The Structural Politics of Social Organizations in Urban China, post 1989

In der letzten Dekade haben die Neuen Sozialen Organisationen (NSOs) im urbanen China, die sich von herkömmlichen Sozialen Organisationen durch ihre bemerkenswerten Institutions- und Sozialinnovationen unterscheiden, zunehmende Aufmerksamkeit bei den Gelehrten erregt. Gegründet wurden die NSOs teilweise von einigen offiziellen NGOs (hauptsächlich Nicht-Regierungs-Umweltschutzorganisationen), doch noch viel häufiger von „Organisationen der Rechtserklärung“ („asserting rights organizations“), und nicht-offiziellen NGOs. Aus der Perspektive der Strukturpolitik, betrachtet diese Abhandlung solche innovative Sozialorganisationen als Ergebnis der Strukturierung der autopoietischen Bewegung der NSOs und erforscht anhand Giddens Theorie der Strukturierung die Drei-Niveau-Verfahren der Politisierung der NSOs: der Aufstieg von „Rechtserklärungsbewegungen“, der Aufbau eines rationalen oppositionellen Bewußtseins mit einer neuen Generation der liberalen (Bewegung) Intellektueller, und die Bildung von Netzwerken der NSOs. Von den Feldarbeitsforschungen beobachte und formuliere ich den Doppelaktivismus als die Interpretation der Politisierung der NSOs: die Online-Eintragung der Teilnehmer des E-Forums und die vernetzenden Handlungen der NSO-Unternehmer. Solche zwei habitualisierte Verhalten funktionieren als die Mikro-meso-Mechanismen der kategorialen Politik der NSOs, seit dem 1998 das Internet begann sich im urbanen China weit zu verbreiten. Auf dieser strukturalistischen Grundlage können wir eine Dualität der strukturellen Politik der NSOs in heutigem urbanem China herausstellen: einerseits eine auftauchende morphogenetische Zivilgesellschaft, und anderseits einen „Late Authoritarianism“. Zusammengehalten wird diese Dualität durch die Mediation der antiautoritären Natur und der dichten Struktur der NSOs - dies kann in den Demokratie-Bewegungen im Jahre 1989 zurückverfolgt werden, die wieder belebt und umgewandelt zu der autopoietischen Bewegung von NSOs in den letzten 15 Jahren geführt haben.In the last decade, the new social organizations (NSOs) in urban China stemming from conventional social organizations in association with remarkable institutional and social innovations have attracted increasing attentions from scholars, constituted of formal NGOs (mainly environmental NGOs), many more “asserting rights organizations” and informal NGOs. From the perspective of structural politics, this dissertation deems such innovative social organization as the resulting structuration of the NSOs’ autopoietic movement, and launches a Giddensian structuration approach to explore the three-level processes of NSOs’ politicization: the rise of asserting rights movements, the construction of rational oppositional consciousness and new generation of liberal (movement) intellectuals, and the formation of NSOs’ networks. Using fieldwork investigations and observations, a twin activism was formulated as the rationale of NSOs’ politicization: the online posting of e-forum participants and networking agitation of NSO’s entrepreneurs. Such twofold habitualized behaviour functions as the micro-meso mechanisms of NSOs’ category politics since the Internet become widespread in urban China from 1998 onward

Explaining health policy change in China between 2003 and 2009: actors, contexts and institutionalisation

The health policy change in China between 2003 and 2009 was profound. In 2003, the Chinese government changed its response to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak from initial passivity to proactivity. Following the SARS outbreak, in 2005 the Chinese government started major healthcare reforms. During this process, the health policy direction then changed from marketisation towards being more government-led. Previous research has explained health policy change mainly from bureaucratic perspectives that considered the government playing the main role. This thesis explains how and why health policy changed by focusing on three actors outside the political system. I argue that, after the SARS outbreak, experts, the media, and international organisations influenced the health policies as a ‘Policy Entrepreneurial Coalition’ (PEC), the result of which was a combination of normal and paradigmatic policy changes between 2003 and 2009. This is a qualitative study. I conducted fieldwork in China involving semi-structured interviews of policy insiders and outsiders. The policy insiders are government officials in the Ministry of Health. The policy outsiders are: domestic Chinese experts in social science, health economics, and health; external (foreign) experts who were involved in China’s health policymaking; journalists in national media and other commercialised traditional media; and representatives of international organisations in China. I also did content analysis of both policy documents and media reports. I identified three cases: the health policy change during the SARS outbreak, the initiation of the healthcare reform, and the health policy change during the healthcare reform policymaking. This thesis makes three major contributions. First, it documents the health policy change between 2003 and 2009. Second, previous studies focused on bureaucratic bargaining during policymaking in China, but I examine roles of policy outsiders, who have conventionally been neglected in China’s policy process. Third, to explain the influence of the outsiders, I examine the policymaking process within the central government and how the policy outsiders interacted with the policy insiders. In doing so, this thesis contributes to the understanding of China’s politics and policy processes

Contentious Activities and Party-State Responses in Contemporary China -- Investigating China’s Democratisation during its Modernisation

The macroscopic picture of China today is highly contradictory: on the one hand there is an explicit scenario of modernisation initiated by the government and developing in unexpected depth and rapidity, and on the other hand an implicit but unrecognised scenario of democratisation nurtured by modernisation and actively involving different social forces. Due to the intensifying social problems – and perhaps even social crisis – that accompany the many transformations, such as the restructuring relationship between Party-state, society and individuals and the changing culture and value system, remarkable contentious activities have been launched by a wide range of social actors striving for their rights and interests. Underneath the dynamic character of contentions in China, this research will try to test the normative and ethical presumption that contentious politics promotes both robust civil society and representative government – the substance of democracy. I examine the contentious actions of the three significant social groups - the labourers, intellectuals and religious groups - and the Party-state responses to their politics, which are largely co-optation, toleration and control-repression. I also examine the important dynamic between centre and province with regard to their responses. My methods of documentation, interviewing and internet content analysis have been adopted in order to study these contentions and Party-state responses. The thesis concludes that the relationships between Party-state, society and individuals are restructured in contentions and interactions driven by modernisation. There are mounting democratic pressures and open demands from people with an increasing political consciousness, which challenge authority to different extents all over the country and will lead to China’s democratisation in both bottom-up and top-down directions

A holistic model of emergency evacuations in large, complex, public occupancy buildings

Evacuations are crucial for ensuring the safety of building occupants in the event of an emergency. In large, complex, public occupancy buildings (LCPOBs) these procedures are significantly more complex than the simple withdrawal of people from a building. This thesis has developed a novel, holistic, theoretical model of emergency evacuations in LCPOBs inspired by systems safety theory. LCPOBs are integral components of complex socio-technical systems, and therefore the model describes emergency evacuations as control actions initiated in order to return the building from an unsafe state to a safe state where occupants are not at risk of harm. The emergency evacuation process itself is comprised of four aspects - the movement (of building occupants), planning and management, environmental features, and evacuee behaviour. To demonstrate its utility and applicability, the model has been employed to examine various aspects of evacuation procedures in two example LCPOBs - airport terminals, and sports stadiums. The types of emergency events initiating evacuations in these buildings were identified through a novel hazard analysis procedure, which utilised online news articles to create events databases of previous evacuations. Security and terrorism events, false alarms, and fires were found to be the most common cause of evacuations in these buildings. The management of evacuations was explored through model-based systems engineering techniques, which identified the communication methods and responsibilities of staff members managing these events. Social media posts for an active shooting event were analysed using qualitative and machine learning methods to determine their utility for situational awareness. This data source is likely not informative for this purpose, as few posts detail occupant behaviours. Finally, an experimental study on pedestrian dynamics with movement devices was conducted, which determined that walking speeds during evacuations were unaffected by evacuees dragging luggage, but those pushing pushchairs and wheelchairs will walk significantly slower.Open Acces

Full Issue: Volume 4, Issue 2

The second issue in the fourth volume of the Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal