|
Showing 1 - 11 of
11 matches in All Departments
One of the more commonly and widely held beliefs outside the
People's Republic of China about the changes wrought by the reform
era is that there has been no political change The attention of the
outside world focuses inevitably on Beijing and national level
politics. Nonetheless, it may actually be at the more local levels
that changes in politics and the state are most obviously made
manifest The contributions to this volume clearly and convincingly
demonstrate that the state and politics in China have changed
considerably since the beginning of the 1980s. An international
line up of experts explore the meanings of local initiatives
through case studies, assessing their contribution to improving
governance, questioning how they can be sustained, and revealing
the political nature of normative standards. Each contribution
focuses on a different policy area including cultural strategies,
housing, land politics, corruption, peasants' burden and cadre
reforms, women and gender, and international relations. The Chinese
State in Transition is an important read for students and scholars
of Chinese politics, social and public policy, and governance.
This book scrutinizes the role of Hong Kong in the expansive, and
contested, vision of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In two
main sections, it first discusses the defining features of the BRI
and the evolving expectations of the role of Hong Kong in the BRI
from the perspectives of policy makers and the professional sectors
of accountancy-finance and the law. The second section contemplates
the potential opportunities for Hong Kong from the perspectives of
recipient countries of Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.
Utilizing an action research approach and engaging the views of a
broad spectrum of actors, the authors observe the critical role of
agency and innovations in a context of institutional
contradictions, the impact of BRI governance structure for the
deficits in international participation, gaps between grand state
visions and commercial interests, and the salience of effective
communication in navigating complex policy initiatives. Taking
these together unpacks the complex processes shaping Hong Kong's
participation and role in the BRI. This book will appeal to
students and researchers interested in the BRI and Hong Kong, in
the contexts of institutional contradictions, agency innovations
and political dynamics as well as sustainable development.
The international aid community has advocated governance reforms as
a necessary complement to economic aid to developing countries. The
resultant Good Governance Agenda has been criticised for its
ahistorical bias. The empirical case studies reported in this book
further illustrate the limitations by showing the complex logics of
governance reforms and their relations with development in the
Asian context. The analysis highlights the importance of taking
full notice of the Asian reform experiences in the ongoing
reflection over the global institutional and development agenda.
The message is not to deny the need for governance reforms, or the
utility of international learning and sharing of experiences.
Global development will benefit, however, from a better
understanding of the linkages between governance reforms and the
diverse historical conditions they are embedded, in both developing
or the advanced economies. This book was published as a special
issue of Journal of Contemporary Asia.
One of the more commonly and widely held beliefs outside the
People's Republic of China about the changes wrought by the reform
era is that there has been no political change The attention of the
outside world focuses inevitably on Beijing and national level
politics. Nonetheless, it may actually be at the more local levels
that changes in politics and the state are most obviously made
manifest The contributions to this volume clearly and convincingly
demonstrate that the state and politics in China have changed
considerably since the beginning of the 1980s. An international
line up of experts explore the meanings of local initiatives
through case studies, assessing their contribution to improving
governance, questioning how they can be sustained, and revealing
the political nature of normative standards. Each contribution
focuses on a different policy area including cultural strategies,
housing, land politics, corruption, peasants' burden and cadre
reforms, women and gender, and international relations. The Chinese
State in Transition is an important read for students and scholars
of Chinese politics, social and public policy, and governance.
This book examines questions of change and inertia in the context
of the longstanding grievances over excessive taxation in rural
China. How can some changes be sustained, whilst others cannot? How
can a longstanding administrative practice be changed or even
terminated, especially when previous attempts at change have
failed? Using extensive interview data with local and central
bureaucrats, Li's findings highlight the role of parallel
developments and agency in the change process, as well as the
prevalence of contingency and uncertainty. It also elegantly blends
the narrative of the rural tax and administrative reforms with
theoretical discussions to deepen our understanding of policy
process and institutional change in 21st century China. Despite the
authoritarian political system, the Chinese state-in-action which
emerges from this book sees actions stemming from both the central
and local levels, mediated by strategic design as well as
contingency. This book will be of interest to students and scholars
of Chinese Studies, political science and policy and development
studies.
This book explores the idea of responsible government in East Asia,
arguing that many recent governance crises have resulted from
responsibility failures on a huge scale. It distinguishes between
accountability, which it argues has been overemphasised recently,
and responsibility, which it argues goes beyond accountability,
true responsible government involving the actor in feeling liable
for and taking responsibility for his or her actions. It shows how
historically the concept of responsibility is more embedded in
political discussions in Asia, whereas the concepts of democracy
and accountability are more embedded in the intellectual traditions
of Europe, but that the challenges of revolution and
post-revolution, decolonization and post-colonization and
neo-liberal globalization have complicated matters. Drawing on a
wide range of case studies from East Asia, and relating the
concepts discussed to political theory, ethics and social
psychology, the book shows how actors in government and society
interact to deliberate, produce or distract from the practice and
perception of "responsible government", and suggests how the
concept of "responsible government", better defined, might be
encouraged to produce better governance.
The international aid community has advocated governance reforms as
a necessary complement to economic aid to developing countries. The
resultant Good Governance Agenda has been criticised for its
ahistorical bias. The empirical case studies reported in this book
further illustrate the limitations by showing the complex logics of
governance reforms and their relations with development in the
Asian context. The analysis highlights the importance of taking
full notice of the Asian reform experiences in the ongoing
reflection over the global institutional and development agenda.
The message is not to deny the need for governance reforms, or the
utility of international learning and sharing of experiences.
Global development will benefit, however, from a better
understanding of the linkages between governance reforms and the
diverse historical conditions they are embedded, in both developing
or the advanced economies. This book was published as a special
issue of Journal of Contemporary Asia.
This book explores the idea of responsible government in East Asia,
arguing that many recent governance crises have resulted from
responsibility failures on a huge scale. It distinguishes between
accountability, which it argues has been overemphasised recently,
and responsibility, which it argues goes beyond accountability,
true responsible government involving the actor in feeling liable
for and taking responsibility for his or her actions. It shows how
historically the concept of responsibility is more embedded in
political discussions in Asia, whereas the concepts of democracy
and accountability are more embedded in the intellectual traditions
of Europe, but that the challenges of revolution and
post-revolution, decolonization and post-colonization and
neo-liberal globalization have complicated matters. Drawing on a
wide range of case studies from East Asia, and relating the
concepts discussed to political theory, ethics and social
psychology, the book shows how actors in government and society
interact to deliberate, produce or distract from the practice and
perception of "responsible government", and suggests how the
concept of "responsible government", better defined, might be
encouraged to produce better governance.
It is impossible to reflect on 2020 without discussing Covid-19.
The term, literally meaning corona-(CO) virus (VI) disease (D) of
2019, has become synonymous with "the virus", "corona" and "the
pandemic". The impact of the virus on our lives is unprecedented in
modern human history, in terms of scale, depth and resilience. When
compared to other epidemics that have plagued the world in recent
decades, Covid-19 is often referred to as being much more "deadly"
and is associated with advances in technology which scientists have
described as "revolutionary". From politics to economics, spanning
families and continents, Covid-19 has unsettled norms: cultural
clashes are intensified, politics are even more polarized, and
regional tensions and conflicts are on the rise. Global trade
patterns and supply chains are increasingly being questioned and
redrawn. The world is being atomized, and individuals are forced to
accept the "new normal" in their routines. In an attempt to combat
the virus and minimize its detrimental effects, countries have
undertaken different preventive strategies and containment
policies. Some have successfully curbed the spread of Covid-19,
while many others remain in limbo, doing their best to respond to
outbreaks in cases. To gain a better understanding of how to fight
Covid-19, it is imperative to evaluate the success and failures of
these approaches. Under what conditions is an approach successful?
When should it be avoided? How can this information be used to
avoid future pandemics? This volume offers informative comparative
case studies that shed light on these key questions. Each country
case is perceptively analyzed and includes a detailed timeline,
allowing readers to view each response with hindsight and
extrapolate the data to better understand what the future holds.
Taken as a whole, this collection offers invaluable insight at this
critical juncture in the Covid-19 pandemic.
This book examines questions of change and inertia in the context
of the longstanding grievances over excessive taxation in rural
China. How can some changes be sustained, whilst others cannot? How
can a longstanding administrative practice be changed or even
terminated, especially when previous attempts at change have
failed? Using extensive interview data with local and central
bureaucrats, Li's findings highlight the role of parallel
developments and agency in the change process, as well as the
prevalence of contingency and uncertainty. It also elegantly blends
the narrative of the rural tax and administrative reforms with
theoretical discussions to deepen our understanding of policy
process and institutional change in 21st century China. Despite the
authoritarian political system, the Chinese state-in-action which
emerges from this book sees actions stemming from both the central
and local levels, mediated by strategic design as well as
contingency. This book will be of interest to students and scholars
of Chinese Studies, political science and policy and development
studies.
Centre and Provinces: China 1978-93 goes beyond the dominant state
capacity paradigm to argue for an interactive model to explain the
political relations between the central and provincial governments
in contemporary China. The uni-dimensional, centrist perspective of
the state capacity paradigm has failed to adequately explain the
coexistence of central and provincial power, and to anticipate
circumstances of change. In this book a hybrid rational-choice cum
institutional approach highlights the mutual power of both the
Centre and the provinces. each party, the Centre or the provinces,
imposes structural constraints upon the other. Power is not a
zero-sum game. The cases of Shanghai and Guangdong, important
resourceful provinces under very different central policy contexts,
contrast possible interactions between central policy and
provincial choice. Conflicts amidst a context of mutual dependence
necessitate compromise on both sides, and qualitative changes to
centreprovince relations as a result may well have long-term
implications for wider political processes.
|
|