The Role and Logic of Nontraditional Security in China’s Engagement in Global Governance Mechanisms under Xi Jinping’s Regime

Journal of Chinese Political Science - With the emergence of a series of global security incidents, scholars and observers have placed increasing importance on nontraditional security (NTS). Since...     

Marcuse’s Hegel: Hope and Despair in the Logic of Negation

Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution found a rich reception in the 1960’s field of Hegel/Marx commentary. This rereading challenges Marcuse’s reduction of Hegel’s dialectical logic to a logic of negation. It describes weaknesses in Marcuse’s Hegel paraphrases, and argues that Marcuse’s bold leap to a Revolutionary logic rejects Hegel’s method: turning instead to Kant’s transcendental logic, and leading his readers into an antinomy of hope and despair.     

History and Thought in China’s Traditions

The recent turn to China??s traditions has the potential to correct for the Eurocentrism of Political Science theories. Nevertheless, the overwhelming emphasis on political thought, especially Confucianism, may have its drawbacks. This article suggests that political scientists who are interested in building theories and drawing policy implications should study the verifiable, i.e., history. Unless the purpose is to study philosophy for its own sake, political scientists should study political thought in practice, rather than political thought divorced from history. This article first discusses why it is important to examine history beyond thought. It then analyzes why scholars should not conflate political thought with historical practice. It anchors the analysis with a high-profile recent book on ancient Chinese thought.     

Democratic and constitutionalist elements in Khomeini’s Unveiling of Secrets and Islamic Government

This is a study of Khomeini’s two main pre-revolutionary political works: one, Islamic Government, in which he urges his audience to accept that Islam is a political religion and jurisprudents of Islamic law have a crucial role in government; and a second, The Unveiling of Secrets, of which only short excerpts have been translated into English and which has received scant attention by scholars outside of Iran. This latter work is crucial to study because in this work, he elaborates his view on democratic and constitutionalist principles, subjects he had treated only vaguely and briefly in Islamic Government. Contrary to much of the secondary literature produced on Khomeini, which claims that Khomeini’s theory is simply a theory of guardianship, antithetical to participatory government, the article claims that in The Unveiling of Secrets, and (though more ambiguously) in Islamic Government, Khomeini appeals to democratic and constitutionalist principles to argue that the views of common citizens, and not just experts in Islamic law, must be heeded by an Islamic government. Recognizing the complexities and ambiguities of Khomeini’s thought both in his earlier and later works allows us to understand and engage in dialogue with the scholars who inherit and critique his ideas today.     

The Dilemmas of China’s Political Science in the Context of the Rise of China

The rise of China has changed the global balance of power, which could also have an impact on the international development of political science scholarship. Very little attention, however, has been paid to the impact of China’s rise on the development of political science within China. This article examines how the rise of China has posed serious challenges to political studies in China. It addresses critical issues concerning the contemporary features and strategic direction of the discipline. It first analyzes three different meanings of what constitutes China’s political studies and discusses three different intellectual production models. It then highlights the dilemmas that political science faces in China, and exposes problems of and obstacles to its development, such as an unwarranted sense of pride, the bureaucratization of the scholarly community, and, critically, the absence of democracy and academic freedom. The paper examines and engages several ongoing debates on China’s political studies. In responding to the debate over whether it is desirable for Chinese political studies to move towards scientification, this paper presents four arguments for a balance between science and the humanities and outlines four strategies for achieving this balance. It also examines the debate on the localization of Chinese political studies and the doctrine of China’s uniqueness; and points out that the rise of China requires Chinese political studies to be cosmopolitan, global and universal, but the current regime is interested in reproducing the discourse of China’s uniqueness to maintain its political legitimacy.     

China’s Financial Crisis in the Making --Soft Budget Constraint,Overdraft and the Missing Credible Commitment

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Multiple risks have been building up in the Chinese economy during the past decade, exposing it to a possible financial crisis of increasing likelihood. Based...     

China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea

China's defiance of the arbitration tribunal ruling overwhelmingly rejecting its extensive territorial claims in the South China Sea has exposed competition between the United States and China, attracting regional states into their respective strategic orbits. China's attempt to challenge America's traditional position as the regional maritime power is gaining strength.     

Constitutional and Human Rights Disturbances: Australia’s Privative Clauses Created Both in an Immigration Context

With the arrival of another wave of “boat people” to Australian waters in late 2009, issues of human rights of asylum seekers and refugees once again became a major feature of the political landscape. Claims of “queue jumping” were made, particularly by some sections of the media, and they may seem populist, but they are also ironic, given the protracted efforts on the part of the federal government to stymie any orderly appeals process, largely through resort to “privative clauses”. Such clauses demonstrate the many ways in which human rights of those seeking asylum in far-off lands and are potential future immigrants, who often lack much-touted needed papers, yet who are for the most part genuine refugees, are subject to the slings and arrows of political fortune (and misfortune). Approaching the courts if treated unfairly or seeking a further decision as to your fate would seem one of the fundamental premises of human rights. Yet privative clauses—or attempts to ouster the jurisdiction of the courts and to insulate decisions from appeal—have become an increasingly frequent feature of the Australian migration legislation. With a seemingly watertight federal constitutional power set in stone since 1901, to deal with migration and aliens, and without the tempered contemporary update of a federal Bill of Rights, the Australian federal government has been able to narrow the grounds of judicial review in those contexts. We argue that the concerted efforts to deny such fundamental rights of appeal to those most in need of the full armoury of the protection of the law in a modern, affluent democracy, constitutes both a breach of their human rights and a breach of core constitutional principles such as separation of powers. Those principles may not be formally articulated in the text of the Australian Constitution, but in our view they are implicit in the constitutional arrangements, and hence we can conclude with the arguments of former Justice of the High Court of Australia, Michael Kirby, who asked—to whom does sovereignty truly belong?     

Towards Internationalization: A Critical Assessment of China’s Public Administration Research in a Global Context 2000–2014

Since the establishment of the Chinese Public Administration Society (CPAS) in 1988, public administration (PA) research and practice have grown considerably after a gap of more than 30 years. Emerging universities and local research institutes have established specialized departments/centers for PA. This study reports on mainland China’s performance in PA research by examining publication size, impact, and scientometric indicators, including China’s global publication share, growth rate, citation impact, and leading journals based on the last 15 years of publications data, as retrieved from the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) database; recognized international collaborators and domestic contributors are also considered. Findings suggest that the quantity and quality of mainland China’s PA research has increased steadily, with mainland scholars playing equally as important roles as their international peers. Evidence suggests that mainland China scholars will continue to achieve international publishing success. Finally, opportunities and challenges brought about by internationalization are also discussed.     

Xiang Gao,Delegation and Development: Local Government in China’s Market Transition

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Independent Candidates in China’s Local People’s Congress Elections

In the Chinese political system, according to the constitution, the people’s congresses at the primary level are the only institution which the voters can directly elect. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tightly controls the “direct elections” and takes every measure in the elections to prevent grassroots power from entering even the primary-level people’s congresses. In recent years, grassroots power has kept struggling for its legal rights in the “direct elections” held in a few localities. The conflicts between the grassroots power and the authoritarian party in the “direct elections” have become an interesting political phenomenon, a subject deserves close observation and research. This paper studies the background of the independent candidates, their motivations and behaviour in elections. The paper also examines the party’s control in the elections and thus exposes the true nature of China’s people’s congress “direct” elections. The paper argues that independent candidates can have little impacts on China’s political structure at the current stage because of the party’s tight control, but their political participation has the most democratic value, compared with the “reforms” instigated and carried out by the CCP.     

Diverse Multilateralism: Four Strategies in China’s Multilateral Diplomacy

This article addresses Chinas multilateral diplomacy by identifying four distinct strategies: watching, engaging, circumventing, and shaping. The typology builds on two literatures: power transition theory, and the more recent ??assertiveness?? discourse in the West. Drawing from a range of cases in both the economic and security domains, the article argues that China??s multilateralism is diverse, and that it cannot be un-problematically characterized as either status-quo or revisionist in nature. However, the general trend appears to be towards engagement, but with an assertive tact as China??s interests become further entangled in the business of international institutions.     

Representation and Local People’s Congresses in China: A Case Study of the Yangzhou Municipal People’s Congress

Local people’s congresses have become increasingly active, carrying out legislative activities and (supposedly) supervising state organizations. Based on the analysis of bills submitted to Yangzhou Municipal People’s Congresses, we find that congress delegates have increasingly represented the interests and demands of the geographic areas from which they are elected, and that the local people’s congress has become a place to present and coordinate various competing interests, which are often contradictory to the interests of the local Party committee that represents the higher authority of the state. In other words, the local people’s congress has become a place where two interests intersect: the “central” interests represented by the local Party committee and the “local” interests represented by the local people’s congress delegates.     

China’s Coherence in International Economic Governance

This article analyzes China’s coherence in international economic governance. When and how is China challenging the rules and norms of the prevailing international economic order? Has China adopted the current rules and norms across the board, or is it proceeding in an ad hoc or piecemeal manner? How can its (in) coherence be explained? To address these questions, I compare China’s profile vis-à-vis three dimensions of the global economic order: trade, investment, and development aid. I argue that in international trade and investment, China has neither sought nor brought about significant change. China is however, offering an alternative to the Western norms that until now have dominated the global development aid regime. China’s establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is notable in this regard, though it is still soon to determine if the Chinese-led development bank will break with existing norms. The article then considers possible theoretical explanations for the variation in China’s behavior across the three areas.     

China’s Political Stability: Global Comparisons

Throughout most of the 20th Century, China had suffered tremendous economic and human losses due to political instability. It is in the most recent decades that the Chinese people have managed to live with political stability. The economic benefits of political stability can hardly be overstated. Yet, China’s political stability is by no means assured. Is China stable or unstable? Is the Chinese regime strong or fragile? To answer these questions, this study has selected a total of 12 sets of publically available indices to measure political instability and placed China on a global scale of comparisons with all the others, both advanced and developing, in the world. It also makes specific comparisons between China and the other four countries of the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The findings of our global comparisons give China no reasons for celebration. However, China has no reasons for paranoia either. China has indeed faced many threats or challenges to political stability, but, as our study demonstrates, China is no more politically unstable or fragile than many others. Ignoring or underestimating the ripple effect of any destabilizing world event will do China no good, but overreactions also serve China’s interests poorly as fear or paranoia can be highly contagious.