FROM COUNTY MAGISTRATE TO COUNTY HEAD: THE ROLE AND SELECTION OF SENIOR COUNTY OFFICIALS IN GUANGDONG PROVINCE IN THE TRANSITION FROM EMPIRE TO REPUBLIC

Abstract

When China became a republic in 1912, the country’s core territorial units of province and county were retained intact. Continuity in the territorial architecture of state from empire to republic invites the question of whether provinces and counties were institutionally identical before and after the revolution. This paper explores adjustments made to the county level of government aimed at meeting republican ideals of good government and popular sovereignty. It probes changes in the roles assigned to county heads and the patterns of their appointment in Guangdong relating to educational qualifications, native places, and tenure over the transitional period. Employing magistrate tenure as a proxy for the stability of local government, the paper correlates variations in the length of tenure with other variables at the provincial and sub-provincial levels of government, including competition between different echelon levels, disputes between military and civil authorities, in-fighting among regime factions, and methods of appointment varying over time from appointment by administrative fiat to county-head elections. By relating these variables to longitudinal data on magistrates’ length of tenure, it identifies some of the challenges facing provincial and county authorities in trying to manage the revolutionary transition from empire to republic at the local level while keeping the inherited territorial system largely intact.     

Public opinion as a dependent variable: A framework for analysis

This paper outlines an approach to examining how public opinion is taken into consideration by political and governmental leaders and reviews recent studies that have followed this approach to evaluate the extent to which public opinion is subject to manipulation by political elites in diverse circumstances. The central idea of this approach is to treat public opinion as a “dependent variable” and to examine the role of the mass media in linking elite initiatives and the public. Instead of starting with polls that presume public opinion is an independent force, we start with elites and presume that they try to manipulate public opinion through the mass media and by other means. First, we look at why the emphasis on the independent nature of public opinion has become so prominent in political science. We argue here that viewing public opinion as a dependent variable is a more promising perspective. Next, we review and evaluate a number of studies that attempt to demonstrate the fruitfulness of our suggested approach. Each of the studies analyzed focuses on the initiatives of political elites and monitors the success of their efforts with targeted groups. These studies demonstrate the conditions that favor elite control as well as the opportunities for citizens to limit such control. In our conclusion, we outline a theory of the role of public opinion in modern mass democracies.     

Labour protest and industrial peace: Russian steelworkers’ encounters with economic reforms and unravelling social protections

Abstract

This paper is about knowledge limits and the financial crisis. It begins by examining various existing accounts of crisis which disagree about the causes, but share the belief that the crisis represents a problem of socio-technical malfunction which requires some kind of technocratic fix: the three variants on this explanation are the crisis as accident, conspiracy or calculative failure. This paper proposes an alternative explanation which frames the crisis differently as an elite political debacle. Political and technocratic elites were hubristically detached from the process of financial innovation as it took the form of ‘bricolage’, which put finance beyond technical control or management. The paper raises fundamental questions about the politicized role of technocrats after the 1980s and emphasizes the need to bring private finance and its public regulators under democratic political control whose technical precondition is a dramatic simplification of finance.     

The Swiss business elite (1980–2000): how the changing composition of the elite explains the decline of the Swiss company network

Abstract

In this paper we analyse the decline of the Swiss corporate network between 1980 and 2000. We address the theoretical and methodological challenge of this transformation by the use of a combination of network analysis and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). Based on a sample of top managers of the 110 largest Swiss companies in 1980 and 2000 we show that, beyond an adjustment to structural pressure, an explanation of the decline of the network has to include the strategies of the fractions of the business elites. We reveal that three factors contribute crucially to the decline of the Swiss corporate network: the managerialization of industrial leaders, the marginalization of law degree holders and the influx of hardly connected foreign managers.     

In search of blue water power: The PLA navy's maritime strategy in the 1990s

Abstract

A new literature attributes the resilience of hybrid regimes to the ways in which institutions and procedures can be manipulated. This article contends, however, that more crucial for resilience than manipulable institutions are the distinct and prior sets of relations between elites, mass publics and foreign investors. To test this thesis, analysis focuses on Malaysia, a country whose regime is regarded as hybrid, yet whose resilience has recently fluctuated. The last years of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's prime ministership are thus contrasted with the first year in office of his successor, Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi. Greater attention is given to Abdullah's tenure, finding that under his leadership, Malaysia's hybrid regime has re-equilibrated.     

地方政府创新与政府体制改革

文章分析了地方政府创新的客观空间和动力,探讨了它在坚持与推广方面存在的问题、原因及对策,论述了地方政府创新与政府体制改革之间的关系。     

网络拓扑型政府组织模式的构建

网络拓扑技术作为一类信息技术，俨然已从过去最初的单纯的通讯传输与学术交流的技术手段和工具，演变为了在商贸、教育、科研、管理等方面广为应用的技术手段和工具。在当今网络时代传统政府组织模式不断受到质疑和冲击，政府必须积极应对、努力探索，应用信息手段适当地进行其组织模式的构建。运用网络拓扑技术构建网络拓扑型政府组织模式将引导我们逐步走向一个全新的复合型政府的管理世界，对于当前我国行政体制改革无疑具有深远的现实意义。     

浅析我国政府执行力的建构

政府效率的高低关键要看政府的执行力度，因此，构建我国政府执行力是一个重要的课题。鉴于政府执行力低、行政理念落后等一系列现存问题，应该理清政府执行力的各个层面，遵循行政逻辑思路来构建我国的政府执行力。     

论科学发展观视野下政府战略管理能力的提升

科学发展观视野下政府战略管理应该具有开放的管理观念、远大的管理目标、卓越的管理能力、灵活高效的管理体制以及现代化的管理手段。按照科学发展观的要求提升政府战略管理能力,是政府统筹发展模式从计划管理到战略管理的转变,客观上要求或势必引发从理论到实践、从观念到体制、从中央到地方、从立法到施政的一系列深刻变革。     

试论当代中国政府结构的优化

政府是为了满足社会的公共需要而产生的。而结构功能理论认为,结构决定功能。因而在此理论视阈下,一种优化的政府结构是政府有效运作的必要条件,有助于政府更好地履行职责,满足社会的公共需要。围绕着政府职责这个轴心,可以将政府结构分为政府的总体规模、政府间关系结构和官员结构三个紧密相联的层面。而对于正处于社会转型期的中国而言,探讨政府结构优化问题显得尤为紧迫和重要。