Homes for heroes? Assessing the impact of the UK’s Military Covenant

The British Military Covenant can be located in and from many sources and from 2011 onwards in primary legislation. This article argues that the provision of military housing amounts to an early test of how the military covenant is understood and used by those involved in defence policy, and those in the armed forces affected by it. It finds that housing was a prominent feature of how service personnel understood how they were valued, but was not explicitly understood as a covenant issue by those personnel or the officials in charge of the Defence Estates. We locate three reasons for this: (1) the covenant has been poorly translated from aspiration into policy practice, (2) the covenant is unevenly understood across its stakeholders which has the effect of generating disappointment through misaligned expectations, (3) those engaged in the reform process surrounding the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) saw the covenant as a means to energise reform. Ultimately housing was seen as a dry and technocratic business area and thus an issue ripe for being refracted through the covenant was ultimately left outside of its remit.     

社会系统运行理论与我国现阶段政策的制定

本文阐述了社会系统运行理论的初步框架,并以其分析社会系统的组织化状态与政策在其自组织中的功能;在剖析不同类型经济系统利弊的基础上,提出了我国现阶段政策制定的基本思路。     

地缘政治危机与晚清政府边防政策的三次调整

摘要：鸦片战争后,中国边疆危机纷至沓来。晚清政府在不到30年的时间里,三次调整边防策略,相继形成了“郅治保邦”、“海防与塞防并重”和“保藩固圉”的边防政策,这在一定程度上遏制了帝国主义的兵锋战火。但又造成了“和”不能争主权、“战”不能取胜利的被动局面,加剧了清政府的民族危机、边防危机和统治危机。     

Coordinated dynamic control of marketing and production

We study the dynamic profit maximization problem for a firm exercising control on both marketing and production. The firs marketing effort impacts the current‐period demand, which in turn affects future demand in a dissipating fashion. Under linear‐cost and zero‐leadtime assumptions, we show that the firm should follow base‐point rules for both marketing and production, whereas trends of the base points reflect a certain complementarity between marketing and production. We obtain comparable results when marketing costs are convex. Our computational study identifies conditions under which simple fixed‐marketing‐effort and fixed‐marketing‐target heuristics would perform well. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009     

Defence industrial policy – a sound security strategy or an economic fallacy?

This article explores whether it makes sense for national governments to employ defence industrial policies – such as offsets and discriminatory procurement practices – to support their domestic defence industries. This question has so far primarily been discussed by economists, who have argued strongly against the use of defence industrial policies. This article maintains that these economists fail to address the often complex motivation behind the introduction of these policies. It illustrates these shortcomings by contrasting their arguments against a case study of Norway, which accounts for the country’s use of defence industrial polices from the early post-Second World War era up until today. The article concludes that, depending on their objectives, defence industrial policies can be seen as either a sound security strategy or an economic fallacy.     

Strategic and Budgetary Necessity,or Decision-making ‘Along the Grain’? The Royal Navy and the 1981 Defence Review

The 1981 Defence Review undertaken by John Nott as Secretary of State for Defence controversially and dramatically cut the capabilities of the Royal Navy’s surface fleet. Many of those involved in these decisions have emphasised the budgetary and politico-strategic drivers for these reductions in capability, and the first generation of academic analysis has broadly followed this position. However, recently released government and private archival sources demonstrate that Nott’s review was initially much more severe than thought, and that this was due as much to the presumptions and assumptions of the key decision makers as to any strategic or budgetary factors.     

宽严相济刑事政策的刑法化研究

和谐社会语境下的宽严相济的刑事政策是传统的惩办与宽大相结合刑事政策的复归,它应当是新时期的基本刑事政策。任何刑事政策都应实践性地转化为刑法规范,宽严相济的刑事政策也应当加速其刑法化的进程。我国现行刑罚结构总体上存在着“当轻不轻“‘当重不重”的倒挂性局面,应尽快修改刑法来根本扭转刑罚轻重失衡的局面。宽严相济的刑事政策强调“宽”与“严”二者不可偏废,当下风行于刑法学界的一元的轻刑论应当为我们所摒弃。     

Economic Espionage

We explore the efficacy of counterespionage measures in the realm of Economic Espionage. Although it is possible that increasing counterespionage measures has the desired effect of increasing domestic research and development (R&D) and reducing espionage by foreign entities, it is also possible that these increased measures actually do just the opposite: domestic R&D suffers and foreign stealing increases. We identify the appropriate settings for increased counterespionage measures and provide some policy advice.     

The Dao of foreign policy: Understanding China’s dual strategy in the South China Sea

In the South China Sea, China neither implements power-maximizing policy nor engages a peaceful approach. Instead, China implements both coercion and cooperation in pursuing its strategic interest in the disputed area. How can we explain China’s paradoxical behavior? This article claims that the best way to explain China’s policy in the South China Sea is to understand the character of dualism in China’s strategic culture. Following constructivist theory that stresses culture, this article argues that Chinese duality approach in the South China Sea is rooted in the philosophy of Daoism. The symbol of Yin-Yang depicts Chinese assertive as well as cooperative behavior in dealing with the South China Sea dispute. Although from a normative perspective Daoism recognizes pacifism and non-violent behavior, the most important feature of Daoism is the assumption that reality consists of two opposing elements that are mutually embedded.     

Social benefits of government investment in enterprises

A critical issue for many governments is boosting the adoption rates of products or technologies that enhance consumer surplus or total social welfare. Governments may, for example, pay subsidies to producers or to consumers to stimulate the manufacture or consumption of specific products, for example, energy-efficient appliances or more effective drugs. This research proposes a strategic government investment policy, namely, share acquisition, and demonstrates its effectiveness in reaching societal objectives. We consider a Cournot quantities-choice market comprised of homogeneous firms where the government intervenes to buy shares, and turning private firms into state-owned enterprises. We recognize that purchasing a single private firm is the optimal policy for the government to reach its societal objectives. Additionally, taking into consideration financial constraints, we find that the optimal stake increases with the budget. Compared with the optimal output-based subsidy policy, when the budget is low, the optimal government investment policy induces a higher consumer surplus. In addition, in differentiated Cournot competition, under which firms compete in selling substitutable products, we find that when the budget is sufficient, the optimal stake purchased first decreases and then increases according to the substitutability level among products.