Choosing China: public perceptions of ‘China as a model’

This article examines East Asians and Chinese nationals who select ‘China as a model’ of development. The analysis looks at both macro and micro explanations to show that China's standing as a development model is not in sync with its status as a rising global and regional power. At the macro level, the focus is on country-level patterns, while the micro analysis is drawn from the third wave surveys of the Asia Barometer Survey data conducted from 2011 to 2013 in 13 different countries. The findings suggest that political values, history, geography and socio-economic conditions correspond to different views of China as a model and that those outside of China who select the country as a model are quite different from those in China itself.     

Fighting for Migrant Labor Rights in the World's Factory: legitimacy,resource constraints and strategies of grassroots migrant labor NGOs in South China

China's dizzying economic achievement is not mirrored in its labor rights protection record. Migrant workers in particular do not enjoy rights commensurate with their contribution to the economy. The pervasive infringement of labor rights and the failure of the official protective system have jointly created a niche for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This article investigates the grassroots migrant labor NGOs in the Pearl River Delta region, an area which has seen unprecedented increases in labor disputes both in terms of quantity and intensity. Making extensive use of in-depth interviews and participatory observations, it examines the strategies and tactics NGOs use for survival and growth in a hostile external environment. This article reveals that administrative illegitimacy and resource shortage have been the two key challenges for grassroots NGOs; in order to survive, they have developed a series of strategies to enhance legitimacy and explore resources. In the meantime, however, antagonistic thinking still drives the government's response to grassroots organizations unless the latter can skillfully balance political ideology and actual operation. Yet, overall, most NGOs still managed to survive despite various difficulties. Reciprocity and mutual trust are of critical importance to peaceful coexistence, if not cooperation, between the state and the grassroots. The building of long-term healthy labor relations in China necessitates more liberal thinking and collaborative governance.     

The Educational and Professional Goals of International Students in Public Service Degrees

International student enrollment in public service degrees such as Public Administration in the United States has grown rapidly. Harnessing this growth to improve the knowledge and expertise of employees in public service is a vital opportunity. However, our survey of public service schools shows that international students perceive an extensive lack of support with financial and linguistic challenges. Furthermore, schools practice little performance evaluation concerning international student experience. We conclude that schools collect more data on international students and communicate better information about programs to improve services and ensure that students know accurately what to expect from their overseas education.     

The Political Economy of Competitiveness and Continuous Adjustment in EU Meta-Governance

This article asserts that attempts to resolve the crisis through recent changes in European meta-governance are just the latest phase in a project to secure “continual adjustment” in European societies to the systemic demands of competitiveness. The structural pressures experienced at the scale of European societies are located in the process and scale of world market integration. This New Materialist scalar-relational approach sees adjustment to the systemic demands of competitiveness as likely to continue into the future and suggests that the scope for alternative more Keynesian programs of reform through EU meta-governance is highly constrained.     

From Personalism to Contractualism: A Review of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project's Latest Documentary History of Emancipation

Since 1982, the collaborative editorial project of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project has published four volume of documentary material placing African Americans as slaves, soldiers, and newly free people, at the center of the process of slave emancipation in the US South. This review of the Project's fifth volume of records, Land and Labor, 1865, critically examines its contribution to our understanding of the emergence of free labor relations in the economy of the postbellum rural South. There, three forces collided in the efforts to remake labor relations after the Civil War ended slavery in the US: the efforts of slaveholders to control property and labor; the aspirations to ‘access to land and control of their own labor’ of former slaves; and the desire of Northerners to impose their own notions of ‘free labor’ as a set of contractual relations on both. Land and Labor, 1865, demonstrates how former slaves and their actions can be placed at the center of the evolution of Reconstruction policy.     

中亚市场一体化模式及功效比较

本文认为中亚市场一体化是经济现代化的主要因素.作者首先确定降低国家间交易成本障碍的潜在的渠道("一体化模式").其次考察这些渠道的形成并指出两种困惑:单个国家集权化的成功相对于它们之间国际合作的失败,公司和贸易网络非正式合作的成功相对于政府协调行动的缺失.最后探究致力于权力平衡的中亚市场一体化模式的相对成功及其影响.     

The Impact of Information Disclosure on Consumer Behavior: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment of Calorie Labels on Restaurant Menus

In 2018, the U.S. adopted a nationwide law requiring that chain restaurants post calorie counts on their menus and menu boards. This has led to considerable interest in the extent to which providing calorie information leads consumers to choose healthier diets. To estimate the impact of calorie labeling, we conducted a randomized controlled field experiment in two full-service restaurants, in which the control group received menus without calorie counts and the treatment group received the same menus but with calorie counts. We estimate that the calorie labels resulted in a 3.0 percent reduction in calories ordered, with the reduction occurring in appetizers and entrées but not drinks or desserts. Exposure to the information also increased consumers’ support for requiring calorie labels by 9.6 percent. These results are informative about the impact of the new nationwide menu label requirement, and more generally contribute to the literature on the impact of information disclosure on consumer behavior.     

Treating incompetence to stand trial

InJackson v. Indiana (1972), the United States Supreme Court held that the primary justification for detaining defendants who are incompetent to stand trial is to provide them with relevant treatment. Unfortunately, the majority of forensic facilities place more emphasis on treating mental disability than on the specific symptoms that legally define incompetence to stand trial. Since this appears to be inconsistent withJackson, a study was conducted to test whether a treatment that deals with the specific symptoms of incompetence to stand trial would be more effective. As predicted, 21 patients who received such treatment showed significantly more improvement on an assessment instrument than 20 patients who received the more common form of treatment. In addition, more patients in the experimental treatment group than in the standard treatment group were able to be recommended to the court as competent. Implications are discussed.