27 July 2023, Issue 2

    

• Select all
  |

• Select
  Institutional Demand and Supply: Exploring the Reasons for Brazil’s Proximity to the United States

  Zhou Yan

  Area Studies. 2023, (2): 5-30.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  Brazil is one of the countries with the closest ties to the United States among many countries in Latin America, and to a certain extent it is similar to the United States, even considered as the “tropical United States”, with political, economic and cultural affinities. This paper argues that this is not a simple echo or imitation between the extreme right-wing governments of the two countries in recent years, but that there are longstanding institutional reasons behind this evolution. Since the late 19th century, this proximity has evolved through the interaction between supply and demand at the institutional level between Brazil and the United States. Starting from the perspective of institutional supply and demand, this paper analyzes the reasons for the closeness between Brazil and the United States from three perspectives: political, economic, and cultural. From the analytical framework of institutional supply and demand, Brazil’s proximity to the United States lies in its learning from and approaching the United States, based on its own institutional needs for development; it also results from the United States’s efforts to supply and export institutional models to Brazil, in order that the United States achieves its strategic interests in Latin America.
• Select
  The Causes of France’s Belligerence with Mali: An Explaination Based on Value Raltionality and Instrumental Rationality

  Tang Xiyuan

  Area Studies. 2023, (2): 31-60.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  Since the coup d’etat in Mali in 2020, the relationship between France and Mali’s military government has deteriorated rapidly in a short period of time. Some studies believe that the involvement of the Russian “Wagner” mercenaries, the anti-French sentiment of all sectors of society in Mali, and the violation of democratic rules and values by the Malian junta are the main reasons for the breakdown of Franco-Mali relations. These viewpoints explain the question from the level of causal logic of specific events, and regard France as an actor that responds passively, instead of systematically explaining the reasons why France makes relevant decisions from the level of state behavior logic. France’s policy toward Africa has long been influenced by two sets of rational rules, namely the “value rationality” rules with the Western-style liberal democratic system as the core, and the “instrumental rationality” rules dominated by the realistic interests of the country. Historically, France’s African policy has prioritized “instrumental rationality”. In recent years, the French government under the leadership of Hollande and Macron has tried to make “value rationality” the main guiding principle of its policy toward Africa. The decision-making process of France’s military intervention in Mali in 2013 shows that the weight of “value rationality” in France’s policy towards Mali has increased significantly and equalled or even surpassed the influence of “instrumental rationality”. This emphasis on “value rationality” was further strengthened during the Macron period. After two consecutive coups in Mali from 2020 to 2022, the decision of the French government shows that it is willing to sacrifice “instrumental rationality” in order to follow “value rationality”. This change is trendy. However, it does not mean that France has completely abandoned “instrumental rationality” in the Sahel region and even the wider subSaharan Africa region. France’s attitude towards Chad after the coup d’etat in 2021 shows that France is still willing to implement some policies that run counter to “value rationality” for fulcrum countries with special strategic significance. Therefore, countries such as Chad and Niger, whose military resources and natural resources are of great importance to France, are likely to receive special leniency from France based on “instrumental rationality”. Countries with weak military capabilities, lack of strategic resources, and high governance deficits, such as Mali and Burkina Faso, may become the harsh targets of France’s “value rationality”.
• Select
  The Transplantation of English Common Law in the UAE Financial Free Zone — Analysis Based on the Theory of Legal Transplantation and Legal Globalization

  Ma Yue

  Area Studies. 2023, (2): 61-92.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  The common law system is a legal system developed on the basis of English common law, and the members of this legal system include the United Kingdom, the United States and the vast majority of Commonwealth countries. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country largely influenced by civil and Islamic law, has in recent years built two financial free zones with common law systems, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi respectively. The case of the UAE taking the initiative to transplant English common law has created a new model of transplanting English law on the initiative of former British colonies and protectorates in the 21st century, exploring the possibility of introducing case law in countries with a codified law tradition, and reflecting the advantages that English common law has in the era of legal globalization.
• Select
  From Tribal Alliances to Frontier States: On the Logic of Early Algerian State Formation

  Zhang Yuyou

  Area Studies. 2023, (2): 93-128.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  As for the origin of modern Algeria, academic circles, especially western scholars, often take the “Origin Theory of Ottomans” as the explanation path, that is, Algerian countries can only be traced back to the Ottoman Empire at the earliest, and it lacks attention and research on the early Algerian countries. The earliest political entity in Algeria originated from several tribal alliances formed during the 4th to 3th centuries BC. In the colonial period of The Roman Empire, under the dual pressure of external invasion and internal competition, these tribal alliances successively established the chiefdoms Numidia kingdom and romanized local regime in the form of wars. In the 7th century, after the entry of Islam, the natural cohesion of tribal civilization combined with the religious cohesion of Arab-Islamic civilization gave birth to several local emirates. The 11th and 13th centuries were a ripe period for the formation of the early Algerian state. Through religious change, the Berber tribes of the desert frontier launched numerous conquests in the heartland, creating two frontier empires. The historical facts of Algeria’s early state formation reflect that there had been rich political civilization in Africa before the western colonial rule.
• Select
  Difference as Practice: Diffracting Geography and the Area Studies Turn

  Deen Sharp, Xiong Xinghan

  Area Studies. 2023, (2): 129-162.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  After decades of geography and area studies drifting apart, I argue there has been an area studies’ turn in geography. The long divergence between the two subjects, however, has resulted in a certain misunderstanding by geographers of what area studies scholarship is and what this field can contribute to the discipline. Area studies should not be considered as an approach that merely concentrates on the representation of difference but rather as a milieu in which research of regional differences can be conducted and geographical concepts can be ‘diffracted’. Area studies can bring new research methods to geography, providing us ways to explore what role geography plays in the world, and how it ties up with the world.
• Select
  Fieldwork Research in an Transdisciplinary Perspective ： Vision, Ecosystem and Commonalities

  Li Yuqing

  Area Studies. 2023, (2): 163-182.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  When all disciplines in the Chinese academia have coincidentally begun to discuss fieldwork, fieldwork has become an academic ecology in the transdisciplinary perspective. The formation of fieldwork ecology is closely related to the prevalence of interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity in the academia. The popularity of the transdisciplinary concept in the global academia implies the deconstruction of the existing university system rooted in disciplinary classifications and the emphasis on a positivist methodology based on case studies. In the field of area studies, which is an emerging interdisciplinary discipline, fieldwork has become an important methodology because of its characteristics of dividing research objects by geographical location. Fieldwork is both a scientific integration of a series of research methods and a disciplinary synthesis covering several disciplines. The commonalities of fieldwork in the interdisciplinary perspective are problem-oriented, grasping the complexity of the research problem; pursuing a holistic perspective of a certain social field, considering the diversity of the problem; attaching importance to first-hand materials, and emphasizing the dynamics of grasping reality. Fieldwork in transdisciplinary discipline is bottom-up, generative, and original in thinking about research questions from a holistic perspective. As a new interdisciplinary discipline in China, area studies are constantly exploring their knowledge system, the core of the discipline and the boundaries of the discipline. By maintaining a certain degree of boundary ambiguity, area studies will embrace more flexible and dynamic researches.
• Select
  Mexico City From the Late Nineteenth Century: City Changes in the Perspective of Urban Anthropology

  Li Yin

  Area Studies. 2023, (2): 183-208.

  Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( ) Knowledge map Save

  In a long period of time, researches on the urban history or urbanization mostly follow the logic of linear evolution, that is, the history of urban development with increasing population and spatial expansion, emphasizing the descriptive statistical analysis and underestimating the important role of actors and their actions. The study of urban changes viewing from the urban anthropology perspective enables the deconstruction of the city’s space and time, by analyzing the symbolic power and cultural significance of urban places or components such as streets, buildings, monuments, and infrastructures, to deeply understand the complexity and heterogeneity of a city through a dynamic and practice approach. Based on this, this paper focuses on Mexico City, the largest city in Latin America with a population of 20 million, and presents the changes in road planning, urban construction, space segmentation, landscape design, cultural leisure, and commercial development in the “historical center” of Mexico City and its surrounding areas since the late 19th century, to reveal tension between the conceived space under the official discourse and the bottom-up resistance of the local residents, thus providing a new perspective for understanding the two-way construction of “actors” and “city” in urban history.