Rethinking “the Third Sphere”: The Dualistic Unity of State and Society in China, Past and Present

Chapter 15 summarizes the chapters which addressed the third sphere, the relationship of labor to the political community. It reiterates that since Israel was established, the labor market’s borders have become ever more porous, while the borders of the national (Jewish) political community have remained firm: the Jewish nationalism which guides government policy is as strong as ever. NGOs, drawing on a discourse of human rights, are able to assist some non-citizens but this discourse also resonates with the idea of individual responsibility: the State is no longer willing to support “non-productive” populations, who are now being shoehorned into a labor market which offers few opportunities for meaningful employment, and is saturated by cheaper labor intentionally imported by the State in response to powerful employer lobbies. These trends suggest a partial reorientation of organized labor’s “battlefront”, from a face-off with capital to an appeal to the public and state.

Download Full-text

Introduction

Politics in the Developing World ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780198737438.003.0101 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Lise Rakner ◽

Vicky Randall

Keyword(s):

Social Movements ◽

Case Studies ◽

Developing World ◽

First Century ◽

Global Trends ◽

The Third ◽

Post Conflict ◽

State And Society ◽

The Third World ◽

The Arab Spring

This edition examines the changing nature of politics in the developing world in the twenty-first century, with emphasis on the complex and changing nexus between state and society. It analyses key developments and debates, and this is illustrated by current examples drawn from the global South, tackling a range of issues such as institutions and governance, the growing importance of alternative politics and social movements, security, and post-conflict state-crafting. The text also discusses the Arab Spring and South–South relations and offers new case studies of Syria and the Sudan as well as China, India, and Brazil. This introduction considers the question of the meaningfulness of the Third World as an organizing concept, whether politics is an independent or a dependent variable, and a number of major interconnected global trends that have resulted in a growing convergence in the developing world. It also provides an overview of the organization of this edition.

Download Full-text

In Search of a Long-Term Development Path for China: Starting from Differences between Assigning Responsibility and Contracting

Rural China ◽

10.1163/22136746-01602001 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 157-183

Author(s):

Philip C. C. Huang

Keyword(s):

Market Economy ◽

Socialist Market Economy ◽

Development Path ◽

The Third ◽

Third Sphere ◽

Political Economic ◽

Party State ◽

Socialist Market ◽

Means Of Production

The “third sphere” born of the interacting of a market economy with a centralized state, and of a system of market contracting 合同 with administrative “assigning responsibility” 发包/承包, has become a key characteristic of the new political-economic system of Reform China. It has imported the private enterprise market economy of the modern West, but has also retained the (revolutionary) tradition of a socialist party-state and its ownership of the principal means of production. Its administrative system resembles more and more the modern West’s (Weberian) bureaucratic system, but it has also retained the traditional imperial Chinese “centralized minimalism” and “parcelized despotism” characteristics. It cannot be grasped by the either/or dualistic opposites mode of thinking, but can only be understood in terms of the combining and interacting of dualistic opposites. The combination may be understood as one concrete and substantive meaning of the officialized term of a “socialist market economy.”

Download Full-text

Labor Representation outside Union Structures

Labor in Israel ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501717123.003.0012 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Jonathan Preminger

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Case Law ◽

Political Community ◽

The Political ◽

Political Arena ◽

Hybrid Identities ◽

The Third ◽

Third Sphere ◽

Elected Representatives

The first of five chapters which address the third sphere, organized labor’s relationship to the wider political community, Chapter 11 explores the development of labor representation outside classic union structures. Following the weakening of organized labor’s links to political parties and the influx of groups of workers who have no historical ties with the political establishment and in some cases are not even citizens, workers are finding new ways of bringing their demands into the political arena. The chapter focuses on the Workers Advice Center which made a partially-successful move from NGO to classic union, and on Kav Laoved, a workers’ rights organization. It suggests that such organizations reflect a change in the nature of labor representation as elected representatives are replaced by “experts in the field” and a focus on advancing case law through targeted legal struggle and lobbying – a transformation that has engendered representative organizations with hybrid identities.

Download Full-text

Coping with the World Depression: The Nationalist Government's Relations with Chinese Industry and Commerce, 1932–1936

Modern Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0026749x00010799 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 25 (4) ◽

pp. 649-674 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Tim Wright

Keyword(s):

Third World ◽

Economic Policies ◽

Capitalist Class ◽

The Third ◽

State And Society ◽

The World ◽

Chinese Industry ◽

Industry And Commerce ◽

The Third World ◽

The Relationship

The relationship between state and society has recently attracted increasing interest (Skocpol 1985). In many cases, particularly in Asia and the ‘third world’, the question has been posed in terms of how far the state's economic policies reflect the (real or perceived) interests of the capitalist class, or whether the state and its personnel act as an autonomous force above society pursuing policies irrelevant or even inimical to capitalist interests.

Download Full-text

The Political Thought of the Young Turk Revolution

The Formation of Turkish Republicanism ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691172743.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Banu Turnaoğlu

Keyword(s):

Political Thought ◽

Separation Of Powers ◽

Third Republic ◽

The Political ◽

Political Language ◽

The Third ◽

State And Society ◽

Liberal Constitutionalism ◽

Second Constitutional Period ◽

Institutional Foundations

This chapter analyzes how the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 had provided a different conception of what politics should mean and how it should operate in the Ottoman Empire, along with a new conception of state and society. Drawing on the political language of the French Third Republic, democracy and liberal republican ideas slowly transformed the terminology and categorization of central issues in Ottoman politics and laid the most salient intellectual and institutional foundations for the young Republic. The revolution opened the Second Constitutional period (1908–18). Its first phase revitalized the liberal constitutionalism of the Young Ottomans. Political thinking drew heavily upon Montesquieu's formula for the separation of powers in combination with the ideas of the Third Republic and Ottoman positivism.

Download Full-text

Social Penetration and Police Action: Collaboration Structures in the Repertory of Gestapo Activities

International Review of Social History ◽

10.1017/s0020859000114579 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 42 (1) ◽

pp. 25-43 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Klaus-Michael Mallmann

Keyword(s):

Comparative Research ◽

Third Reich ◽

Social Contexts ◽

The Third ◽

Exchange Processes ◽

State And Society ◽

Social Penetration ◽

Police Action ◽

The Third Reich ◽

Totalitarian Regimes

SummaryThe twentieth century was “short”, running only from 1914 to 1990/1991. Even so, it will doubtless enter history as an unprecedented era of dictatorships. The question of how these totalitarian regimes functioned in practice, how and to what extent they were able to realize their power aspirations, has until now been answered empirically at most highly selectively. Extensive comparative research efforts will be required over the coming decades. The police as the key organization in the state monopoly of power is particularly important in this context, since like no other institution it operates at the interface of state and society. Using the example of the Gestapo's activities in the Third Reich, this article analyses collaboration structures between these two spheres, which made possible (either on a voluntary or coercive basis) a penetration of social contexts and hence police action even in shielded areas. It is my thesis that such exchange processes through unsolicited denunciation and informers with double identities will also have been decisive outside Germany in the tracking of dissident behaviour and the detection of conspiratorial practices.

Download Full-text