Providing Public Goods in Transitional China

Providing Public Goods in Transitional China

Author: A. Saich

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-09-29

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0230615430

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China's leaders are confronted with building a new support system in the countryside, shifting the burden in urban China from the factory to the local state, and integrating new social groups into existing systems. This book comprises a detailed study of healthcare, disease control, social insurance and social relief.


Providing Public Goods in Transitional China

Providing Public Goods in Transitional China

Author: Tony Saich

Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13:

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China’s leaders faced a major challenge to provide citizens with acceptable social welfare during the economic transition. They are confronted with building a new support system in the countryside, shifting the burden in urban China from the factory to the local state, and integrating new social groups, into existing systems. The book comprises a detailed study of healthcare, disease control, social insurance and social relief.


Accountability without Democracy

Accountability without Democracy

Author: Lily L. Tsai

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-08-27

Total Pages: 55

ISBN-13: 1139466488

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Examines the fundamental issue of how citizens get government officials to provide them with the roads, schools, and other public services they need by studying communities in rural China. In authoritarian and transitional systems, formal institutions for holding government officials accountable are often weak. The state often lacks sufficient resources to monitor its officials closely, and citizens are limited in their power to elect officials they believe will perform well and to remove them when they do not. The answer, Lily L. Tsai found, lies in a community's social institutions. Even when formal democratic and bureaucratic institutions of accountability are weak, government officials can still be subject to informal rules and norms created by community solidary groups that have earned high moral standing in the community.


Rural–Urban Dichotomies and Spatial Development in Asia

Rural–Urban Dichotomies and Spatial Development in Asia

Author: Amitrajeet A. Batabyal

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-07-01

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9811612323

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This edited book brings together in one place new studies of rural–urban interactions and their implications for regional growth and development in different regions within Asia. Specifically, the individual chapters in the book shed light on the different kinds of rural–urban interactions that we witness in Asian regions, particularly those that are based on migration, poverty, inequality, education, economic dependence, and the flow of goods and services. The book departs from the existing literature in three ways. First, it explicitly recognizes that different kinds of rural–urban interactions have dissimilar impacts on the lives and hence on the welfare of the residents of rural and urban regions. Second, the book emphasizes the varied spatial and temporal dimensions of the interactions and the ways in which these dimensions influence rural and urban societies. Third, this book demonstrates the ways in which an understanding of the preceding two points contributes to our knowledge about economic growth and development. Because Asia is the fastest-growing and most dynamic continent in the world today, the research delineated in the individual chapters of the book provides practical guidance concerning two salient questions. First, how do we effectively address the economic development challenges stemming from the interactions between alternate rural and urban regions within Asia? Second, how do we ensure that the policies we design to address these challenges give rise to broad-based economic growth and development that is sustainable?


The Dictator's Dilemma

The Dictator's Dilemma

Author: Bruce Dickson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-05-16

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0190228571

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Many observers predicted the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party following the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, and again following the serial collapse of communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain. Their prediction, however, never proved true. Despite minor setbacks, China has experienced explosive economic growth and relative political stability ever since 1989. In The Dictator's Dilemma, eminent China scholar Bruce Dickson provides a comprehensive explanation for regime's continued survival and prosperity. Dickson contends that the popular media narrative of the party's impending implosion ignores some basic facts. The regime's policies may generate resentment and protest, but the CCP still enjoys a surprisingly high level of popular support. Nor is the party is not cut off from the people it governs. It consults with a wide range of specialists, stakeholders, and members of the general public in a selective yet extensive manner. Further, it tolerates and even encourages a growing and diverse civil society, even while restricting access to it. Today, the majority of Chinese people see the regime as increasingly democratic even though it does not allow political competition and its leaders are not accountable to the electorate. In short, while the Chinese people may prefer change, they prefer that it occurs within the existing political framework. In reaching this conclusion, Dickson draws upon original public opinion surveys, interviews, and published materials to explain why there is so much popular support for the regime. This basic stability is a familiar story to China specialists, but not to those whose knowledge of contemporary China is limited to the popular media. The Dictator's Dilemma, an engaging synthesis of how the CCP rules and its future prospects, will enlighten both audiences, and will be essential for anyone interested in understanding China's increasing importance in world politics.


China at 60

China at 60

Author: Lai-Ha Chan

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9814299294

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This edited volume, China at 60, explores the interactions between China and the world, over the course of 60 years of Communist Party rule since 1949 and the impact of these interactions on China's domestic development. To understand China's development experience and its transformation, it is necessary to examine the trajectory of development from pre-reform to post-reform periods. While the book may concur with previous findings on the changing development of China under economic reform, more importantly, it demonstrates the areas of continuity of the PRC's existence over the entire six decades. To that end, a dual theme ? change-and-continuity and global-local interactions on China's development ? is adopted to assess the historical development of China's policies in various issueareas over the past 60 years. The focus is chiefly on the domestic impacts of China's increasing engagement with the world, the global implications of China's reform efforts and growing power, and the long-lasting uniqueness of this rising non-European nation.The book brings together a team of international experts to share their perspectives on global-local interactions within a range of different topics, including foreign policy, domestic politics, macroeconomic policy, the central-local relations, the People's Liberation Army, public health, energy security, finance and banking, foreign trade, and intellectual property rights, as well as changes in the state's policies towards interest groups such as ethnic minorities and women.


State-Society Relations in the People’s Republic of China Post-1949

State-Society Relations in the People’s Republic of China Post-1949

Author: Tony Saich

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-05-30

Total Pages: 65

ISBN-13: 9004322949

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This review essay provides an analytical review of the most important works on the evolving nature of the state-society relationship in China post-1949. It is not intended to provide a new theoretical framework for understanding state-society relations; rather, the goal is to draw together the most important analyses in Western and Chinese writings. We begin by looking at the changing role of two key institutions that have been used by the state to manage society: the household registration system and the workplace. The analysis of the Maoist period looks at theories derived from Soviet studies as well as those that draw on the Chinese Communist Party’s own experiences pre-1949. We complete the review by looking at competing theories such as civil society, corporatism, or authoritarian resilience that seek to define the relationship and then look in depth at how to categorize the variety of state-society relations at the local level.


China Engages Global Governance

China Engages Global Governance

Author: Gerald Chan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-10-20

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 113544997X

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This book focuses on China’s increasing involvement in global governance as a result of the phenomenal rise of its economy and global power. It examines whether and in what ways China is capable of participating in multilateral interactions; if it is willing and able to provide global public goods to address a wide array of global problems; and what impact this would have on both global governance and order. The book provides a comprehensive assessment of China’s increasing influence over how world affairs are being managed; how far China, with increasing clout, interacts with other major powers in global governance, and what the consequences and implications are for the evolving global system and world order. This book is the first to explore China’s engagement with global governance in traditional and new securities.


Thirsty Cities

Thirsty Cities

Author: Selina Ho

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-01-10

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1108651240

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Why does authoritarian China provide a higher level of public goods than democratic India? Studies based on regime type have shown that the level of public goods provision is higher in democratic systems than in authoritarian forms of government. However, public goods provision in China and India contradicts these findings. Whether in terms of access to education, healthcare, public transportation, and basic necessities, such as drinking water and electricity, China does consistently better than India. This book argues that regime type does not determine public goods outcomes. Using empirical evidence from the Chinese and Indian municipal water sectors, the study explains and demonstrates how a social contract, an informal institution, influences formal institutional design, which in turn accounts for the variations in public goods provision.


The Party and the People

The Party and the People

Author: Bruce Dickson

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-05-23

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0691216975

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How the Chinese Communist Party maintains its power by both repressing and responding to its people Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained unrivaled control over the country, persisting even in the face of economic calamity, widespread social upheaval, and violence against its own people. Yet the party does not sustain dominance through repressive tactics alone—it pairs this with surprising responsiveness to the public. The Party and the People explores how this paradox has helped the CCP endure for decades, and how this balance has shifted increasingly toward repression under the rule of President Xi Jinping. Delving into the tenuous binary of repression and responsivity, Bruce Dickson illuminates numerous questions surrounding the CCP’s rule: How does it choose leaders and create policies? When does it allow protests? Will China become democratic? Dickson shows that the party’s dual approach lies at the core of its practices—repression when dealing with existential, political threats or challenges to its authority, and responsiveness when confronting localized economic or social unrest. The state answers favorably to the demands of protesters on certain issues, such as local environmental hazards and healthcare, but deals harshly with others, such as protests in Tibet, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong. With the CCP’s greater reliance on suppression since Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012, Dickson considers the ways that this tipping of the scales will influence China’s future. Bringing together a vast body of sources, The Party and the People sheds new light on how the relationship between the Chinese state and its citizens shapes governance.