Institutionalization of the authoritarian leadership in China: a power succession system with Chinese characteristics?

To transfer power successfully at the top and prevent a leadership split during this process has always been extremely challenging for authoritarian regimes. Yet, power succession in China has demonstrated a high degree of stability in the past two decades. How did the authoritarian regime in China perform its leadership transition in an orderly and smooth manner? This paper argues that 30 years of institutionalization has resulted in the development of a power succession system with Chinese characteristics. By offering a large amount of primary and secondary data on Chinese elite politics, this paper analyses the institutional development of succession politics and its impacts on regime stability and legitimacy in China. The case of the Chinese succession system provides a dramatic example in understanding ‘authoritarian resilience’.     

从破坏性冲突到建设性冲突——老旧小区加装电梯的突围之道

老旧小区如何成功加装电梯日益凸显为城市社区治理中的老大难问题,代表不同利益的高低层住户之间的冲突在所难免。W市D小区一波三折的电梯加装过程显示:公共冲突既有正功能也有负功能;冲突的化解要采取整合的方式而非控制或妥协的方式;积极的制度环境对电梯加装工作起到了指导和推动作用;社区能人在冲突的化解中充当整合者的角色。在处理冲突时,要促使其从破坏性向建设性转变,努力整合各方利益,促进多方对话,同时充分发挥好制度环境和社区能人的作用。     

Strengthening the inner circle: the marriage networks of elite families in Joseon Korea

ABSTRACT

Socioeconomic homogamy is a prominent process for reproducing the social structure in preindustrial societies including East Asian countries. Although Joseon Korea was a centralized bureaucratic state under a king, the stratification system was unique by its ambiguity such that the previlege of an upper class was not officially confirmed. Since the social status was rather conferred by the reputation of the family, the quality of marriage relation was important for a man to be ranked as a central official. In this paper, we investigate patterns of social homogamy among elite families in the early Joseon Korea through empirical evidence of the relationship between official rank and spousal family background. We created a novel dataset by compiling the marriage network and official rank information of 14,508 individuals from the jokbos (族譜, genealogy) of 15 elite families and conduct an ordinal logit regression analysis to investigate whether spousal family background increases the probability of an individual being promoted in the bureaucracy. We find that the socio-political power of affinal kin has a greater effect on promotions than the descent and meritocratic effects. Particularly, the empirical evidence shows that marrying into a queen consort’s family increased the likelihood of an individual being ranked in a high position, which was beneficial for retaining the political power of him and the family. The study shows that marriage as a means of managing the socio-political inner circle of elite families, shaping the elites’ socio-political inner circle, built on the marriage network around a queen consort’s family to benefit the royal authority and the elite group.     

Do voters learn? Evidence that voters respond accurately to changes in political parties’ policy positions

A premise of the mass–elite linkage at the heart of representative democracy is that voters notice changes in political parties’ policy positions and update their party perceptions accordingly. However, recent studies question the ability of voters accurately to perceive changes in parties’ positions. The study advances this literature with a two-wave panel survey design that measured voters’ perception of party positions before and after a major policy shift by parties in the government coalition in Denmark 2011–2013. Two key findings extend previous work. First, voters do indeed pay attention to parties when they visibly change policy position. Second, voters update their perceptions of the party positions much more accurately than would have been expected if they merely relied on a ‘coalition heuristic’ as a rule-of-thumb. These findings imply that under some conditions voters are better able to make meaningful political choices than previous work suggests.     

Media Motivation and Elite Rhetoric in Comparative Perspective

The exchange of diverse points of view in elite deliberation is considered a cornerstone of democracy. This study presents evidence that variations in political motivation for media use predict the tendency of politicians to present deliberative rhetoric that considers multiple points of view regarding issues and sees those views as related to one another. We surveyed 111 incumbent Members of Parliament in Belgium, Canada, and Israel and analyzed a large sample of their parliamentary speeches. The findings demonstrate that motivation to attain media coverage and act upon information from the news media leads politicians to strategically display simple and unidimensional rhetoric due to newsworthiness considerations, but only in countries where the media constitute important resources for reelection. The results contribute to extant literature by demonstrating a media effect on elite deliberation and by emphasizing the moderating role of political systems on the nature of elite rhetoric.     

中国共产党执政的组织基础:精英转换与精英塑造

执政骨干队伍建设是中国共产党长期执政的组织基础和人才支撑,因此,加强对执政精英的基础性研究,便成为中国共产党需要完成的重大时代课题.在对相关文献进行梳理的基础上,运用贝尔的"中轴原理",揭示新中国成立以来中国共产党革命精英、技术精英和政治精英转换和塑造的政治—经济动因;分析中国共产党在长期的精英转换和塑造中形成的培养接...     

司法的悖论——司法的民主化与司法的精英化之矛盾探究

针对当前中国学者围绕中国司法制度改革中所面临的一对主要矛盾,即司法的民主化与司法的精英化之矛盾所展开的争论进行探讨,试图以内在的视角考察西方司法制度的历史,揭示作为司法手段的司法的精英化与司法的民主化之间存在的张力,进而阐明西方人是如何运用自己的智慧协调二者之间的关系寻求二者之间的和谐并使之共同服务于司法的目的,即公正裁判维护社会正义.而对于中国目前的司法改革来说应当如何处理二者之间的关系,在弄清司法之目的基础上应当以内在的视角考察中国当下的司法传统,在此基础之上,寻找作为人类共识的思维方式之中的共性.     

Conserving the Constitution? The Conservative Party and Democratic Renewal

In 2008 David Cameron declared that the Conservative party was 'ready for government' and suggested that 'the change we need is not just from Labour's old policies to our new policies… It's about a change from old politics to new politics'. This 'new politics' narrative is something of a cliché: British constitutional history reveals a regular pattern whereby opposition parties renege upon implementing far-reaching constitutional and democratic reforms once they win power. It is in this context that this article draws upon documentary analysis and a number of interviews to examine the Conservative party's position on constitutional reform and democratic renewal. It concludes that although the Conservative party has spent the last decade decrying the 'destruction' of the constitution it has undertaken little detailed preparatory work in relation to how it might seek to alter the governance of Britain. As a result the research presented in this article provides a number of insights into elite politics, strategic game-playing and executive veto capacities within a context of growing political disengagement from politics and falling levels of trust in politics.     

在权威与精英之间：新加坡政治运行的内在逻辑分析

新加坡到底是权威主义还是精英民主,学术界存在争论,引发这一争论的根本原因在于对精英与权威关系的模糊不清。新加坡的政治运作遵循的是一种实用主义的理念,它是以对权威和精英作用最大化的发挥为导向的。厘清新加坡政治运作过程中权威与精英之间的内在逻辑,有利于对新加坡政治的研究。     

菲律宾精英家族政治的历史演进分析

菲律宾政治带有浓厚的精英家族特色,精英家族政治的起源可追溯到前殖民时期,历经西班牙殖民时期、民族独立革命时期、美国殖民时期、两党民主时期和马科斯独裁时期。在历史演进过程中,一方面,精英家族政治权力由地方向中央延伸并最终垄断国家政治权力;另一方面,精英家族政治所依赖的经济基础从较单一的农业向多样化的工商业发展。可以判断,长期存在的精英家族政治是菲律宾依然相当落后的一个重要原因。