Harmonious World and China’s Foreign Economic Policy: Features,Implications, and Challenges

Analysts oddly have neglected the foreign economic implications of China’s harmonious world and harmonious society doctrines. This article specifies the foreign economic policy effects of both, collectively termed harmonious world plus (HWP). It shows that HWP implies China’s continued integration into the global economic system, acceptance of the extant international economic order, and backing for increased cooperation and exchange, provided it is mutually beneficial. It further demonstrates that HWP implies support for global development, self-reliance, and multilateralism. Beyond this, the study reveals that HWP is likely to influence China’s interactions with international economic institutions, foreign investors, and its international resource dealings. Generally speaking, this article shows that China is making progress adhering to most of the tenets of HWP, though there are some areas for concern. It also reveals that convergences and divergences between HWP and China’s actual policies are attributable to national interests, China’s limited capabilities, and domestic politics. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard is associate director of the Center for U.S.-China Policy Studies and associate professor in the Department of International Relations at San Francisco State University (SFSU). He also is a Board Member of and Research Director for the Association of Chinese Political Studies. Dr. Blanchard’s research interests include China’s integration into the global economic system, China’s interactions with multinational corporations, Chinese multinational corporations, Sino-Japanese relations, and Chinese territorial and maritime issues. He is a co-editor of Harmonious World and China’s New Foreign Policy (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008), a co-editor of and contributor to Power and the Purse: Economic Statecraft, Interdependence, and National Security (London: Frank Cass, 2000), and the author of 20 book chapters and refereed journal articles.     

Sharing sovereignty for global regulation: The cases of fuel economy and online gambling

Globalization is sometimes taken as a synonym for market liberalization, because it is claimed that power has flowed from states to markets. Whether happening as a result of undeniable “forces” or some hegemonic consensus, many on both the left and right of politics agree that this is a reality. However, this article argues that states which share sovereignty with market actors are able to influence outcomes beyond their borders. The cases of fuel economy and online gambling regulations are used to illustrate the point. In the former case, Japanese and European industry‐driven regulations are being “exported” in the attributes of the products of their car industries. In the latter, UK market‐friendly regulations are likely to be “exported” to the European region and beyond because of industry support, and market liberalization principles embodied in European Union institutions. Both cases indicate that sharing sovereignty in the process of making and implementing national regulations produces opportunities for global regulation.     

The new Korean political economy: beyond the models of capitalism debate

Abstract

A key theme within the literature on the evolution of the Korean political economy since the 1997/8 crisis has been the extent to which Korea remains a ‘developmental state’ or has pursued radical neoliberal reform. These debates have not only reflected a concern with understanding the Korean economy but with a wider set of questions relating to the future of capitalist diversity within a globalized economy. By the late 1980s Korea had come to be regarded as a model of successful state-led late capitalist development. Korean modern economic history has insured that questions relating to the extent that it has pursued neoliberal reform have been of keen interest to students of political economy globally. This paper argues that substantive neoliberal reform has taken place in Korea since 1997. The thesis that a new ‘developmental state’ is in process of consolidating itself is simply wrong. However, the state's reform program interacted with material conditions and political coalitions at the meso level in a complex and uneven manner. In certain critical sectors, such as finance, a neoliberal regulatory regime has been consolidated. In others, such as telecommunications, developmentalist regulatory structures have proven to be highly resilient. In order to fully understand the complexity of the contemporary Korean political economy it is necessary, therefore, to prioritize the importance of meso-level analysis.     

新时期党的私营经济理论探析

改革开放30年,党的私营经济理论实现了三次重大飞跃:从"补充论"、"组成部分论"到"平等论"。这三次重大飞跃是建立在中国特色社会主义理论体系不断突破和创新基础上的:社会主义初级阶段论、社会主义市场经济论到科学发展观。深入研究新时期党的私营经济理论及其从中国特色社会主义理论体系中所获得的理论支持,无论在理论上还是实践上都有着重大意义。     

The violence work of transnational gangs in Central America

Abstract

According to international relations scholars, an important change taking place in the post-Cold War context concerns the lethality of non-state armed groups (NSAGs). Underlying this observation is the conventional assumption that non-state violence is intrinsically illegitimate. This article shifts the analysis of violence away from the terrain of legitimacy, which tends to moralise the difference between state and non-state forces, and towards the terrain of work, where their violence features as part and not separate from a shared political economy. I propose the notion of violence work as a resourceful analytic into the dialectics of everyday violence and the complex processes of value production in social life. Against the background of the extreme cruelty attributed to transnational gangs in Central America, I argue that their violence work is expressive of prevailing modes of accumulating wealth in the region. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, I show how gang violence work animates a system of economic cooperation that engages a wide array of subjects who traverse state/non-state and legal/illegal divides.     

Interrogating the Political Economy of Age

This article considers the argument by Tim Vlandas, in this issue, that an ageing electorate may undermine democracies’ ability to make the right economic choices. Vlandas suggests that the emergence of gerontocratic politics may give rise to ‘gerontonomia’: an economy run for the old, at the expense of younger generations and of future prosperity. However, evidence from the UK suggests a more mixed picture. Age-based voting patterns have been consequential around single issues, not least the 2016 Brexit referendum. However, voters’ interests in broad economic policy models are not easily reducible to age dynamics, and intergenerational politics are filtered through a set of normative and affective considerations beyond straightforward self-interest. Moreover, since the rational interests of different age groups do not speak for themselves, cueing by political elites is potentially significant and may be contributing to older voters’ relative tolerance of a poor economic record.     

The politics of Uber: Infrastructural power in the United States and Europe

Platform firms have been depicted as having structural and instrumental power and being able to prevail in regulatory battles. This article, in contrast, documents how they have often adapted to regulations and provide different services across locales. I show that platform firms have a specific type of power, infrastructural power, that stems from their position as mediators across a variety of actors. This power, I argue, is shaped by pre-existing regulations and the firms' strategic response, that I call “contentious compliance”: a double movement of adapting to existing regulations, while continuing to challenge them. I apply this framework to the expansion and regulation of Uber in New York City (US), Madrid (Spain), and Berlin (Germany).     

对网络世界的人文社会科学审视

网络不是纯技术问题.不可以忽视从人文社会科学视角看待网络.网络是社会、网络有助于提高生产率、网络本身特点有助于违法现象泛滥、网上道德规范具有特殊性、网络政治的特点是超国家、上网者需要心理健康.网络世界的物质文明与精神文明结合好,需要各门学科共同努力.     

Compared to what? Media-guided reference points and relative economic voting

The idea of the relative economy, or benchmarking economic voting, has been around for a long time. However, the choice of international benchmark(s) remains underspecified, especially in cross-national and time-series studies. This paper argues that the selection process of benchmark(s) should be guided by the theory suggesting that voters benchmark countries that are similar, familiar, and connected, and that media guide voters to appreciate these reference points. Using domestic media coverage from Lexis-Nexis spanning 22 languages, 29 democracies, and over 30 years, this research identifies the unique reference points across time and space. Analysis of this novel dataset shows that voters react strongly to relative economic performance when they make vote choices. Moreover, the benchmarking effects become more pronounced with highly educated populations, but are not affected by clarity of responsibility.     

Voting for development? Ruling coalitions and literacy in India

Across the world, governments skew the distribution of state resources for political gain. But does such politicisation of resource allocation affect development trajectories in the long run? We focus on the long-term effects of voting for the ruling coalition on primary education in India. Using a close-election instrumental variable design and drawing on a new socio-economic dataset of India's state assembly constituencies in 1971 and 2001, we examine whether areas represented by members of ruling coalitions experienced greater increases in literacy over 30 years. We find no evidence of this being the case, in the overall data or in relevant sub-samples. The null results are precisely estimated, and are consistent across OLS and 2SLS specifications and several robustness checks. These findings suggest the politicised distribution of some funds in the short run does not affect long-term development trajectories.