The developmental state: Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan compared

The growth performances of the Israeli economy during the years 1948–1973 were excellent by any criteria, and are comparable to the “miraculous” performances of South Korea and Taiwan. Excellent economic performances in the three countries were accompanied by the presence of an autonomous and an interventionist state as well as by strategies of governed development (in the spheres of finance, investment, and international trade). The comparison is used, to shed new light on the Israeli political economy as well as on the replicability of the developmental state model across regions, cultures, and political regimes. First, by comparing the three countries and pointing to the similarities in the role and autonomy of the state, the article offers a different interpretation of the Israeli economy from that offered by both neoclassical and neomarxist interpretations of the Israeli political economy. Second, successful cases of develoment are rare in our world; this should make the study of the Israeli political economy a valuable case-study for the proponents of the developmental state model. By pointing out the similarities in the growth performances and the developmental strategies of Israel, Taiwan, and South Korea, as well as the dissimilarities in their political regimes, their cultural traditions, and their regional settings, this article further strengthens the arguments in favor of state-guided economic development in developing countries. David Levi-Faur is a lecturer of comparative public policy and business and politics at the University of Haifa. He was a visiting scholar at the L.S.E., University of California, Berkeley, the University of Utrecht, and the University of Amsterdam.     

Globalization: Another false universalism?

Throughout human history the idea of moral universalism has repeatedly appeared, but always in some less than universalistic, and hence morally compromised, form: in the religious imagination and culture, in the ideologies of liberalism and official socialism and in the liberal theory of the state, and in the informing worldview of the modern human and social sciences, especially anthropology. This discussion raises the question whether, and poses the possibility that, despite all the travails which globalization processes are unleashing worldwide (and perhaps even unknown to, and despite the political preferences of, many of globalization's more ardent champions), the present era of advancing globalization may be ushering in a truly historical moment and change in the history of the human moral imagination. By producing for the first time, no matter how unevenly, a single, interdependent humankind and, in prospect if not yet in actuality, a single worldwide human community, globalization processes may be producing an objective, experiential basis for the emergence of a genuine and uncompromised moral universalism: as a successor to, and to transcend, the sequence of selective intimations and incomplete intuitions of human universality that has hitherto constituted the history of humankind's moral imagination.     

Children of Hippocrates: doctors in Nazi Germany.

One of the more unexplored yet frightening aspects of the Nazi years in Germany, 1933-45, is the conduct of the doctors during those years. Many of them abandoned the traditional guiding norms for the practice of medicine, archaically expressed in the Hippocratic oath, and proposed, carried out, and cooperated with medical experiments without the consent of subjects and with little promise of any contribution to medical science. Many also participated in research and other medical activities, such as euthanasia and mass sterilization, whose purposes had nothing to do with a contribution to medical knowledge that would eventually save or improve life, but were simply for the manipulation and killing of persons. These activities quickly fell under the control of Nazi ideology, with no protest on the basis of the norms of medical practice by societies of medical doctors and psychiatrists, and with little, albeit costly, protest by individuals. A brief survey of what the Medical case and the Auschwitz trial revealed about the conduct of the doctors raises the question of the status and effectiveness of a professional standard like the Hippocratic oath against the power of the state. This, in turn, raises the question about the basis of the rights of man outside of what is enacted and secured by a nation-state. In facing this question, an appeal is made for the nurture of care about human rights, among professional groups with transnational identities as well as among individuals and voluntary nonprofessional associations among the general citizenry. Finally, a claim is made for specific kinds of social-political responsibilities of doctors in modern society.     

台湾大陆经贸政策变化与深化两岸经济合作研究

近年来,随着两岸关系深化发展,台湾当局制定和实施了一系列经贸政策,对两岸经贸合作带来了影响。与此同时,大陆改革“红利”持续释放和加快经济转型发展,也为深化两岸经贸合作带来新的契机。当前,在全球经济变革和两岸产业竞争加剧的背景下,两岸经贸关系已进入新的“蜕变”期,亟需创新两岸经贸合作模式,选择更具前瞻性的产业对接路径,增加两岸经贸合作的受惠幅度,不断筑牢经济利益联结纽带,拓展两岸经贸合作的空间和潜力,促进两岸经济融合发展。     

BRITAIN'S ADMINISTRATIVE ELITE: PERMANENT SECRETARIES 1900–1986

This article is based upon analysis of biographical data of those men and women who reached the rank of Permanent Secretary in the career civil service between 1900 and 1986. Among other matters, the article gives details of the schools and universities attended by Permanent Secretaries, their age on, and mode of, entry to the civil service, and their career pattern within that service, including the number of departments served in, the age of appointment to the rank of Permanent Secretary, and the length of tenure in that role. The evidence shows that for the present cadre of Permanent Secretaries the route to the top has been characterized by inter-departmental mobility, private office service, and experience in the key central departments of the Treasury and the Cabinet Office.     

Service Is Not Servitude: Links Between Capitalism and Feminist Liberal Conceptions of Pleasure—Case Studies from Nicaragua

This paper describes how the way in which women learn to serve others (children, the elderly, partners) influences their possibilities of accessing material and symbolic resources, which have been instrumental for the deployment of neoliberal capitalism in Nicaragua. Through the exploration of the work of two feminist organisations, La Corriente and Grupo Venancia, and of the interviews with the women they work with, I trace the direct and more subtle links between sex and neoliberal capitalism, identifiable in the discourse on sexual pleasure that these organisations use when working with women. Building on the work of scholars coming from disciplines as varied as political economy, sociology, feminist economics, gender and sexuality and postcolonial studies, I argue that while this discourse on sexual pleasure does challenge certain elements of the neoliberal capitalist system and brings positive changes to women, it also contains several risks due to its modern and individualistic imperatives, which can actually reinforce capitalist relations and inequalities. These include the risk of validating and universalising certain sexual knowledge, the risk of diminishing and depoliticising the value of service, and that of building the freedom of some women at the expense of others. The paper advocates for a review of the discourse on pleasure and the reclaiming of the concept of ‘service’ as a political stance against neoliberal capitalism.     

RECALLING BITTERNESS: HISTORIOGRAPHY,MEMORY, AND MYTH IN MAOIST CHINA

Abstract

For Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party, the socialist transformation after 1949 was not only a political and administrative construction, but also a process of transforming the consciousness of the people and rewriting history. To fight lukewarm attitudes and “backward thoughts” among the peasants, as well as their resistance to rural socialist transformation and collectivization of production and their private lives, Mao decided that politicizing the memory of the laboring class and reenacting class struggle would play a significant role in ideological indoctrination and perpetuating revolution. Beginning in the 1950s, the Party made use of grassroots historical writing, oral articulation, and exhibition to tease out the experiences and memories of individuals, families, and communities, with the purpose of legitimizing the rule of the CCP. The cultural movement of recalling the past combined grassroots histories, semi-fictional family sagas, and public oral presentations, as well as political rituals such as eating “recalling-bitterness meals” to educate the masses, particularly the young. Eventually, Mao’s emphasis on class struggle became the sole guiding principle of historical writings, which were largely fictionalized, and recalling bitterness and contrasting the past with the present became a solid part of PRC political culture, shaping the people’s political imagination of the old society and their way of narrating personal experience. This article also demonstrates people’s suspicion of and resistance to the state’s manipulation of memory and ritualization of historical education, as well as the ongoing contestation between forgetting, remembering, and representation in China today.     

Reflections on “The Politics of Informality”: What We Know,How We Got There,and Where We Might Head Next

Building on the methodological and empirical contributions of the various authors in this special symposium, this concluding reflection acknowledges the important role that informality plays in urban and national politics in the global South, even as it proposes a range of alternative ways, this critical topic could and should be inserted into contemporary scholarship in comparative politics. It begins with a discussion of two decades of research on urbanization and economic globalization, thus introducing a wider set of disciplinary concerns than merely urban servicing into the study of informality, ranging from the transformation of property rights regimes in the context of ascendant neo-liberalization to the recent emergence of more decentralized political structures for claim-making and governance. The essay then suggests that greater historical and contextual specificity in the study of informality, along with the methodological innovations highlighted in the papers, will further help reveal the range of responses to informality seen across the different case studies. Specifically, it proposes that closer attention to divergent urban and national pathways of democratization, attention to institutional variations within and across democratic regimes, political party dynamics at the local and national level, and the existence of urban violence, among other factors, will help explain how and why bureaucrats and elected officials may choose to deal differently with the existence of informality. The essay concludes by arguing that informality should be considered as both a form of governance and a means of enacting citizenship. It thus asks scholars to question the longstanding conceptual dichotomies that permeate much of the literature on informality, including the stark conceptual divide between the formal and informal, and instead to recognize that complex, interactive, and iterative relationships between citizens and the state in the arena of informality are what drive urban servicing and sociopolitical change.     

Globalization,State Autonomy and the Fight against Cross-Border Crime: Greater China's Cooperation with the World

Although globalization has stimulated the rise in cross-border crime, it does not really undermine the autonomy of the mainland Chinese state, the Taiwan state, and the city-states of Hong Kong and Macao. Instead, through cooperation with law-enforcement agencies in other countries, the law-enforcement agencies of these four places, notably the police and customs, have ensured the persistence of state autonomy vis-à-vis cross-border criminal groups and individuals. In the case of Greater China (mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao), interstate cooperation involving the police and customs can maintain state autonomy vis-à-vis criminal groups and individuals. The mechanisms of such interstate and intergovernmental cooperation embrace the sharing of criminal intelligence, the occurrence of anti-crime joint operations, the holding of seminars and conferences, and the administrative arrangements of extraditions. In a nutshell, intergovernmental cooperation in the combat against cross-border crime can maintain state autonomy in the midst of globalization, as the case of Greater China shows.     

The impacts of the revolution of 1978-1979 on the iranian bureaucracy and civil service

This paper deals with the complex relationship between bureaucracy and revolution. It explains some of the major impacts of the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 on the civil service and the bureaucracy of the country. Three major phases of the revolution are identified: the Provisional Government (February-November 1979), the turbulent radicalization (November 1979-1982), and the institutionalization, stabilization, and Islamization (1983- ).

The revolution was not only against the Shah, but also aimed at altering Iran’ bureaucratic machinery which, as a power instrument, served system- (regime-) enhancement. During the first and second periods, a debureaucratization of society and a democratization of the administrative system was begun. While the bureaucracy increased as a result of nationalization, its functions declined as more and more activities of public administration were taken over by the non-bureaucratic, independent grass-roots organizations that sprang up during and after the revolution.

This trend has been reversed during the third phase by the policy of consolidation, centralization, control and system-maintenance pursued by the Mousavi administration. A rebureaucratization of society commenced and application of most of the old laws and regulations was resumed. Patronage and many patho-logical behaviors, includinf corruption, of the bureaucracy are becoming pervasive again, resulting in the dissatisfaction of the general public. In short, despite some initial revolutiohary attempts to change its structure and nature, the bureaucracy has prevailed as a well-entrenched, established institution of power and administration in Iran.

Finally, the author briefly describes the sources of public dissatisfaction and suggests conceivable remedies. These involve major reforms in the Iranian bureaucracy to achieve both administrative efficiency and popular responsiveness.     

Local Government Modernization in Germany: Between Incrementalism and Reform Waves

In taking a historical-institutionlist approach, this paper looks at the development of administrative reforms in German local government which, because of the comparatively high degree of political and administrative decentralization of the Federal Republic has played a crucial role in the latter's entire politico-administrative setting and, hence, in its institutional reforms. The paper mainly identifies three stages in the post-war development of administrative reforms. During the 'planning movement' of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Germany's local level government and administration underwent significant and, to a considerable degree, lasting institutional changes. The 1980s were a period of incrementalist adaptation. Since the beginning of the 1990s, conspicuously later than in the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries, but earlier and faster than the federal and the Länder levels, Germany's local government has embarked upon dramatic changes particularly on two scores. First, in a growing number of municipalities and counties, administrative modernization was incorporated under the heading of a 'New Steering Model' (NSM) that largely drew on the dominant international New Public Management (NPM) debate. The dynamics of the ongoing administrative reforms are marked by an 'amalgamation' of NPM/NSM and earlier ('traditional') reform concepts. Secondly, at the same time, the political institutions of local government have under-gone a significant shift as a result of the introduction of direct democratic procedures (direct election of mayors and heads of counties, binding local referenda). The paper argues that it is this co-incidence and co-evolution of administrative and political reforms that make for the peculiarity of Germany's current modernization trajectory, distinguishing it from the Anglo-Saxon and, to a lesser degree, from the Scandinavian modernization paths.     

W. Edwards deming and frederick winslow taylor: A comparison of two leaders who shaped the world's view of management

This paper compares the personal backgrounds and management philosophies of Frederick Winslow Taylor and W. Edwards Deming. Among the commonalities existing between the two leaders are their use of science and measurement, belief in expert knowledge, the importance of training, top management commitment, concern with customer and society, competition with contemporary figures, and American military and international applications of their theories. Among their major differences are their views on quantity versus quality, performance improvement, participation, motivation, the individual versus the group, unions, and use of disciple. Differences are discussed in terms of their relative places in the history of management thought.     

Developments in Policy Analysis and Evaluation in Public Administration

Established in 1948, Israel can be considered a new developing state in transition; on the other hand, it can be viewed as a modern western society and the only strong democracy in a rather unstable region. While the former implies lack of public administration tradition and the need to invest in basic infrastructures, the latter requires, among other responsibilities, the adoption of norms of systematic policy planning and accountability. In Israel, security problems, limited (and loss of) resources, lack of stability and huge waves of immigration have displaced more mundane issues such as administrative reforms and systematic policy planning approaches. From its inception, there was constant criticism of the state's lack of established norms, functions, and skilled practitioners, particularly in policy analysis and evaluation. At first the criticism came from academia (especially Dror 1968, 1971), but in time it crossed lines and was raised by parties and Members of Parliament (the Knesset), and constituted a major issue in the work of different committees concerned with reforms in the public service and in government reorganization. This paper (1) will discuss the main reasons for the shortcomings of Israeli public policy analysis, evaluation and planning, and (2) will present shifts in conceptualization during recent years, with regard to systematic policy making.     

Teachers’ strikes in Argentina: Partisan alignments and public-sector labor relations

In a context of increasing teachers’ militancy in Argentina, this article provides the first empirical analysis of teachers’ strikes in all twenty-four Argentine provinces during the 1990s. Using a cross-provincial statistical analysis, it explains the wide variation across provinces and across time of Argentine teachers’ strikes. It demonstrates that political alignments between provincial governors and teachers’ unions explain these patterns better than organizational and institutional variables, which strongly shape public-sector labor relations in other countries. We emphasize the discretion of provincial governors, for both the application of labor regulations and budgetary appropriations in the politicization of provincial public-sector labor relations in Argentina, especially after the decentralization of education resulted in the provincialization of teachers’ protests. Maria Victoria Murillo is associate professor of political science and international affairs at Columbia University. She was previously an assistant professor at Yale University, a Peggy Rockefeller Fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and a Fellow at Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She is the author ofLabor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America (Cambridge University Press 2001) and various articles on the politics of market reforms, labor protest, and privatization of public utilities in Latin America. the authors acknowledge the useful suggestions of the editor and three anonymous reviewers, and the comments of Ernesto Calvo, Javier Corrales, Tulia Faletti, Miriam Golden, Frances Rosenbluth, Andrew Schrank, Kenneth Scheve, J. Samuel Valenzuela, James Vreeland; and the participants in the Seminar on Globalization and Labor Struggle at Columbia University, the Latin American Seminar of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, the seventh annual meeting of LACEA, and the Business School seminar at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. M. V. Murillo acknowledges the support of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and the Carnegie Program for the Study of Globalization, and L. Ronconi acknowledges the support of the CEDI at the Universidad de San Andrés.     

Pouvoir d'Etat,Autorité Mystique et Société Civile

Regional and global disease epidemics, which followed in the wake of the First World War, became the crucial tipping point in the balance between resistance and accommodation that had been established between the British colonial administration and newly colonized people of the Sierra Leone Protectorate. From 1915 to 1919, a smallpox epidemic and the global influenza epidemic overwhelmed the inhabitants of the northern region of Sierra Leone, severely disrupting the movement of people, agricultural production, and trade. In the wake of these epidemics and social disruptions, British colonial demands for revenue, labour, and food from Sierra Leoneans to support their European war effort became more onerous. By 1919, the surreptitious protests of the pre-war period had given way to open and violent confrontation, as anti-Syrian and rice riots swept through the urban areas of the protectorate and colony.     

The process of democratization in Latin America

During the 1980s, Latin America experienced the longest and deepest wave of democratization in its history. The origins of this process of transformation are to be found in the interaction between domestic and international forces. At the international level, the key events were the oil shocks of the 1970s, the related expansion of international lending, and the subsequent debt crisis. The speed and extent to which these changes were translated into democratization were conditioned by the political alignments of the private sector and structural fragilities of authoritarianism at the national level. The persistence of the democratization trend through time reflects the importance of other factors, including global political change, the receding threat of the revolutionary left, the internationalization of capital markets, constraints on domestic policy choice, and political learning, which have converged at the domestic level to reduce the incentives and opportunities for authoritarian reversals.     

Generative sectors and the new historical materialism: Economic ascent and the cumulatively sequential restructuring of the world economy

The causes and consequences of inequality between national economies, the ascent to dominance within the world hierarchy of economies, and the dynamics driving the material intensification and spatial expansion of production and trade in the world economy have long been core questions in a wide range of fields concerned with economic change and development and with international relations. In this article, we propose that one of the fundamental mechanisms driving all three of these processes for at least the last 500 years has been a dynamic tension, or contradiction, between the economies of scale that reduce relative costs and drive national economic ascent to dominance in world production and trade, and the diseconomies of space that result from the increased consumption of raw materials that this expanded production entails. The four most rapid cases of economic ascent in the history of the world economy—Holland, Great Britain, the United States, and Japan—resolved this contradiction in similar ways that drove the ascent of these economies to the top of the system of global stratification. Stephen G. Bunker is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research examines how the world economy is driven by raw materials and transport, including the role of the Brazilian Amazon as a raw-materials periphery and the political economy and ecology of Japanese raw-materials access strategies. Paul S. Ciccantell is associate professor of sociology at Western Michigan University. His research examines the socioeconomic and environmental impact of raw-materials extraction in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela; the organizational sociology of raw-materials and transport industries; the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement; and the political economy and ecology of Japanese raw-materials access strategies.     

New Orientalism,Securitisation and the Western Media's Incendiary Racism

The new Orientalism idea is predicated on the clash of civilisations thesis of Samuel Huntington and others—an outlook which has spread swiftly in Western states since September 11. I explore the implications of the new Orientalism and the assertion of white supremacy for diaspora Muslims in Western societies. Its expression in the media in the form of raced and gendered portrayals and demonised cultural representations of Muslims and Islam, with the accompanying assumption of the superiority of Western culture, is identified here as incendiary racism. This racism also underpins the simultaneous vilification of Muslims and Islam, a claim supported by my analysis of media coverage of the ‘niqab debate’, terrorism and sports. Thus, at one level, I analyse the Western media's depictions. At another, I examine the consequences of securitisation and the Long War, and critically assess the argument that securitisation has existed from time immemorial and represents nothing new—which leads me to challenge its ahistorical assumptions, and the treatment of the securitiser and the securitised as coeval.