Politics of Disclosure: Organizational Transparency as Multiactor Negotiation

Transparency is in vogue, yet it is often used as an umbrella concept for a wide array of phenomena. More focused concepts are needed to understand the form and function of different phenomena of visibility. In this article, the authors define organizational transparency as systematic disclosure programs that meet the information needs of other actors. Organizational transparency, they argue, is best studied as an interorganizational negotiation process on the field level. To evaluate its merit, the authors apply this framework to a case study on the introduction of open data in the Berlin city administration. Analyzing the politics of disclosure, they consider the similarities and differences between phenomena of visibility (e.g., open data, freedom of information), explore the transformative power of negotiating transparency, and deduce recommendations for managing transparency.     

农村行政标语与基层行政组织文化诊断

农村行政标语主要是指基层行政组织用来宣传党和国家方针政策、昭示政府施政内容和措施的一种宣传口号.农村行政标语可以折射基层行政组织文化中的官本位的价值观、落后的执政理念、行政责任观念模糊和行政行为的暴力化倾向.在基层行政组织文化中,存在着行政伦理缺失和法治精神薄弱的问题,解决之道在于通过体制改革和制度建设实现行政伦理的复位,通过服务行政重塑行政价值观,并通过法律来规范基层行政组织的行政行为.     

Politics as Theory and Politics as Practice

In 1962, the late Professor Sir Bernard Crick published his seminal work In Defence of Politics. Fifty years on, formal political processes have never been in greater need of defending. In this article, former Home Secretary David Blunkett MP argues that in order to defend politics we need to change the way in which we ‘do’ our politics. In a 21st century response to Professor Crick's challenge to defend the role of politics in providing a counterweight to the financial markets and economic imperialism, Blunkett considers how it is possible to renew political democracy as a force for progressive change. The last five years of political and financial turmoil have seen politics smeared and even, in the case of Greece and Italy, elected governments removed and replaced by technocrats. With the power of government behind the people, it would be possible to foster a whole new spirit of seeing the political process as a way of organising, advising and yes funding a demand for something better from big institutions both public and private.     

中国古代政治发展中的亲缘政治

亲缘政治是中国古代政治发展的基本特点,亲亲、尊尊则是亲缘政治中权力配置、权力运行和利益安排秩序的基本原则.这种亲缘政治原则决定了中国古代政治制度和行政管理体制的构建和发展,决定了中央君主统治权力和各亲缘集团层级权力的协调和统治治理的有序性和有效性.而各亲缘集团力量的发展变化又会改变原权力结构关系和统治治理秩序,井导致一个个王朝统治的兴亡和更迭,成为历代王朝兴亡发展的周期规律.     

Party Organizational Elites in Norwegian Politics: Representativeness and Party Democracy*

The question raised is why ‘secondary’ representativeness of political elites, i.e. the degree of similarity in socio-demographic background between elite and electorate, is considered important in debates on democratic polities. Three answers are considered: to improve long-term ‘primary’ representtativity. i.e. the representation of public opinions; to build systemic legitimacy: and to encourage the participation of low-mobilized groups. From this perspective new data on the party organizational elites in Norway are presented: The party elites are socially skewed in terms of present position. but fairly broad based in terms of parental background. They reflect the traditional cleavage structures of Norwegian politics, even though the high shares of women and public employees indicate potentially emerging cleavage structures. Particularly the women in party positions are disproportionately recruited from the lower ranks of the public job market.     

Politics Against Science: Reflections on the Study of Chinese Politics in Contemporary China

As a preliminary investigation and an intellectual reflection of the state of the field of Chinese domestic political study conducted in the Chinese language in mainland China, this paper deals with a threefold task. It first assesses the state of the field of the study of Chinese politics in mainland China, and argues that this scholarship is underdeveloped in comparison with the study of home-country politics in some other countries. It then clarifies the often blurring boundaries in contemporary China between the political science study of Chinese politics on one hand and other categories of political writings on the other, and maintains that the political penetration from the Party-state has been the major factor that hinders the intellectual development of the study of Chinese politics as a branch of political science. The paper, thirdly, suggests the so-called “open-minded independence of scholarship” with the emphases on academic autonomy and institutionalized professionalism as what the most needed for developing the study of Chinese politics in the Sinophonic world.     

Political Culture and the Study of Chinese Politics

It is both a truth and a truism that Chinese politics cannot be understood without reference to Chinese culture (a truth and truism that would apply to any other society as well). But within the academic discipline of political science political culture has lost status over the past generation as not conducive to the development of empirical political theory. The usual candidate for replacement is rational choice theory. But properly understood, political culture is compatible with rational choice, inasmuch as there is no single standard of rationality, but, rather, it will vary from society to society and era to era. Considerations of the cultural background are necessary to provide content to rational choice theory, since without consideration of culture context rational choice threatens to reduce to a set of colorless banalities.

Hybridity and Friction in Organizational Politics: New Perspectives on the African Security Regime Complex

ABSTRACT

Security governance in Africa constitutes a web of interactions between national, regional, and international organizations. This emerging ‘African security regime complex' receives growing attention in International Relations debates on international organizations (IOs). Most analysis, however, follows institutionalist and problem-solving approaches, centred on regulatory concerns. We offer a different perspective. Moving beyond dominant perspectives on organizations as either pre-given institutional ‘wholes' or rationalized ‘tools' of states, we instead unpack the ‘politics of organizations’, understood as the multiple processes and forms of agency through which organizations emerge, diversify and transform. In doing so, we bring IO analysis into conversation with debates on hybridity, friction and translocality.     

Administrative Error Control: The Role of Value-Based HR Practices,I-Deals,and Organizational Politics

Value-based HR practices, which cultivate public values in public employees, may activate employee’s upward negotiations with the employer to go beyond administrative norms and constraints. The primary research aim is to assess the role of value-based HR practices in fostering idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) among public employees, which in turn contribute to the effectiveness of administrative error control. The research also investigates whether organizational politics undermines the momentum of i-deals in public employees. The source of data for the research includes the responses from public employees and their direct supervisors from People’s Committees of Wards—the grassroots level of government—in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The data were then analyzed using structural equation modeling. Through the research findings, the effect chain from value-based HR practices through i-deals to administrative error control was confirmed. The negative effect of organizational politics on i-deals was also grounded in the data analysis.     

A History of American Studies of Chinese Elite Politics

Journal of Chinese Political Science - This review essay examines a historical process of knowledge construction in American studies of China. Before 1989, U.S.-based scholars argued that Deng...     

苏联模式与有中国特色的社会主义

运用历史唯物主义观点，审视苏联模式的兴衰及中国改革的成功，说明社会主义不仅必须改革，而且改革必须坚持社会主义。并指出那种把苏联解体、东欧剧变归结为苏联模式失败的观点，是不符合历史事实的，因而也就缺乏说服人的逻辑力量。邓小平在总结世界社会主义运动的经验教训时，特别关注从哲学世界观和方法论的高度理解和认识社会主义。有中国特色的社会主义是对苏联模式的否定，在苏联社会主义遭受挫折之后，有中国特色的社会主义事业蓬勃发展，从而使人们看到了社会主义的希望之光。在当代中国，只有从邓小平理论中才能够取得建设有中国特色社会主义的信念。     

Teaching Chinese Politics: Microblogging and Student Engagement

This article reflects on some of the issues involved in teaching Chinese politics in the west and assesses the rationale for incorporating technology into teaching. The article specifically addresses the potential benefits of using microblogging (Twitter and Weibo) as a supplementary teaching tool in Chinese politics classes. The article argues that microblogging has benefits in terms of helping students develop professional networks, extending contact hours without placing an onerous burden on instructors, contributing to the construction of a supportive and collaborative learning environment and demystifying China for non-Chinese majors. Furthermore, in classes where students possess Chinese language skills, China??s domestic Weibo provide a fascinating window onto social and political issues as they are experienced contemporaneously by Chinese netizens. An assessment of the potential uses of microblogging is timely as the learning preferences of current and future cohorts change and commercial and pedagogical imperatives increasingly impel university teachers to consider the effectiveness of their teaching methods.