The Third Sector and Residential Care for the Elderly in China's Transitional Welfare Economy

This article examines third‐sector welfare homes for Chinese elderly and argues that four factors affect their survival and development prospects: the extent care establishments meet the needs of their users; how successfully they manage their human resources; whether they ensure their financial sustainability; and whether they satisfy the expectations of their investors. The data reveal that while care homes generally serve their customers well and maintain staff satisfaction, they encounter difficulties in financing and service operation that pose grave challenges to their investors. The resulting problems cast a shadow over the future prospects of old‐age care homes and raise questions concerning the state's non‐profit policy.     

Economic Reform and Social Welfare: The Chinese perspective portrayed through a social survey in Shanghai

This article starts with a brief comparative analysis of China and East Europe in terms of their stark differences in approaching economic reform and social welfare. Perhaps China has the benefit of learning, from the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, of the undesirable social costs incurred by economic reform. Henceforth, it has adopted a pragmatic and gradualist approach towards economic reform. This article reports the findings of an attitude survey in Shanghai, which by and large are compatible with the gradualist approach of the Chinese Government toward economic reform and social welfare. The survey finds that the Chinese in Shanghai positively rate economic reform in light of the benefits that it has brought about, but they are also aware of the large income disparities caused as a result. In the light of the evidence, the article suggests that China's economic reform has not transformed people's beliefs to be in line with the market system. The Chinese are still, in general, in favor of a large role for the state in welfare and they themselves are not willing to shoulder heavier welfare responsibility. In the concluding section, the article explains this mixed pattern of public perceptions and pinpoints the likely developmental trend of China's welfare system.     

Xiao‐kang: Deng Xiaoping's socio‐economic development target for China

Ever since xiao‐kang or XK, literally meaning a ‘relatively comfortable life’, was first slated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to be China's main development target, the concept has become a codeword for China's socio‐economic development. It was incorporated in several major Party documents and formally adopted as the key development target by three consecutive Five‐Year Plans. What is the real meaning of XK? This paper analyses China's first XK Index which was published in 1992, based on a cluster of economic and social indicators relating to income, food consumption, housing, and human resource development. It will be seen that XK is actually a normative concept, fuzzy and grossly imprecise, especially when applied to a transitional economy like China. What constitutes XK to Deng may well be perceived differently by the new generation of Chinese. Such is the continuing social challenge of China's economic development.     

Voting Counts: Participation in the Measurement of Democracy

The measures of democracy commonly used in empirical research suffer notable limitations, primarily the exclusion of participation. As a result, quantitative studies may undervalue the effect of democracy on important social outcomes or misinterpret the aspect of democracy responsible for that effect. We respond by introducing and validating two variants of a new indicator, the Participation Enhanced Polity Score (PEPS), which augments institutional factors with the breadth of citizen participation. We demonstrate, using statistical evidence on democratic persistence, basic needs fulfillment, and gender equality, that no measure of democracy can be considered an accurate representation of its basic character without directly including participation as a core component. Bruce E. Moon is professor of international relations at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is the author ofThe Political Economy of Basic Human Needs (Cornell University Press. 1991) and two editions ofThe Dilemmas of International Trade (Westview Press, 1996, 2000). Jennifer Harvey Birdsall is a researcher for a NGO in Geneva, Switzerland. She received her B.A. in international relations and economics from Lehigh University and her M.S. in global affairs from Rutgers University-Newark. Sylvia Ciesluk is pursuing an M.A. at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She received her B.S. in economics from Lehigh University. Lauren M. Garlett is a geography teacher at Bellamy Middle School in Chicopee, Massachusetts. She received both her B.A in international relations and her M.Ed. in secondary education from Lehigh University. Joshua J. Hermias is associate director of the Global Young Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C. He received his B.A. in economics from Lehigh University and his M.A. in international development from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. Elizabeth Mendenhall is pursuing a Masters in International Affairs (MIA) in economic and political development at Columbia University. She received a B.A. in international relations at Lehigh University. Patrick D. Schmid is a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Lehigh University. He received both his B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Lehigh University. Wai Hong Wong is a research associate at FactSet Research Systems. He received his B.A. in international relations and economics at Lehigh University. We are grateful for the helpful suggestions of Frank Davis, Bill Dixon, Chaim Kaufmann, Rajan Menon, Pamela Paxton, Larry Taylor, and the anonymous reviewers.     

Commercializing biomedical science in a rapidly changing “triple-helix” nexus: The experience of the National University of Singapore

Since the late 1990s, the Singapore government had embarked on a significant push to develop the city-state into a major life-science R&D and industrial cluster in Asia. Although a major focus of this new thrust involves attracting leading life science companies overseas to establish operations in Singapore and developing new public life science research institutions to attract overseas life science research talents (Finegold, Wong, and Cheah (2004)), the local universities are expected to play an important role as well. In particular, the National University of Singapore (NUS), the leading university in Singapore, has also started to pursue major strategic change to become more “entrepreneurial”, and identified life science as a major focus for technology commercialization as well. Adapting the “Triple-Helix” framework of Etzkowitz, Webster, Gebhardt, & Terra (2000), this paper examines the significant changes in the university-government-industry “Triple-Helix” nexus for life science in Singapore, and their consequent impact on life science commercialization at NUS. Implications for universities in other late-comer countries seeking to catch up in the global biotech race are discussed.      

国际金融动荡对东亚经济的影响

目前,美国正在经历一场金融危机,此次危机已经开始向全球扩散,美国经济衰退初露端倪.本文首先对比分析了此次美国经济衰退和1997年亚洲金融危机的异同点,然后对本次经济衰退的原因做了深层次的分析,最后进一步探讨了本次经济衰退对东亚经济和中 国经济的影响.     

Market reforms,globalization and social justice in China

The pursuit of social justice is an important goal of public policy in China under socialism. The embrace of market reforms and increasing globalization has radically transformed China's redistribution regime as well as distorted old commitments to social justice. This paper reviews China's attempt to realize the goal of social justice, including its changing rhetoric, strategies and actions. I shall first set out the historical context by adducing the salience of development and justice in the period before and after the market reforms. This will be followed by an analysis of the state reform discourse in justifying market reforms and their function in development and human welfare. An evaluation of social and redistribution policies and their implications, including the intellectual and public debates on efficiency and equity, will be presented. In the final section, recent critiques on the market and worries associated with China's entry into the WTO will be considered.     

Democratic theorizing in Taiwan: A reconstruction

This study reconstructs Taiwan people's existing discursive structures on democracy by replicating Dryzek and Berejikian's Q methodological study of American democratic discourses. It finds that under the existing specific historical circumstances, Taiwan people's democratic attitudes manifest a complex, pluralistic and interrelated discursivity, in which at least five democratic discourses can be identified, namely democratic pragmatism, democratic communitarianism, democratic liberalism, democratic elitism and democratic populism. Yet, among these five discourses, there are a number of commonly held views. In particular, they all accept democratic pluralism, reject communism and violence, believe in the fallibility of state leaders and the necessity to limit government power, and are optimistic about the future democratic development in Taiwan. This broad consensus reflects the specific historical experience of Taiwan people's democratic pursuit on the one hand and provides a broad common ground for dialogue and interaction among the five discourses on the other. These findings should significantly enrich our understanding of the democratic theorizing in Taiwan and serve as a basis for future comparison with the American as well as other countries’ experiences.