Bureaucratic Control and Strategic Compliance: How Do Subnational Governments Implement Central Guidelines in China?

Bureaucratic control, the constraint that a superior imposes on subordinate agencies’ discretion through guidelines, is ubiquitous in administrative organizations. Despite scholarly discussions on the merits and shortcomings of bureaucratic control, we still know little about the impact of the extents of bureaucratic control on subordinates’ compliance patterns. In this article, we argue that bureaucratic control might intensify subordinates’ burdens and incentivize them to strategically reduce compliance with the central guidelines which impose such control on them. We build a database containing 42 social regulatory guidelines issued by the Chinese State Council (central government) and 848 implementation documents issued by provincial governments between 2003 and 2012. As bureaucratic control in a central guideline increases, provincial governments might postpone the release or withhold the implementation documents and reiterate less content of the corresponding central guideline. Interestingly, when provincial governments lack financial resources, the aforementioned reactions to bureaucratic control is weakened and even reversed to be positive. Moreover, central mobilization alleviates the negative impact of bureaucratic control on the surface but might fail to address subordinates’ decrease of compliance in hidden ways. Central monitoring raises the overall level of subordinates’ compliance but does not moderate how subordinates circumvent central guidelines with high degree of control.

State Formation in Korea and Japan, 400–800 CE: Emulation and Learning, Not Bellicist Competition

State formation occurred in Korea and Japan 1,000 years before it did in Europe, and it occurred for reasons of emulation and learning, not bellicist competition. State formation in historical East Asia occurred under a hegemonic system in which war was relatively rare, not under a balance-of-power system with regular existential threats. Korea and Japan emerged as states between the fifth and ninth centuries CE and existed for centuries thereafter with centralized bureaucratic control defined over territory and administrative capacity to tax their populations, field large militaries, and provide extensive public goods. They created these institutions not to wage war or suppress revolt: the longevity of dynasties in these countries is evidence of both the peacefulness of their region and their internal stability. Rather, Korea and Japan developed state institutions through emulation and learning from China. The elites of both copied Chinese civilization for reasons of prestige and domestic legitimacy in the competition between the court and the nobility.

Chevron, State Farm, and the Impact of Judicial Doctrine on Bureaucratic Policymaking

We explain how two landmark Supreme Court cases, Motor Vehicles Manufacturers Association of the U.S. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. (1983) and Chevron U.S.A., Inc., v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984), have constrained congressional and presidential control of the bureaucracy. We provide an overview of these cases, and we note how the dominant theories of bureaucratic policy making in the political science literature fail to account for judicial doctrine in a meaningful way. We illustrate the implications of these cases for recent debates regarding regulatory rollbacks in the Trump administration, and we argue that bureaucratic control over the past forty years has tilted in favor of the judicial branch of American national government.

DIGITAL SOCIETY AS “A SNEER OF HISTORY”

The article examines digital society from a historiosophical point of view using such Hegel’s category as universal world irony. It is stated that the implementation of the Modern project based on the principles of rationalism and anthropocentrism has led to the threat of dehumanization of society and desocialization of a human. The digital society is interpreted as the result of a specifi c social practice with relevant actors and goals. The origins of the technocratic development of society are found in the sphere of politics and the constructive-projective attitude towards society and a human, characteristic of the Enlightenment ideology. The example of the education sector illustrates that criticism and denial of traditional institutions and forms of social communication are explained by the impossibility of subjecting them to complete digitalization and, accordingly, to the process of political and bureaucratic control. Hegel’s “irony of history” manifested itself in the fact that science, emancipated from religion and philosophy, within the framework of modern digital reality, obediently turns into “a maidservant” of technology and technocrats.

Navigating the paradoxes of organizational diversity management

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings This research paper concerns itself with understanding the paradoxes faced by diversity managers when attempting to successfully implement organizational diversity-enhancing initiatives. Three major paradoxes that confront diversity managers were identified: the need for change vs. the desire to maintain the status-quo, bureaucratic control vs. flexible procedures, and long-term business gains vs. short term losses. Diversity managers have the choice to adopt an either/or strategy or a manifold strategy to deal with these paradoxes. It was found that both strategies were initially used interchangeably, but as a diversity manager’s experience grew they employed the manifold strategy to effectively manage workplace tensions. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The Bureaucratic Making of Disability

Making use of interpretive methods of social inquiry, informed by disability studies, I show how the Western bureaucratic orientation is particularly troubled by those unable to keep the rules. Disability is, today, a term used to delineate such an inability. Exploring the meaning of bureaucratic definitions of disability can help us learn something about the organising force of bureaucracy on our lives. In particular, this paper explores a paradox found within the bureaucratic orientation whereby disability is conceptualised as lack of function resulting in an inability to keep the rules that is, nonetheless, managed by the imposition of further rules that need to be kept. Ultimately, this paper tries to reveal what becomes of disability under bureaucratic control not only to learn something about how bureaucracy works but also to learn something about how disability is made meaningful.