Loyalists, Localists, and Legibility: The Calibrated Control of Provincial Leadership Teams in China

Selecting provincial leaders is a fraught task for authoritarian regimes. Although central authorities more readily trust provincial leaders with close ties to the center, such loyalists may lack the local knowledge and connections necessary to govern adeptly. Using an original data set on the tenures and backgrounds of China’s provincial party standing committee members, this article explores how Beijing fine-tunes provincial leadership teams to resolve this dilemma. The analysis challenges the conventional wisdom that Beijing exerts its tightest personnel control in strategically important provinces. It shows that Beijing tolerates significant embeddedness of local leadership in provinces with complex governance challenges even when these provinces are important. Moreover, it finds that when the center reasserts control through appointments of loyalist personnel during times of crisis, it does so in a balanced manner. These calibrated personnel strategies highlight the extent to which authoritarian systems rely on local expertise and experience as well as top-down control.

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The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion: Chinese Dual-Pension Regimes in the Era of Labor Migration and Labor Informalization

Politics & Society ◽

10.1177/0032329220924557 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 003232922092455

Author(s):

Yujeong Yang

Keyword(s):

Local Governments ◽

National Level ◽

Evaluation Criteria ◽

Original Data ◽

Welfare Regimes ◽

Top Down ◽

Data Set ◽

Informal Workers ◽

Policy Goals ◽

Local Officials

Why do some Chinese local governments include informal workers in their welfare systems while others exclude them? This article argues that local officials attempt to balance multiple, conflicting, top-down career-evaluation criteria by developing different inclusion mechanisms. The central mandate to build an inclusive welfare regime incentivizes local officials to embrace welfare “outsiders” (informal workers and nonlocal workers). However, other top-down policy goals and the locally defined citizenship ( hukou) system disincentivize the full integration of outsiders. Faced with this political dilemma, local officials have strategically incorporated different types of outsiders into their welfare regimes. Their strategies depend on local labor market structures—specifically, the extent to which informal workers overlap with nonlocal workers. This hypothesis is tested using an original data set derived from thirty-one Chinese provinces, covering the period between 2005 and 2015, as well as two rounds of national-level survey data. Findings suggest that recent Chinese welfare expansion has ironically consolidated, even exacerbated, regional inequality.

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A Zero-Sum Game? Repression and Protest in China

Government and Opposition ◽

10.1017/gov.2017.24 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 309-335 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Yao Li

Keyword(s):

Original Data ◽

Contentious Politics ◽

Authoritarian Regimes ◽

The State ◽

Data Set ◽

Systematic Analysis ◽

Quantitative Evidence ◽

Authoritarian State ◽

Zero Sum ◽

Contingent technocracy: bureaucratic independence in developing countries

Journal of Public Policy ◽

10.1017/s0143814x16000258 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 37 (4) ◽

pp. 401-429 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Manuel P. Teodoro ◽

M. Anne Pitcher

Keyword(s):

Developing Countries ◽

Policy Implementation ◽

Original Data ◽

Political Context ◽

Authoritarian Regimes ◽

Conventional Wisdom ◽

The Political ◽

Data Set ◽

Established Democracies ◽

The Relationship

AbstractThis study investigates the effects of formal bureaucratic independence under varying democratic conditions. Conventional accounts predict that greater formal independence of technocratic agencies facilitates policy implementation, but those claims rest on observations of industrialised, high-income countries that are also established democracies. On the basis of research in developing countries, we argue that the effects of agency independence depend on the political context in which the agency operates. Our empirical subjects are privatisation agencies and their efforts to privatise state-owned enterprises in Africa. We predict that greater independence leads to more thorough privatisation under authoritarian regimes, but that the effect of independence declines as a country becomes more democratic. Using an original data set, we examine the relationship between formal agency independence and privatisation in Africa from 1990 to 2007. Our results modify the conventional wisdom on bureaucratic independence and culminate in a more nuanced theory of “contingent technocracy”.

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Rotational Characteristics of the Green Solar Corona: 1947-1991

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100025197 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 144 ◽

pp. 139-141 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

J. Rybák ◽

V. Rušin ◽

M. Rybanský

Keyword(s):

Solar Corona ◽

World Wide ◽

Rotation Period ◽

Original Data ◽

Coronal Emission ◽

Time Intervals ◽

Data Set ◽

The World ◽

Coronal Emission Line ◽

Homogeneous Data

AbstractFe XIV 530.3 nm coronal emission line observations have been used for the estimation of the green solar corona rotation. A homogeneous data set, created from measurements of the world-wide coronagraphic network, has been examined with a help of correlation analysis to reveal the averaged synodic rotation period as a function of latitude and time over the epoch from 1947 to 1991.The values of the synodic rotation period obtained for this epoch for the whole range of latitudes and a latitude band ±30° are 27.52±0.12 days and 26.95±0.21 days, resp. A differential rotation of green solar corona, with local period maxima around ±60° and minimum of the rotation period at the equator, was confirmed. No clear cyclic variation of the rotation has been found for examinated epoch but some monotonic trends for some time intervals are presented.A detailed investigation of the original data and their correlation functions has shown that an existence of sufficiently reliable tracers is not evident for the whole set of examinated data. This should be taken into account in future more precise estimations of the green corona rotation period.

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Electing the Senate

10.23943/princeton/9780691163161.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Wendy J. Schiller ◽

Charles Stewart III

Keyword(s):

Original Data ◽

State Legislators ◽

Internal Conflict ◽

Data Set ◽

Senate Elections ◽

Political Actors ◽

The Public ◽

Seventeenth Amendment ◽

The People ◽

Election Process

From 1789 to 1913, U.S. senators were not directly elected by the people—instead the Constitution mandated that they be chosen by state legislators. This radically changed in 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving the public a direct vote. This book investigates the electoral connections among constituents, state legislators, political parties, and U.S. senators during the age of indirect elections. The book finds that even though parties controlled the partisan affiliation of the winning candidate for Senate, they had much less control over the universe of candidates who competed for votes in Senate elections and the parties did not always succeed in resolving internal conflict among their rank and file. Party politics, money, and personal ambition dominated the election process, in a system originally designed to insulate the Senate from public pressure. The book uses an original data set of all the roll call votes cast by state legislators for U.S. senators from 1871 to 1913 and all state legislators who served during this time. Newspaper and biographical accounts uncover vivid stories of the political maneuvering, corruption, and partisanship—played out by elite political actors, from elected officials, to party machine bosses, to wealthy business owners—that dominated the indirect Senate elections process. The book raises important questions about the effectiveness of Constitutional reforms, such as the Seventeenth Amendment, that promised to produce a more responsive and accountable government.

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Styles of Representation in Constituencies in the Homeland and Abroad: The Case of Italy

Parliamentary Affairs ◽

10.1093/pa/gsaa063 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Eva Østergaard-Nielsen ◽

Stefano Camatarri

Keyword(s):

Original Data ◽

Role Orientation ◽

International Mobility ◽

Data Set ◽

Democratic Representation ◽

Public Debates ◽

At Home

Abstract The role orientation of political representatives and candidates is a longstanding concern in studies of democratic representation. The growing trend in countries to allow citizens abroad to candidate in homeland elections from afar provides an interesting opportunity for understanding how international mobility and context influences ideas of representation among these emigrant candidates. In public debates, emigrant candidates are often portrayed as delegates of the emigrant constituencies. However, drawing on the paradigmatic case of Italy and an original data set comprising emigrant candidates, we show that the perceptions of styles of representation abroad are more complex. Systemic differences between electoral districts at home and abroad are relevant for explaining why and how candidates develop a trustee or delegate orientation.

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Do the Heterogeneous Determinants of Repayment Affect Differently across Borrowers of Diverse Credit Sources in Rural Assam? A Double Hurdle Approach

Journal of Development Policy and Practice ◽

10.1177/24551333211031667 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 245513332110316

Author(s):

Tiken Das ◽

Pradyut Guha ◽

Diganta Das

Keyword(s):

Rural Areas ◽

Probit Model ◽

Original Data ◽

Community Based ◽

Data Set ◽

Brahmaputra Valley ◽

Double Hurdle ◽

Instrumental Variable Probit ◽

Instrumental Variable Probit Model

This study made an attempt to answer the question: Do the heterogeneous determinants of repayment affect the borrowers of diverse credit sources differently? The study is based on data collected from 240 households from three districts in the lower Brahmaputra valley of Assam through a carefully designed primary survey. Besides, the study uses the double hurdle approach and the instrumental variable probit model to reduce possible selection bias. It observes better repayment performance among formal borrowers, followed by semiformal borrowers, while occupation wise it is prominent among organised employees. It has been found that in general, the household characteristics, loan characteristics and location-specific characteristics significantly affect repayment performance of borrowers. However, the nature of impact of the factors influencing repayment performance is remarkably different across credit sources. It ignores the role of traditional community-based organisations in rural Assam while analysing the determinants of repayment performance. The study also recommends for ensuring productive opportunities and efficient market linkages in rural areas of Assam. The study is based on an original data set that has specially been collected to examine question that—do the heterogeneous determinants of repayment affect the borrowers of diverse credit sources differently in the lower Brahmaputra valley of Assam—which has not been studied before.

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Data Augmentation Using Generative Adversarial Network for Automatic Machine Fault Detection Based on Vibration Signals

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11052166 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 2166

Author(s):

Van Bui ◽

Tung Lam Pham ◽

Huy Nguyen ◽

Yeong Min Jang

Keyword(s):

Fault Detection ◽

Data Augmentation ◽

Model Performance ◽

Original Data ◽

Fault Classification ◽

Training Process ◽

Generative Adversarial Network ◽

Data Set ◽

Adversarial Network ◽

Machine Fault

In the last decade, predictive maintenance has attracted a lot of attention in industrial factories because of its wide use of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence algorithms for data management. However, in the early phases where the abnormal and faulty machines rarely appeared in factories, there were limited sets of machine fault samples. With limited fault samples, it is difficult to perform a training process for fault classification due to the imbalance of input data. Therefore, data augmentation was required to increase the accuracy of the learning model. However, there were limited methods to generate and evaluate the data applied for data analysis. In this paper, we introduce a method of using the generative adversarial network as the fault signal augmentation method to enrich the dataset. The enhanced data set could increase the accuracy of the machine fault detection model in the training process. We also performed fault detection using a variety of preprocessing approaches and classified the models to evaluate the similarities between the generated data and authentic data. The generated fault data has high similarity with the original data and it significantly improves the accuracy of the model. The accuracy of fault machine detection reaches 99.41% with 20% original fault machine data set and 93.1% with 0% original fault machine data set (only use generate data only). Based on this, we concluded that the generated data could be used to mix with original data and improve the model performance.

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Vielfalt and diversité: how local actors in France and Germany evaluate immigration and socio-cultural heterogeneity

Comparative Migration Studies ◽

10.1186/s40878-020-00205-1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Maria Schiller ◽

Christine Lang ◽

Karen Schönwälder ◽

Michalis Moutselos

Keyword(s):

Local Politics ◽

Original Data ◽

National Politics ◽

Data Set ◽

Large Cities ◽

Cultural Heterogeneity ◽

Societal Actors ◽

Local Actors ◽

Urban Level ◽

And Migration

AbstractIn both Germany and France, perceptions of immigration, diversity and their societal consequences have undergone important transformations in the past two decades. However, existing research has only partially captured such processes. The “grand narratives” of national approaches, while still influential, no longer explain contemporary realities. Further, analyses of national politics and discourses may not sufficiently reflect the realities across localities and society more broadly. While emerging in different national contexts, little is known about how diversity is actually perceived by political stakeholders at the urban level. Given the key role of immigration and diversity in current conflicts over Europe’s future, it is imperative to assess present-day conceptualisations of migration-related diversity among important societal actors.This article investigates perceptions and evaluations of socio-cultural heterogeneity by important societal actors in large cities. We contribute to existing literature by capturing an unusually broad set of actors from state and civil society. We also present data drawn from an unusually large number of cities. How influential is the perception of current society as heterogeneous, and what forms of heterogeneity are salient? And is socio-cultural and migration-related heterogeneity evaluated as threatening or rather as beneficial? Based on an original data set, this study explores the shared and contested ideas, the cognitive roadmaps of state and non-state actors involved in local politics.We argue that, in both German and French cities, socio-cultural heterogeneity is nowadays widely recognized as marking cities and often positively connoted. At the same time, perceptions of the main features of diversity and of the benefits and challenges attached to it vary. We find commonalities between French and German local actors, but also clear differences. In concluding, we suggest how and why national contexts importantly shape evaluations of diversity.

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How local personal vote-earning attributes affect the aggregate party vote share: Evidence from the Belgian flexible-list PR system (2003–2014)

Politics ◽

10.1177/0263395718811969 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 39 (4) ◽

pp. 464-479

Author(s):

Gert-Jan Put ◽

Jef Smulders ◽

Bart Maddens

Keyword(s):

Regression Models ◽

Empirical Test ◽

Original Data ◽

Ordinary Least Squares ◽

Vote Share ◽

District Level ◽

National Party ◽

Data Set ◽

Geographically Distributed ◽

Party Vote Shares

This article investigates the effect of candidates exhibiting local personal vote-earning attributes (PVEA) on the aggregate party vote share at the district level. Previous research has often assumed that packing ballot lists with localized candidates increases the aggregate party vote and seat shares. We present a strict empirical test of this argument by analysing the relative electoral swing of ballot lists at the district level, a measure of change in party vote shares which controls for the national party trend and previous party results in the district. The analysis is based on data of 7527 candidacies during six Belgian regional and federal election cycles between 2003 and 2014, which is aggregated to an original data set of 223 ballot lists. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models do not show a significant effect of candidates exhibiting local PVEA on relative electoral swing of ballot lists. However, the results suggest that ballot lists do benefit electorally if candidates with local PVEA are geographically distributed over different municipalities in the district.

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