Public Administration Research in Mainland China: A Systematic Review of Chinese Public Administration in English Language Journals (1996–2016)

This study provides a systematic review of the development of Chinese public administration in English language journals. An analysis of articles in the top 25 English-language public administration journals worldwide from 1996 to 2016 confirmed increases in both the number and significance of studies of Chinese public administration. A systematic content analysis of abstracts of previous studies was performed and showed that social development and administrative reform were among the most important topics. With respect to the methodology of this study, qualitative methods were more frequently used than quantitative or mixed methods. Finally, implications for future research on Chinese public administration are discussed.     

族群战争的爆发：一个广义理论

基于两个分析性的创新：对社会事实秉持以机制为基础的理解路径和对动态交互影响的强调,作者提出了一个有关族群战争爆发的广义理论,并利用两种元机制——安全困境/螺旋模型和群体间–群体内互动——作为“元综合器”,将战争的影响因素与冲突行为的直接驱动力联系起来,对散布在现有文献中的众多因素和机制加以综合,形成了一个更具整合性且动态的族群战争理论。该理论不但整合了既有文献中已经识别的众多因素和机制,而且揭示了先前被隐藏或被忽视的因素、互动和机制,由此指明未来在这些方向的探究将是硕果累累。     

Ebola vaccines,evidentiary charisma and the rise of global health emergency research

Abstract

The 2013–2016 West African Ebola outbreak was both a catastrophic public health disaster and a rare research opportunity. This paper analyses how the tensions between the humanitarian imperatives of disease control and the epistemic conventions of bioscientific inquiry played out in the accelerated development, testing and licensure of Ebola vaccines. Beginning with the epidemiological projections of the disease’s spread, the paper develops the notion of evidentiary charisma to capture the power of experimental designs and data packages to marshal public health salience, recruit moral legitimacy and short-circuit scientific contestation. Attention to the charismatic dimensions of Ebola vaccine R&D helps to unpick the simultaneous appeals to exception and convention in the unfolding of a global health crisis, and to trace the normative and technical contours of the emerging paradigm of emergency research.     

Facts,power and global evidence: a new empire of truth

Abstract

What are the epistemological and political contours of evidence today? This introduction to the special issue lays out key shifts in the contemporary politics of knowledge and describes the collective contribution of the six papers as an articulation of what we describe as a ‘new empiricism’, exploring how earlier historical appeals to evidence to defend political power and decision-making both chime with and differ from those of the contemporary era. We outline some emerging empirical frontiers in the study of instruments of calculation, from the evolution of the randomized controlled trial (RCT) to the growing importance of big data, and explore how these methodological transformations intersect with the alleged crisis of expertise in the ‘post-truth’ era. In so doing, we suggest that the ambiguity of evidence can be a powerful tool in itself, and we relate this ambiguity to the ideological commitment and moral fervour that is elicited through appeals to, and the performance of, evaluation.     

Membership Premium or Self-Selection? Communist Party Recruitment and Social Stratification in Urban China

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Although a large literature has found the enduring income advantages of Communist Party members in post-reform socialist economies, little is known about...     

Choosing to be political: some reflections on youth activism in the US

This article explores youth activism in the US, not through the lens of collective action, but as the product of personal choices. By drawing on existentialism, and particularly on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, this article proposes to shift the focus of the debate from youths’ collective action to the self – a conscious self that observes, perceives and makes sense of the surrounding world through personal experience. It is this conscious self that decides how, and whether, to intervene against the ‘wrong’ that the self experiences. In this perspective, it is not only the acts (of citizenship) that matter, but the conscious process through which the self chooses to become political. Such an understanding will ultimately help uncover not only how the undocumented act and how to conceptualise their acts but also how they perceive and experience their current status and who they want to become.     

Reading between the lines: party cues and SNP support for Scottish independence and Brexit

Scotland’s future within the European Union (EU) played a prominent role in the 2014 independence referendum. The story goes that latent supporters of independence voted to stay within the UK to maintain EU access. Defeated, Scottish leaders declared the referendum a once-in-a-life-time event only repeated if conditions substantially changed. With the UK now facing a chaotic exit from the EU, proponents of Scottish independence have suggested that a second referendum may occur after Brexit negotiations are completed. Faced with a consensus among Scottish party leaders in supporting EU membership, those hoping for a second independence referendum, we argue, looked to alternate sources of information that saw Brexit as an opportunity to create the conditions that would spur a second referendum. Using panel data from the British Election Study, we examine whether Scottish voters voted tactically to leave the EU. We argue that Scottish National Party voters were likely to interpret statements on the conditions for a second independence referendum as an implicit signal to vote “Leave.” The results have important implications for the role of referendums in representative democracy, strategic voting, and the importance of intra-party division on individual vote choices.     

Defected and loyal? A case study of counter-defection mechanisms inside Chechen paramilitaries

Can former insurgents in the service of counterinsurgent paramilitaries be considered a perfectly loyal force? What mechanisms may help to deter subsequent defections of individuals who have already “betrayed” once? Drawing on a unique set of primary data, this article examines the effective counter-defection practices of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow paramilitaries toward prospective defectors from among ex-insurgents. It explores three interwoven mechanisms employed with various intensities to avert “double defections” at the peak of the locally fought counterinsurgency in Chechnya from 2000 to 2005. These mechanisms are: a) extrajudicial executions of recidivists and their relatives, b) initiation violence targeting insurgents’ relatives, and c) disclosure of the identities of defected insurgents who were responsible for killing insurgents in combat to the families of slain insurgents.     

Antifa,Street Gangs,and the Importance of Group Processes

This essay reviews David Pyrooz and James Densley’s “On Public Protest, Violence, and Street Gangs” and raises new questions about the ways in which Antifa is similar to and different from social movements; the processes by which “factions within Antifa” become gangs; and the dynamic nature of relationships and interactions between and among violent and non-violent segments. It concludes with a note about the everchanging nature of social life and importance of flexibility in the design and execution of research in capturing this reality.