China's Politics and Bilateral Trade Linkages

Abstract

China's position in the world economy during the past half-century provides vital information for investigating the relation between politics and trade. Although there is a substantial number of studies in this area, the current study extends the literature in at least three ways: (1) it is one of the first studies that investigates the problem of a potential sample selection bias—as a result of the fact that countries taken up in the analysis are not randomly sampled from all countries in the world; (2) it considers third-country effects that follow from the fact that China's relation with any two countries is affected by the relation between these countries themselves; and (3) it tests the impact of five political arrangements simultaneously, which is more comprehensive than any former study. By using data as to 78 of China's trade partners over the 1950–2002 period, this study provides empirical evidence for the hypotheses that the establishment of diplomatic relations, cooperation, visits of heads of states and political system similarity are associated with greater trade flows. The hypothesis that member countries of a Preferential Trading Agreement have had smaller trade flows with China, which is no member of any of these Preferential Trading Agreements, is not supported by the results.     

Implementation Between Tradition and Management: Structuration and Styles of Implementation

This article presents a diachronic perspective for implementation research. It analyzes implementation practices in relation to their changing institutional context. Therefore, a comparison is made between different styles of implementation.
The relationship between implementation practices and institutional context is analyzed as a structuration process, following Giddens's theory. Four styles of policy implementation are distinguished: a traditional, bureaucratic, professional, and managerial style. These four styles are connected with different phases in the development of the welfare state. This developmental model is illustrated with an analysis of policy implementation in Dutch public assistance between 1950 and the early 1990s.     

Cultural and economic prerequisites of democracy: Reassessing recent evidence

The purpose of this article is to reassess two influential theories of democratic development: the theory of democratic culture and the theory of economic development. The leading predecessors in each domain—Ronald Inglehart and Adam Przeworski—are the prime targets of analysis. We take issue with recent evidence presented by these authors on three grounds: the evidence (1) confuses “basic” criteria of democracy with possible “quality” criteria (Inglehart); (2) conceptualizes democracy in dichotomous rather than continuous terms (Przeworski); and (3) fails to account for endogeneity and contingent effects (Inglehart). In correcting for these shortcomings, we present striking results. In the case of democratic culture, the theory lacks support; neither overt support for democracy nor “self-expression values” affect democratic development. In the case of economic development, earlier findings must be refined. Although the largest impact of modernization is found among more democratized countries, we also find an effect among “semi-democracies.” Axel Hadenius is professor of political science at Uppsala University in Sweden. He is the author ofDemocracy and Development (Cambridge University Press, 1992) andInstitutions and Democratic Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2001). Jan Teorell is associated professor of political science at Uppsala University. His articles on intra-party democracy, social capital, and political participation appear in international journals.     

The relevance of the detection of troponins to the forensic diagnosis of cardiac contusion

The forensic diagnosis of cardiac contusion has hitherto been based mainly on anamnesis, concomitant thoracic injuries and the detection of macroscopic changes to the heart. Parallel histological and serological investigations of the heart-specific troponins have been conducted with varying results. This paper aims to show whether heart-specific troponins are suitable as a means of securing the diagnosis in proven cases of cardiac contusion and of determining which of the three heart-specific troponins cTnT, cTnI and cTnC are most significant in serology and histology for postmortem diagnosis.In the study, 25 cases of known cardiac contusion and 11 controls without vital myocardial trauma taken from autopsy material were prospectively investigated. Investigation of the venous serum revealed significant differences in the concentrations of the case and control groups for troponin T (mean value 5.5056 versus 0.4982; p = 0.014), for troponin C (mean value 263.9280 versus 68.5640; p = 0.001) and for troponin I (mean value 1404.0560 versus 36.1650; p = 0.003). In histology there are also significantly different depletions between the groups investigated (cTnT: p = 0.002; cTnC: p = 0.003; cTnI: p < 0.001) taking into account the autolysis time.     

Birth spacing as a family strategy: evidence from 19th century Leuven, Belgium

This article investigates the hypothesis that 19th-century working class families in Leuven, Belgium, were controlling their fertility by means of birth spacing for household economic reasons. Detailed life-course data were collected in order to construct, on one hand, a set of covariates that represent the influences of natural fertility on birth intervals and, on the other, a number of family variables that represent the hypothetical, household economic motivation to space births. The findings strongly suggest that birth intervals were not merely a function of natural fertility differences and that family strategic spacing behavior also played a role.