The tourism and peace nexus

Tourism has been heralded as a contributor to peace, however, the inconclusive findings of empirical studies render the need for a consolidation of theory that has in so far relied on case studies and the adoption of the contact hypothesis. Informed by political science theory, this paper proposes a methodological framework that can guide future research and aims to serve as a benchmark for researchers interested in temporal issues pertaining to conflict, peace and tourism. Signalling a departure from the simplistic notion that contact through travel contributes to social integration, the paper adopts a holistic conceptualisation of the multi-faceted and complex system of actors, sectors and dimensions of tourism spanning at the social, economic, political and environmental levels.     

Land rights in postwar Liberia: The volatile part of the peace process

The end to the war in Liberia, along with quality leadership and a large UN presence has laid the foundation for a successful peace process. Now the delicate part of the process is underway—building viable, equitable, and durable social relations, institutions and legal constructs. A potentially volatile part of any postwar scenario is the inability of land rights institutions to perform in an effective, legitimate, equitable manner. Reform of land tenure via policies, laws, institutions, and capacity, needs to happen in a manner that is able to attend to both the land rights related causes of conflict, and the tangle of land problems brought on by the war itself. This article reports on the current situation in Liberia, and examines the primary set of land tenure problems in the country. The article concludes with a series of suggestions for dealing with the unique circumstances of postwar land tenure, and the Liberian case.     

Food aid as a tool of development: The experience of PL 480, Title III

This article reviews the experience of the US Food for Peace Program (PL 480) under Title III, with the objective of identifying some of the limitations and possibilities of using food aid as a development tool. It will argue that while multi-year agreements are inflexible, the settings in which the agreements are to be implemented are turbulent and uncertain. Combining food aid with development also makes severe demands upon the administrative capacity of both field missions and recipients, resulting in a reluctance on the part of both to initiate agreements.     

On the escalation and de-escalation of conflict

We introduce three extensions of the Hirshleifer–Skaperdas conflict game to study experimentally the effects of post-conflict behavior and repeated interaction on the allocation of effort between production and appropriation. Without repeated interaction, destruction of resources by defeated players can lead to lower appropriative efforts and higher overall efficiency. With repeated interaction, appropriative efforts are considerably reduced because some groups manage to avoid fighting altogether, often after substantial initial conflict. To attain peace, players must first engage in costly signaling by making themselves vulnerable and by forgoing the possibility to appropriate the resources of defeated opponents.     

威斯特伐利亚和约中的人权保障

十七世纪上半叶,欧洲世界爆发了一系列宗教、政治和军事冲突,即"三十年战争",战后各国签署了《威斯特伐利亚和约》,作为国际法发展史上的一个重要里程碑它对国际法中的人权保障重要的影响。     

Creating alternative futures through storytelling: A case study from Serbia

This article focuses on the project Storytelling for Peace, Gender Partnership and Cultural Pluralism, initiated in 2009 in Novi Sad, Serbia, with the primary aim of promoting educational strategies which challenge the continuation of the dominator society's status quo and facilitate the emergence of alternative, progressive and socially inclusive futures. Constructive storytelling was chosen as an educational practice that can bring about change, and was used as a tool for the transfer of alternative worldviews because it is indirect, flexible and inexpensive. The main beneficiaries of the project were the students of the University of Novi Sad and teachers and children of Novi Sad primary schools. The project utilised local knowledge and languages to foster peace and partnership-oriented individual and social narratives through the process of alternative story writing and revision of traditional Serbian and European tales. The participants learned to deconstruct master narratives, to understand deep culture and how its underlying myths shape national identity. Alternative stories became a tool to teach critical thinking and promote a diversity of voices.     

The PACO index

Given the growth and maturity of the field of business and peace, the authors of this article call for the creation of an index that would present a scorecard of company behaviors. The authors call this the PACO index, which is an acronym for Peaceful Attributes of Companies and is the word for peace in Esperanto. The authors provide a set of principles and drivers that would be necessary for the creation of such an index.     

一个国际视域下的“中国梦”解析

从一个国际视角来看,“中国梦”与和世界的和平发展有着密切联系。“中国梦”的提出不仅对中华民族的复兴有着重大的指导意义,而且对推动世界和平发展产生重大影响,其实现也离不开一个有利的国际环境。当前,“中国梦”的实现正处于重要战略机遇期,国际环境中既有诸多挑战,也存在很多机遇。为此,中国应当顺应世界潮流,结合自身现实,积极调整外交战略,为“中国梦”的实现打造一个有利的国际环境。     

政府补贴对中国高技术企业创新的影响——以信息技术产业上市公司为例

以"十二五"期间中国信息技术上市公司为研究对象,探究不同所有制和企业规模下政府补贴对高技术企业创新绩效的影响。研究发现,当前补贴政策对技术创新的总体促进效率仍待提高:所有制性质显著调节政府补贴的绩效,激励国有企业研发投入强度,而对民营企业起挤出作用;企业规模对政府补贴与创新投入的关系起正向调节作用;所有制性质和企业规模对政府补贴与创新投入的关系起联合调节作用,政府补贴对大规模国企的促进作用最强,而对中小民营企业促进作用最弱。     

当前中国和平发展面临的挑战及中国对策探析

和平发展是中国的战略选择。中国和平发展进程受到来自国内和国际的双重压力,作为崛起中的发展中国家,如何应对纷繁复杂的国内外困境,如何把面临的各种挑战转化为发展机遇,本文就此问题进行了探讨。