Wang Xi - Böcker

In this volume, distinguished Chinese and Western scholars provide a detailed examination of the problems associated with China's transition to a market-oriented system. A variety of reform proposals, aimed at resolving the contradictions inherent in piecemeal reform, are discussed along with the chances for future liberalization. These clearly written and insightful essays address the roots of China's crisis. The authors focus on institutional changes necessary for a spontaneous market order and point to the close relation between economic reform and political-constitutional reform. Topics include the speed and degree of the transition, whether ownership reform must precede price reform, how inflation can be avoided, steps to depoliticize economic life, how to create an environment conducive to foreign trade and investment, and how to institute basic constitutional change and open China to the outside world. The revolutionary changes now shaking the foundations of socialism and central planning in the Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe are sure to have an impact on China's future. Despite their seriousness, the events of Tiananmen Square may constitute only a temporary detour on the road toward a private market order. The essays in this volume help lay a rational framework for understanding China's present problems and for discussing the prospects for future reform.

The research focus for the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law in 2003 was a timely and challenging one, entitled 'The Law of Energy for Sustainable Development'. As contemporary world politics demonstrates, energy resources and generation are crucial issues facing the international community. As research on energy law, at the international, regional, and national level is in its infancy, the insights provided by the contributors to this 2005 volume are a significant addition to the field.

This state-of-the-art Dictionary defines terms employed in international agreements, national legislation and scholarly legal studies related to comparative and international environmental law and the emerging law of climate change. In acknowledgement of China's growing role in this arena, each term also includes its pinyin translation in order to facilitate access to the Mandarin variants.The international community is developing increasingly complex environmental provisions and participating in a number of international treaties and agreements related to environmental law and regulation. The complicated and highly specific nature of environmental law has led to the development of localized terminology that is not easily understood outside its country of origin. Jointly prepared by scholars in China and the US, the Dictionary provides a linguistic bridge between English and Chinese speakers as well as an essential reference for those interpreting and applying international environmental law, multilateral environmental agreements, and domestic laws that implement these treaties.Students, scholars and practitioners in the area of environmental law will find this groundbreaking Dictionary an invaluable addition to their libraries.

The research focus for the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law in 2003 was a timely and challenging one, entitled 'The Law of Energy for Sustainable Development'. As contemporary world politics demonstrates, energy resources and generation are crucial issues facing the international community. As research on energy law, at the international, regional, and national level is in its infancy, the insights provided by the contributors to this 2005 volume are a significant addition to the field.

This book represents an ethnographic study of an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program in a school in mainland China, serving Chinese students and staffed by teachers from a variety of origins. It offers in-depth descriptions of the way in which students, teachers, and managers interact and communicate with one another in a variety of school activities. Through the communication process, cultural experiences and understandings are negotiated constantly among school participants. The ethnographic study also has a critical intention. Going beyond description, the author discusses the extent to which networks of social relationships in the case are imbued by asymmetries in power, and how this leads to people’s inability, unwillingness, and unawareness to interact with those from different cultural backgrounds. As research findings reveal, where the construction of meaning is less equally available to each participant, prejudice and exclusiveness are more likely to be assumed, impeding individuals’ intercultural learning. The key is to empower those less privileged, giving them legitimacy to come to voice in an institutional context on the one hand, and protecting their reflections on hegemonic discourse meticulously on the other hand. Since the research explores the complexities and subtleties of the communication process that are bound to particular contexts, like most ethnographic studies, it aims at adding a body of experience and humanistic understanding of cultures, rather than testing theories. Although the IB Program being studied can hardly be representative of the overall development of international education in China, the detailed description of contextual issues of the case and the research procedures could facilitate the readers to vicariously experience these events, thus they can make their own decisions about the transferability of the research to their own unique situations.