The Politics of Poverty Mis-targeting in China

Based upon a county level analysis, this article explores the complex processes of poverty mis-targeting in China and supplements the pre-existing literature with a bottom-up analysis. It argues that the rational calculations of key county leaders, shaped by a combination of formal and informal institutions, determine whether a county, irrespective of poverty level, competes for the title of “state-designated poorest county (SDPC).” This article also demonstrates that the interaction between formal and informal institutions is dynamic and subject to change. For future relevant research, this article suggests to analyze the practice of poverty reduction in a disaggregated manner by examining the interplay within and among different levels of government. Juan Wang, a Ph.D candidate in political science at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of “Going beyond Township and Village Enterprises,” Journal of Contemporary China, Issue 14, Volume 42, (February 2005), pp.171–181. The author is particularly grateful to Kellee Tsai for her valuable suggestions and support throughout this project. I am indebted to William Rowe, Mark Blyth, Wang Sangui and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. The Institute of Global Studies (IGS) of Johns Hopkins University receives my gratitude for its financial support of this project.     

Coal and nuclear technologies: creating a false dichotomy for American energy policy

The American electric utility industry is entering a moment of transition. Once viewed as a stable and secure consortium of publicly regulated monopolies that produce and distribute electricity, the industry has weathered market restructuring only to face the ever-present risk of natural disasters, price fluctuations, terrorist attacks, and blackouts. This paper uses five criteria—technical feasibility, cost, negative externalities, reliability, and security—to evaluate the broad portfolio of energy technologies available to American electricity policymakers. Upon close inspection, energy efficiency practices, renewable energy systems, and small-scale distributed generation technologies appear to offer many advantages over large and centralized nuclear and fossil fueled generators. Contrary to the mimetic commentary produced by the media, these three approaches would present policymakers a superior alternative for curbing electricity demand, minimizing the risk of fuel interruptions and shortages, helping improve the fragile transmission network, and reducing environmental harm     

The social logic of political choice: Picking a political party in the context of immediate social circles

The Social Logic of Politics places social learning at the center of political choice. People develop their political preferences, knowledge, values, perceptions of ability, and decisions about political behavior in interactions with others, usually members of their social circles. Political attitudes and goals are not derivatives of exogenous economic preferences. They are not the results of careful calculations, in which optimization of personal needs guides the mode of reasoning. This theoretical stance draws sustenance from recent work across the social science, even as it harkens back to established, if neglected principles of political analysis. My thanks to Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck for his encouragement and for the critical comments of several anonymous referees and to Josip Dasović and Jennifer Fitzgerald, my co-authors of Partisan Families: the Social Logic of Bounded Partisanship in Germany and Britain (Zuckerman et al. 2007). Material from that book appears in this essay.     

Louisiana's Ethical Culture and Its Effect on the Administrative Failures Following Katrina

Louisiana's history of colorful politics and corruption in government is legendary, and within Louisiana, it is something celebrated—or at least warmly embraced—as part of the cultural richness of the state. An oft-repeated phrase is that Louisiana is no more corrupt than any place else, it's just that Louisianans are proud of it. Though such sentiment is certainly not true of everyone in Louisiana, it is a quality that permeates discussions of federal financial assistance to the state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and helps explain the widespread misuse of assistance funds. Yet beyond concern for the loss of dollars are the very real and tragic consequences for the citizens who were most affected by Hurricane Katrina—who have received but a trickle of the flood of money that has poured into the state. For these people, who remain without adequate shelter, resources, educational opportunities, health care, and support networks, the recovery progress has remained basically unchanged over the last two years. An overview of the ethical culture of Louisiana and reflections on how that culture contributed to and exacerbated administrative failure in the wake of Katrina is presented here.     

Detectives Stories and City Life

Detective stories take place mainly in two settings, constantly changing, many faceted big cities filled with strangers, and stable, fairly homogeneous, innocent small towns whose members know one another. The differences in each clarify the qualities of the other. In solving the mystery of the small town, the detective provides moral instruction and restores the town’s innocence. In solving the mystery in the big city the detective reveals the city as part of the mystery and provides the reader with temporary orientation to the city. Mysteries have grown with the growth of the cities and now appear in every country of the world. Harold J. Bershady is an emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book, edited with Renée Fox and Victor Lidz, is After Parson: A Theory of Action for the 21st Century, published by Russell Sage Press, 2005.