Chinese Perceptions of Issues and Obstacles Confronting Joint Ventures

In China one of the most effective means of attracting foreign capital to undertake its four modernizations is through the creation of joint ventures. The Chinese are striving for pragmatic results and emphasize that joint ventures should provide mutual benefits for both parties. Many joint ventures should provide mutual benefits for both parties. Many joint venture participants from the U.S.A. have become disillusioned and are frustrated by obstacles including government bureaucreatic interference, cultural differences, and a lack of managerial know-how by the Chinese. Based on a survey of 182 Chinese businessmen, 100 of whom engaged in joint ventures, it is evident that the CHinese share these concerns. Their perceptions provide guidelines for coping with these obstacles and clearly indicate the importance of "quanxi" in attaining the goals of joint ventures.     

以色列的能源政策及其对我国的启示

以色列注重加强能源立法、积极推进能源多元化、大力开发新能源、研发高新技术、扶持能源产业、倡导节能,形成了独具特色的能源政策。近年来,我国的能源问题日益突出,应借鉴以色列能源政策的成功经验,从战略上高度重视能源问题、推进能源法律制度建设、实施能源建设多元化、加强科技创新、大力开发新能源、积极营造节约能源的社会氛围,确保我国的能源安全。     

Towards a ‘Post‐Neoliberal’ Mode of Housing Regulation? The Israeli Social Protest of Summer 2011

In the summer of 2011, after decades of virtually uncontested neoliberalization, Israel was swept by unprecedented protests against the rising cost of living, social inequality and, most particularly, escalating housing prices. Within two weeks, a small protest camp established on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv had grown into a mass movement involving hundreds of thousands of people across the country. Given an ambivalent sense of the significance of urban movements in bringing about social change, the aim of this article is to analyze whether the Israeli social protest was able to push forward a post‐neoliberal mode of housing regulation. Building on a framework developed by Brenner, Peck and Theodore to grasp transformations in the landscape of regulatory restructuring, this article argues that the movement has indeed achieved a far‐reaching hegemonic shift in public discourse and also become an important driver in promoting regulatory experiments. Despite its achievements, however, the movement was unable to challenge the Israeli ‘rule regime' of neoliberalization, on account of two structural constraints that were shielded by the most powerful state apparatuses: the commodity character of housing; and a neoliberalized land regime, where state‐owned land is treated as a profit machine for public finance.     

Acts of Solidarity: Crossing and Reiterating Israeli–Palestinian Frontiers

In academic and public discourse on the Zionist–Palestinian conflict, there still prevails a ‘methodological nationalism’ based on a separatist imagination overshadowing the existence and role of Israeli–Palestinian forms of communality and solidarity. This article analyses micro‐political practices that cross existing frontiers, both within Israel and between the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel. Through recent conceptualizations of ‘acts’, I read these ethnographic episodes in their intentional and performative dimension. What is the role of these ‘acts’? What are their effects, both on participants and the wider public? Through two interconnected cases, different functions of acts are explored. The first case relates to encounters between Israelis and Palestinians in the embattled city of Hebron in the occupied Palestinian territories; the second investigates moments during a Gandhi‐inspired peace march at the ‘internal’ frontier of the Israeli Negev desert. The ethnographic perspective reveals what lies behind and beneath the acts, going beyond the conflict's obvious structures of power. Acts function primarily as a valve of catharsis for the participants themselves, both overcoming and reproducing hegemonic discursive elements of the conflict. Paradoxically, acts of solidarity are often crucial in shaping public knowledge about the conflict in more sectarian terms.     

Relating a City's History and Geography with Bourdieu: One Hundred Years of Spatial Distinction in Tel Aviv

This article advances a conceptualization of spatial distinction that, following Bourdieu, relates principles of division in ‘social space’ with formations of segregation in urban space. It applies this interpretive framework to concisely narrate the one hundred years' history of spatial distinction in Tel Aviv. Analyzing five moments in the city's development, it focuses on a dominant principle of distinction in each period and its ensuing segregations: predominantly ethno‐national (Jewish–Arab) distinction that established Tel Aviv in opposition to Jaffa at the turn of the twentieth century; nuanced ethno‐class distinction that shaped the city's rapid growth in the 1920s–30s and created an elaborate socio‐spatial hierarchy of neighborhoods; institutionalized distinction that governed the collective supply of housing in the 1930s–40s, evolving into a complex system of housing classifications; ‘distinction‐by‐distance’ through exclusive suburbanization and the emergence of a metropolitan scale of distinction in the 1950s–70s; and a ‘back‐to‐the‐center’ strategy of distinction by way of gentrification in the 1980s–90s and within gated residential enclaves at the beginning of the twenty‐first century. Through this concise history, various principles, mechanisms and scales of spatial distinction are elaborated upon, as a way to think about the socially constructed, historically contingent and continuously changing divisions and segregations in cities.     

El sindicalismo israelí ante el empleo atípico. El fenómeno de la liminalidad permanente

Los comités de empresa israelíes se están adaptando a la economía neoliberal y a las transformaciones laborales concomitantes con una doble postura: por un lado tratan de hacer frente a esta reformulación del capitalismo para salvaguardar los derechos de los trabajadores, y por otro aceptan cada vez más las formas atípicas de empleo. Esta contradicción los sitúa en un estadio de «liminalidad» permanente, en el que sus funciones se reducen a una mera búsqueda de compromisos y soluciones ad hoc. Como consecuencia, su lucha contra los efectos adversos del empleo atípico sigue siendo puntual y fragmentada, lo que contribuye a consolidar estas modalidades de empleo.     

‘Contested knowledges’ and leisure studies provision

This paper discusses an initial exploration of some of the processes of leisure education. Focusing upon a level 2 module titled Gender, Difference and Leisure (GDL), which is concerned not only with developing knowledge but also critical reflection, it examines a number of interrelated emergent issues. These issues are concerned with formal and informal affects/outcomes of the provision of a module concerned with ‘contested knowledges’. The research examines a number of undergraduate student experiences of undertaking the module, which at times necessitated discussions of a sensitive or contentious nature. The majority of students undertaking this module were young men, many taking a sports specialization. The paper considers the module's impact upon students' perceptions. Rather than assessing students' experiences of the module in a quantitative manner, the research adopts a qualitative approach to interpreting students' understanding and experiences of the module content and its delivery, through the use of participant observation and interviews. Furthermore, it examines interactions in seminars, highlighting different perspectives on the relative significance of sex and ‘race’ issues. The problematic of the ‘silencing’ of ‘race’ and the strategies some students adopted to resist challenges to their gendered values and beliefs are examined. The findings show that making available ‘contested knowledge’ within a culture heavily steeped in masculinist, racist and positivistic discourses is difficult, beset with tensions and requires considerable sensitivity in approach and an awareness of current popular discourses.     

Placing Property: Theorizing the Urban from Settler Colonial Cities

In the conspicuously geographical debate between ‘North’ and ‘South’ urbanism, settler colonial cities remain displaced. They are located in the ‘North’ but embody ‘South‐like’ colonial dynamics and are hence neither colonial nor postcolonial. Heeding the call to theorize from ‘any city’, this article aims to contribute to a more systematic theorization of the urban from settler colonial cities. In it we focus on the work property does to materialize the settler colonial city and its specific relations of power. We identify three faces of property—as object, as redress and as land—and use case vignettes from Israel/Palestine and Australia to consider how each register continues to inform the functioning of settler colonial cities. We find that, through property, dispossession and settlement are continuously performed and creatively enacted. At the same time, the performance of property reaffirms the endurance of Indigenous land systems amid ongoing colonization. The article makes a contribution to contemporary debates in urban studies about the importance of surfacing the specificities of urban experiences around the world, while further unsettling the dissociative nature of urban property.     

The design of land policy in Israel: Between law and political culture

This article deals with the Israeli land policy in light of a certain judicial decision made by the Israeli High Court of justice (HCJ). A decision known as the “Land decision” (2002). Following the concept of shared mental models I will claim that the ruling of the HCJ at the given point in time expresses societal preferences formed through a process of learning through which society develops a shared mental model of ‘alternative behavior’ that reflects the way in which individuals and groups adapt to solve the social problems they face in various contexts. This shared mental model provides a frame of reference for the actions of political players such as politicians, special interest groups as well as the Supreme Court in shaping the design and implementation of Israel’ land policy. However regarding the Israeli land decision the ability of the Supreme Court to determine policy is limited on the implementation level.     

The ancient Hebrew culture: Illustrations of modern strategic management concepts in action

Using archival analysis of modern English translations of Hebrew Old Testament books, the current study identifies associations between the actions and writings of ancient Israel's leadership and modern-day principles of strategic management. The results of this study provide examples of four key concepts in mainstream strategic management: (1) organisational mission, (2) organisational culture, (3) organisational structure, and (4) environmental scanning. Chronicling selected activities of the ancient Hebrew culture provides rich illustrations of modern strategic management concepts in practice more than three millennia ago.