Free and unfree labor in Qing China: Emigration and escape among the bannermen of northeast China, 1789–1909

Though internal migration in China during the Qing era (1644–1911) was mostly unrestricted, the government tightly controlled the movement of peasants who worked state lands in frontier regions and certain other locations. Such peasants accounted for 5–10% of China's population. In the state farms of northeast China, households could move legally only from one place to another within the system. Departure from the system was illegal. In this article, one of the first quantitative studies of migration in late imperial China, we apply discrete-time event-history methods to longitudinal, nominative household register data from six northeast Chinese state farm systems to compare how characteristics of the farm system, village, and household influenced the chances of legal moves and illegal departures. We show that among these state peasants, who were supposedly “unfree,” migration was not uncommon. We also show that the determinants of legal and illegal migration differed substantially. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for our understanding of migration processes in late imperial China.     

I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends: Leveraging Campaign Resources to Maximize Congressional Power

Central to the study of Congress is the study of relationships among members. Electoral collaboration is a function of a member's position in the broader congressional power network. It allows members to leverage their campaign resources to achieve the four classic goals of members of Congress: reelection, making good public policy, obtaining power within the institution, and having one's party in the majority. Using nearly 3.2 million FEC records from 2010 to 2016, we explore the dynamics that influence electoral collaboration. We find members are most likely to collaborate electorally with other members from the same state, party, and committee, and the most electorally vulnerable. Further, party leaders share most frequently with the rank and file. These findings build upon our expanding understanding of congressional collaboration, the networks members of Congress form, and the congressional power structure members operate within.     

THE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC PROVISION

Abstract: This work addresses the special character of public management by positing some important distinctions under-represented in current academic literature. In exploring the primary distinction between public administration and public management, the analysis proceeds from a treatment of public management as control of a production process uniquely configured as a combination of policy brokerage and resource management, to a demonstration of the economic agency (value addition) of public managers. The paper also presents a contextual analysis of the scope and scale of the public sector as this pertains to a model of "public provision", and introduces some new ideas regarding the temporal characteristics of public management as it responds to a discrete set of three cycles: the budget cycle, the product cycle and the policy cycle.
This work aims to provide tools for analysis which both distinguish public administration from public management and distinguish the economic agency of private managers from that of public managers. The general argument is that the "public provision process", while similar to a conventional production process, contains unique and important responsibilities which need to be understood and defended. By the same token, public managers ought to be empowered by a knowledge and identity which express their importance as economic agents who contribute both to the commonweal and to the wealth of the nation.     

Moral and ethical dilemmas: seven years into the debate about human ambiguity

Developments in modern medical technology force many questions upon the health professions and the public. To what extent should technology be used to extend life when doing so seems futile, perhaps brutal? Who should decide such questions? What options should be available? Conditions in which such questions arise are often chaotic because of the nature of illness and treatment and because many extremely important issues in life have been poorly deliberated by the health professions and the public. This essay is an attempt to clarify some of the issues.     

Women’s work and development in Latin America

The discussion explores the problem of women's employment patterns under capitalist development in Latin America, first by analyzing the way in which women's work has been conceptualized within modernization theory. It then goes on to examine the 2 types of work in which most Latin American women are engaged -- domestic service and informal work such as selling produce and taking in laundry -- to provide evidence for challenging modernization theory and for developing a more useful approach. Subsequently, the discussion considers women's domestic and informal work within the context of capitalist development, which provides some insight into the broader structures shaping women's employment. Finally, the discussion proposes some reconceptualizations of women's work and development. Modernization theorists analyze women's work in the cities within a variety of constructs, interpreting it as a backward manifestation of traditional society, a reflection of women's inadequate training for the modern sector, an indication of women's primary orientation to the family, or as a phenomenon that is too tangential to warrant examination. The primary assumption is that modernization improves women's status and the conditions of their lives as it brings greater productivity, more advanced technology, and more highly differentiated institutions. Assumptions concerning women's absorption into the modern sector and the equalization of work roles between men and women are not borne out by actual employment trends, which reveal the persistent concentration of women in domestic work, informal jobs, and the lower-paying service jobs. Despite their predominance, domestic service and informal jobs are infrequently included in employment statistics and are virtually ignored in studies of development, yet these 2 types of work are the primary forms of work for Latin American women. Even when modernization theorists recognize the proliferation of informal and domestic service jobs, they see it as part of a progressive development stage, with displaced rural laborers becoming incorporated into the modern sector by way of informal jobs. In most Latin American countries, rural women become a permanent part of the services and the informal labor market when they move to the cities. There is little sign of their transition to industrial employment. In general, capitalist development marginalizes Latin American women, who in several important ways lose status. The range of pursuits considered women's work should include their activities within the infromal labor sector. Informal work is still virtually unexplored, especially as it relates to wage work in underdeveloped countries. Informal labor is not registered in the census, nor is it included in the gross national product. Yet, it is a major component of women's work. Domestic service and infromal jobs should be seen in relation to other forms of labor and to total social production.     

Looking for Friends,Fans, and Followers? Social Media Use in Public and Nonprofit Human Services

This article uses interviews and Internet data to examine social media use among nonprofit organizations and county departments involved in the delivery of human services in a six‐county area in south‐central New York State. Social media use was modest, with nonprofit organizations much more likely to use it than county departments. Organizations used social media primarily to market organizational activities, remain relevant to key constituencies, and raise community awareness. Most organizations either had a narrow view of social media's potential value or lacked a long‐term vision. Barriers to use included institutional policies, concerns about the inappropriateness of social media for target audiences, and client confidentiality. Findings build on recent research regarding the extent to which nonprofit organizations and local governments use social media to engage stakeholders. Future research should investigate not only the different ways organizations use social media but also whether organizations use it strategically to advance organizational goals.     

Caught in the Act: The Smoking Gun View of Ministerial Responsibility

While any discussion of ministerial responsibility must in part focus on ministerial resignations, finding out when ministers resign is only the tip of the iceberg. A full assessment of ministerial responsibility would look at the relations between ministers and their senior bureaucrats, as discussed in Bill Blick’s article. It would look at the impact of managerialism on ministerial accountability, especially in the light of privatisation and contracting out. It would assess the impact of other mechanisms of accountability, including the senate. The subject of this article must always be put into a broader context. This article concentrates on ministerial resignations drawing on evidence from Britain, Canada, the federal government in Australia and the government of New South Wales. When do ministers resign?