The Politics of Local Models, Social Transformation and State Power Struggles in the People's Republic of China: Tachai and Teng Hsiao-p'ing

1978 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 873-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Political Power ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Local Models ◽  
Independent Basis ◽  
Autonomous Action ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
National Power

What was the role of Tachai, Mao Tse-tung's model village meant for emulation in agriculture, in the 1975–76 struggle towards national power of the Chiang Ch'ing group? In getting the facts straight on this matter, I will throw light on some facets of local and national political power in China. I will especially highlight the question of the extent to which ruling groups at the state centre have a somewhat independent basis for more or less autonomous action.

The Doctrinal Basis of The Rights of Company Shareholders

1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 554-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Grantham
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Company Law ◽  
Corporate Form ◽  
Moral Force ◽  
The Law ◽  
Normative Implications

THE concept of ownership is a complex, powerful and controversial idea. In law it explains, justifies and gives moral force to a host of rights and duties as well as serving to legitimate the allocation of wealth and privilege. The influence of this idea is, furthermore, everywhere embodied in the law. In company law, legal and economic conceptions have both rested on and have been shaped by the normative implications of ownership. Historically, ownership was the principal explanation and justification for the central role of shareholders in corporate affairs. As owners, shareholders were entitled to control the management of the company and to the exclusive benefit of the company's activities. Ownership also served to legitimate the corporate form itself. So long as it was owned by individuals the economic and political power of the company was both benign and a bulwark against the intrusion of the state.

Illegal Construction in Hanoi and Hanoi's Wards

2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Koh
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
The People ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Boundaries ◽  
Urban Administration ◽  
Ability And Willingness

AbstractIn the drama of negotiation of state boundaries, the role of local administrators as mediators is indispensable. They mediate between state demands for more discipline and societal demands for more liberties. Their ability and willingness to enforce determines the extent of state power. They are a particular type of elites chosen by the state to administer; yet often they have an irrational and morally corrupt relationship with their subjects. The questions that arise then are: When do the local administrators decide to or not to enforce the rules? What considerations do they hold in the face of contradicting demands for their loyalties? This paper seeks answers to the above questions by examining state enforcement of its construction rules in Hanoi after 1975, in which the ward, a level of local administrators in the urban administration landscape, plays an important role in holding up (or letting down) the fences. I will examine the irrationality of the housing regime that led to widespread offences against construction rules, and then show why and how local administrators may or may not enforce rules. This paper comprises two parts. The first part outlines the nature and history of the housing regime in Vietnam and the situation of state provision of housing to the people. These provide the context in which illegal construction arises. Part Two looks at illegal construction in Hanoi chronologically, and focuses on important episodes. The theme that runs through this paper is the role of local administrators in the reality of illegal construction.

Religious Pluralism and the Role of the State

2020 ◽  
pp. 123-141
Author(s):  
Domenico Melidoro
Keyword(s):  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Theoretical Solution ◽  
Indian Context ◽  
Role Of The State

This chapter tests the theoretical solution worked out in the previous chapter in relation to Indian religious pluralism. After considering some relevant features of religious pluralism in the Indian context, the chapter presents two of the most influential theories that have tried to accommodate it (Rajeev Bhargava’s and Neera Chandhoke’s). These views, despite their merits in trying to defend a specifically Indian understanding of secularism, are quite demanding and criticizable. The notion of equality they employ is too substantive. Indeed, this egalitarian impulse pushes the role of the state well beyond what PT liberalism requires. The problem is that the effects of the expansion of the state’s powers have not always been conducive to social peace. Thus, the constraints imposed by PT liberalism to the exercise of state power are particularly required in this discourse on secularism.

Aiming to Overthrow the State (Without Using the State): Political Opportunities for Anarchist Movements

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 558-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana M. Williams ◽  
Matthew T. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
The State ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Opportunity Theory ◽  
Future Work

Abstract The anarchist movement utilizes non-statist and anti-statist strategies for radical social transformation, thus indicating the limits of political opportunity theory and its emphasis upon the state. Using historical narratives from present-day anarchist movement literature, we note various events and phenomena in the last two centuries and their relevance to the mobilization and demobilization of anarchist movements throughout the world (Bolivia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Greece, Japan, Venezuela). Labor movement allies, failing state socialism, and punk subculture have provided conditions conducive to anarchism, while state repression and Bolshevik success in the Soviet Union constrained success. This variation suggests that future work should attend more closely to the role of national context, and the interrelationship of political and non-political factors.

scholarly journals Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars-Erik Cederman ◽  
Andreas Wimmer ◽  
Brian Min
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Central State ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Government

Much of the quantitative literature on civil wars and ethnic conflict ignores the role of the state or treats it as a mere arena for political competition among ethnic groups. Other studies analyze how the state grants or withholds minority rights and faces ethnic protest and rebellion accordingly, while largely overlooking the ethnic power configurations at the state's center. Drawing on a new data set on Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) that identifies all politically relevant ethnic groups and their access to central state power around the world from 1946 through 2005, the authors analyze outbreaks of armed conflict as the result of competing ethnonationalist claims to state power. The findings indicate that representatives of ethnic groups are more likely to initiate conflict with the government (1) the more excluded from state power they are, especially if they have recently lost power, (2) the higher their mobilizational capacity, and (3) the more they have experienced conflict in the past.

China’s Communist Party: From Mass to Elite Party

China Report ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Social System ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
The State ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Party Membership ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Management Personnel ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Leading Cadres

The Communist Party of China (CPC) is not withering away as predicted by some Western scholars. On the contrary, in recent years, the party has centralised and strengthened its rule over China. At the same time, party membership has changed. Today, workers and farmers only account for only one-third of the total party membership compared to two-thirds when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established. Instead, new strata and groups such as technical and management personnel have evolved. The composition of the party’s cadre corps has changed accordingly, and cadres today are younger and much better educated than during Mao’s time. The leading cadres form an elite which is at the heart of a ranking-stratified political and social system. This article discusses how the CPC has evolved from a mass to an elite party. It argues that in this process, the party has taken over the state resulting in a merger and overlap of party and government positions and functions, thereby abandoning Deng Xiaoping’s ambidextrous policy goals of separating party and government. Centralisation and reassertion of ranking-stratified party rule is Xi Jinping’s answer to the huge challenges caused by the economic and social transformation of Chinese society—not a return to Mao’s mass party.

Some Varieties of Utopian Method

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Levitas
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The State ◽  
Proper Method ◽  
State Economy ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

This article opens with H.G. Wells's assertion that utopia is the distinctive and proper method of sociology. It outlines four ways of thinking about utopia which imply different methods, distinguishing a hermeneutic method from the imaginary reconstitution of society. The author finds common ground with Wright in exploring and endorsing the role of utopia, utopias and utopianism in transforming capitalism into something better. But this article focuses on two areas of difference: Wright's reliance on extrapolation from prefigurative practices, and the state–economy–civil society model that underpins Wright's work. It argues that we should take imagination and the imaginary reconstitution of society more seriously as tools in the struggle for social transformation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document