Civil service reform in the People's Republic of China: case studies of early implementation

The adoption of the civil service system is the most comprehensive reform of the personnel system in the history of the People's Republic of China. The reformers want to establish a highly qualified and professional administrative corps. Elements of the reform include a merit‐based performance evaluation system that rewards good employees and punishes poor ones, open and fair competition in recruitment and promotion to assure the quality of government officials, and a system based on law that provides continuity and consistency for government policies. The article summarizes case studies of implementation challenges such as recruitment, examinations, selection and promotion, performance evaluation, training, job rotation and salary systems. The cases provide snapshots of some of the most difficult issues involved in reforming China's civil service. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigating Legal Consciousness through the Technical Work of Elite Lawyers: A Case Study on Tax Avoidance

Since the 1990s, legal consciousness has been amply used by sociolegal scholars to better understand the everyday lives of ordinary people, with a strong focus on vulnerable or impoverished people. This article argues that legal consciousness, with some methodological adjustments, could lend itself to the study of the rich and powerful by investigating both the technical work of their lawyers and how that work shapes our broader legal culture. To illustrate this point, this article takes tax avoidance as a case study. Drawing on materials revealed by a recent tax scandal, it suggests that current difficulty in tackling the problem of tax avoidance rests on uneven access to the cultural repertoires related to legal technique and legal innovation, which fosters the tax‐avoidance narrative's ambiguity.     

Harvey Sicherman: A Celebration

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian reflects on the rich intellectual fare enjoyed over weekly lunches with Harvey Sicherman. McDougall describes Harvey's mastery of traditional geopolitical analysis, as well as his deftness in adapting strategy to the late-Cold War and post-Cold War eras.