統計年鑑 = Statistical yearbook

For researchers and practitioners interested in social relationships, the question remains as to how large social networks typically are, and how their size and composition change across adulthood. On the basis of predictions of socioemotional selectivity theory and social convoy theory, we conducted a meta-analysis on age-related social network changes and the effects of life events on social networks using 277 studies with 177,635 participants from adolescence to old age. Cross-sectional as well as longitudinal studies consistently showed that (a) the global social network increased up until young adulthood and then decreased steadily, (b) both the personal network and the friendship network decreased throughout adulthood, (c) the family network was stable in size from adolescence to old age, and (d) other networks with coworkers or neighbors were important only in specific age ranges. Studies focusing on life events that occur at specific ages, such as transition to parenthood, job entry, or widowhood, demonstrated network changes similar to such age-related network changes. Moderator analyses detected that the type of network assessment affected the reported size of global, personal, and family networks. Period effects on network sizes occurred for personal and friendship networks, which have decreased in size over the last 35 years. Together the findings are consistent with the view that a portion of normative, age-related social network changes are due to normative, age-related life events. We discuss how these patterns of normative social network development inform research in social, evolutionary, cultural, and personality psychology.

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Social network changes and life events across the life span: a meta-analysis.

Using the framework of the Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC) Science/Research Plan this study takes 152 studies of deforestation in different regions of varying size from around the tropics and analyses them to assess how important different causes of deforestation really are. It claims to be the first which quantifies the impact of cultural or socio-political driving forces upon deforestation.The study gives a brief rationale why subnational – and not country-wide – case study evidence constitutes an important tool in LUCC and outlines the analytical concept of proximate and underlying causes of land change used in LUCC research. The authors then attempt to generalize results across regions or broad geographical entities (Africa, Asia, Latin America). Results are presented in three sections:frequency of occurrence of broad clusters of causes and more specific activities (or actor-driven processes) associated with tropical deforestation. patterns of causality (interlinkages) both at the proximate and underlying levels (and between them), in terms of the mode of connection of causesvariations of results other than by broad geographical entities – i.e., by forest type, area size, topography, spatial pattern and process at work, deforestation rate, and poverty- versus capital-driven deforestation. Finally the paper compares its findings against other empirical evidence on tropical deforestation and conclusions are drawn.Empirical findings versus prevailing explanationsCauses and drivers of tropical deforestation cannot be reduced to a single variable, or to a few variables even. Rather, the interplay of several proximate as well as underlying factors drive deforestation in a synergetic way. While the expansion of cropped land and pasture is clearly the most important proximate cause of tropical deforestation, shifting cultivators are not always the key agentsChain-logical causation in the form of simple tandems (or 2-factor chains) underlies about two thirds of the proximate as well as underlying causes. On average, 4 to 5 tandems are associated with each case of tropical deforestation. Rather than single or direct fundamental causes, underlying driver tandems were identified to be most important. These are mainly economy-, policy and institution - and culture - driven tandems impacting upon the proximate level Population pressure in the form of natural increases in number of population due to high fertility is clearly not the major underlying driving force. Rather, inmigration into forested (not natural increase in densely populated) areas plays an important role in cases of frontier colonization. In all cases, however, population does not operate as a single force but is interlinked with other underlying factors. With view on variations of cause frequencies and causality patterns, there is empirical indication that in cases with high rates of annual deforestation pre-disposing biophysical factors are at work or shape the pattern of deforestation.The explanatory power of PAT variables (population, aff luence, technology) is astonishinglypoor. This model obviously fails to consider policy and institutional factors shaping market opportunities as powerful explanatory factors of tropical deforestation.The multiple factors intervening in tropical deforestation also make it particularly difficult to develop generic and widely applicable policies that best attempt to control the process. Many land-use policies are underlain by simplifications on the drivers of change. Such simplification suggest simple technical solutions and sometimes may serve the interests of critical groups (Lambin et al., 2001). From the results of the meta-analysis it is clear that any universal policy or global attempt to control deforestation (e.g., through poverty alleviation) is doomed to failure.Implications for modelling and controlling deforestationDeforestation is a complex, multiform process which cannot be represented by a mechanistic approach. This has implications for modelling as many of the simulation models of land-use change tend to be mechanistic. The case study evidence examined in this meta-analysis clearly suggests that we still lack an overarching theory to encompass the different factors which intervene in the processes of deforestation.Empirical evidence shows that the complexity and diversity of driving factors of deforestation is reduced when looking at specific processes – e.g., subsistence agriculture, commercial agriculture, colonisation activities or logging activities – and specific geographic situations – i.e., frontier areas, roadside areas, peri-urban areas.The overall dominance of the broad cluster of agricultural expansion is well perceived in the modelling of tropical deforestation. However, this is not always the case when it comes more specific agricultural uses and other than agricultural land uses such as logging.Implications for future case study comparisonsThe LUCC research framework proved to be a fruitful platform from which to proceed to develop a general understanding of the drivers of land use and land cover change.Concerning regional representation of case studies in future comprehensive comparisons, the study found that weighting bias in our meta-analysis was low, but also found indication that future work will have to include considerably more African less Asian and about the same number of Latin American cases, Concerning weighting bias in terms of agents involved in the process of deforestation, a better understanding of logging company behaviour and/or industrial forestry plantation activities is requiredFinally the study found a systematic comparison of local-scale case studies is an extremely productive methodology.[authors]

What drives tropical deforestation?: a meta-analysis of proximate and underlying causes of deforestation based on subnational case study evidence

List of Figures. List of Contributors.Preface. Acknowledgements.1. Socializing Nature: Theory, Practice, and Politics: Noel Castree (University of Manchester).2. Being Constructive About Nature?: David Demeritt (Kings College, London).3. Nature, Poststructuralism, and Politics: Bruce Braun (University of Minnesota) and Joel Wainwright (University of Minnesota).4. The Nature of 'Race': Kay Anderson (Durham University).5. Postcolonialism and the Production of Nature: Derek Gregory (University of British Columbia).6. Gendered Natures: Feminism, Politics, and Social Nature: Jane Moeckli (University of Iowa) and Bruce Braun (University of Minnesota).7. Social Nature and Environmental Policy in the South: Views from Verandah and Veld: Piers Blaikie (University of East Anglia).8. Political Ecology: A Critical Agenda for Change?: Ray Bryant (King's College, London).9. Natural Disasters?: Mark Pelling (University of Liverpool).10. Marxism, Capitalism, and the Production of Nature: Noel Castree (University of Manchester).11. Dissolving Dualisms: Actor-networks and the Reimagination of Nature: Noel Castree (University of Manchester) and Tom MacMillan (University of Manchester).12. Solid Rock and Shifting Sands: The Moral Paradox of saving a Socially Constructed Nature: James Proctor (University of California, Santa Barbara).Index.

Social Nature: Theory, Practice, and Politics

Vietnam's firms contract without the shadow of the law and only partly in the shadow of the future. Although contracting rests in part on the threat of loss of future business, firms often are willing to renegotiate following a breach, so the retaliation is not as forceful as in the standard repeated-game story and not as effective a sanction. To ensure agreements are kept, firms rely on other devices to supplement repeated-game incentives. Firms scrutinize their trading partners. Community sanctions are occasionally invoked. Transactions with greater risk of reneging are supported by more elaborate governance structures. Ongoing relationships among firms serve to reduce the transaction costs of the market: the costs of locating trading partners, of negotiating and monitoring contracts, and of enforcing agreements and settling disputes. In an economy in the midst of deep reform, transaction costs are especially severe because the normal market-supporting institutions are still being built. We examine in this article how Vietnam's firms use ongoing relationships to maintain agreements. For a snapshot of an economy in the process of building institutions, we use a 1995-1997 survey of privately owned manufacturing firms in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The new ways of doing business in Vietnam have been devised at ground level. The bottom-up reform process has relied on de facto decentralization of economic activity, while leaving in place the formal institutions of central planning. Although Vietnam's government has introduced few policies to foster the private sector, "the owners of private business have worked out their own ad hoc strategy for economic development which is popular, oral rather than in the

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/3555085

Dispute Prevention Without Courts in Vietnam

Two decades ago the Vietnamese Communist Party embarked on a transformation from central planning towards a “socialist market economy under state guidance.” It looked to East Asian development models, particularly the role of state enterprises (SEs), combined with the creation of a “civilised and equitable” society. The article argues that, in the case of SEs, the state's inability, especially under donor pressure, to provide crucial investment support to the SEs meant that foreign investors and the domestic non-state sector began to dominate the economic landscape. While state-led development remains feasible, it requires a clear and more authoritative industry policy; otherwise, the balance of interventionism could eventually tip towards cronyism. Further, the vagueness of the term “civilised and equitable” society leaves open both conformity with the post-Washington consensus and the possibility to achieve more aggressive redistributive measures, including redistribution of power. In practice,...

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Doi Moi in Review: The Challenges of Building Market Socialism in Vietnam

Vietnam - Politics, Economics and Society

Vietnam: the transition from central planning

The period 2005–2008 provides an opportunity to examine the impact of ending the Multi-Fibre Arrangement's system of quotas on the development of Cambodia's clothing industry and the wider Cambodian economy. The question is particularly interesting because (1) Cambodia has incorporated independently monitored labour standards and trade union rights into its labour law and (2) the clothing industry plays a centrally important role in growth of exports, GDP and employment. The paper shows that with the exception of the EU market, the increasingly competitive environment did not undermine expansion of the industry prior to the onset of global recession in 2008. The reason for continued success lay mainly in improved price competitiveness through exchange rate movements and the shift of China towards more upmarket production. Productivity gains seem an unlikely source of continued rapid growth. Finally, an examination of monitoring reports indicates that labour standards did not decline as a result of increas...

The Cambodian clothing industry in the post-MFA environment: a review of developments

The soldier comes to another front now, the environmental front…. without environmental recovery, Vietnam cannot have economic recovery. (Vo Nguyen Giap)

Melanie Beresford

Papers

Doi Moi in Review: The Challenges of Building Market Socialism in Vietnam

Vietnam - Politics, Economics and Society

Vietnam: the transition from central planning

The Cambodian clothing industry in the post-MFA environment: a review of developments

Political economy of the environment in Vietnam