Civil Service Development in China and America: A Comparative Perspective

How has reform changed Chinese and American civil service systems in light of China's landmark reform in 1993 by contrast to the aftermath of the U.S. Civil Service Act of 1883? While there are significant differences, remarkable administrative and political similarities also emerge. Particularly salient is the role of educational systems in the civil service development of both countries. Surprisingly, this comparative analysis finds a common struggle to balance professional expertise with political accountability and control. King Kwun Tsao of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and John Abbott Worthley of Seton Hall University argue that further comparative research is essential to hone an improved understanding of China specifically as well as civil service systems generally.     

新中国成立以来长征纪念活动述论

1934年至1936年的红军长征,是中国共产党和中国人民解放军历史上的重大事件,在中国历史以至世界历史上也都具有重要影响。在中国革命史上,长征发挥了打通门径、扭转时局、推动历史的关键作用,也因此成为中国共产党的重要政治资源,并在经济、文化、社会等领域产生了重大而深远的影响。新中国成立70多年来,党和国家举行了一系列长征纪念活动,总体而言纪念规格越来越高,社会影响越来越大,活动内容日趋丰富,社会功能愈加彰显。长征纪念活动既是带有很强政治属性的一种仪式和象征,也是新中国历史发展演变的一个窗口和缩影。通过对长征纪念活动的考察和分析,可以帮助我们更准确地扪摸马克思主义中国化时代化大众化的脉动,更深刻地认识党和国家历史发展的走向。     

新中国成立以来中国共产党生态现代化建设的创新实践与经验

新中国成立以来,中国共产党不断推进现代化建设的生态转向,逐渐探索出中国特色社会主义生态现代化建设的道路与模式.在这个过程中,中国共产党完成了一系列理论与实践创新,实现了现代文明观的转型、现代化发展理念的超越、现代化建设模式的创新和现代化全球视野的拓宽,开创了人与自然和谐共生的现代化建设的新格局.同时,中国共产党也取得了丰富的建设经验:生命共同体思想是生态现代化建设的理论基础;经济社会发展与资源环境相协调是对生态现代化建设规律认识的深化;生态共享是生态现代化建设的关键节点;党的领导是生态现代化建设的核心力量.     

Accountability and Leadership in Twenty‐First Century Whitehall

In July 2013 the UK's coalition government published “The Civil Service Reform Plan – One Year on”, reporting on progress against minister Frances Maude's objectives to shake up the civil service. This followed various reported disagreements between ministers and civil servants over policy implementation, and a research report commissioned by the government from think tank IPPR into lessons from overseas for civil service reform. This trio of short articles reviews the government's proposals from three perspectives: that of the lead author of the IPPR report, a former senior civil servant, and the chair of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee (PASC) which oversees the civil service. The authors take differing views on the proposals, which include introduction of ‘extended ministerial offices’, and greater control by ministers over choosing their civil servants. Should these be seen as useful next steps, worrying developments, and/or large and important enough to merit a Commission on the civil service, as PASC has suggested?     

Civil Service Reform—Trust on Trial

In July 2013 the UK's coalition government published “The Civil Service Reform Plan – One Year on”, reporting on progress against minister Frances Maude's objectives to shake up the civil service. This followed various reported disagreements between ministers and civil servants over policy implementation, and a research report commissioned by the government from think tank IPPR into lessons from overseas for civil service reform. This trio of short articles reviews the government's proposals from three perspectives: that of the lead author of the IPPR report, a former senior civil servant, and the chair of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee (PASC) which oversees the civil service. The authors take differing views on the proposals, which include introduction of ‘extended ministerial offices’, and greater control by ministers over choosing their civil servants. Should these be seen as useful next steps, worrying developments, and/or large and important enough to merit a Commission on the civil service, as PASC has suggested?     

The Civil Service Reform Plan One Year On,and the International Evidence

In July 2013 the UK's coalition government published “The Civil Service Reform Plan – One Year on”, reporting on progress against minister Frances Maude's objectives to shake up the civil service. This followed various reported disagreements between ministers and civil servants over policy implementation, and a research report commissioned by the government from think tank IPPR into lessons from overseas for civil service reform. This trio of short articles reviews the government's proposals from three perspectives: that of the lead author of the IPPR report, a former senior civil servant, and the chair of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee (PASC) which oversees the civil service. The authors take differing views on the proposals, which include introduction of ‘extended ministerial offices’, and greater control by ministers over choosing their civil servants. Should these be seen as useful next steps, worrying developments, and/or large and important enough to merit a Commission on the civil service, as PASC has suggested?     

中国马克思主义研究基金会简介

中国马克思主义研究基金会是上世纪90年代初由中共中央党校发起，于1992年报中国人民银行批准、民政部注册登记成立的非营利性公益组织。2005年，基金会经民政部批准，获基金会法人登记，类型为公募．起始基金数为八百万元人民币。     

塑造清正廉洁的政党形象——以严肃处理刘青山、张子善案为例

建国初期的“三反”运动特别是对刘青山、张子善一案的严肃处理是中国共产党塑造自身政党形象的一个重要举措。刘张案暴露了“机关生产”的普遍性和它存在的腐蚀性，中国共产党开始采取措施切断权力和财富的直接联系。以群众运动的方式来开展“三反”斗争是当时党内纯洁力量的共识，人民群众被动员到新的政治实践中来，体现了让人民参与政治生活的积极意义。严肃处理刘张案，中国共产党展示了这样一种政治姿态，即坚决地和国民党作风划清界限，自觉地接受人民的监督。     

百年以来中国共产党推进国家现代化的历史演进——基于概念史研究的论析

推进国家现代化是百年以来中国共产党孜孜以求的奋斗目标。为应对资本主义现代化的冲击,中国共产党在长期的革命斗争中逐渐明晰:现代化之于中国的首要意义在于改变落后挨打的命运,赢得国家独立,迎接现代化成为先进政党改变落后国家状态的战略选择。新中国成立后,中国共产党最初将现代化定义为工业化,将其作为摆脱贫穷落后面貌的根本途径,并在探索中逐步明确和丰富了“社会主义现代化”的发展目标与基本内涵,开启了追赶世界现代化的征程。党的十八大以来,中国共产党人愈加自信,“社会主义现代化”就是要实现中华民族的伟大复兴和人民对美好生活的向往,而中国式现代化道路也是可以引领世界现代化前进方向的中国智慧。     

Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones: Grassroots Democracy with Chinese Characteristics

China’s policy of reform and opening has led to extraordinary economic and societal changes during the past 30 years. One aspect of this progressive, incremental change has been the remarkable development of democracy—both at the grassroots level and within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP, recognizing that political reforms must accompany economic reforms, began to pursue a distinctively Chinese path to political reform and modernization—a socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics. Inspired by leadership from Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao, Chinese citizens living in the countryside and townships have held competitive elections for local leadership for over a decade. This paper posits that the rise and institutionalization of competitive, popular local elections is indicative of how the CCP, in fostering a Harmonious Socialist Society, has created a viable, Confucian, and uniquely Chinese alternative to Western liberal democracy in local governance.     

The Civil Service under One Country, Two Systems: The Cases of Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China

Under the principle of "one country, two systems," Hong Kong's and China's civil services are changing, but they clearly are not converging. The civil service reforms made in Hong Kong and China appear to be heading toward two logical extremes: one toward strengthening political authority over the civil service, and the other instituting greater institutionalization. What appears to be a problem in Hong Kong may be seen as a solution in China. Not only reform problems, but also reform options, are defined in relation to wider political institutions and changing socioeconomic dynamics. The study shows that while some things do need to be uniform, such as loyalty to the state and central government, a great deal of flexibility regarding administrative systems within one country is possible. There can be a modern nation without a truly national civil service.     

Public sector reform in Sub‐Saharan Africa: what can be learnt from the civil service performance improvement programme in Ghana?

This paper focuses on public sector management reform ‘best‐practice’ case experience from Sub‐Sahara African (SSA). Given that ‘best‐practice’ is a relative concept and often debatable, the paper uses the Ghana Civil Service Performance Improvement Programme (GCSPIP) experience as rather a ‘good‐practice’ case with the view to sharing the outcome and lessons to encourage collaborative‐learning. It seeks to share the outcome and lessons learnt by the Ghana civil service reform with future public service reformers and to contribute to the literature. The paper concludes with an adaptable three‐dimensional framework. The framework argues that successful future public service reform (PSR) should consider three broad issues: first, are the ‘critical success factors’, including wholehearted political leadership commitment; wholehearted bureaucratic leadership commitment; thoughtful synergistic planning/preparation; patience for implementation and evaluation; capacity to convince; neutralise and accommodate reform‐phobias and critics; sustainable financial and technical resource availability and conscious nurturing of general public support. Second, is the need for reformers to appreciate the concerns of the public and the civil society scepticism of public ‘institutions’ and its ‘operatives’ and finally placing any reform programme in a country‐specific context, including understanding its history, culture, politics, economy, sociology, ideology and values. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

China's Belt and Road Initiative: at the crossroads of challenges and ambitions

Interpretations of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) mostly agree that it is a policy opening that offers some remedies for China's economic and security challenges, as well as reflects China's increasing regional and global ambitions. This paper argues that the multiple drivers characterizing the BRI result from the multiple identities of China as a developing country struggling with several sources of instability and macroeconomic problems and, simultaneously, a regional and an emerging power, and finally a major global power with significant economic capacity to shape the global economic order. The paper aims to substantiate the entanglement of the defensive and ambitious motivations behind the BRI by examining the background against which the Chinese Communist Party leadership has suggested it. In so doing, it draws on Chinese official policy documents and statistics, speeches from Chinese leaders and existing social–scientific research on the transformation of China's economic and political landscape in recent years.     

国家建设与国家治理

中共十八届三中全会和四中全会所推出的“国家治理现代化”和“依法治国”概念,集中体现了新一届中央领导层治国理念的核心思想,也预示了未来中国政府改革的方向。从“国家建设”和“国家治理”的角度予以解读,并从国家运行“动力系统”和“制动系统”平衡、国家“上层制度”和“基础制度”构建、国家治理“传统方式”向“现代方式”转变的角度,说明国家治理改革的目标和任务,认为把“国家治理现代化”和“依法治国”作为施政理念,表明了执政当局对现代政治文明核心价值的认可,表达了执政党把中国送入法治轨道的意愿和决心。     

列宁关于加重对党员判罪的思想及启示

为加强执政党纯洁性,列宁结合苏俄政治建设实际提出了"加重对党员判罪"思想并贯彻在司法实践中。列宁思想的实质就是在提高党的执政能力和领导水平过程中,反对执政党成员特权,反对腐败,加强纯洁性,从严治党。这一思想为中国共产党在新民主主义革命局部执政时期所继承,在全面执政后社会主义建设改革实践中得以发展。马克思主义经典作家关于加重对党员判罪思想对党的廉政建设具有重要价值:反对特权,重申党员领导干部廉洁从政的政治准则;明确责任,进一步提高党员干部的法律意识;严明纪律,加大对违法党员干部的惩处力度。     

The dual governing system of the People's Republic of China

The dual governing system of the People's Republic of China has proved to be an effective way to cope with the extraordinary problems of managing a polity on the massive scale of China. Because it is unusual in the world today, perhaps even unique, it is important to clarify how the present order came about and how it functions. Some outsiders may unthinkingly assume that the Chinese government operates as the power governing the country. But in the People's Republic of China, the government is in fact the outward and visible face of the governance system. Behind (and above) the government is the Communist Party of China. The Party now has around 85 million members, between 5% and 6% of the population. This group defines the political class in today's China and functions as a leadership oligarchy. The Party determines policy and oversees appointments at all levels of public service. These officials are in fact in charge, dominating their government counterparts through the dual system of governance. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The social order of Chinese capitalism: socio-economic uncertainty,communist party rule and economic development, 1990–2000

China's financially repressed economy remains characterized by a distinctly resilient political structure (the Chinese Communist Party, CCP) that penetrates both increasingly rational ‘private’ (market) and ‘public’ (state) organizations. How are we to understand the financial system's role in this persistently illiberal yet marketizing political economy? This paper develops a theory of China's financial reform as the management of socio-economic uncertainty by the CCP. Since the early 1990s, the financial system has formed a locus of the CCP's capacity both to manage and to propagate socio-economic uncertainty through the path of reform. The unique path of financial reform in China should thus not be viewed solely in terms of ‘partial’ or ‘failed’ free-market reform, but rather as the product of a more concerted vision of how the financial system enabled a mode of economic growth that combined the drive for accumulation of capital with the distinctive legacies of China's post-1989 socio-political circumstances.     

Reforming post‐Communist bureaucracies: The effect of transitional justice

Observers of post‐Communist politics recognize that civil service reform, an important part of the institutional transformation in Eastern Europe, was initiated at a very uneven pace. Hungary and Poland adopted changes quickly after the fall of Communism, while Romania and Slovakia waited longer. How can one explain the timing of civil service reform after 1989? Previous research blames a number of factors but inconsistencies between predictions and actual outcomes warrant a more thorough investigation. What has been overlooked, we argue, are the policies of transitional justice that altered the costs and benefits for elites to keep the institutional status quo. The empirical analysis reveals that when in place, lustration by vetting of public officials reduced the likelihood of passing a civil service reform act. This effect is conditioned by the legislative strength of ex‐Communist parties, as demonstrated by results from logistic regression tests on data from 11 countries.     

The Durability of EU Civil Service Policy in Central and Eastern Europe after Accession

This article examines the post‐accession durability of EU civil service policy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs). Civil service professionalization was a condition for EU membership but the European Commission has no particular sanctions available if CEECs reverse pre‐accession reforms after gaining membership. Comparing eight CEECs that joined the EU in 2004, the article finds that post‐accession civil service developments are characterized by great diversity. The three Baltic States continued civil service reforms, while Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia are classified as cases of post‐accession reform reversal. The post‐accession pathway of Hungary is identified as a case of reform reorientation. The diversity in post‐accession pathways was almost exclusively the result of domestic political constellations, in particular, patterns of government alternation after accession. There were hardly any factors that could have locked in the level of professionalization that had been reached at the time of accession.     

Democracy and the governing party (执政党): A theoretical perspective

The Fourth Plenum of the Communist Party of China held in September 2004 outlined a course of reform aimed at establishing the Party as a permanent governing party (zhizheng dang 执政党). This aim shares some of the values and procedures of legislative democracy, but is fundamentally different in structure. There are no existing cases of party-state democracy as envisioned in the governing party idea, so the theoretical question is asked, is party-state democracy possible? The paper considers the course of development and the limitations of the theory of legislative democracy and contrasts it to the course of Chinese political development. It then presents the essential elements of a democratic system, concluding with a discussion of the feasibility of party-state democracy.