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Book Topography of Politics in Rural China

Download or read book Topography of Politics in Rural China written by Xiaoyang Zhu and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2015 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Chinese rural life is placed in sharp theoretical and practical focus in this book. State-of-the-art techniques and perspectives are combined to take the reader into Xiaocun, a small village on the east bank of the Dianchi Lake in Kunming City. In 2003, the author published the book Crime and Punishment: The Story of Xiaocun (1931–1997), which dealt with disputes, mediation and punishment in the village following the legal anthropology tradition. At that time, neither the villagers nor the author foresaw the vast changes that were to appear a few years later. Their main economic activity then was growing vegetables and flowers; urbanisation was tsunami-like in its speed and impact. Land requisition for urban development was so swift that five years later, in 2008, there was no farmland left. Instead, there were many landmark real estate and development projects. Xiaocun has become the centre of an enlarged Kunming City. Observers, including the Xiaocun residents, are unavoidably shocked at the changes to the physical landscape in the wake of its rapid urbanisation. This book, Topography of Politics in Rural China: The Story of Xiaocun, reports the author's revisits to the village starting in early 2007. In the past few years of research on this village, the author deeply felt that the problems that make people passionate are fully exposed through issues surrounding land and housing. Well written in narrative, this book tells the story of Xiaocun in this new century from the perspective of topography, exploring the peasantry and its relations to the state in more fundamental terms.

Book Rural Democracy in China

Download or read book Rural Democracy in China written by Shi Tianjian and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2000-02-21 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does the Chinese government allow village elections? What implications do these grass-roots level popular elections have for the democratization of China? By tracing the history of village level governance reform, one of the premier authorities on electoral reforms in China tackles these fundamental questions in this volume. According to the author, there are two roots to the emergence of village elections in China: structural changes in the village economy and bureaucratic politics. The author also identifies old guard Peng Zhen, himself victimized by lawlessness during the Cultural Revolution, and officials in the Ministry of Civil Affairs — an otherwise powerless bureaucracy that has jurisdiction over rural governance issues — as the driving force behind the reform in the government. The author believes that village elections have enormous political implications for China: they represent yet another aspect of “creeping democratization” of the country. Resistance from the status quo interests will be stiff, but democracy has a chance in the alliance between the disgruntled population and reform-minded elites in the leadership. Does economic prosperity increase the likelihood of political democracy? Using 1993 national survey data, the author examines the relationships between the level of economic development and the rate of semi-competitive village elections. Data analysis suggests that economic prosperity is positively associated with the occurrence of semi-competitive elections only to a certain point, above which the association turns negative. In other words, both the least and the most developed villages are less likely to hold semi-competitive elections for the chair of the village committee, which is officially defined as “an organization of self-governance of villagers”. The author also argues that rapid economic development may delay the process of political development because incumbent leaders can use newly acquired economic resources to consolidate their power. Contents:Electoral Reform in Rural China: The Critical First Step Toward DemocracyEconomic Development and Village Elections in Rural China Readership: General. Keywords:

Book Political Culture and Participation in Rural China

Download or read book Political Culture and Participation in Rural China written by Yang Zhong and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite China’s rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, most Chinese still live in the vast countryside or have rural household registration. Although there was significant economic improvement in rural areas in the 1980s, the rural economy has been stagnating or deteriorating since then, and the book argues that the rural-urban income gap is giving rise to the potential for political instability throughout China. This book, based on extensive original research including interview fieldwork in rural areas, examines the nature of political culture and participation in rural China, discussing issues such as the support, or lack of it, for democratic values; levels of political interest; the ways in which Chinese peasants interact with village and local officials; subjective factors that motivate them to vote, (or not to vote) in village elections; and rural people’s views on market-oriented economic reforms, local and national government, and the Communist Party. The book argues that although hitherto peasants’ riots, sit-ins and demonstrations have been localised and uncoordinated, they are frequent, and have the potential to cause serious political crises for China’s rulers. It concludes by considering the future political development of China’s vast countryside.

Book Accountability without Democracy

Download or read book Accountability without Democracy written by Lily L. Tsai and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-27 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the fundamental issue of how citizens get government officials to provide them with the roads, schools, and other public services they need by studying communities in rural China. In authoritarian and transitional systems, formal institutions for holding government officials accountable are often weak. The state often lacks sufficient resources to monitor its officials closely, and citizens are limited in their power to elect officials they believe will perform well and to remove them when they do not. The answer, Lily L. Tsai found, lies in a community's social institutions. Even when formal democratic and bureaucratic institutions of accountability are weak, government officials can still be subject to informal rules and norms created by community solidary groups that have earned high moral standing in the community.

Book The Transformation of Governance in Rural China

Download or read book The Transformation of Governance in Rural China written by An Chen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the economic, social and financial changes that have transformed China's rural governance over the past twenty years.

Book Political Participation in Rural China

Download or read book Political Participation in Rural China written by John P. Burns and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 878 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Local Government and Politics in China

Download or read book Local Government and Politics in China written by Yang Zhong and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-18 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After over a decade of administrative and economic reform in mainland China, the center has become increasingly remote and less important for many localities. In many ways, the mobilization capacity of the central government has been weakened. Central government policies are often ignored and local officials are often more interested in personal projects than in centrally directed economic plans. In this study of local government and politics in China, the author explores when and why local government officials comply with policy directives from above. Drawing on interviews with government officials in various municipalities and a review of county records and other government documents, he provides the first in-depth look at policy implementation at the county and township levels in the PRC. The book examines the impact of the Chinese cadre system on the behavior of local officials, local party and government structure, relationships among various levels of Chinese local government, policy supervision mechanisms at local levels, village governance of China, and more.

Book From Eco Cities to Sustainable City Regions

Download or read book From Eco Cities to Sustainable City Regions written by Ernest J. Yanarella and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-29 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A political scientist and an urban architect explore China’s odyssey to become an ecological civilization and transform its massive, unsustainable, urbanization process into one that creates hundreds of eco-cities. The resulting From Eco-Cities to Sustainable City-Regions is the first book-length study combining analysis of politics and power, urban design and planning issues derived from the co-authors’ interdisciplinary research, and on-site fieldwork from their political science and architectural area specialties.

Book A Decade of Upheaval

Download or read book A Decade of Upheaval written by Dong Guoqiang and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revealing exploration of political disruption and violence in a rural Chinese county during the Cultural Revolution A Decade of Upheaval chronicles the surprising and dramatic political conflicts of a rural Chinese county over the course of the Cultural Revolution. Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources—including work diaries, interviews, internal party documents, and military directives—Dong Guoqiang and Andrew Walder uncover a previously unimagined level of strife in the countryside that began with the Red Guard Movement in 1966 and continued unabated until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Showing how the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution were not limited to urban areas, but reached far into isolated rural regions, Dong and Walder reveal that the intervention of military forces in 1967 encouraged factional divisions in Feng County because different branches of China’s armed forces took various sides in local disputes. The authors also lay bare how the fortunes of local political groups were closely tethered to unpredictable shifts in the decisions of government authorities in Beijing. Eventually, a backlash against suppression and victimization grew in the early 1970s and resulted in active protests, which presaged the settling of scores against radical Maoism. A meticulous look at how one overlooked region experienced the Cultural Revolution, A Decade of Upheaval illuminates the all-encompassing nature of one of the most unstable periods in modern Chinese history.

Book Political Culture and Participation in Rural China

Download or read book Political Culture and Participation in Rural China written by Yang Zhong and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite China's rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, most Chinese still live in the vast countryside or have rural household registration. Although there was significant economic improvement in rural areas in the 1980s, the rural economy has been stagnating or deteriorating since then, and the book argues that the rural-urban income gap is giving rise to the potential for political instability throughout China. This book, based on extensive original research including interview fieldwork in rural areas, examines the nature of political culture and participation in rural China, discussing issues such as the support, or lack of it, for democratic values; levels of political interest; the ways in which Chinese peasants interact with village and local officials; subjective factors that motivate them to vote, (or not to vote) in village elections; and rural people's views on market-oriented economic reforms, local and national government, and the Communist Party. The book argues that although hitherto peasants' riots, sit-ins and demonstrations have been localised and uncoordinated, they are frequent, and have the potential to cause serious political crises for China's rulers. It concludes by considering the future political development of China's vast countryside.

Book Mutual Empowerment of State and Peasantry

Download or read book Mutual Empowerment of State and Peasantry written by Xu Wang and published by Nova Biomedical Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new and timely book addresses a series of questions regarding one of the most important political developments in contemporary China: the state-led democratic practice of village self-government in rural areas. Why would an authoritarian state promote grassroots democratic reform? To what extent has this reform changed the local power structures, grassroots governance, and state-peasant relations? What would be the implications of this grassroots democratic reform for China's democratisation in the long run? This book examines the origins, process, and impact of this paradoxical political development and explores the dynamics of political change and mutually transforming relations between the state and society in Post-Mao China. It argues that the practice of village self-government was promoted by the Chinese party-state to cope with the dual crises of legitimacy and governability it had faced in the countryside after a decade of rural economic reforms.

Book Power and Wealth in Rural China

Download or read book Power and Wealth in Rural China written by Susan H. Whiting and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-02 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on China's rural industries, offering an innovative, theoretical framework to explain insitutional change. Susan Whiting explores the complex interactions of individuals, institutions, and the broader political economy to examine variation and change in property rights and extractive institutions in China's rural industrial sector. Whiting explains why public ownership predominated during the early years of reform and why privatization is now taking place. This book will be of interest not only to students and scholars of Chinese economic development, but also of comparative politics and political economy more generally.

Book THE POLITICS OF RURAL REFORM IN CHI

Download or read book THE POLITICS OF RURAL REFORM IN CHI written by GOBEL and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-21 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a treasure trove of information collected through fieldwork interviews and painstaking documentary research through the Chinese and Western language presses, this book analyzes one of the most important reforms implemented in China over the past decade - the rural tax and fee reform, also known as the "Third Revolution in the Countryside." The aim of the tax was to improve social stability in rural China, which has become increasingly shaken by peasant protests, many of them large-scale and violent. By examining the gap between the intentions of the reform and the eventual outcomes, Gobel provides new insights into the nature of intergovernmental relations in China and highlights the ways in which the relationship between the state and the rural populace has fundamentally changed forever. The Politics of Rural Reform in China will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese politics, governance and development studies.

Book Local Politics in a Rural Chinese Cultural Setting

Download or read book Local Politics in a Rural Chinese Cultural Setting written by J. Bruce Jacobs and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book China and Southeast Asia in the Xi Jinping Era

Download or read book China and Southeast Asia in the Xi Jinping Era written by Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2018-12-12 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the countries of Southeast Asia and how their relations with China have been transformed under the Chinese President Xi Jinping with intensified territorial assertiveness and increased economic diplomacy.

Book Sustainable Development in Rural China

Download or read book Sustainable Development in Rural China written by Bin Wu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-06-02 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wu explores how farmers have organised themselves to initiate technical innovation, and considers communication networks and co-operative mechanisms.

Book China s Rural Market Development in the Reform Era

Download or read book China s Rural Market Development in the Reform Era written by Him Chung and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rural market in China is not only the venue where 60 per cent of the country's 1.3 billion inhabitants buy their daily necessities and sell agricultural products, but also a key area of conflict between government control and liberalization policies. Previous research on the topic has adopted a purely economic perspective, focusing on macro issues such as price control and grain procurement. This book focuses instead on peasants - the major participants in rural marketing activities. Illustrated by two comparative case studies with a diverse level of development from the Pearl River Delta - one of the most prosperous regions in coastal China - this book investigates the market hierarchy, its change of functions and the interactions between peasants and market outlets. In doing so, it shows how China's rural market district has changed since the Reform, and how these changes affect the marketing activities of peasants.