scholarly journals State–society relations under a new model of control in China: Graduated control 2.0

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Runya Qiaoan

Graduated control models are often used to explain the variety of government treatment of social organizations in China. These models have been slowly losing their explanatory power in recent years, with advocacy-oriented grass-roots groups participating in the policymaking process. Why are these social groups not regulated in the way the graduated control models predict? Based on an analysis of three recent policy advocacy cases, this article proposes a graduated control 2.0 model to explain the new dynamics in Chinese state–society interactions. The upgraded model argues that the government officials’ behaviour patterns are influenced by numerous factors such as the inherent nature of social groups highlighted by graduated control models, and inter-ministerial competition – the power position of the state sector and its rival sector in the bureaucratic system. Some contingent factors also play a part, such as timing and the NGO’s onstage performance. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion on Chinese state–society relations by developing a theoretical model that highlights both the fragmentation and reactiveness of state control over social groups and further unpacks the ‘monolithic state’ in China studies.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jomdet Trimek ◽  
Kittisak Jermsittiparsert ◽  
Noppon Akahat ◽  
Sarunyaphat Sieangsung ◽  
Sunisa Ratchaphan

<p>This paper is a qualitative based research, conducting in-depth interviews with 18 subjects consisting of GMS prostitutes working in Bangkok and other relevant informants. The objectives of this research are to study characteristics of the prostitution business in Bangkok and the adjacent areas and to study dynamics of causes, motivation, and the processes of how GMS women entering the prostitution business in Bangkok. The research results show that the entertainment places secretly provide prostitution services in Bangkok and the adjacent areas run the business openly. GMS women and Thai women providing prostitution services is illegal in Thailand. GMS women travelling to Bangkok to provide the prostitution services come from Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, China, and Cambodia, respectively. Although the government takes strict action, the prostitution business cannot be completely eradicated. The most important problem is corruption of government officials in various areas. As for the recommendations, it is advised that there should be a study of international practices consisting of crime control models, especially elimination of corruption of government officials in various areas, legalization model, or decriminalization model in the offence of the prostitution service to study the models suitable for the current situations.</p>


Author(s):  
Jonathan Laurence

This book traces how governments across Western Europe have responded to the growing presence of Muslim immigrants in their countries over the past fifty years. Drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews with government officials and religious leaders in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Morocco, and Turkey, the book challenges the widespread notion that Europe's Muslim minorities represent a threat to liberal democracy. The book documents how European governments in the 1970s and 1980s excluded Islam from domestic institutions, instead inviting foreign powers like Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Turkey to oversee the practice of Islam among immigrants in European host societies. But since the 1990s, amid rising integration problems and fears about terrorism, governments have aggressively stepped up efforts to reach out to their Muslim communities and incorporate them into the institutional, political, and cultural fabrics of European democracy. The book places these efforts—particularly the government-led creation of Islamic councils—within a broader theoretical context and gleans insights from government interactions with groups such as trade unions and Jewish communities at previous critical junctures in European state-building. By examining how state–mosque relations in Europe are linked to the ongoing struggle for religious and political authority in the Muslim-majority world, the book sheds light on the geopolitical implications of a religious minority's transition from outsiders to citizens. This book offers a much-needed reassessment that foresees the continuing integration of Muslims into European civil society and politics in the coming decades.


Author(s):  
E.V. Klovach ◽  
◽  
A.S. Pecherkin ◽  
V.K. Shalaev ◽  
V.I. Sidorov ◽  
...  

In Russia, the reform of the regulatory guillotine is being implemented in the field of control and supervisory activity. It should result in a new regulatory system formed according to the principles specified in the key federal laws: «On state control (supervision) and municipal control in the Russian Federation» (Law on Control) and «On mandatory requirements in the Russian Federation» (Law on Mandatory Requirements) adopted in August 2020. In the field of industrial safety, this process was launched by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation № 1192, which will come into force on January 1, 2021. The main provisions are discussed in the article, which are related to the Law on Control and the Law on Mandatory Requirements. The Law on Control establishes the priority of preventive measures aimed at reducing the risk of causing harm in relation to the control activities, the grounds for carrying out control (supervisory) activities, the types of these activities in the forms of interaction with the controlled person and without such, the procedure for presentation of the results of control (supervisory) activity. The Law on Mandatory Requirements establishes that the provisions of regulatory legal acts should enter into force either from March 1 or September 1, but not earlier than 90 days after their official publication, and their validity period should not exceed 6 years. The drafts of regulatory legal acts developed by the federal executive bodies are subject to regulatory impact assessment. With a view to ensuring systematization of mandatory require ments, their register is kept. The federal executive body prepares a report on the achievement of the goals of mandatory requirements introduction. By January 1, 2021, 10 resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation, 48 federal norms and rules in the field of industrial safety and 9 other regulatory legal acts of Rostechnadzor should be adopted. The drafts of all the documents are already prepared, some of the acts are completing the process of discussion and approval.


MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Muhammad Nadzir

Water plays a very important role in supporting human life and other living beings as goods that meet public needs. Water is one of the declared goods controlled by the state as mentioned in the constitution of the republic of Indonesia. The state control over water indicated that water management can bring justice and prosperity for all Indonesian people. However, in fact, water currently becomes a product commercialized by individuals and corporations. It raised a question on how the government responsibility to protect the people's right to clean water. This study found that in normative context, the government had been responsible in protecting the people’s right over the clean water. However, in practical context, it found that the government had not fully protected people's right over clean water. The government still interpreted the state control over water in the form of creating policies, establishing a set of regulations, conducting management, and also supervision.


Author(s):  
Michael D. Metelits

The Arthur Crawford Scandal explores how nineteenth century Bombay tried a British official for corruption. The presidency government persuaded Indians, government officials, to testify against the very person who controlled their career by offering immunity from legal action and career punishment. A criminal conviction of Crawford’s henchman established the modus operandi of a bribery network. Subsequent efforts to intimidate Indian witnesses led to litigation at the high court level, resulting in a political pressure campaign in London based on biased press reports from India. These reports evoked questions in the House of Commons; questions became demands that Indians witnesses against Crawford be fired from government service. The secretary of state for India and the Bombay government negotiated about the fate of the Indian witnesses. At first, the secretary of state accepted the Bombay government’s proposals. But the press campaign against the Indian witnesses eventually led him to order the Government of India, in consultation with the Government of Bombay, to pass a law ordering those officials who paid Crawford willingly, to be fired. Those whom the Bombay government determined to be extorted were not to be fired. Both groups retained immunity from further actions at law. Thus, Bombay won a victory that almost saved its original guarantee of immunity: those who were fired were to receive their salary (along with periodic step increases) until they reached retirement age, at which time they would receive a pension. However, this ‘solution’ did little to overcome the stigma and suffering of the fired officials.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-204
Author(s):  
Boga Thura Manatsha

There are rising public concerns about the acquisition of prime land by non-citizens/foreigners in Botswana, especially in the sprawling urban and peri-urban areas. Indians, Nigerians and Chinese, among others, are allegedly involved in such land transactions. There is a salient local resentment towards them and/or such transactions. Sensational media reports, emotive public statements by politicians, chiefs and government officials, and anger from ordinary citizens dominate the discourse. These emotive public debates about this issue warrant some academic comment. This article argues that the acquisition of land by foreigners in Botswana, in each land category—tribal, state and freehold—is legally allowed by the relevant laws. But this does not mean that citizens have no right to raise concerns and/or show their disapproval of some of these legal provisions. Aware of the public outcry, the government has since passed the Land Policy in 2015, revised in 2019, and amended the Tribal Land Act in 2018, not yet operational, to try and strictly regulate the acquisition of land by non-citizens. There is no readily available statistical data, indicating the ownership of land by foreigners in each land category. This issue is multifaceted and needs to be cautiously handled, lest it breeds xenophobia or the anti-foreigner sentiments.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-156
Author(s):  
PAUL S. REICHLER

AbstractThe Nicaragua case demonstrates the Court's competence in receiving and interpreting evidence, and in making reasoned findings of fact, even in the most complicated evidentiary context, as is often presented in cases involving use of force and armed conflict. The Court applied well-established standards for evaluating the conflicting evidence presented to it. In particular, the Court determined that greater weight should be given to statements against interest made by high-level government officials than to a state's self-serving declarations. The Court also determined that statements by disinterested witnesses with first-hand knowledge should receive greater weight than mere statements of opinion or press reports. In applying these guidelines, the Court found, correctly, that (i) the United States had used military and paramilitary force against Nicaragua both directly and indirectly, by organizing, financing, arming, and training the Contra guerrillas to attack Nicaragua; (ii) the evidence did not support a finding that the United States exercised direct control over the Contras’ day-to-day operations; and (iii) there was no evidence that Nicaragua supplied arms to guerrillas fighting against the government of El Salvador during the relevant period, or carried out an armed attack against that state. While Judge Schwebel's dissent criticized the last of these findings, in fact, the evidence fully supported the Court's conclusion. In subsequent decisions during the past 25 years, the Court has continued to rely on the approach to evidence first elaborated in the Nicaragua case and has continued to demonstrate its competence as a finder of fact, including in cases involving armed conflict (Bosnia Genocide) and complex scientific and technical issues (Pulp Mills).


Author(s):  
V. Sautkina

The following article is devoted to the study of current state of national education and healthcare systems. The cost of services in these areas constantly increases, there for even developed countries are forced to make significant efforts in order to maintain earlier achieved results. Due to this reason countries entered into the period of constant reforms with the purpose of maintaining that high level of health and educational services for all segments of population with a constant reduction of its volume of financing. The legal aspects of these changes are requiring manifestation of the will of politicians in order to overcome the opposition of parties which are defending their interests. As an example, the main opponents of the healthcare reforms proposed by Barak Obama in the USA are Republicans who are concerned about a significant increase of a state control over the entire national insurance system. The author comes to the conclusion that only joint actions of the government and every segment of population might actually improve the quality of medical and educational services.


1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Larry W. Bowman

Relationships between U.S. government officials and academic specialists working on national security and foreign policy issues with respect to Africa are many and complex. They can be as informal as a phone call or passing conversation or as formalized as a consulting arrangement or research contract. Many contacts exist and there is no doubt that many in both government and the academy value these ties. There have been, however, ongoing controversies about what settings and what topics are appropriate to the government/academic interchange. National security and foreign policy-making in the U.S. is an extremely diffuse process.


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