The Civil Service under One Country, Two Systems: The Cases of Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China

Under the principle of "one country, two systems," Hong Kong's and China's civil services are changing, but they clearly are not converging. The civil service reforms made in Hong Kong and China appear to be heading toward two logical extremes: one toward strengthening political authority over the civil service, and the other instituting greater institutionalization. What appears to be a problem in Hong Kong may be seen as a solution in China. Not only reform problems, but also reform options, are defined in relation to wider political institutions and changing socioeconomic dynamics. The study shows that while some things do need to be uniform, such as loyalty to the state and central government, a great deal of flexibility regarding administrative systems within one country is possible. There can be a modern nation without a truly national civil service.     

The development of corporate governance in China

Over the last decade there have been significant economic reforms in China. Foreign investment is encouraged and there are increasing numbers of joint ventures with foreign partners. The stock exchanges of Shanghai and Shenzen have developed quite rapidly, and the expansion of China's economy and the growing importance of foreign investment has implications for the development of corporate governance structures in China. The internationalization of institutional portfolios ensures that there is a cross‐border interest in corporate governance, and that China's steps in developing corporate governance will be watched with interest. In this paper, we will explore the existing cultural aspects of China, the structure of share ownership in China, recent developments that have taken place in China's capital markets, including the growing foreign influence, and their implications for corporate governance developments. We compare and contrast the influences on corporate governance in the West with those in China. We conclude that any model of corporate governance which develops in China is likely to embody the special role of the state and certain idiosyncratic cultural aspects of China, whilst taking on certain of the characteristics of an Anglo‐Saxon corporate governance model.     

Lies Matter

Law and Philosophy -     

Does the Ideological Proximity Between Candidates and Voters Affect Voting in U.S. House Elections?

Do citizens hold congressional candidates accountable for their policy positions? Recent studies reach different conclusions on this important question. In line with the predictions of spatial voting theory, a number of recent survey-based studies have found reassuring evidence that voters choose the candidate with the most spatially proximate policy positions. In contrast, most electoral studies find that candidates’ ideological moderation has only a small association with vote margins, especially in the modern, polarized Congress. We bring clarity to these discordant findings using the largest dataset to date of voting behavior in congressional elections. We find that the ideological positions of congressional candidates have only a small association with citizens’ voting behavior. Instead, citizens cast their votes “as if” based on proximity to parties rather than individual candidates. The modest degree of candidate-centered spatial voting in recent Congressional elections may help explain the polarization and lack of responsiveness in the contemporary Congress.     

Interest groups and policy volatility

We offer a model of how interest groups affect policy stability. The relationship between interest group density and policy volatility is concave because of two forces: (a) the number and interaction of interest groups in a policy domain and (b) the effect of this interaction on policy image and attention. After laying out the logics of both processes, we identify three ideal type situations: (a) capture (low interest group density, low attention) and (b) deadlock (high interest group density, high attention) lead to low levels of policy volatility while (c) lability (medium interest group density, intermittent attention) leads to high levels of policy volatility. For our empirical evidence, we rely on all budget functions in the American states from 1984 to 2010 and employ generalized additive regression modeling. The article contributes to the literature on understanding interest group strategies, interest group influence in policy making, and broader questions of deliberative democracy.