Why do authoritarian regimes provide public goods? Policy communities, external shocks and ideas in China’s rural social policy making

Recent research on authoritarian regimes argues that they provide public goods in order to prevent rebellion. This essay shows that the ‘threat of rebellion’ alone cannot explain Chinese party-state policies to extend public goods to rural residents in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Drawing on theories of policy making, it argues that China’s one-party regime extended public goods to the rural population under the influence of ideas and policy options generated by policy communities of officials, researchers, international organisations and other actors. The party-state centre adopted and implemented these ideas and policy options when they provided solutions to external shocks and supported economic development goals. Explanations of policies and their outcomes in authoritarian political systems need to include not only ‘dictators’ but also other actors, and the ideas they generate

Re-thinking the incrementalist thesis in China: a reflection on the development of the minimum standard of living scheme in urban and rural areas

Many commentators contend that the Chinese government adopted an incremental approach to welfare policy reform because its leaders lacked an overall blueprint for it, allowing initiatives to be implemented only after lengthy experimentation. While this perspective has provided an essential account of the implementation and changes of some welfare programmes, it has inadequately addressed the slow progress in rural areas' welfare programmes and the different welfare entitlements for rural and urban residents. Further investigation is therefore required to resolve these anomalies. Using the minimum standard of living scheme (MSLS) as a case example, this article illustrates how the Chinese government's legitimacy needs, during different stages of its economic reforms, have been the principal motivation for the implementation of such schemes. The introduction of an urban MSLS in 1997 aimed to reduce laid-off workers' dissatisfaction following the government's reforms of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The implementation of a rural MSLS in 2007 was intended principally to minimise conflicts between land-losing farmers and local officials after widespread rural riots. These MSLSs are also minimal and stigmatising public-assistance schemes that fulfil the dual objective of securing a stable political environment for economic reform and maintaining poor people's work ethic for China's mixed economy

The political role of the people's liberation army 1949-1973

This thesis is to study the political role of the People's Liberation Army from the approach of structure and function. The framework of the thesis consists of three major parts, first, the influence of Chinese traditional political culture on, and the formation of, the political role of the PL A; second, the influence of domestic political struggles and external military conflicts on the development of the political role of the PLA; and the third, the analysis of the transition of the PLA's political role from the structure and personnel arrangements of the CCPCC Within the above-mentioned three scopes, this thesis make a thorough discussion on the following: (1) The relationship between the structure of the PRC and the formation of the PLA's political role; (2) How has ideology influenced the army's political role; (3) What is Mao's viewpoint and his influence on the development of the army's political role; (4) What is the link between the army and the party, and how has this developed; (6) What accounts for the expansion of the PLA's political functions; (7) What is the influence of political factional struggles on the PLA's political role; (8) Is it political institution or military institution that controls the recruitment of the military elite; (9) What are the disparities between the military elite in handling international conflicts and what are their political considerations; (10) What is the Party's position in the army; (11) How have the Party’s important meetings and personnel arrangements influenced the rise and fall of the PLA's political role

Chinese Communist Materials at the Bureau of Investigation Archives, Taiwan

During the long years of civil strife in China the Nationalist authorities amassed extensive materials on their Communist adversaries. Now stored in government institutions on Taiwan, these materials are an excellent source for the study of the Chinese Communist movement. Among them is the Bureau of Investigation Collection (BIC), which holds over 300,000 volumes of primary documents on the Chinese Communist movement. The purpose of Chinese Communist Materials is, without any attempt at comprehensive listing of the Bureau’s holdings, to give scholars a representative description of the collection, to point out its implications for research, and suggest new areas for research at the Bureau in the fields of political science and history [1, 4]

Cooperation, Imitation and Correlated Matching

We study a setting where imitative players are matched into pairs to play a Prisoners' Dilemma game. A well know result in such setting is that under random matching cooperation vanishes for any interior initial condition. The novelty of this paper is that we add a certain correlation to the matching process: players that belong to a pair were both parties cooperate repeat partner next period whilst all other players are randomly matched into pairs. This intuitive correlation introduced in the matching process makes cooperation the unique outcome in the long run under some conditions. Furthermore, we show that no assortative equilibrium exits.Cooperation; Correlated Matching; Imitation; Prisoners' Dilemma

China's policy on rural-urban migrants and urban social harmony

Rural migrants have suffered from serious social exclusion in the Chinese urban society. However, since the early 2000s, the Chinese government emphasizes social harmony as an important national development goal. Together with the reorientation of development goals, the livelihood of rural migrants has received unprecedented State attention. This paper studies the policy changes and examines whether they have enhanced urban social harmony, particularly, in improving the welfare of rural migrants. It was found that the policy changes only partially restored the social and political rights of rural migrants. Some rural migrants have resorted to extreme actions, such as suicides, crimes, and strikes, to express their grievances, thereby contradicting government attempts to ensure social harmony. Further efforts are required to enhance the social inclusion of rural migrants in urban China.published_or_final_versio

Between Centralization and Decentralization: Changed Curriculum Governance in Chinese Education after 1986

China’s curriculum system has been undergoing substantial transformations since 1986. In response to public criticism of the highly prescribed national curriculum, the central state of China is attempting to build a more inclusive system which is composed of national curriculum, province curriculum and school-based curriculum. The new curriculum system accommodates more flexibility in carrying out national curriculum policies and even encourages local input in curriculum development and management. Apparently, the current curriculum reform in China is moving toward decentralization. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate the complexity of decentralization reform in China’s curriculum system and examine the dynamics of policy formulation and outcomes of reform efforts in great depth. The main argument made in this socio-philosophical work is that the on-going Chinese curriculum reform is a process of centralized decentralization, which merely transfers work to the local level but not real authority. With an inquiry into the impetus of current Chinese curriculum reform, this theoretical research illustrates that centralized decentralization is taken as a strategic imperative by the state to avoid loss of control over school curriculum that carries particular social and political significance for China in a transitional period. Another major task for this cultural studies research is to problematize the strategy of centralized decentralization, investigating the consequences of the superficial decentralization in reality and analyzing the bottlenecks in promoting current Chinese curriculum reform. In this research, Mark Hanson’s conceptual framework of education decentralization is used to clarify ambiguity in defining decentralization reform in the education sector in China. Meanwhile, Foucault’s theory about power/knowledge and governmentality and Williams’ theory about hegemony are used to deepen the understanding of the state-education relationship in contemporary China. Besides a descriptive analysis of phenomena in current Chinese curriculum reform, the discussion is deployed through pragmatic approach and logic-based reasoning. Most data are obtained from literature review, including previous studies on Chinese education reform, government documents, laws and regulations related to current Chinese curriculum reform

Governing China with the news television & national development in China since 1958

This thesis is an historical study of the interplay between television news and politics in China since 1958. It examines the evolution of television news and political development in China, as well as the continuing innovations to theca’s ideological system. Television in China has become the major source of social and political information and knowledge to facilitate development, at a time when China is experiencing its fastest development in the national economy. The Chinese television institutions now are far from a monolithic and unified propaganda machine, and have begun to play the role of a multifaceted creature undergoing a process of rapid transformation, with different parts of the body straining in different directions. Meanwhile, however, CCTV (China Central Television), which serves as the central hub of official information and social and political knowledge provision in the process of Chinese national development, is still mainly running according to the aims and agenda of the Chinese Communist Party and central government. Among China’s journalists, the debate on the democratisation of journalism arises once again at a time when the social market economic system has been well established throughout the country. This thesis has involved the examination of a diverse range of sources, dispersed in several archives and libraries in the UK, US and China. Bibliographical research has been combined with fieldwork carried out among Chinese television journalists and senior managers in television stations. This work aims to contribute to a better understanding of the media and politics of modern China, adding a new perspective to the study of televised democracy and mediated politics in China