Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Chen Weiss

AbstractHow can authoritarian states credibly signal their intentions in international crises? Nationalist, antiforeign protests are one mechanism by which authoritarian leaders can visibly demonstrate their domestic vulnerability. Because protests in authoritarian states are risky and costly to repress, the decision to allow or stifle popular mobilization is informative. The threat of instability demonstrates resolve, and the cost of concession increases the credibility of a tough stance. The danger of instability and escalation increases foreign incentives to make concessions and preserve the status quo. This logic helps explain the pattern of authoritarian tolerance and repression toward nationalist protest. A case study of two U.S.-China crises shows how China's management of anti-American protests affected U.S. beliefs about Chinese resolve.

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. e042553
Author(s):  
Youngji Jo ◽  
Amnesty Elizabeth LeFevre ◽  
Hasmot Ali ◽  
Sucheta Mehra ◽  
Kelsey Alland ◽  
...  

ObjectiveWe estimated the cost-effectiveness of a digital health intervention package (mCARE) for community health workers, on pregnancy surveillance and care-seeking reminders compared with the existing paper-based status quo, from 2018 to 2027, in Bangladesh.InterventionsThe mCARE programme involved digitally enhanced pregnancy surveillance, individually targeted text messages and in-person home-visit to pregnant women for care-seeking reminders for antenatal care, child delivery and postnatal care.Study designWe developed a model to project population and service coverage increases with annual geographical expansion (from 1 million to 10 million population over 10 years) of the mCARE programme and the status quo.Major outcomesFor this modelling study, we used Lives Saved Tool to estimate the number of deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) that would be averted by 2027, if the coverage of health interventions was increased in mCARE programme and the status quo, respectively. Economic costs were captured from a societal perspective using an ingredients approach and expressed in 2018 US dollars. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis was undertaken to account for parameter uncertainties.ResultsWe estimated the mCARE programme to avert 3076 deaths by 2027 at an incremental cost of $43 million relative to the status quo, which is translated to $462 per DALY averted. The societal costs were estimated to be $115 million for mCARE programme (48% of which are programme costs, 35% user costs and 17% provider costs). With the continued implementation and geographical scaling-up, the mCARE programme improved its cost-effectiveness from $1152 to $462 per DALY averted from 5 to 10 years.ConclusionMobile phone-based pregnancy surveillance systems with individually scheduled text messages and home-visit reminder strategies can be highly cost-effective in Bangladesh. The cost-effectiveness may improve as it promotes facility-based child delivery and achieves greater programme cost efficiency with programme scale and sustainability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-191
Author(s):  
Hasbi Aswar ◽  
Danial Bin Mohd. Yusof ◽  
Rohana Binti Abdul Hamid

In a social movement study, countermovement emerges when certain movement is considered to bring threat to the status quo or the current political and social condition. Social movement seeks for changing the existing situation while the countermovement pursues to keep it. As a result, the conflict between two becomes inevitable, where both will compete to win over the other. The existence of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Indonesia (HTI) for years is responded by some Islamic groups especially Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and its allies, as threat to the Indonesian life due to the idea brought by HTI. It becomes the root of conflict between HTI and other Islamic groups in Indonesia. This article aims to explain the conflict between HTI and other Islamic groups by elaborating the effort of the Islamic groups to counter the HTI narratives and mobilization by using countermovement approach in social movement studies. This article is a case study research and using mainly secondary data to analyze the issue. This article found that Nahdlatul Ulama as the main countermovement played significant role to counter Hizb ut-Tahrir`s religious and political narratives as well as its political mobilization.


2012 ◽  
Vol 263-266 ◽  
pp. 2746-2750
Author(s):  
Ling Tian ◽  
Wan Xin Xue ◽  
Xiaohong Wang

Shandong Quanxing enterprise, a Chinese traditional coal enterprise to build e-commerce website actively for offering all coal-related information and services, expansion of company, promote the corporate image, optimize the internal structure, reduce operation costs, simplify distribution procedures and so on, was built in Dec 2005. This paper surveys the status quo of e-commerce application in Shandong Quanxing enterprise comprehensively from the perspective of technology, management, website, operation and cooperation. Based on the analysis and current development trend of e-commerce application, this paper puts forward with some suggestions for Shandong Quanxing enterprise.


Author(s):  
Malose Langa ◽  
Steven Rebello ◽  
Linda Harms-Smith

Abstract This article reflects on the Marikana massacre of August 2012, subsequent violent strikes and responses by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as a case study, and provides an analysis about whether these interventions bring transformative change or maintain the status quo in times of crisis. Events associated with Marikana are seen to be embedded in social structures of the time and part of deeper frictions and fractures of social transformation. The role that NGOs might play in this context must be interrogated as to their facilitation or hinderance of such social transformation. Interviews were conducted with representatives of NGOs intervening in Marikana that provided services of humanitarian assistance, and legal and psychosocial interventions and with mine workers and residents of Marikana about their experiences and views of these services. Findings from the study are illustrative of how NGOs were not primarily motivated to bring about lasting, transformative change but rather attempted to address immediate or short-term needs which, while important, did not account for underlying causes of the crises that they set out to address. Both ideological underpinnings of NGOs and structural conditions produced by state and capital impact on outcomes of interventions. Given these limitations, it is argued that there is a need for deep critical interrogation through praxis, for NGOs to intervene differently in times of crisis to bring ‘real’ change and transformation in the lives of those who are marginalized.


2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 259
Author(s):  
Nigel Hough

Since 2014, Australia’s LNG producers have seen a significant reduction in LNG price. To support ongoing profitability, the Australian CSG–LNG industry must reduce the cost of the additional surface infrastructure required to sustain gas production to their LNG processing plants. This paper explores how engineers can assist the Australian CSG–LNG industry to reduce the cost of that sustain phase surface infrastructure. Through use of a case study, this paper concludes that the ability of the engineer to significantly reduce costs through detailed design optimisation and project execution are limited. To significantly lower costs, the engineer must be mandated to review and challenge the established upstream infrastructure design as part of a revisited concept select stage. The revisited concept select stage should consider a philosophy that initially provides infrastructure with only the minimum functionality and capacity to ensure safe transfer of production fluids into the gathering networks. For any particular well, modular additions could be made to that infrastructure, if economically justified, based on the known performance of that well. Through use of a minimal cost base design that is flexible and expandable, the engineer can allow for the unique performance of any particular well or field section without subjecting the project to the high cost of providing unnecessary infrastructure on each well. To support the recommended approach, small and knowledgeable engineering teams who are willing to challenge the status quo and incorporate lessons from present operations will be required.


2013 ◽  
Vol 357-360 ◽  
pp. 129-134
Author(s):  
Bin Quan Zhang ◽  
Yong Sheng Chen

City construction is beset with severe problems like homogenization, exotic style copy, barbaric development and short-lived buildings, jeopardizing the traditional culture as well as natural environment. Faced with the status quo, it is not feasible to protect the environment at the cost of social and economic development. City construction thus faces extruding problems. The solution of such problems calls for all-dimensional discussion. The practice of Mr. Wang Shu leads the way.


Philosophy ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 45 (172) ◽  
pp. 114-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Ward

What is it to be ‘morally serious’? In one sense, it is quite obvious that a man who stands by his moral principles with difficulty and in face of many obstacles, even to the extent of giving his life rather than denying these principles, is a morally serious person. He might be contrasted with a man who gives up or modifies his moral principles whenever their implementation becomes difficult, or threatens to harm his interests; and this person might be called morally frivolous. That is what moral seriousness is; but still, one might ask, what is it to be a morally serious man? What does it involve to be such a man? Is it just a sort of pathological obstinacy; even, perhaps, a misplaced conservatism in face of the facts, which clings to the principles it knows, whatever the cost? One cannot rule out such a possibility. But the martyr and the hero do not consider themselves to be merely obstinate. In the face of risk and even certain suffering, they typically regard it as of supreme importance to be obstinate in sustaining their principles. Something more is felt to be at stake than mere defence of the status quo.


1985 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Love ◽  
William G. Truscott ◽  
John H. Walker

Modern Italy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Haworth

Celebrity scandals are a useful tool to reveal the pervasiveness of expected ways of behaving within a particular culture or society. Italy of the early 1960s was particularly marked by these kinds of scandals, including that of singer Mina’s pregnancy by Corrado Pani in 1963. This article takes this scandal as a case study to explore how star image in this period in Italy was influenced by the established ideologies that governed social convention, morality, and traditional gender roles. It examines in detail the ways in which the popular press reported on this scandal, using the reports that covered the announcement of the pregnancy and then the birth to cast light on the extent to which the mainstream social values and ideas regarding the status quo and expected ways of behaving for women in Italy during the early 1960s were destabilised and/or reasserted through the star persona of Mina.


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