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Ebben a cikkben azt vizsgáljuk, hogy az átalakuló kínai pártállami rendszerben a beruházások dinamikája szempontjából milyen rendszerszerű következményei vannak a külső sokkhatáshoz alkalmazkodó állami beavatkozásnak. Elméleti alapon (még e kutatást megelőzően) megfogalmazott hipotéziseinket – az összehasonlító interaktív pártállami modell (IPS) értelmezési keretére támaszkodva – az 1990-es évek végétől statisztikailag igazoljuk. A beruházások túlfutása a kínai pártállamnak is állandó jellemzője, amelyet a párt, az állam és a gazdaság döntéshozói közötti függőségi és érdekérvényesítési viszonyokból kialakuló pártállami hatalmi háló léte és működése, valamint az abban keletkező szerkezeti motivációk okoznak. A pártállami hatalmi háló elemeinek, kapcsolódási és működési elveinek térben, időben és különböző aggregációs szinteken önhasonló jellege miatt a beruházások túlfutása különböző helyeken és időszakokban, valamint eltérő léptékekben is kimutatható. A beruházási kilengések gyakorisága a háló által leképezett hatalmi eloszlás aktuális sajátosságainak függvénye. Megállapítjuk, hogy a pártállami háló sokkhatáshoz történő alkalmazkodása a rendszerszerű magatartások intenzitását, ezzel együtt a gazdasági túlfűtöttség mértékét is növeli, utóbbi pedig a háló aktuális szerkezete által leképezett hatalmi viszonyok sajátosságaihoz igazodik. Empirikusan igazoljuk, hogy a decentralizált kínai hatalmi hálóban a lokális hatalom túlzott mértékű beruházása az országosénál intenzívebb. Eredményeink szerint a túlfűtöttség egyenlőtlen térbeli intenzitása az állami beavatkozás térbeli és tulajdonbeli prioritásai szerint alakul; a túlfűtöttség mértékének időszakos kilengései és a háló aktivitásának átmeneti növekedései (vagyis a háló zsugorodásának lassulása) összefüggenek; a beruházások kilengéseiben, azok felfutásaiban és lecsengéseiben pedig a különböző tulajdonformájú vállalatok eltérő magatartásformái fedezhetők fel.

This paper aims at presenting commons research, an approach that has gained little academic attention in Hungary and its potential links with the disciplines dealing with the spatiality of society. After defining some key terms, an overview of the historical roots and improvement of commons research, and its changing emphasis resulting from alterations in its social, political, and economic context is presented. It is pointed out how related academic discourses, once dominated by views arguing for a unitary governance of the commons (by either the state or a single market actor), have tended currently towards supporting common forms of governance. Beyond referring to environmental phenomena, owing a central position in commons research from the very beginning, special attention is paid to social commons, and new research results that have necessitated a thorough reinterpretation of some main conceptual issues of the research tradition in this field. Using the example of the knowledge commons, the paper explains the analytical difficulties concerning the identification, demarcation, normative evaluation, and social constructedness of the commons. Some contradictions and challenges of an extreme privatisation of the commons as well as a radical “commoning” are also discussed. Thus, presenting as commons certain goods the common governance handles seems to conflict with the interests and views of the vast majority of society, even those not belonging to the elites. In the second part, the paper concentrates on the spatiality of the commons. First, the focus is on the spatial boundaries and scale-dependence of the commons in order to identify the main difficulties of spatial governance, including an inefficient or even harmful interplay of relevant regimes of regulation. The second focus is on urban commons. Public spaces are investigated following the public security discourse and the notion of symbolic occupation of space with reference to planning issues. Examining basic urban infrastructures such as public roads, schools, or healthcare institutions, the problem of simultaneous under- and overutilisation of a given resource at different locations in the geographical space is illustrated. The same issue is discussed for the regional scale focusing on the spatial inequalities of basic education, which we consider not as a commons per se, but as the complex of education as service, physical infrastructures, and legal and financial mechanisms aimed at enabling that certain sorts of knowledge indeed become a commons. To underline the relevance of investigating social commons at the global scale, we explain some problems of access to results of scientific work, embracing arguments for, and criticism about, promoting open access publication forums. A main goal of this paper is to identify relevant new issues for academic research in Hungary, whose analysis can contribute to a better understanding of the spatiality of the commons, a more sophisticated grounding of spatial theory in commons research, and an intensifying adoption of state-of-the-art research topics as well as the practical utilisation of related results in spatial studies in Hungary

Intensifying globalisation led several researchers from the 1980s on to predict the coming of a ’borderless’ world. The number of ethnic, religious, economic and political conflicts related to borders, still present after the end of the Cold War, however, put the topic again in the forefront of spatial research and led to a ’renaissance’ in border studies. Hungary also witnessed an emphasis on this subdiscipline after the transition, since the old, barrier-like political borders of the communist system were followed by new ones, rather connecting than separating neighbouring countries. This process was also given an impetus by the accession of the country to the European Union in 2004. The fruitful academic discourse on borders has mostly focused on cross-border co-operation between Hungary and its neighbours, including certain aspects of similar projects in other EU member countries. Bi-national borderland initiatives outside the European integration have, however, attracted little attention. This investigation aims to broaden the horizon of Hungarian border studies by providing insights into the cross-border relations along the US-Mexican border and specifically in the metropolitan region of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. After a brief overview of the geographical context, the local and federal (top-down) cooperation projects concerning the two cities are described. Here, special emphasis is put on the social, political and economic factors promoting or hindering cooperation. The relative cultural homogeneity of the local population on both sides of the border is illustrated, as are the common practices of social activity and communication that contribute much to the local identity. Furthermore, it is analysed how the local elites in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez have different interests, while both of them benefit from the current economic division of the region. The main features of cross-border initiatives launched by the federal governments are also shown, with a focus on the achievement in issues of environmental management and in economic co-operation within the frameworks of the Border Industrialization Program and NAFTA. Some potential weaknesses of these initiatives and the future prospects of local cross-border cooperation are presented as well.

In a 1965 article, J. G. Williamson published a remarkable hypothesis about an ‘inverted U patterned’ connection between the economic development and regional disparities of various countries. Thanks to its simplicity and elegance, the concept has gained significant popularity among experts dealing with spatial issues and has become a major theoretical concept of regional studies. The first aim of this paper is to give a thorough evaluation ofWilliamson’s concept from a critical point of view. We try to reveal the methodological and theoretical limits of the hypothesis. Attention is drawn to two disputable methodological assumptions: a reliable comparability of different countries’ income-type indicators and an acceptable analogy between longitudinal and cross-sectional data sets. In the discussion we show that these issues were indeed realised and considered, although not necessarily resolved by Williamson, while they went unnoticed by most of his successors. Up to date statistics are also used to test the validity ofWilliamson’s main arguments. Our findings suggest different connections between economic development and regional disparities within various countries and groups of countries, questioning the universal relevance of a single curve. Secondly, we evaluate several papers from the last three decades that have added useful new elements to the original concept. This illustrates how new findings have modified the shape of the ‘inverted U curve’ and made it asymmetrical, revealed the relation of economic development and spatial inequalities ‘in a higher stage of development’, opened the way for an extension of the concept beyond a determinate time-frame, and pointed at the unique paths followed by certain countries and groups of countries. Finally, we describe the main characteristics of disciplinary politics and their effects, and the way how different scientific interests have influenced the reception of the original concept over time. In conclusion, it could be demonstrated that Williamson’s concept, unlike conceptually similar positivistic models, has never become a ‘black box’, an ‘undisputable truth’ for researchers. Yet, it also has not become a subject of serious criticism from non-positivistic approaches in the social sciences. This phenomenon can be traced back to some specific circumstances in disciplinary politics, which are also analysed in this paper.

Oroszország ipara érdekes lenyomatát adja az ország fordulatokban gazdag történelmének. A cári időszak, az – iparfejlesztési szempontból sem egységes – szovjet éra, valamint a rendszerváltozás óta eltelt szűk két évtized indusztrializációs folyamatai gyökeresen eltérő gazdasági feltételrendszer mellett, markánsan különböző politikai motívumok mentén játszódtak le. A tanulmány e három korszak iparosodási/iparosítási tendenciáit tekinti át összehasonlító szempontból, különös tekintettel a politikai motívumokra, valamint az ipari szektor ágazati és területi szerkezetének változásaira.

Az 1978-as gazdasági nyitás óta Kína dinamikus fejlődésnek indult, mára a világgazdaság legfontosabb szereplői közé lépett elő. Tanulmányunkban először azt vizsgáljuk, hogyan hatott ez a gyors növekedés a területi egyenlőtlenségek nagyságának, valamint térbeliségének alakulására. Ezt követően felvázoljuk, milyen fejlődési kilátásokkal rendelkeznek Kína tartományai, miben nyilvánul meg a Iconvergenciaklubosodás, valamint mindezek alapján milyen jövőbeli változások ígérkeznek az ország fejlettségi térszerkezetében.