The Ubiquitous Role of the Mishu in Chinese Politics

1992 ◽  
Vol 132 ◽  
pp. 913-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Lucian W. Pye
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Political Relationships

Important and busy people in all societies rely upon aides, assistants, staff associates, factotums, lackeys and personal servants, and it is no different in China. What is distinctive is the diffuse and all-purpose character of the Chinese mishu, literally “secret book” but usually translated as “secretary.” A mishu, however, is actually someone with both far broader and more personally intimate responsibilities and powers than this term suggests. Any Chinese shouzhang (leader or head) of significance will have numerous mishus, personal and/or organizational, in his service. In China's political arena there are around one million people who claim the title of mishu, and who, in shielding, guiding and doing the bidding of their masters, give a distinctive character to the political process. Mishus operate with considerable authority not just at the pinnacles of power, as aides do in most countries, but from top to bottom of both the Party and state hierarchies. Therefore, to understand how political relationships operate, how communications flow and how authority is asserted in the ranks of Chinese officialdom it is necessary to appreciate the ubiquitous role of the mishu.

Legislators, Bureaucrats, and Canadian Democracy: The Long and the Short of It

1977 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Sigelman ◽  
William G. Vanderbok
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Substantial Proportion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Annual Average ◽  
Canadian Politics ◽  
Strategic Role

The bureaucratization of the political process that characterizes twentieth century politics in many countries has not bypassed Canada—as evidenced by skyrocketing rates of government employment and expenditure and, even more dramatically, by the ever-expanding policy-making power of Canadian bureaucracy. One observer sees the civil service as occupying an increasingly strategic role in Canadian politics, a condition thatreflects in part the expanding role of modern government into highly technical areas, which tends to augment the discretion of permanent officials because legislators are obliged to delegate to them the administration of complex affairs, including the responsibility for drafting and adjudicating great amounts of sub-legislation required to “fill in the details” of the necessarily broad, organic statutes passed by Parliament. Some indication of the scale of such discretion is found in the fact that, during the period 1963–8, an annual average of 4,130 Orders-in-Council were passed in Ottawa, a substantial proportion of which provided for delegating authority to prescribe rules and regulations to ministers and their permanent advisers. By contrast, the number of laws passed annually by Canadian federal parliaments is rarely over one hundred.

scholarly journals La batalla por la democracia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERNESTO GANUZA ◽  
Heloise Nez ◽  
Ernesto Morales
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Porto Alegre ◽  
Local Participation ◽  
Urban Social Movements ◽  
Political Subject ◽  
Set Up

The emergence of new participatory mechanisms, such as participatory budgeting, in towns and cities in recent years, has given rise to a conflict between the old protagonists of local participation and the new citizens invited to participate. These mechanisms offer a logic of collective action different to what has been the usual fare in the cities – one that is based on proposal rather than demand. As a result, it requires urban social movements to transform their own dynamics in order to make room for a new political subject (the citizenry and the non-organised participant) and to act upon a stage where deliberative dynamics now apply. The present article aims to analyse this conflict in three different cities that set up participatory budgeting at different times: Porto Alegre, Cordova and Paris. The associations in the three cities took up a position against the new participatory mechanism and demanded a bigger role in the political arena. Through a piece of ethnographic research, we shall see that the responses of the agents involved (politicians, associations and citizens) in the three cities share some arguments, although the conflict was resolved differently in each of them. The article concludes with reflections on the consequences this conflict could have for contemporary political theory, especially with respect to the role of associations in the processes of democratisation and the setting forth of a new way of doing politics by means of deliberative procedures.

DOMINO EFFECT: BORIS YELTSIN'S DECREE ON THE DE-PARTIZATION IN THE CHAIN OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
D.G. SELTSER ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Direct Connection ◽  
Domino Effect ◽  
Nomenclature System ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
History Of

The purpose of the article is to clarify the place and role of the decree in the general course of the political process and highlight its direct consequences for the fate of the CPSU and the USSR. The scientific literature on the topic is analyzed. It is concluded that scientists draw a direct connection between the final events of the history of the USSR – Yeltsin's decree about departisation, degradation of the CPSU, resistance to the Emergency Committee and the liquidation of the CPSU / USSR. The author describes the stages of the personnel actions of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. In his opinion, the nomenclature system was expected: «construction» of the elite (1985–1987), elections in the party (1988–1990), elections in the state (1989–1990), decree about departisation (1991). The decree is seen as the final stage in the denationalization of the party. The CPSU, having lost power and property, ceased to be a state. The content of the decree, the behavior of political actors in connection with its adoption and the political consequences of the decree are considered. In conclusion, it is concluded that the decree was a domino effect, a provocation to the instant collapse of the USSR.

The Violence of Inequality: Race and Lobbying in the Politics of Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 68-93
Author(s):  
Sappho Xenakis ◽  
Leonidas K. Cheliotis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Us

There is no shortage of scholarly and other research on the reciprocal relationship that inequality bears to crime, victimisation and contact with the criminal justice system, both in the specific United States context and beyond. Often, however, inequality has been studied in conjunction with only one of the three phenomena at issue, despite the intersections that arguably obtain between them–and, indeed, between their respective connections with inequality itself. There are, moreover, forms of inequality that have received far less attention in pertinent research than their prevalence and broader significance would appear to merit. The purpose of this chapter is dual: first, to identify ways in which inequality’s linkages to crime, victimisation and criminal justice may relate to one another; and second, to highlight the need for a greater focus than has been placed heretofore on the role of institutionalised inequality of access to the political process, particularly as this works to bias criminal justice policy-making towards the preferences of financially motivated state lobbying groups at the expense of disadvantaged racial minorities. In so doing, the chapter singles out for analysis the US case and, more specifically, engages with key extant explanations of the staggering rise in the use of imprisonment in the country since the 1970s.

scholarly journals The Political Knowledge of University Students (A Comparative Study between Jordan and Libya)

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Alfeetouri Salih Mohammed Alsati ◽  
Al-Sayed Abd ulmutallab Ghanem
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The University

The current research aims at identifying and measuring the political knowledge of the students of the two universities of Al- Balqaa in Jordan and Omar Al- Mokhtar in Libya. The two communities are almost similar in terms of the social formation, Arab customs and traditions, the Bedouin values, the difference in the institutional age and the political stability.The study attempts to measure and compare the political knowledge in the communities of the two universities using the descriptive and comparative analytical method. The study uses a 400 random questionnaire of 30 paragraphs to measure eight indicators divided into internal and external political knowledge, and other aspects of knowledge: general political knowledge, knowledge of the political institutions and leaders, the political interest, the geographical and historical knowledge, and knowledge of the methods of exercising the political process. The study also attempts to identifying the most important sources and the role of the university in university students’ political knowledge.The results show that the level of the political knowledge is medium while its level in the sample of the Jordanian students is high. According to the samples, the internal political knowledge is more than the external knowledge with a lack of interest in the political matters. The samples do not consider the political matters as their priorities. The political knowledge as a whole needs to much effort to be exerted to confront the current circumstances. The variables of the place of resident, age and the educational level make big difference in the political knowledge. In contrast, the level of the parental education does not create big differences.

scholarly journals Introduction: Redefining the Role of Libraries in the Political Process and in Conflict Situations

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Stilwell ◽  
Raphaëlle Bats ◽  
Peter Johan Lor
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conflict Situations

The National Consultative Council of Jordan: A Study in Legislative Development

1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabeel A. Khoury
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Third World ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Controversy ◽  
The Third World

Studies of legislatures in developing countries have to contend with a great deal of cynicism owing, in part, to a political controversy concerning the role of the legislative institution in the Third World. The executive branch, which is generally dominant in developing nations, often uses the legislature to legitimize executive actions. Legislators who agree to serve the executive in this fashion often exaggerate or misrepresent the importance of the legislature in their political system. Conversely, opposition groups, who are frequently excluded from the political process in Third World countries, denigrate the role of legislatures and often exaggerate their ineffectiveness. Scholars have mostly ingnored the role of legislatures in the process of development.

Building Taiwanese history and memory from below: The role of social movements

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-38
Author(s):  
Taru Salmenkari
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Taiwanese Identity ◽  
Memory Tools

Social movements use memories not only to inspire and mobilize movements but also to struggle for justice. Using memory tools, Taiwanese social movements have challenged official interpretations of history, pluralized subjects worth having their own history and democratized the process of demanding that certain memories should be preserved. They have used memory to fight for social justice and for Taiwanese traditions against modernization and globalization. Social movements have used various memory tool kits, depending on their causes, understandings of Taiwanese identity, current social struggles and access to the political process. Different memory tool kits have led social movements to interpret differently which injustices matter and which gaps in hegemonic narratives deserve their attention.

scholarly journals Political Performance and Leadership Persona: The UK Labour Party Conference of 2012

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gaffney ◽  
Amarjit Lahel
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leadership Performance ◽  
Political Performance ◽  
Ed Miliband ◽  
The Uk

This article is a contribution to an emerging scholarship on the role of rhetoric, persona and celebrity, and the effects of performance on the political process. We analyse party leader Ed Miliband at the UK Labour Party Conference in Manchester in 2012. Our analysis identifies how, through performance of ‘himself’ and the beginnings of the deployment of an alternative party narrative centred on ‘One Nation’, Ed Miliband began to revise his ‘received persona’. By using a range of rhetorical and other techniques, Miliband began to adapt the Labour narrative to the ‘personalized political’. The article sets out the theoretical framework for the analysis and returns to the implications for the theory of leadership performance in its conclusion.

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