China Goes to Africa: a strategic move?

Entering the twenty-first century, particularly under the reign of Hu Jintao, China began to pursue an increasingly pro-active diplomacy in Africa. Most analysis on China's offensive diplomacy in Africa focuses on Beijing's thirst for energy and raw materials, and for economic profits and benefits. That is why it is often called ‘energy diplomacy’ or ‘economic diplomacy’ as if China, just like Japan in the 1980s, became another ‘economic animal’. But if one looks at the history of the PRC's foreign policy, Beijing has seldom pursued its diplomacy from purely economic considerations. Is this time any different? This article exams China's diplomacy in Africa from a strategic and political perspective such as its geo-strategic calculations, political and security ties with African countries, peacekeeping and anti-piracy efforts in the region, support for African regionalism, etc. It argues that China's diplomatic expansion in Africa, while partially driven by its need for economic growth, cannot be fully understood without taking into consideration its strategic impulse accompanying its accelerating emergence as a global power. Africa is one of China's diplomatic ‘new frontiers’ as exemplified by new Chinese leader Xi Jinping's maiden foreign trip to Africa in 2013.     

Media and Chinese Foreign Policy

In recent years, the relationship between the media and the foreign policy-making process in China has become more interactive and even a typical symbiosis. This paper attempts to conduct preliminary research on this very dynamic and changing relationship in the context of Sino–Japan relations. It argues that the Chinese media helps shape the agenda for foreign policy makers, narrow down the set of policy options, change the pace of policy making and implementation, and influence the direction of the final decision. Yet more often than not, the government still controls and regulates the reporting by the media on foreign policy issues. Once the media is perceived as going too far, the government never hesitates to rein it in through various internal and external mechanisms.     

The Non-Procedural Determinants of Responsiveness

This article starts from the remarks by Peter Mair on the growing gap between responsiveness and responsibility – or middle-run responsiveness – and the declining capacity of parties to bridge that gap. It focuses on the empirical analysis of the association between economic and substantive democratic dimensions and responsiveness, which are highly relevant to the way in which parties compete and govern within contemporary democracies. Following an introduction of the topic, the second section puts forward key concepts and hypotheses; the third presents the operationalisation of the variables and the applied method; the fourth and primary empirical section of the article analyses the non-procedural determinants of political and economic responsiveness, including freedom and equality as well as several key economic structural factors. The concluding remarks recapitulate the main empirical findings and submit a number of aspects that party leaders ought to take into account when addressing the thorny issue of responsiveness.     

Policy Advocacy in Hard Times: The Impact of Economic Performance on Gendering Executive Attention

Securing executive attention for new policy demands is notoriously difficult as governmental agendas are crowded by established or ‘core’ policy issues. This article investigates whether it is harder for new and costly policy issues to reach the government agenda when the economy is performing badly. It examines whether, and the extent to which, costly gender equality issues regarding women’s access to the labour market, equal treatment at work and care activities, are more likely to achieve executive attention when the economy is performing well. Using the Comparative Policy Agendas database, a systematic, quantitative analysis is conducted of when and why policies promoting sex equality in the division of labour reach executive agendas. The findings confirm that advocacy for costly gender equality measures is easier to make in times of economic growth. It is also found that female representation in parliament strengthens advocacy for executive attention and reduces friction on policy agenda change.     

Constructive Ambiguity: Comparing the EU’s Energy and Defence Policies

This article explores the paradox of constructive ambiguity. Based on a focused, longitudinal comparison of the European Union’s energy and defence policies, it analyses the role played by strategies of ambiguity in European integration. Ambiguity is found to be an attractive strategy for political entrepreneurs when member state preferences are heterogeneous and the EU’s legal basis is weak. It is likely to be effective, however, only if it is embedded in an institutional opportunity structure – that is, a formal-legal context – that entrepreneurs can fold into their strategic repertoire of ideas. While ambiguity can be strategic in circumstances where clarity would create strong opposition, it is not sufficient to entrench a European policy if it does not rest on an institutional basis. This suggests that European political entrepreneurs should be wary of relying on coalition building by ambiguity only.     

我们应该关注什么:关于公共行政学“大问题”的争论

身份危机一直困扰着公共行政学,由此也产生了诸多关于什么是公共行政学大问题的争论。对公共行政学大问题的回答并不主要依赖于我们的知识视野和理论建构,相反它可能更依赖于我们的信仰,依赖于我们如何认识公共行政在社会中的身份和角色。依据范畴(boundary)、焦点(core)、关键词(key words)与论题(issue)等四个要素,公共行政大问题可界定为三个维度:制度层面的合法行政大问题所回答的是,公共行政始于何处;组织层面的有效行政大问题所回答的是:公共行政自身如何运行;价值层面的责任行政所回答的问题是:公共行政归于何处。公共行政学大问题之所以是一个问题,并不是因为我们找不到答案,而是因为这本身可能就不存在一个标准的答案。公共行政学能否回答这些大问题,与公共行政学的知识获得模式紧密相关,也与研究者的理论自觉有关。