventions are futile in a post-Latourian world.     

Local Governance for Social Sustainability: equity as a strategic response to neoliberal constraints in food security initiatives

Scholarly literature recognises the importance of social sustainability as part of the wider sustainability agenda. A wide array of concepts such as equity, social justice, democratic government, social inclusion, social capital and quality of life are thought to constitute social sustainability. Local governments are charged with delivering social programs and services to their constituency, but market logics and performance-based institutional cultures, along with limited authority and funding, constrain their capacity to respond to new initiatives. We analyse two case studies in Victoria, Australia, to explore how elements of social sustainability are articulated and operationalised within local government. Each case study involved State-level and local government partnerships in health-promotion initiatives to improve food security. Analysis was conducted on 50 primary policy documents, 22 secondary data documents and 27 interviews. Findings reveal that a systems-based or integrated approach to social sustainability was not workable but not completely ineffective. Equity was prioritised by local government in both case studies, and well acknowledged as interconnected with other social goals. Although constrained in its capacity to deliver new initiatives, local government responded to neoliberalising ideologies, as well as its constituency, by strategically focusing on a particular goal, such as equity.     

不同等级城市的农民工人力资本增长差异及影响因素——基于河北省清苑县的调查分析

农民工外出务工动机正由"生存型"向"发展型"转变,人力资本成为影响其城市融入的重要因素。通过对河北省清苑县的分层随机抽样调查,运用数理统计和对比分析法研究外出农民工的人力资本增长及其作用机理。结果表明:相对于进入全国中心城市和其他中小城市的农民工群体,区域中心城市的农民工技能增长的比例最高。在人力资本增长途径上,非正式学习途径效果突出,正式培训对人力资本增长的效果以区域中心城市最为显著,不仅进入该类城市的农民工能够获得更多的正式培训机会,而且企业对员工的培训频次及培训专业化程度均较另两类城市高。非正式学习受农民工学习主动性的影响,Logistic回归显示企业培训频次对技能提升主动性发挥正向作用且效果最强,而地方文化设施环境与农民工技能提升的主动性呈现负相关,全国性中心城市尤为明显。     

我国西部大开发中资本市场的构建与发展

文章详细分析了我国西部资本市场的区域特点，指出其上市公司数量少，结构单一，证券经营机构分布不均衡，投资者缺乏，金融市场效率相对低下等问题，通过对比剖析了造成我国东西部资本市场区域差异的成因，提出了在西部大开发背景下构建西部资本市场的对策建议。     

中国城市网络团购市场供需协调性评价——基于30个省会城市的实证分析

以30个省会城市为研究对象,从宏观尺度揭示中国城市的网络团购市场供给规模与需求潜力的协调性特征。结果表明:团购市场供给规模较大的城市主要集中在中国东部和西部地区;东部地区城市的供给规模和需求潜力的协调发展程度整体较好,供需失调现象明显的城市主要集中在西北地区;团购市场供给规模及其与需求潜力的协调性均遵循以经济发展水平为标尺的等级式扩张路径。餐饮、娱乐和旅游酒店3类团购市场供给规模相对需求潜力表现出了较明显的过剩现象。城市经济发展水平是团购市场供需协调发展的根本动力,团购市场供给规模和需求潜力水平是团购市场协调发展的直接动力。     

加强地质科技项目管理 助力新时期找矿突破

找矿突破战略行动自实施以来,取得了一系列成果,重要和紧缺矿种新增资源储量保持较快增长,国内矿产资源保障能力增强。通过近5年的探索和努力,找矿效果显著,新发现一批重要矿产地,新增一批矿产资源,发现并查明了大湖塘钨矿床、大营铀矿床、沙坪沟钼矿床等一批世界级矿床,西藏甲玛铜矿床、多龙铜矿床、青海夏日哈木镍矿床等一批超大型矿床,并有望形成西藏扎西康铅锌矿床、贵州铜仁锰矿床等一批新的资源基地,对于立足国内资源保障,优化矿产资源格局具有重要的推动作用。2015年,全国地质勘查投资总额为899.3亿元,新发现主要固体矿产大中型矿产地144处。