As official discourses throughout Central Asia reflect, China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ has become very attractive to the local regimes. They perceive it as corresponding to the urgent need to achieve social and economic growth and maintain alternatives for international cooperation. Political elites have incorporated the BRI-agenda into their rhetoric of growth and actively promote the idea of BRI’s ‘conjugation’ with local development plans. The success of the initiative, however, differs from state to state.
The BRI-related narratives of local expert communities mainly correspond to the goals set by the officials. At the same time, local experts elucidate important issues, such as BRI’s impact on national security, Chinese migration, and public discontent. These elucidations may adjust the official stand towards the BRI. The possibility of such adjustments, varying in different Central Asian states, depends in each case on the openness of a regime to scholarly prognostications.
Abbreviations: BRI - Belt and Road Initiative; CDA - Critical Discourse-Analysis; DHA - Discourse-Historical Approach; SCO - Shanghai Cooperation Organisation; EAEU - Eurasian Economic Union; TAPI -Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (pipeline) 相似文献
In a companion study, Blackburn et al. (Econ Theory Bull, 2017), we have developed a theoretical framework for studying interactions between organized crime and corruption, with the view of examining the combined effects of these phenomena on economic growth. The analysis therein illustrates that organized crime has a negative effect on growth, but that the magnitude of the effect may be either enhanced or mitigated in the presence of corruption. In this paper we tackle the ambiguity produced by the coexistence of the two illicit activities with an empirical investigation using a panel of Italian regions for the period 1983–2009. We find that organized crime distorts growth less when it coexists with corruption and show our results to be robust to different specifications, measures of organized crime, and estimation techniques. 相似文献
Tourism is a social phenomenon and host–guest interaction has been identified as particularly relevant in the rural tourism experience. This paper extends previous research on social interaction, rural tourism and experience marketing, by analysing, via visitor survey (N?=?819), the contacts that visitors of three Portuguese villages establish with (a) residents and (b) other visitors during their stay. A cluster analysis based on interaction patterns identifies three distinct visitor groups: those showing little interest in interaction with others, those mainly interacting with other visitors and those intensely interacting with residents. Significant differences between segments reveal distinctly lived rural tourism experiences and a positive impact of socializing on these experiences. Destination management and marketing implications as well as suggestions for future research are also presented. 相似文献
This article assesses the decision to adopt organic farming practices. We use Duration Analysis (DA) to determine why farmers adopt organic farming practices and what influences the timing of adoption. We extend previous studies by including farmers’ objectives, risk preferences, and agricultural policies as covariates in the DA model. The Analytical Hierarchy Process is used as a multicriteria decision‐making methodology to measure farmers’ objectives. The empirical analysis uses farm‐level data from a sample of vineyard farms in the Spanish region of Catalonia. Farmers’ objectives are found to influence the conversion decision. Moreover, farmers who are not risk averse are more likely to adopt organic farming. Results point to the policy changes that have been most relevant in motivating adoption of organic practices. 相似文献
Participatory approaches in environmental knowledge production are commonly propagated for their potential to enhance legitimacy and quality of decision-making processes, especially under conditions of uncertainty. This paper describes the development of the Stakeholder Participation Guidance for the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency as an attempt to put the rather theoretical ambitions of the participation literature into practice. The study includes an analysis of theories of ‘new production of knowledge’ and of the agency's position as an intermediary organization between science and policy, together with its participatory activities, to date. The Guidance is meant to suit different contexts, products and modes of assessments by the agency. Therefore, it cannot be a like a recipe book, but is intended to support and guide project leaders in their choices around stakeholder participation. The paper emphasizes the context dependency of participatory knowledge production and stresses the importance of reflection and transparency regarding the role of scientific advisors in the science-policy process. 相似文献
The assessment of patients’ satisfaction levels, and the knowledge of what factors influence satisfaction are very important
for healthcare managers as it influences healthcare results and healthcare institutions financial results. The objective of
this research is to analyse patients’ satisfaction levels in a set of four Portuguese primary Healthcare Centres, through
the estimation of a satisfaction index, which simultaneously explains which dimensions of healthcare quality influence that
satisfaction the most. For that, a conceptual model of patients’ satisfaction in primary healthcare was tested using data
from a sample of 414 patients. Partial Least Squares path modelling (PLS) was the technique chosen to evaluate the proposed
model. The results show that patients’ satisfaction is 60.887 in a scale from 1 to 100, revealing only a medium level of satisfaction.
It is also possible to conclude that the most important positive effects on satisfaction are the ones linked to the patient/doctor
relationship, the quality of facilities and the interaction with administrative staff, by this order. 相似文献