Download or read book Information for Autocrats written by Melanie Manion and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-17 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the new representation unfolding in Chinese local congresses. Drawing qualitative fieldwork and data analysis from original surveys of 5,130 township, county, and municipal congressmen and women and constituents, Melanie Manion shows the priorities and problems of ordinary Chinese significantly influence both who gets elected to local congresses and what the congresses do once elected. Candidates nominated by ordinary voters are 'good types', with qualities that signal they will reliably represent the community. By contrast, candidates nominated by the communist party are 'governing types', with qualities that reflect officially valued competence and loyalty. However, congressmen and women of both types now largely reject the Maoist-era role of state agent. Instead, they view themselves as 'delegates', responsible for advocating with local government to supply local public goods. Manion argues that representation in Chinese local congresses taps local knowledge for local governance, thereby bolstering the rule of autocrats in Beijing.

Download or read book Roots of the State written by Benjamin Read and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-11 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most social science studies of local organizations tend to focus on "civil society" associations, voluntary associations independent from state control, whereas government-sponsored organizations tend to be theorized in totalitarian terms as "mass organizations" or manifestations of state corporatism. Roots of the State examines neighborhood associations in Beijing and Taipei that occupy a unique space that exists between these concepts. Benjamin L. Read views the work of the neighborhood associations he studies as a form of "administrative grassroots engagement." States sponsor networks of organizations at the most local of levels, and the networks facilitate governance and policing by building personal relationships with members of society. Association leaders serve as the state's designated liaisons within the neighborhood and perform administrative duties covering a wide range of government programs, from welfare to political surveillance. These partly state-controlled entities also provide a range of services to their constituents. Neighborhood associations, as institutions initially created to control societies, may underpin a repressive regime such as China's, but they also can evolve to empower societies, as in Taiwan. This book engages broad and much-discussed questions about governance and political participation in both authoritarian and democratic regimes.

Download or read book The Failure of China s Democratic Reforms written by Zaijun Yuan and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its propaganda, the Chinese Communist Party does not deny the value of “democracy”, but it insists that democracy in China can be only “socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics”. The most essential nature of such “democracy” is that it is under the single-party system and it excludes multi-party politics and competitive elections. In recent years, “Chinese democracy” has won more support because of achievements the party has made in developing economy. This raises a question: does this “efficient” authoritarian political system in China, even if it is not democratic, deserve applause because it can facilitate economic development? The party also insists that it is “democratic”. But, is the party's theory of “democracy” compatible with western democracy? Since 1998, the party has organized some political reforms, such as “direct elections” for township executives, “direct elections” for township party secretaries, township party congress reform and “deliberative democracy” experiments, while maintaining single-party politics. In the party's propaganda, some of these reforms have become party achievements in improving “socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics”. In addition to these four kinds of party-organized reforms, another “reform” originated from the grassroots, the participation of independent candidates in a few local people's congress elections. This book examines these five local political reforms. It demonstrates that the four reforms instigated and organized by the party were tightly controlled and manipulated by the party. Although some reform measures may possibly liberalize parts of China's political mechanism, it is highly unlikely that the four reforms will eventually lead to political democratization in China. In the fifth “reform”, which was motivated from outside the bureaucratic system, the party took drastic measures to repress the political participation of grassroots power. As a result, nearly all independent candidates in the local people's congress elections failed in their attempts to gain office. The prospects for this “reform” are also poor. The book argues that all five reforms have failed and that none will lead to China’s democratization in the near future. The book concludes that the party’s authoritarian regime in China is by nature anti-democratic and that so-called “socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics” is not democratic.

Download or read book Local Organizations and Urban Governance in East and Southeast Asia written by Benjamin L. Read and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection brings together enterprising pieces of new research on the many forms of organization in East and Southeast Asia that are sponsored or mandated by government, but engage widespread participation at the grassroots level. Straddling the state-society divide, these organizations play important roles in society and politics, yet remain only dimly understood. This book shines a spotlight on this phenomenon, which speaks to fundamental questions about how such societies choose to organize themselves, how institutions of local governance change over time, and how individuals respond to and make use of the power of the state. The contributors investigate organizations ranging from volunteer-based organizations that partner with government in providing services for homeless children, to state-managed networks of neighborhood- or village-level associations that perform representative as well as administrative functions and seeks to answer a number of questions: When do the "vertical," top-down imperatives of the state stifle "horizontal" solidarities, and when might the two work in harmony? Are useful social and administrative purposes served by this type of fusion? Does it amplify or merely muffle citizens’ voices? What does it tell us about existing accounts of community, social capital, "synergy," "complementarity," "subsidiarity," and related concepts? Representing seven countries: China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Singapore this volume will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in Asian studies, political science, sociology, anthropology, development, history, nonprofit studies.

Download or read book Grassroots Elections in China written by Kevin J. O'Brien and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-22 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty years after the launch of village elections, the time is ripe to assess the progress and impact of China’s most notable political reform. Where have elections been conducted well and where have they been conducted poorly? How have procedures changed over the years and have elections truly transformed how power is exercised in the countryside? What methods are researchers employing to study elections and how have scholars from different disciplines contributed to our knowledge of grassroots politics in China? This book carefully examines the implementation and effects of China’s village, township, and people’s congress elections, both in terms of democratizing the polity and spurring other changes in state-society relations. The chapters in this book have been published across several issues of the Journal of Contemporary China.

Download or read book Remodeling Democracy written by Zhongyuan Wang and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores why, how, and under what conditions a single-party regime uses formal democratic institutions to strengthen its rule. Zhongyuan Wang challenges the traditional perceptions that the Chinese congress acts either as mere window dressing or as an immediate catalyst for democratization. He argues that managed elections and mobilized representation are two strategic cards of China’s one-party regime. By downplaying input electoral competition but promoting output congressional representation, the Chinese Communist Party has been committed to remodeling its unique brand of “socialist democracy” as an alternative to liberal democracy. Such a model of democracy with Chinese characteristics features the “Leninist trinity” of the Party’s leadership, the rule of law, and people’s sovereignty, as well as a new form of mobilized representation that relies heavily on non-electoral accountability from the top down. Remodeling democracy enables China’s one-party regime to enhance its resilience and consolidate and sustain its rule.

Download or read book Annual Report written by United States. Congressional-Executive Commission on China and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Working Class Formation in Taiwan written by Ming-sho Ho and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-06-05 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a fresh look at Taiwan's state workers in from the postwar period to the present day and examines the rise and fall of labor insurgency in the past two decades. Challenging the conventional image of docile working class, it unearths a series of workers resistance, hidden and public, in a high authoritarian era.

Download or read book Issues Studies written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Neighbourhood Governance in Urban China written by Ngai-Ming Yip and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-30 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neighbourhood governance is a multifaceted concept that cuts across academic disciplines and intersects an array of policy areas. Therefore this book will find a wide audience amongst public and social policy academics, particularly those with an inter

Download or read book China Today China Tomorrow written by Joseph Fewsmith and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2010-08-16 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely book, a group of leading scholars provides a comprehensive assessment of China's polity, economy, and society. Taking the thirtieth anniversary of Beijing's adoption of reform and opening as an occasion to reflect on the course of development over the past three decades, the contributors consider where the country may be going in the future. Just as China has had enormous success in developing its economy, it continues to face equally enormous challenges across a wide variety of issues, including inequality, social protest, energy, the environment, and a resurgence of religion. As a polity, China has tried to build a modern legal system while balancing center-local relations, sustaining a viable ideological framework, and maintaining stable politics at the elite level. At the same time, the current global economic crisis poses a major obstacle to China's model of development. Authoritative, accessible, and current, this book will be an invaluable resource for all readers interested in the fate of a rising global power. Contributions by: Edward A. Cunningham, Joseph Fewsmith, Sebastian Heilmann, Jamie Horsley, Joanna Lewis, Yawei Liu, Barry Naughton, Elizabeth J. Perry, Ren Jiantao, Carl Riskin, Sun Yanfei, Robert Weller, Min Ye, and Yongnian Zheng.

Download or read book Voting as a Rite written by Joshua Hill and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, voting has been a surprisingly common political activity in China. Voting as a Rite examines China’s experiments with elections from the perspective of intellectual and cultural history. Rather than arguing that such exercises were either successful or failed attempts at political democracy, the book instead focuses on a previously unasked question: how did those who participated in Chinese elections define success or failure for themselves? Answering this question reveals why Chinese elites originally became enamored of elections at the end of the nineteenth century, why critics complained about elections that featured real competition in the early twentieth century, and why elections continued to be held after the mid-twentieth century even though outcomes were predetermined by the state. While no mainland Chinese government has ever felt that its rule required validation at the ballot box, the discourses that surrounded elections reveal much about important tensions within modern Chinese political thought. What is the best means to identify talent? Can the state trust the people to act responsibly as citizens? As Joshua Hill shows, elections are vital, not peripheral, to understanding these concerns fully.

Download or read book Parliamentarians Professional Development written by Colleen Lewis and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-09 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the education and training of Members of Parliament (MPs). It examines existing training programs offered in various countries around the world, evaluates their strengths and weaknesses and makes recommendations for a new approach, which aligns the professional development of MPs to 21st century requirements. Contributors address the role of parliamentarians, how to prepare them for their multi-faceted functions, the importance of ethics in any program, the requirement for more sophisticated adult learning approaches, human resource implications and the need to reform existing education and training models. The book will appeal to scholars in the fields of political science, adult education and human resource management, as well as to parliamentarians interested in enhancing their skills so as to perform more efficiently and effectively.

Download or read book The Reform of Governance written by Keping Yu and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-06-28 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reform of Governance is a translated collection of articles providing a look at how scholars in China have been assessing their country's recent governmental history. This volume, as well as the others in the SSRC series, provides Western scholars with an accessible English-language look at the state of current Chinese scholarship, and as such, does not simply provide information for the direct study of economic issues, but also for meta-level analysis of the interplay of China's policy, scholarship, and economy. Specifc topics include democratic reforms, electoral rules, accountability and social welfare.

Download or read book Development and Frustrations of Statecraft in Mid Ming China written by I-fan Chʻeng and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Communist Party written by Willy Wo-Lap Lam and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-18 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whilst the Chinese Communist Party is one of the most powerful political institutions in the world, it is also one of the least understood, due to the party’s secrecy and tight control over the archives, the press and the Internet. Having governed the People’s Republic of China for nearly 70 years though, much interest remains into how this quintessentially Leninist party governs one-fifth of the world and runs the world’s second-largest economy. The Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Communist Party gives a comprehensive and multi-faceted picture of the party’s traditions and values – as well as its efforts to stay relevant in the twenty-first century. It uses a wealth of contemporary data and qualitative analysis to explore the intriguing relationship between the party on the one hand, and the government, the legal and judicial establishment and the armed forces, on the other. Tracing the influence of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, as well as Mao Zedong, on contemporary leaders ranging from Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, the sections cover: the party’s history and traditions; how the party works and seeks to remain relevant; major policy arenas; the CCP in the twenty-first century. The Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Communist Party will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Politics, Asian Politics, Political Parties and International Relations. Go to https://www.bookshop4u.com/lw1 to see Willy Lam introduce the book.

Download or read book The Literature and Cultural Ecology of Imperial Examinations in the Ming Dynasty written by Wenxin Chen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-10-03 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book examines the relationship between imperial examinations and literature from the perspective of restoring the cultural ecology of imperial examinations in Ming China, breaking through the paradigm of pure literature research. This book presents an important practice in adjusting the pattern of literary research. The contents of this book include five mutually independent but supportive parts: 1) the living conditions and careers of the literary attendants; 2) the educational background and school’s consciousness of the Ming literati; 3) top candidates and Ming literature; 4) genres of imperial examination and the Ming society; 5) exam cheating cases from the perspective of politics and literature. This book will appeal to readers interested in Chinese literature and culture and the imperial examination system in ancient China.