I Am Woke

This praxis-based chapter explores advocacy in the English language teaching (ELT) field. The chapter introduces a new conceptualization of advocacy, the Critical Advocacy Framework, informed by Freire's critical consciousness (conscientização), Fanon's race (Black) consciousness, and Crenshaw's intersectionality paradigms. For critical advocacy praxis, this chapter integrates the “iron triangle” model from the American politics and public policy fields to highlight patron-client relationships between multilingual learners (MLs) advocates and stakeholders. This chapter highlights how the racially mixed author, a trained political scientist and newcomer to the ELT field, leveraged her Blackness, experiential and organizational knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) in a Machiavellian sense, to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) throughout a TESOL state affiliate. The chapter provides evidence-based practices and learning activities for MATESOL program administrators, pre-service, and in-service English teachers.

Big Business and Cadre Management in China

Leading cadres in China are subject to rotation. An interesting form of rotation takes place between big business and the political world. That means one fifth of China’s governors and vice governors have a business background as heads of one of China’s large State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). How this takes place and which qualifications the involved business leaders possess are shrouded in mystery. Based on prosopographical studies of Chinese business leaders who have participated in the Chinese Executive Leadership Program (CELP), this article attempts to open the black box. The study examines the career pathways of CELP participants in Party, government and business positions. The study shows that 84 of the 261 CELP SOE participants (2005-2018) were subsequently promoted, and 20 of these promotions were from SOEs to leading Party and government positions. In some cases, former business leaders became Party secretaries in important provinces or ministers in key ministries. The article also argues that Chinese business leaders have managed to keep their administrative ranking in the Chinese nomenklatura system. In fact, Chinese business leaders are quasi officials (zhun guan) and form an important recruitment base for leadership renewal. As such, the article suggests that the rotation of cadres within the ‘Iron Triangle’ of Party–government–business constitutes the main unifying and stabilising factor in the Chinese political system.

A Study of the Anatomy of Decision Making in the Planning and Appraisal of Hong Kong Section of Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High Speed Rail

This paper will study the anatomy of the decision making of Hong Kong Section of Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High Speed Rail (XRL). The paper will focus on five aspects. They are drivers of megaprojects, mega infrastructure project as an agent of change, early and effective stakeholder engagement, Iron Triangle and context awareness. XRL will be regarded as a resonance test of the international literature findings.

What do post-disaster reconstruction project success indicators look like? End-user’s perspectives

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the emergence of new success measures for buildings and infrastructure post-disaster reconstruction projects, beyond the traditional ”iron triangle”, which have gained prominence with the increased involvement of clients and end-users in these projects. Consequently, the industry is obliged to reconsider the critical factors regarding what constitutes a successful outcome from the perspectives of these stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach Data was gathered from end-users in four Caribbean islands using a questionnaire survey on eight empirical success indicators obtained from an extensive systematic literature review. To elicit a ranking and correlations amongst the end-user’ perspectives on the indicators, factor analysis and structural equation modelling techniques (SEM) were conducted. Findings The factor analysis found “safety” to be the most important empirical success measure, while “change” ranked the least important. Correlation analysis using SEM identified two new composite indicators, namely, “competence” with delivering timely and quality environmentally friendly and sustainable projects and “adaptability” in ensuring project objectives reflect beneficiaries’ expectations amidst internal and external influences, to be critical of end-users’ measurement indicators that describe their assessment mechanism. Measurement and structural models validated “safety” and “satisfaction” to be the highest loading variables in the two composites, respectively. Research limitations/implications The research focussed on findings in English language articles; therefore, any claim to a complete list of indicators from the literature can be amiss. Practical implications Results confirm the traditional “iron triangle” of time, cost and quality to be limited in assessing reconstruction project outcomes and the views and expectations of the potential beneficiaries need to be factored in the planning, design, execution and post-handover stages in all reconstruction projects. Originality/value This paper was very specific in its attempt to investigate new success indicators for reconstruction project outcomes, aiming to assist with developing comprehensive project objectives that resonate with all stakeholder groups.

The Farm Lobby and Agricultural Policy in Japan

Japanese agricultural policymaking has been changing over the past generation. For much of the postwar era, policy formulation fell under the purview of the powerful “farm lobby”—an iron triangle consisting of farm bureaucrats, conservative politicians, and Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA), a nationwide network of agricultural cooperative organizations. For the most part, the lobby prioritized the heavy subsidization of farm household incomes and other market-distorting redistributive measures. But by the end of the twentieth century, severe demographic and economic challenges in the countryside combined with new electoral rules to weaken the relative powers of the farm lobby and generate a gradual shift toward structural reform in the farm sector. In tracing these policy-related developments, which reached new heights during the second administration of Shinzō Abe, this chapter illuminates the significance of the organized farm vote, the empowerment of prime ministerial leadership, and the changing fortunes of agriculture in Japan.

Military-Industrial Complexes and Their Variations

Dwight David Eisenhower delivered one final address to the American public on January 17, 1961, as he prepared to step down from the U.S. presidency. Often remembered as an inarticulate public speaker, Eisenhower surprised his audience with his clear warning that “in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Eisenhower’s words resonated with both his audience and subsequent generations because he gave voice to the growing level of popular anxiety over whether armaments’ increasing importance to national security would ultimately endow defense firms with a degree of power incompatible with liberal democracy. Although Eisenhower’s concerns about defense firms’ antidemocratic potential echoed those of policymakers and scholars since the First World War, Eisenhower’s formulation of the military-industrial complex problématique followed on the heels of earlier analytic models—notably the “merchants of death” and “garrison state” hypotheses—and preceded later rearticulations, such as that of the “iron triangle.” It is possible now, with a century of perspective on this literature, to assess which hypotheses about defense firms’ deleterious impact on society and government have been borne out by subsequent events and which have not. Within this context, many of the worst fears embodied in the earlier theories have not been borne out by subsequent events. Defense firms did not “cause” wars as per the merchants-of-death hypothesis, and democracy did not give way in states where it already existed to the authoritarian rule of “specialists of violence.” Nonetheless, the core insight of the military-industrial complex and iron triangle schools of thought—that defense industries and their allies in the military and politics will act as an interest group to promote procurement projects—has proven robust. The way that these dynamics occur, however, varies from state to state as a function of their institutions. Even though the production of armaments by defense firms headquartered in one’s state exercises a distorting effect on national politics and military procurement, few states can escape this dynamic. The national security advantages of greater supply security and enhanced military adaptation, combined with the fear that once abandoned, defense-industrial capabilities cannot be quickly reconstituted, compels most states that can produce armaments to do so. A military-industrial complex, of some form, is thus a fatality for the modern state.