The Politics of Poverty Mis-targeting in China

Based upon a county level analysis, this article explores the complex processes of poverty mis-targeting in China and supplements the pre-existing literature with a bottom-up analysis. It argues that the rational calculations of key county leaders, shaped by a combination of formal and informal institutions, determine whether a county, irrespective of poverty level, competes for the title of “state-designated poorest county (SDPC).” This article also demonstrates that the interaction between formal and informal institutions is dynamic and subject to change. For future relevant research, this article suggests to analyze the practice of poverty reduction in a disaggregated manner by examining the interplay within and among different levels of government. Juan Wang, a Ph.D candidate in political science at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of “Going beyond Township and Village Enterprises,” Journal of Contemporary China, Issue 14, Volume 42, (February 2005), pp.171–181. The author is particularly grateful to Kellee Tsai for her valuable suggestions and support throughout this project. I am indebted to William Rowe, Mark Blyth, Wang Sangui and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. The Institute of Global Studies (IGS) of Johns Hopkins University receives my gratitude for its financial support of this project.     

Motivations behind China’s Foreign Oil Quest: A Perspective from the Chinese Government and the Oil Companies

China’ economic boom has produced a surging appetite for fossil fuels, particularly oil. To foster and sustain its economic development, China has taken a series of steps to quench its thirst for energy. The most striking measure is its high-profile oil diplomacy, centering on the goal of gaining more secure national control of overseas oil and gas supplies. Why has China chosen oil diplomacy over directly purchasing oil on the international market? And why does one prefer direct control of oil and gas? This paper attempts to address China’s motivations from the perspectives of both the central government and the national oil companies (NOCs). It is argued that China’s oil diplomacy has been driven not only by the government’s learning skill and strategic concerns, but also by the NOCs’ strong commercial motives to expand business abroad and their management’s personal incentive. Although both actors have common stakes in securing oil and gas from abroad, this by no means can guarantee that the NOCs will obediently follow state orders.

     

Public service delivery in South Africa: The political influence at local government level

This paper analyses poor service delivery at local government level, which is attributed to the politicisation of administrative components in municipalities, resulting in poor local governance. The public service delivery system has been perceived as one of the most important ways of reducing poverty through poverty alleviation programmes. As part of the South African government's cooperative system, key stakeholders in municipalities ought to adopt an integrated approach to public service delivery. An integrated approach to public service delivery demands that local municipalities, together with relevant stakeholders, integrate processes and services to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. This ultimately will result in an improved standard of living and sustainable livelihood for communities. With regard to public service delivery, local municipalities have the obligation of creating income opportunities people, especially the poor, with the sole aim of contributing towards poverty reduction and the realisation of the expectations of people, as stated in the South African government's White Paper of transforming public service delivery. The political interface in local municipalities greatly affects effective and efficient administration, as well as growth opportunities. Administrators, therefore, have the important function of ensuring that explicit assignments of objectives and administrative functions are wholly separated from the policymaking activities of government. This paper, therefore, suggests that municipalities adopt the merit system and abandon the spoils system that is highly characterised by political favours and political interferences. Political favours and interferences are dominant in local South African government, and they hinder the process of providing services equally.     

Identity and recognition: remembering and forgetting the post-war in Sino-Japanese relations

Abstract

In the 1990s, Japanese views of China were relatively positive. In the 2000s, however, views of China have deteriorated markedly and China has increasingly come to be seen as ‘anti-Japanese’. How can these developments, which took place despite increased economic interdependence, be understood? One seemingly obvious explanation is the occurrence of ‘anti-Japanese’ incidents in China since the mid-2000s. I suggest that these incidents per se do not fully explain the puzzle. Protests against other countries occasionally occur and may influence public opinion. Nonetheless, the interpretation of such events arguably determines their significance. Demonstrations may be seen as legitimate or spontaneous. If understood as denying recognition of an actor's self-identity, the causes of such incidents are likely to have considerably deeper and more severe consequences than what would otherwise be the case. Through an analysis of Japanese parliamentary debates and newspaper editorials, the paper demonstrates that the Chinese government has come to be seen as denying Japan's self-identity as a peaceful state that has provided China with substantial amounts of official development aid (ODA) during the post-war era. This is mainly because China teaches patriotic education, which is viewed as the root cause of ‘anti-Japanese’ incidents. China, then, is not regarded as ‘anti-Japanese’ merely because of protests against Japan and attacks on Japanese material interests but for denying a key component of Japan's self-image. Moreover, the analysis shows that explicit Chinese statements recognising Japan's self-identity have been highly praised in Japan. The article concludes that if China recognises Japan's self-understanding of its identity as peaceful, Japan is more likely to stick to this identity and act accordingly whereas Chinese denials of it might empower Japanese actors who seek to move away from this identity and ‘normalise’ Japan, for example, by revising the pacifist Article Nine of the Japanese constitution.     

“Studying civil society across the world”: A rebuttal

Abstract

This article analyses the relationship between zakat institutions, as socio-religious civil society organizations, and government in dealing with poverty in Indonesia. The fact that both share similar concerns about poverty and have comparable programmes to address it underlines the need for coordination. Departing from the idea that coordination prevents duplication and increases effectiveness, this study sets out to assess the level of coordination between zakat institutions and government and the factors determining that level of coordination. The study finds that, due to bureaucracy and lack of internal coordination, the existing level of coordination can best be described as low, and that this level of coordination has led to suboptimal outcomes. The article further analyses the relationship between zakat agencies and government and finds it to be guided by low linkages and rules set unilaterally by the government. The article ends by providing several recommendations for both types of actors to improve their relationship and mutual coordination.     

People’s Mediation Committees: Bargaining Between Hospitals and Patients

The Chinese government is cautious when it comes to managing bottom-up compensation claims as many collective actions are triggered by failing to address such monetary requests. Thus, the government has delegated the responsibility of dispute resolution and compensation distribution to a bargaining channel called People’s Mediation Committees and its agents, the mediators. However, little systematic evidence exists to explain the rationale for compensation distribution led by the government or the regime’s strategic objectives in pursuing compensation distribution to settle social disputes, especially those disputes between citizens and the government or its agents. Using medical dispute data as a proxy, this article examines the processes and outcomes of mediation in compensation distribution. It finds that People’s Mediation Committees have effectively institutionalized the compensation distribution process, but the outcomes may still be influenced by patients’ tactics and the bargaining power held by hospitals.

     

Expectations of government’s response to disaster

Citizens’ expectations about what government is capable of doing and what policies government officials intend to pursue can influence their decisions. After a disaster, for instance, expectations of government’s intent and capacity to assist in the rebuilding process will influence the rebuilding strategies that affected citizens adopt. This article develops a typology that categorizes citizens’ expectations of government response to disaster. We then deploy this typology to identify expectation patterns among residents and other private actors in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward communities who have returned following Katrina and explain how these expectations shape their preferred rebuilding strategy.     

后脱贫时代推动金融扶贫高质量发展研究

金融扶贫高质量发展是解决相对贫困及返贫的制度安排与政策工具,能有效解决我国后脱贫时代金融扶贫资金失衡和贫困人口自我发展能力不足等难题。作为金融扶贫的延续与创新,高质量可持续的金融扶贫契合精准扶贫长远目标,提高了扶贫资金的“益贫性”,促进了贫困地区和贫困人口高质量脱贫与可持续发展,是实现乡村振兴的重要工具。后脱贫时代高质量可持续金融精准扶贫的实施,需要政府和金融部门通力合作加大政策支持力度,发挥政策长期效应;需要完善贫困识别体系,提高精准识贫质量;需要压实金融监管责任,夯实金融扶贫成果。     

全面建成小康社会之特质问题析论

中华人民共和国即将向世人宣布,在中国共产党集中统一领导下,通过精准扶贫,中国已经基本实现了脱贫目标,全面建成小康社会。自改革开放以后提出建设小康及小康社会以来,人们比较关注小康及小康社会的生活发展程度及其发展阶段,而对小康及小康社会的特殊性质的认识方面则存有一定的偏颇或忽略。在时间与空间的政治层面上,中国特色社会主义问题直面的是国际平台,社会主义初级阶段问题直面的是国内平台,小康社会问题直面的则是可望又可及的近期平台。如果不能正确解读小康及小康社会的特殊性质,人们对社会主义初级阶段的社会主义性质及中国特色社会主义的社会主义性质就会有某种存疑。那么,小康及小康社会的特殊性质究竟是什么呢?文章试图从比较分析小康与大同社会原本意义上的异同,小康社会与后新民主主义社会,以及社会主义初级阶段与马克思主义科学社会主义的底线入手,阐释小康及小康社会客观上所具有某种"私"及"天下为家"与中国特色社会主义所具有的"公"及作为未来情景的"天下为共"两者之间不可或缺的相互依存性特质,拟提出"社会主义小康社会",以利于我们不忘初心,牢记使命。     

Identity,Social Exclusion and Perceived Performance of Local Government — Evidence from Urban China

As a product of China’s planned economy, the state-run hukou system has dramatically influenced national and social management. However, hukou identity often results in social exclusion and alienation of outsiders. This study explores how hukou identity affects urban residents’ perception of local government performance. The least-square method (OLS), ordered-logit regression, and propensity score matching method (PSM) are applied to test our hypothesis. We found that hukou identity has a significant impact on perceived performance of local government. Specifically, non-locals’ perceived performance is lower than that of native locals, but there is no apparent distinction between new locals’ perceived performance and native locals through hukou conversion. Furthermore, hukou identity’s influence on perception of local government performance has individual heterogeneity. Here, the opinions of highly educated residents coincide due to hukou identity. Beginning with the unique heterogeneous social structure in urban China attributable to hukou system, this study provides a new way to understand residents’ complicated political psychology in urban China.

     

How Large-Scale Land Protests Succeed in China: the Role of Domestic Media

Land protests account for a large proportion of all protests in China, but existing scholarship on the topic does not explain the conditions under which large-scale land protests succeed or fail. Focusing on the role of domestic media in four of the largest land protests in China from 2012 to 2017, we argue that protests are more likely to succeed –i.e., to accomplish some or all publicly stated goals—when the domestic media side with villagers; conversely, if the domestic media adopt the government’s framing of the events or if they do not report on them, protests are less likely to accomplish their goals. This article makes two theoretical contributions to the literature on media and protests: first, we show that domestic media may function as catalysts or watchdogs in protest outcomes in authoritarian states; and second, we differentiate between short-term and long-term protest outcomes, highlighting how initial short-term concessions are often reversed or followed by repression some months or years later, after unrest dies down.

     

Interpreting the dynamics of public housing: Cultural and rational choice explanations

Abstract

This article uses culture of poverty and rational choice theories of poverty to explain how quickly nonelderly household heads leave public housing. Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics serve as the basis for the analysis.

Although a significant proportion of all household heads have public housing spells lasting five or more years, the majority have spells lasting less than five years. The availability of other housing options has a strong impact on how quickly individuals move out of public housing. Family structure and human capital play a more modest role. To the extent that one's childhood experiences affect the likelihood of exiting public housing, they appear to do so mostly through their effect on the acquisition of human capital. Finally, the evidence presented is inconsistent with the notion that public housing is a trap from which it is more difficult to escape the longer one lives in it.     

“Ceaseless Poverty”?

Abstract

Looking at Dickinson and Hölderlin, this essay begins by exploring the idea of the poetic dimension of existence and its relation to the image, or more precisely, to the capability to disclose into images. For Dickinson the relentless “poverty” of a non-poetic existence indicates that what is missing from such existence are not just images but the capacity for their “disclosing” - the poetic gift or aptitude. With the help of Heidegger’s essays on poetry and poverty, I invert this relation between image and poverty to show that, even though the inceptive character of the poetic word and the element of poetic dwelling it allows to emerge appear poor in comparison to images or concepts, it is the poetic word that for the very first time lets humans dwell. Although it can neither boast the richness of “pictures” nor the strength and precision of conceptual comprehension, the poetic is what opens up the world for humans and simultaneously opens their being to its characteristic manner of inhabiting this world.     

COVID-19 and American Attitudes toward U.S.-China Disputes

The COVID-19 outbreak has fueled tension between the U.S. and China. Existing literature in international relations rarely focuses on virus outbreaks as factors affecting international relations between superpower countries, nor does research examine an outbreak’s potential influence on the public’s opinion about their country’s foreign policy. To bridge this research gap, this study explores the extent to which the American public may be prone to favor policies that “punish” China via existing U.S.-China disputes, such as the South China Sea dispute and the U.S.-China trade war. I conducted an online survey using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and ran multinomial and ordered logit models to estimate the association between an individual’s preferred policies and the country or government an individual blame for the impact of the pandemic. After controlling several essential confounding factors, such as one’s levels of nationalism and hawkishness, I found strong evidence that there is a positive association between people’s attribution of blame to the Chinese government and the likelihood of supporting aggressive policy options in the two disputes with China. That is to say, U.S. citizens who believe that the Chinese government is solely culpable for the outbreak in the U.S., compared to those who think otherwise, are more likely to support hawkish policy options, such as confrontational military actions, economic sanctions, or higher tariff rates. The research provides a glimpse into where Americans may stand in these disputes with China and the potential development of U.S.-China relations in the post-pandemic era.

     

Resolving China’s Island Disputes: A Two-Level Game Analysis

Although territorial disputes have been much studied, the application of “two-level game” analysis in peace research and conflict resolution is still relatively unexplored. In this essay, I seek to use the analytical propositions derived from this “two-level game” bargaining framework to explain the success, failure, or partial resolution of sovereignty negotiations over China’s island claims to the disputed islands of the Diaoyu/Senkaku, Amur/Ussuri rivers, and South China Sea. This essay will focus on the interaction between governments and domestic nationalist groups, the role of institutions, and the strategies of negotiators to explain the development of the territorial disputes. I will evaluate how different political and social preferences, historical memories, economic priorities, side payments, and institutional constraints affect inter-state bargaining behavior and relations between the government and different segments of society. Basically, I am interested in finding out what significant roles national, sub-national and transnational actors can and do play in aggravating, minimizing, terminating or preventing conflicts over island claims involving China. Dr. Chien-peng Chung is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Sociology of Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He is the author of Domestic Politics, International Bargaining, and China’s Territorial Disputes (London & New York: Routledge, 2004).     

To Engage or Not to Engage? Explaining the Logic of the US’s China Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era

The United States’ (US) changing policy towards China has become one of the most attractive issues in contemporary international politics. To explore the reasons underlying these changes, existing studies adopt four schools of explanation, i.e., status competition, institutional competition, failure of engagement, and domestic factors. Each school provides valuable theoretical insights. However, existing studies have obvious problems with single attribution and, thus, fail to formulate a causal mechanism explaining the long-term trajectory of the US’s China strategy. By recategorizing America’s unilateral perception of China as reformist, revolutionary, status quo and positionalist, which extends beyond the revisionist-status quo dichotomy, this article develops a systemic explanatory model and process tracing of the transition of US’s China policy during the post-Cold War period to explain the theoretical logic underlying the changes. This article argues that the positional change and the US’s unilateral perception of China are the two main factors triggering changes in the US’s China strategy. China’s foreign behavior, as the intervening variable, strengthens or weakens the government’s perception of China and, thus, determines the US’s strategic choices, i.e., whether to pursue a policy of containment, competition, precaution, congagement, engagement, or accommodation. Four comparative case studies are presented to demonstrate how this article’s explanatory model can be applied.

     

Wire-Walking: Risk Management and Policy Experiments in China from a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Policy scientists have long examined how policy innovation has emerged and diffused by focusing on the interaction between agents and policy programs. In contrast, this article focuses on how uncertainty in policy environments has affected the fate of policy innovation in an authoritarian state. Using original data from China’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily,it is found that the central government’s decision to promote sensitive policy experiments is a function of the perceived risks in the policy environment. The U-shaped relationship between the promotion of sensitive policy innovation and inflation reflects the wire-walking behavior of China’s central government. The central authority in China tends to promote fewer sensitive political experiments when inflation increases and resumes promoting experiments when the inflation rate passes a certain tipping point. It is also found that the central authority intentionally regulates the promotion of political experiments during important political events.     

Understanding the changing fortunes of metropolitan neighborhoods, 1980 to 1990

Abstract

This article develops a model that relates decadal changes in neighborhood poverty rates to metropolitan‐wide economic changes and the neighborhood's demographic profile, predetermined poverty rate, and locational characteristics. The model is estimated for the 1980–1990 period using metropolitan census tracts as proxies for neighborhoods. This national sample of tracts is stratified into predominantly white, African‐American, Hispanic, and mixed subsamples.

Results indicate that only a few variables consistently predict growth in neighborhood poverty: overall job availability; the age composition of neighborhood residents; the proportion of nonmarried households; and the neighborhood's 1979 poverty rate. Other variables have distinctly different coefficients depending on the racial‐ethnic subsample. These coefficients include segregation, welfare benefits, the location of manufacturing employment, and availability of automobiles. We conclude that studies that focus solely on African‐American poverty neighborhoods fail to recognize common patterns across all neighborhoods and to discern unique features of neighborhoods inhabited predominantly by non‐African Americans.     

Marginal vote seeking in multi member districts

Differences in the number of seats that similar vote shares can deliver make some votes more marginal than others. In multi-member district systems, high-marginal-return votes are very volatile and research has assumed that parties do not go after them. This paper rejects this assumption, introducing a theory of marginal vote seeking across multi-member districts. By leveraging a novel mathematical algorithm and a cross sectional data set, we find evidence that parties seek marginal votes in these systems despite their volatility. In the case of the poverty alleviation programs used here, their use to attempt to secure marginal votes overwhelms the program’s poverty alleviation goals. Estimates suggest that a district’s share of a program’s budget can increase by as much as 8% simply because of this district’s likelihood of delivering marginal votes.     

The relevance,practicality and viability of spatial development initiatives: a South African case study

Policymakers have for long had an ambivalent attitude towards space and have been hesitant in dealing with intra‐national models of uneven development. Issues surrounding regional development have always been tainted with ideological and political influences rather than being a purely economic consideration. This article addresses the thinking behind regional development policies and questions the role of spatial policy. It confronts this question in the South African case where local government capacity is particularly constrained and the boundaries between government tiers unclear. The first section outlines a selected critical history of the regional policy literature as it applies to South Africa. This is followed by an examination of South Africa's post‐apartheid policy of spatial development initiatives (SDIs) focusing on the most contentious of these, namely the Fish River SDI, which has been plagued by controversy. It focuses on the tensions involved in development planning between government agencies and between politicians and technocrats. It also highlights the growing schism between government and civil society with the former emphasising mega‐projects which reinforce its global competitive strategy but with limited apparent benefit to the local community. Lastly, it concludes that little effort was made to integrate the SDI into a provincial poverty strategy and argues that instead of utilising industrial decentralisation to redress inequality and poverty, a ‘first‐best’ option may be for the government to target poverty directly by investing in various forms of human capital. Such an approach would lead to long‐term economic growth and also improve South Africa's international competitiveness. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.