Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Does Patronage Still Drive Politics For The Rural Poor In The Developing World? A Comparative Perspective From The Livestock Sector, David K. Leonard, Jennifer Brass, Michael Nelson, Sophal Ear, Dan Fahey, Tasha Fairfield, Martha Johnson Gning, Michael Halderman, Brendan Mcsherry, Devra Coren Moehler, Wilson Prichard, Robin L. Turner, Tuong Vu, Jeroen Dijkman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Is the analysis of patron–client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on ‘social capital’? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to the ways peasant interests are treated. Peasant populations were found either to have no clear connection to their political leaders or to be controlled by political clientage. Furthermore, communities ‘free’ of patron–client ties to the centre generally are not better represented …

Coming Distractions: Postcards From Tomorrow Square

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China Beat has been faithfully following James Fallows’s reports for the Atlanticfrom first Shanghai and now Beijing since he moved to China in 2006. His reports have covered topics from China’s international image to the financial crisis to theGreat Firewall, and he blogs regularly at the Atlantic‘s website. Fallows’s reports have now been gathered together in a collection, Postcards from Tomorrow Square, that will be available for purchase tomorrow. Over email, Fallows chatted with Kate Merkel-Hess about the new book and his thoughts about reporting from China.

Kate Merkel-Hess: Your forthcoming book Postcards from Tomorrow Square is a collection of …

Reading Round-Up: 12/18/09

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China Beat will be going on vacation for the next two weeks, and will return in 2010. Before we sign off for the holidays, here are a few stories that have caught our eye lately:

1. In the Business Standard, Pallavi Aiyar writes that the “Ghosts of Beijing Lurk in Brussels.” Moving from Beijing to Brussels, Aiyar was anticipating a departure from the relentless cycle of urban destruction and construction that had marked her years in China:

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at Schuman, the headquarters of the European Union and a 10-minute drive from downtown Brussels, to scenes …

Report On Offense Grading In Pennsylvania, Paul H. Robinson, Criminal Law Research Group, University Of Pennsylvania Law School

All Faculty Scholarship

The Pennsylvania Legislature's Senate Judiciary Committee and House Judiciary Committee jointly commissioned this study of the criminal offense grading scheme contained in Pennsylvania criminal statutes. This Final Report, which was presented to a joint session of the two Committees on December 15, 2009, examines the extent to which current Pennsylvania law defines offenses with offense grades that are inconsistent with the relative seriousness of the offense as compared to other offenses, based upon an empirical survey of Pennsylvania residents. It also examines whether some offenses include within a single grade forms of conduct of very different degrees of seriousness, for …

In Case You Missed It: Learning From Hangzhou, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I took this photo on my first day in Hangzhou when I arrived there in July 2005 for a six-week Chinese language course. I didn’t find the billboard especially interesting, but one of my friends hails from Kohler, Wisconsin, and I thought he might enjoy seeing that his hometown is known in a Chinese city that I’m fairly certain he had never heard of before I announced I would be spending the summer there. At the time, I didn’t give much thought to the billboard itself, or the thousands of other advertisements affixed to the sides of buildings, encircling construction …

China-Related Talks Around The World

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. On December 14-15, the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California will be holding a “Colloquium on China Media Studies” (RSVP required). For those not able to attend, the event will be live-streamed at the above link, beginning at noon PST on December 14.

2. Ken Pomeranz will be giving two talks in Japan next week:

December 16, 2009: Kyoto University. Participant in the “Changing Nature of ‘Nature’: New Perspectives in Transdisciplinary Field Science” conference sponsored by the Global Center of Excellence on a Sustainable Humanssphere.

December 18, 2009: Tokyo University. “Land rights and …

Around The Web: Janus-Faced Links

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As December moves on, assessing the highs and lows of 2009 takes up more and more of our time — and this year, we have the added task of summing up the entire “00” decade. Below, some recent stories that say goodbye to 2009 (a little bit early), and one that says hello to 2010 (also a bit early).

1. We’ve recently seen several “best books of the year” lists, but not many of their selections have links to China — reflecting the fact that 2009 was something of an off-year in the China-related publishing field (especially compared to the …

The Tibet Question

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“A Peking University student takes notes at a lecture titled ‘the Tibet question’ (you can just make out the Chinese for that at the top-right of his page). This student hardly ever put his pen down, while a few seats down from him another dozed happily.” —Alec Ash

On The Web: Local Connections, National Reflections Webcast

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations will hold its third annual CHINA Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections tonight, beginning at 8p.m. EST. In addition to a nationwide webcast by Kurt M. Campbell, there will be discussions in nearly 40 cities across the U.S. and China, focusing on topics tied to the interests of the local community (a full list of locations and speakers is available at the above link). The webcast will be available for all to view online tomorrow at the National Committee’s website.

Successful And Abandoned Sourceforge.Net Projects In The Initiation Stage, Charles Schweik

National Center for Digital Government

[first paragraph] Chapter 6 provided an open source project success and abandonment dependent variable. Chapter 7 described data available in the Sourceforge.net repository and linked these data to various independent variable concepts and hypotheses presented in the theoretical part of this book. Chapter 7 also described the Classification Tree and Random Forest statistical approaches we use in this and the following chapter. This chapter presents the results of the Classification Tree analysis for successful and abandoned projects in the Initiation Stage, which in Chapter 3 (Figure 3.2), we defined as the period before and up to the time when a …

The Dependent Variable: Defining Open Source "Success" And "Abandonment" Using Sourceforge.Net Data, Charles Schweik

National Center for Digital Government

[first paragraph] From the very beginning of this research project, we understood that we needed to define what success meant in open source so that we could use that definition to create a dependent variable for our empirical studies. Does success mean a project has developed high quality software, or does it mean that the software is widely used? How might extremely valuable software that is used by only a few people, such as software for charting parts of the human genome, fit into this definition? In this chapter, we establish a robust success and abandonment measure that satisfies these …

Holiday Gift Guide 2009

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

If shopping for holiday gifts has you stymied, China Beat is here to help. We’ve put together a list of China-related books that will make great gifts — and all of them are appropriate for the general-interest reader.

For: The Nostalgic Reader

Earnshaw Books has been reprinting a number of older books, including many expat memoirs from early 20th century China. We’ve previously reviewed Shanghai: High Lights, Low Lights, Tael Lights, an entertaining glimpse into 1930s Shanghai penned by Maurine Karns and Pat Patterson. The press is also releasing a three-volume set of drawings by White Russian cartoon artist Sapajou, …

Ua37/29 Gary Ransdell - Fed. Reserve Board - Bernanke Speech To Economic Club Of Washington, St. Louis Federal Reserve Board

WKU Archives Records

Email sent to members of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Board of speech given by Ben Bernanke at the Economic Club of Washington.

Who Was Fritz Kraemer? And Why We Should Care, Luke A. Nichter

Presidential Studies Faculty Articles and Research

"Whether Vietnam, Iraq, or now Afghanistan, wars come and go, but the real battle is a philosophic one between two sects of conservatives. In The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons from Nixon to Obama, authors Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman challenge readers to examine the role of a little-known Pentagon figure named Fritz G.A. Kraemer. Colodny and Shachtman argue that Kraemer was the leading intellectual behind what became known as the neo-conservative movement, witnessed by the fact that Kraemer influenced so many high-ranking conservative figures over the course of six decades."

Reading Round-Up: December 3, 2009

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. We’ve discussed Lu Xun quite a lot lately, and more great Lu Xun-related stories keep coming our way. At Inside-Out China, Xujun Eberlein writes about her own memories of reading Lu Xun as a high-school student during the 1970s. Eberlein also comments on Lu Xun’s work as a translator, as well as the fact that “His scathing style was extensively mimicked by the Red Guards for faction fighting during the Cultural Revolution, a consequence he wouldn’t have dreamed of.”

A diary kept by Chinese writer Lin Yutang between 1929 and 1932 has just come to light, and provides insight …

Ua37/29 Gary Ransdell - Fed. Reserve Board - Ben Bernanke's Confirmation Hearing Testimony, St. Louis Federal Reserve Board

WKU Archives Records

Email sent to members of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Board regarding Ben Bernanke's confirmation hearing testimony.

The Forbidden City And American Presidents

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With all of the attention generated by Barack Obama’s speed-touring of Beijing sites, we became interested in finding out a bit about previous presidential sightseeing itineraries. There were some useful summaries on the web of what Nixon and company had said about the Great Wall, but what about the Forbidden City as a presidential tourist attraction, past and present? This complex of palaces, which are the subject of a recent book by Geremie Barmé that we’ve praised already on this blog, would seem a more problematic place to include on the go-to lists for foreign dignitaries, given its links to …

Venture Philanthropy In 2009: Developments In The Field Since "Virtuous Capital", Annika Many

Master in Public Administration Theses

This study will examine the evolution of the field of venture philanthropy since the late 1990s and will provide an updated guide to the types of organizations utilizing venture philanthropy strategies across the United States and internationally. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the field has changed as it has matured, to identify the key players and learnings of organizations across the field, and to develop a framework for the types of organizations that have been the most successful in implementing the venture philanthropy model.

Voting Behavior And Political Participation, James Lai

Ethnic Studies

Asian Americans have been labeled as the "next sleeping giant" in American politics in key geopolitical states such as California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. ¹ Much of this perception is fueled by the dramatic growth of Asian American communities in these and other states as a result of federal immigration reforms beginning in 1965. This section highlights the major areas of Asian American political participation and behavior that will likely determine whether Asian American politics will live up to this label. These include voter behavior and turnout in local, state, and federal elections as recently as …

Tea Leaves Of The Economy: General Elections In 2010?, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Incumbent governments with good economic track records would typically capitalise on economic downturns to seize a political advantage by calling for early elections. Will the ruling People's Action Party do so nect year in view of the strong economic perormances in recent months?

Who Governs Energy? The Challenges Facing Global Energy Governance, Ann Florini, Benjamin K. Sovacool

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article conceptualizes the energy problems facing society from a global governance perspective. It argues that a notion of "global energy governance," taken to mean international collective action efforts undertaken to manage and distribute energy resources and provide energy services, offers a meaningful and useful framework for assessing energy-related challenges. The article begins by exploring the concepts of governance, global governance, and global energy governance. It then examines some of the existing institutions in place to establish and carry out rules and norms governing global energy problems and describes the range of institutional design options available to policymakers. It briefly …

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Christiaan Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although the term “cosmopolitan-communitarian debate” never really caught on, a national-global fault line remains prominent in debates about global justice. “Dialogic cosmopolitanism” holds the promise of bridging this alleged fault line by accepting many of the communitarian criticisms against cosmopolitanism and following what can be described as a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism. This article identifies and describes four key elements that distinguish dialogic cosmopolitanism: a respect for difference; a commitment to genuine dialogue; an open, hesitant and self-problematising attitude on the part of the moral subject; and an undertaking to expand the boundaries of moral concern to the point of …

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although the term “cosmopolitan-communitarian debate” never really caught on, a national-global fault line remains prominent in debates about global justice. “Dialogic cosmopolitanism” holds the promise of bridging this alleged fault line by accepting many of the communitarian criticisms against cosmopolitanism and following what can be described as a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism. This article identifies and describes four key elements that distinguish dialogic cosmopolitanism: a respect for difference; a commitment to genuine dialogue; an open, hesitant and self-problematising attitude on the part of the moral subject; and an undertaking to expand the boundaries of moral concern to the point of …

Chongqing Castle

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“In Chongqing, the old town of Ciqikou looms over a more modern addition by the riverbank. This kid was more interested in her bouncy throne than in the juxtaposition of her city’s ancient past and booming present.”

—Alec Ash

Lu Xun And Translation

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I recently wrote an essay called “China’s Orwell” for the Asian edition of Time Magazine. In the article, I deal with the conundrum of Lu Xun’s enormous influence within China yet continued relative obscurity outside of the Sinophone world. Among other things, I ponder the possibility that an attractive new collection of his complete fiction, which features spirited translations by Julia Lovell and was published as part of the Penguin Classics series (click here for a “Paper Republic” interview with the translator about the book), could help right this imbalance by introducing figures such as Ah-Q to Western readers who …

A Fateful Year For Climate Change, William J. Antholis

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Since 1979, 20% of the polar ice cap has melted away. While the public is aware of climate change, the urgency to action is not there. Climate change is also an issue of national security, but enforcement of the the Kyoto and Copenhagen treaties is hampered.

Obama In China: Final Thoughts

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

President Obama’s trip to China is now in the past, though there might be a postscript when the U.N. Climate Change Conference convenes in Copenhagen next month, as how China and the U.S. would cooperate (or not) in dealing with environmental issues was a major topic during Obama’s meetings with Chinese leaders. As a final look back at Obama’s first trip to China, here are several readings that put his visit in a larger context:

1. Timothy Garton Ash writes about “Two Ways for West to Meet China”, arguing that Western countries could choose between two strategies when dealing with …

China’S Lincolnophilia, Alan Wachman

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Abraham Lincoln’s stance on national unity during the U.S. Civil War and his opposition to the institution of slavery have been summoned up by PRC officials, media, and elites in efforts to explain and legitimate their own response to those they disparage as “separatists” in Taiwan and Tibet.

To Beijing, vigorously opposing separatism and preserving Chinese territorial integrity is a cause no less noble than was Abraham Lincoln’s resort to war as a way of preventing the secession of southern states. In its quest for moral authority, Beijing has recalled the rhetoric and …

Vietnam Blocks Facebook, Caroline Finlay

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Writer Caroline Finlay has written for China Beat in the past about Southeast Asian news stories that have a China angle. Here, she draws parallels between Internet controls in Vietnam and those in China. She’s written about speech issues in Vietnam before, for instance see “Vietnam Youth Given Rare Chance to Protest–Against China” from May 2008.

Facebook users have begun having difficulty logging on to the social networking site, the Associated Press and the Inter Press Service reported on November 17th.

News agencies are citing an unverified document that says it’s from Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and states, “For …

“Caijing Is Dead, Long Live Caijing”, Scott Kennedy

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the past few weeks, the coverage of the fall of Caijing and the exodus of its staff has read almost like an obituary. During its eleven years in production, Caijingbenefitted from protection from patrons as well as the deft leadership of its editor, Hu Shuli, who has a sixth sense for knowing where the boundaries of permissibility sit and how to move them. The result was a record of breaking myriad stories of serious corruption and poor governance. Over the years, a couple issues were temporarily held up for “technical” reasons, but Caijing appeared to have regularly escaped the …