DIALOGUE WITH THE WEST

Abstract

This portrayal of China by one of the most respected intellectuals ever to emerge from the shadowy labyrinth of the American diplomatic establishment mirrors twenty years of concentrated work by American China scholars. Not every China expert would accept all of Kennan's assumptions or express them in such strident form. Yet over the last two decades the China profession has evolved a style of thought, a mode of asking questions, which has largely substantiated such views in both the public and scholarly worlds. The majority of China watchers have pleaded for “tolerance” and “patience” towards the People's Republic as she gradually learns, aided by a flexible American containment policy, to “adjust” to the “international community of nations” and the “rationalizing” qualities implicit in the “modernization” process. While protesting against certain aspects of America's foreign policy toward China, however, their thought and work has reinforced, at times deepened, the ideological justifications that support America's role in Asia and her attitudes towards China.     

New Labour's modernization in the public sector: a neo-Durkheimian approach and the case of mental health services

Five accounts of New Labour's style of public management reform can be identified in the recent academic literature. Although each has merits, none is wholly convincing. After a discussion of their scope and limits, this article offers a distinctive account, grounded in wider social theory, which also synthesizes the most valuable elements in the five mainstream accounts. The article then uses the case of New Labour's reforms of the mental health system to support this account, showing how it exemplifies each of the 15 major strands of reform activity that have together been the hallmark of what in practice New Labour has meant by 'modernization'. This provides the basis for a critique of the limits and dangers of the New Labour style.     

A Tale of Two Courts: The Judicialization of Electoral Politics in Asia

This article examines the judicialization of electoral politics in Asia, an important but understudied trend, as demonstrated in Thailand and Indonesia. Though the constitutional courts in both have similar histories and institutional arrangements, their electoral interventions vary radically. We argue that the diffusion or concentration of power among post‐transition elites determines whether the effect of judicial activism will be to shore up or undermine electoral governance. Where power is diffused, as in Indonesia, political actors, less able to impose their own will on the judiciary, seem to prefer a credible referee, which fosters electoral competition. Where power is concentrated, as in Thailand, elites have both the motive and the means to turn judicial activism to antidemocratic ends. By focusing on the ends, rather than the means, of judicial activism, this account goes beyond personalities and institutional design to enhance understanding of the role of the courts in transitional democracies.     

Health care and AIDS

The acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a harbinger for change in health care. There are many powerful forces poised to transform the industrialized health care structure of the twentieth century, and AIDS may act as either a catalyst or an amplifier for these forces. AIDS could, for example, swamp local resources and thereby help trigger national reform in a health care system that has already lost public confidence. AIDS can also hasten the paradigm shift that is occurring throughout health care. Many of the choices society will confront when dealing with AIDS carry implications beyond health care. Information about who has the disease, for example, already pits traditional individual rights against group interests. Future information systems could make discrimination based upon medical records a nightmare for a growing number of individuals. Yet these systems also offer the hope of accelerated progress against not only AIDS but other major health threats as well. The policy choices that will define society's response to AIDS can best be made in the context of a clearly articulated vision of a society that reflects our deepest values.     

More, Less, or More of the Same? Trends in State Social Welfare Policy in the 1990s

Major reforms to cash assistance and other welfare programsin the 1990s raise questions about whether states gained newflexibility in setting social policies, and, if so, how theyexercised this flexibility. We extend prior research on statesocial policy by examining trends during the middle to late1990s in five areas of cash or near-cash policy affecting theeconomic security of low-income families. We find evidence ofsubstantial change in the generosity and the availability ofthese benefits between 1994 and 1999, along with evidence ofgreater divergence or cross-state variation in policy choices.By considering several forms of assistance simultaneously, wealso find evidence that states constricted traditional welfare-basedassistance while expanding some forms of non-welfare supportfor the working poor.