‘Peaceful Evolution’, ‘Regime Change’ and China's Political Security

This article explores the enduring impact of the Western strategy of ‘peaceful evolution’ (heping yanbian) on China's political security. This non-military strategy is given an added significance in an era of the lone superpower, when American military might can provide the buttress. ‘Peaceful evolution’ can also overlap with the US notion of ‘regime change’, which often entails military intervention to bring about a desired political transformation in a particular state. Specifically, the strategy of ‘peaceful evolution’ still constitutes a serious threat to China because it needs to continue opening up to the West for the sake of economic modernisation.     

Economics, environmentalism and party alignments: A note on partisan change in advanced industrial democracies

'We are neither Left nor Right, we are out in front' was the mantra of the environmental movement in the 1970s and early 1980s. This research examines the relationship between the traditional left/right economic cleavage and the environmental cleavage in structuring party competition in advanced industrial democracies. It begins by discussing the theoretical rationale for the separation of environmentalism from the traditional economic cleavage, and utilises new expert data to describe the evolution of party positions between 1989 and 2002–2003. An initially strong relationship between party positions on both dimensions in 1989 has strengthened over time. The convergence occurs largely because of changes by Green parties and by the addition of new parties that define themselves on both dimensions. This points to the ability of democratic party systems to integrate a new political cleavage, and the process of integration. However, leftist parties still continue to diverge with respect to how they respond to the environmental cleavage.     

TRANSACTIONS COSTS IN RURAL DECISION‐MAKING: THE CASES OF FUNDING AND MONITORING IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN ENGLAND

Public domain decisions in rural England have become more complex as the number of stakeholders having a say in them has increased. Transactions costs can be used to explore this increasing complexity. The size and distribution of these costs are higher in rural areas. Grouping transactions costs into four – organizations, belief systems, knowledge and information, and institutions – two of the latter are evaluated empirically: growth in the bid culture, and monitoring and evaluation. Amongst 65 Agents of Rural Governance (ARGs) in Gloucestershire, both were found to be increasing over time, but those relating to finance were a greater burden than those of monitoring: the latter can improve ARG performance. Increasing transactions costs in rural decision‐making appears to be at variance with ambitions of achieving ‘smaller government' through, for example, the Big Society. Smaller government is likely to be shifting the incidence of these costs, rather than reducing them.     

House of Lords Reform: Are We Nearly There Yet?

Twelve years after coming to office, Labour has still not achieved the second stage of House of Lords reform that was promised in 1997. In July 2008 a White Paper—the government's fifth on the subject—was published, setting out plans for an 80 or 100 per cent elected upper house. This article reviews its prospects. It concludes that although the government is now apparently more in line with the views of its supporters, there are many other obstacles. Fundamental differences remain both within and between the political parties, and several key principles remain unresolved. Progress is therefore unlikely.