Unruly People

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Antony
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
State Power ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
Qing Government ◽  
Peripheral Areas ◽  
Complex Relationships

Unruly People shows that in mid-Qing Guangdong banditry occurred mainly in the densely populated core Canton delta where state power was strongest, challenging the conventional wisdom that banditry was most prevalent in peripheral areas. Through extensive archival research, Antony reveals that this is because the local working poor had no other options to ensure their livelihood. In 1780 the Qing government enacted the first of a series of special laws to deal specifically with Guangdong bandits who plundered on land and water. The new law was prompted by what officials described as a spiraling “bandit miasma” in the province that had been simmering for decades. To understand the need for the special laws, Unruly People takes a closer look at the complex relationships and interconnections between bandits, sworn brotherhoods, local communities, and the Qing state in Guangdong from 1760 to 1845. Antony treats collective crime as a symptom of the dysfunction in local society and breakdown of the imperial legal system. He analyzes over 2,300 criminal cases found in palace and routine memorials in the Qing archives, as well as extant Chinese literary and foreign sources and fieldwork in rural Guangdong, to recreate vivid details of late imperial China’s underworld of crime and violence.

Bandits, Brotherhoods, and Collective Crime

Unruly People ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Antony
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Trade Routes ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The Core ◽  
Qing Government ◽  
The Law ◽  
Illegal Activities

Chapter 8 closely examines criminal activities. Bandits engaged in a large variety of illegal activities. They formed predatory gangs to operate outside the law and used real and implied violence to prey upon and manipulate others. They became involved in what the Qing government regarded as serious crimes, such as robbery, theft, snatching, kidnapping, extortion, murder, and rape. Most of these crimes carried the death penalty. Some gangs, and in particular sworn brotherhoods, also became increasingly involved in organized forms of crime including prostitution, gambling, and opium smuggling. While banditry occurred everywhere in Guangdong, contrary to conventional wisdom, bandits and brotherhoods were most active in the core Canton delta and along major inland trade routes. The archival evidence strongly suggests an underlying economic, not political, basis for banditry and brotherhood activities in late imperial Guangdong.

scholarly journals In the Absence of the Rule of Law: Everyday Lawyering, Dignity and Resistance in Myanmar’s ‘Disciplined Democracy’

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 573-599
Author(s):  
Alex Batesmith ◽  
Jake Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
State Power ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Material Support ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Human

This article explores how ‘everyday’ lawyers undertaking routine criminal defence cases navigate an authoritarian legal system. Based on original fieldwork in the ‘disciplined democracy’ of Myanmar, the article examines how hegemonic state power and a functional absence of the rule of law have created a culture of passivity among ordinary practitioners. ‘Everyday’ lawyers are nevertheless able to uphold their clients’ dignity by practical and material support for the individual human experience – and in so doing, subtly resist, evade or disrupt state power. The article draws upon the literature on the sociology of lawyering and resistance, arguing for a multilayered understanding of dignity going beyond lawyers’ contributions to their clients’ legal autonomy. Focusing on dignity provides an alternative perspective to the otherwise often all-consuming rule of law discourse. In authoritarian legal systems, enhancing their clients’ dignity beyond legal autonomy may be the only meaningful contribution that ‘everyday’ lawyers can make.

Self-government and 1911 in China: Revolution or Continuity in the Political Participation in Sichuan Province?

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. 165-189
Author(s):  
Monica de Togni
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Sichuan Province ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Role Taking ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Western Sichuan ◽  
The Creation

The process that led to the creation of self-government organs, and their activities in the first years of their existence, shows a consistent continuity between the imperial and the republican institutions, but also some changes in the institutional behaviour of the representatives of the local communities before and after the 1911’s revolution. The different meaning attributed to the institutional reforms as they appear to have been interpreted by the Qing Court, from the interpretations by the local society - a tools to control the political activism of the local notables vs a means to play a more active role in the local policy -, did not interfere with the creation of the organs of self-government, a part of the new structure to be built for the constitutional monarchy scheduled through imperial edicts on 27th August, 1908. The local activism and activities, as they are illustrated for Sichuan province through provincial and county archive documents, local gazetteers and reviews, show contradictory tendencies even as relates to some officials, and part of local communities anticipating sometimes the dispositions by the central government for the implementations of self-government, and some resistance by the people who had the right to vote in the participation to the preparatory process for the poll. However, the flourishing of self-government councils of the lower level and the fields of their interventions as representatives of the local communities show a very positive attitude on part of the local communities that continued until Yuan Shikai closed them down in 1914. This study will be concentrating on this aspect and will include, among other things, the case-study of Xuanhan county in north-western Sichuan, where a powerful local lineage played a very relevant role, taking advantage of the disruption of the provincial institutional order.

scholarly journals Status and perspectives of the ombudsman institution in the legal system of Serbia and Montenegro

2005 ◽  
Vol 77 (10) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Petar Teofilović
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
State Power ◽  
Serbia And Montenegro ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
Further Development

The article presents the main features of ombudsman institution, its position and role in the system of organs at various levels, and its relationships with other branches of state power, followed by a brief review of ombudsman institutions established so far on the territory of Serbia and Montenegro. The authorities and procedure of Ombudsman of Vojvodina are also presented. Finally, the text contains an analysis of some issues important for the regulation of relationship between ombudsman at various levels of territorial organization (national, regional and local), as well as for its further development in the domestic legal system.

Understanding Russia’s Low Rate of Acquittal: Pretrial Screening and the Problem of Accusatorial Bias

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Low Rate

The Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia alike have had extremely low rates of acquittal in criminal cases, which conventional wisdom associates with an accusatorial bias. But other countries like Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, and France also have low rates of acquittal without the perception of bias. This article argues that the key difference lies in the presence or absence of pretrial screening—through the withdrawal of charges, diversion, and/or dispositions imposed by prosecutors. After a brief history of the low acquittal rate in Russia, the article documents the use of prosecutorial discretion to screen cases before trial in those four Western countries, especially through the exercise by prosecutors of quasi-judicial functions. The article goes on to demonstrate the absence of significant pretrial filtering of cases in Russia and to explore the implications for understanding the rate of acquittal.

Mining off the Map: Fulongchang and Silver Mines in the Qing Empire’s Far Southwest

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-301
Author(s):  
Nanny Kim ◽  
Yang Yuda
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Mountain Range ◽  
Governance Structures ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Mining Town ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
Qing Government

Abstract A donation stele discovered in the 1980 records that the community of the Fulong silver mines raised some 4500 liang of silver to build a temple dedicated to the God of Wealth in 1814. The site in a remote mountain range in northern Yunnan evidently was a prosperous and populous mining town. Yet it appears in no government record. Centered on the case study, this paper provides insights into social self-organization of communities and the structures within the Qing government that allowed the operation of mines that were registered with the local governments and submitted taxes yet kept out of the communications with the central government. The analysis contributes a specific example of communal governance structures and explains the two layers in late imperial administration, one which was official and documented in gazetteers and central records, and another which was customary and usually undocumented.

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-184
Author(s):  
He Bian
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Modern China ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Local Society ◽  
The Government ◽  
Shed Light

This concluding chapter turns to developments in the bencao tradition after the fall of Qing China and considers the broader implications of this study on modern China. It asserts that while the making of the bencao pharmacopeia had long faded from the government-sponsored cultural stage, the power of pharmaceutical objecthood endured in less centralized expressions. The popularization of pharmaceutical culture mirrored the efforts of local communities’ efforts to reclaim moral agency in the wake of the traumatic Taiping Wars (1852–1864) and the Arrow War (1856–1860). Pharmacists joined forces with resident gentry, clergy, and a growing contingent of Confucian activists to rebuild local society and reshape national politics. The struggle for authority over the nature of drugs thus continues to shed light on the complex interplay among knowledge, power, and ethics in modern China; pharmacy remains a good vantage point from which to observe the perennial search for consensus over the political administration of human nature.

Sirte’s Tribes Under the Islamic State

2018 ◽  
pp. 153-180
Author(s):  
Virginie Collombier
Keyword(s):  
Regime Change ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Coastal City ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
The City

This chapter focuses on the Libyan coastal city of Sirte, a former stronghold of Mu’ammar Qaddafi and his regime, and analyses the circumstances under which it fell under the control of the Islamic State (IS) between 2015 and 2017. It argues that the tribal character of the local society combined with the influence of the Salafist current within the tribes and their search for a channel to regain political influence and military power after the regime change are not sufficient to explain why IS could develop and take root in Sirte. Rather, it underlines the dramatic impact of the 2011 war on relations of power and authority within the local communities, as well as the incapacity of Libya’s transitional authorities to provide security in the city as key factors that contributed to Sirte becoming a Jihadist platform in Libya and North Africa.

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