High time for high tech? China’s program for an indigenous high technology capability

Chinese policymakers have increasingly turned their attention to developing high technology. The state has, through a number of central directives, attempted to promote the production and commercialization of high tech products. Yet, the level of Chinese high technology products remains fairly low. This article argues that the state, especially in trying to recrease Silicon Valley in China, has learned the wrong lessons from the West’s experience. In order to promote the development of high tech, the state needs to build up a more adequate science and technology infrastructure and to define and protect property rights.     

What I Like About You: Legislator Personality and Legislator Approval

Political Behavior - Recent work in the study of legislative politics has uncovered associations between the Big Five personality traits and myriad phenomena in the United States Congress. This...     

Negating and Counterbalancing: A Fundamental Distinction in the Concept of a Corrective Duty

I argue in this paper that negating and counterbalancing should be recognised as two fundamental categories of corrective action. First, I show that recognising the distinction helps to avoid confusion when asking normative questions about the justification of imposing corrective duties. Second, I argue that we have moral reasons to care about the difference between negating and counterbalancing detrimental states, and this has implications for permissible action. I then outline some ways in which the discussion helps us explain and justify specific legal remedies in private law, and I conclude by noting some exceptions to the normative priority of negating over counterbalancing.     

Evaluating collaborative institutions by segregation and homophily in policy networks

Many policy systems are experimenting with collaborative institutions to manage complex policy problems in the face of persistent conflict and scientific uncertainty. Policy networks are central to the theory of why collaborative institutions are effective. While many policy systems naturally become segregated, fragmented, or siloed due to homophily, collaborative institutions are hypothesized to create more integrated systems of organizational collaboration. Collaborative institutions may, therefore, be evaluated by the extent to which they reduce the tendency toward homophily and increase the integration of policy networks. This paper evaluates three collaborative institutions in regional land-use planning and specifies a theory of the program from two prominent frameworks: Institutional Collective Action and the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Results show that three forms of homophily are at work, and that in some cases, collaborative institutions successfully reduce the tendency toward network segregation.     

Winter in Xi’an

正The weather in Xi'an is dominated by mercilessly hot summers and bonechilling winters. Their length makes them seem unending and so overpowering that, sandwiched between these two opposing giants, the other seasons feel inconsequential. This distorted climate cycle leaves me simultaneously eager for change, yet caught unaware when that change finally comes. While I will always prefer the languid heat of     

Riding a Train For 38 Hours

Irecently had some free time in between studying and starting a new job, and decided to go traveling. For some reasons the things I usually found charmingly strange about Beijing had just annoyed me during those last days of the semester,