Privatization, Chinese-style: economic reform and the state-owned enterprises

This article reviews 'corporatization' and 'marketization', shorthands for privatization, in the Chinese economy. In particular it concentrates upon the most recent round of state-owned enterprise reforms, the Modern Enterprise System and Group Company System, aimed at transforming China's largest state-owned enterprises into internationally competitive corporations. This represents a partial privatization, given that the state will retain majority ownership, while acquiring domestic and foreign capital via sharelistings and foreign and domestic joint ventures.
Drawing upon interview material from a five-year study of state-owned enterprises, the authors will indicate that such part privatization has been pragmatic and relatively slow. It has been constrained and circumscribed by broader economic and social reform programmes and accompanied by political decentralization and reforms. Ultimately, the reform and pace of reform is shaped by the desire to avoid political and social unrest which could, potentially, threaten the harmony of the Chinese central state apparatus.     

Federalism and low-maintenance constituencies: Territorial dimensions of economic reform in Argentina

How does the territorial distribution of political and economic resources within national polities influence politics and policy making? This article examines the electoral dynamics of market reform in Argentina between 1989 and 1995. It provides insights into the way that the distribution of economic and institutional resources in federal systems shapes policy making and coalition building options for reformist governments. The electoral viability of the governing Peronist Party during the economic reform period was facilitated by the regional phasing of the costs of market reform. Structural reforms were concentrated primarily on economically developed regions of the country, while public spending and patronage in economically marginal but politically overrepresented regions sustained support for the governing party. Statistical analyses contrast patterns of spending and public sector employment in “metropolitan” and “peripheral” regions of the country during the reform period, as well as the social bases of electoral support in those regions. A conceptual distinction between “high-maintenance” and “low-maintenance” constituencies is also introduced to shed light on the dynamics of patronage spending in contexts of market reform.     

Learning from defeat: reform,revolution and the problem of organization in the first New Left

Within the contemporary anti-capitalist movement a debate concerning the most effective forms taken by political organizations has opened. However, few of the contributions to this debate include an adequate historical component: indeed, while many have labelled the anti-capitalist movement a new left, few draw any lessons from the first British New Left of 1956–62. This article addresses this lacuna through an analysis of the debate over the question of political organization as it was articulated within the first British New Left. It is argued that the New Left’s critique of Leninism was underpinned by the political reformism that many of its leading members inherited from the Communist Party, and suggested that this left-reformist strategy informed its collapse in the early sixties. It concludes that contemporary radicals should learn the dangers associated with both a too close relationship to the Labour Party, and from the New Left’s failure to begin the process of building a political organization that could have begun to act as an alternative to Labour.     

从民主社会主义到社会民主主义——苏东剧变后西欧社会民主党的战略调整

冷战期间,西欧各国社会民主党虽然对以苏联为代表的现实社会主史一直持坚决反对、严厉批判的态度,但事实上现实社会主义的存在是社会民主党人推行的社会改良主义的一个重要条件.正因如此,苏东剧变、苏联解体并没有为西欧社会民主党带来任何政治利益,反而使它们的社会基础变得更为脆弱.西欧十几个国家曾经出现社会民主党万马齐喑、无一执政的局面.为了摆脱困境,西欧各国社会民主党先后实行了战略调整,纷纷放弃了"民主社会主义"的原则,改打"社会民主主义"或"第三条道路"的旗帜.这一转变表明,西欧各国社会民主党已经彻底放弃了改造现行社会的计划而与目前西方的资本主义制度完全认同.     

Legal reform need not come first: Merit‐based civil service management in law and practice

Introducing merit recruitment of public servants is a central good governance reform. To move towards merit in practice, legislation which mandates merit recruitment is considered a necessary but insufficient first step by many scholars and practitioners. Merit‐based civil service legislation should thus be sought before reform in practice. This article challenges this reasoning. It argues that merit laws are neither sufficient nor necessary: they leave the incumbent's possibility frontier for patronage and meritocracy in practice unaffected. Large‐ and small‐n evidence supports this assertion. Analyses of an original dataset of coded civil service legislation in 117 countries from 1975 to 2015 suggest that countries can attain meritocratic recruitment with and without legal merit requirements. Subsequently, a comparison of Paraguay and the Dominican Republic provides micro‐evidence for the underlying mechanism. Conventional wisdom about the sequencing of governance reforms in developing countries may thus be misleading: legal reform need not come first.     

Twenty–first century United States governance: statecraft as reform craft and the peculiar governing paradox it perpetuates

The United States is commonly referred to as the last global superpower, exercising unrivalled political, economic, military and social influence. Yet, paradoxically, unlike any other nation, Americans were – and remain – radically antistatist. Until roughly the twentieth century the United States did not want, need, nor create a powerful administrative state to govern itself, let alone others abroad. This essay explores that peculiar paradox, namely how Americans govern as the last global superpower today, yet retain an inherently fierce hostility to government. The thesis that is developed argues that it is a deep–rooted reformist faith which ultimately shapes US statecraft as a unique style of reformcraft, with both benign and not–sobenign consequences.     

导致欧美政党权力结构变迁的因素及相关争论

本文从分析欧美政党内部三个组成部分即党的中央、基层组织和党的公职部分之间的权力关系入手,对导致这种变化的相关因素进行了较系统的论述,同时,还分析了当代欧美政党内部权力转移的趋势尤其是基层组织是否边缘化的问题。     

Ideas,interests and practical authority in reform politics: decentralization reform in South Korea in the 2000s

This paper explains the reason why the hitherto statist country, Korea, has carried out significant decentralization since the 2000s. In explaining the motivation for decentralization, extant literature has focused on the role of parties, bureaucratic politics, democratization, or territorial interests. Yet there is still limited explanation of how the decentralization laws in Korea could be successfully passed in the 2000s, while cental stakeholders still persisted. By tracing the process of decentralization reform in the 2000s, this article demonstrates how structural factors created favourable circumstances and discursive background for institutional change, and how the idea of decentralization, through the idea diffusion mechanism, gave directions for central decision makers to produce a specific path of reform strategies. It also pays attention to the formation of ‘practical authority’ for reform politicians that made it possible to overcome obdurate resistance from central bureaucrats and politicians.