Political Science Commons^™

An Interview With Deanna Fei, Author Of A Thread Of Sky

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Deanna Fei is author of A Thread of Sky (Penguin Press, 2010), a novel about three generations of women in a Chinese American family. Here, she talks with recent UC Irvine graduate Mengfei Chen.

Mengfei Chen: What were some of your inspirations in writing the book? How did it begin? What experiences informed your writing?

Deanna Fei: A Thread of Sky is the story of a family of Chinese American women who reunite for a tour of their ancestral home. It was inspired by a trip through China’s “must-sees” that I embarked on ten years ago with my mother, my …

Dirty Laundry: A Philosophical Primer For Politicians On Scandal, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the management of post-sex scandals by politicians from a variety of theoretical and/or philosophical perspectives.

“We Are Not Machines:” Teen Spirit On China’S Shopfloor, Mary E. Gallagher

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This spring, a series of well-coordinated and successful strikes in foreign-invested enterprises in China made headlines all around the world. Young migrant workers openly and forcefully articulated demands for higher wages, better representation, and more consideration of their “spiritual” and mental well-being. These demands have led to increased speculation that China’s current economic boom is winding down, as its growth strategy founded in part on cheap migrant labor from rural areas faces domestic and international difficulties.

This is not the first time that Chinese workers have openly protested for higher wages, better treatment, and more job security. What makes this …

A Case Study: The Assessment And Evaluation Of The Inaugural Multicultural Leadership Program Of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, Christine Holmes

Capstone Projects – Politics and Government

From August 2009 through August 2010, I served as the program coordinator for the inaugural Multicultural Leadership Program (MCLP) of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. In collaboration with the Board of Directors and program founder, I developed an internal structure for the new non-profit program. My involvement was determined by the board’s decision to partner with the University of Illinois, McLean County Extension office for administrative support. Through a collaboration between the Sue Bandy, the Community and Economic Development Director, and Phani Aytam, founder of the MCLP program, my role as the program coordinator for the program was created. Several key deliverables were …

The Nebraska State Constitution: A Reference Guide (2d Ed.), On-Line Update, Anthony B. Schutz

Nebraska State Constitution

State of Nebraska Constitution

Reading Round-Up: China Now The World’S Second-Largest Economy

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This week came the not-unexpected news that China has passed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. Here, we’ve rounded up reactions to and analyses of the story:

• At his New Yorker blog, Evan Osnos asks “Why the Long Face?”, explaining that “While the story has rated front-page treatment in the U.S., it has sent China into a frenzy of self-flagellation, in the hope of reminding people that it is still home to a lot of very poor people.”

• Yoree Koh at the Wall Street Journal reports that Japan is taking the news of its third-place status with …

Fool For Love: The Psychology Of Security Violation, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses why Pfc. Bradley Manning, United States (US) Army, who has been accused of illegally disclosing classified material—more than 150,000 diplomatic cables, 90,000 intelligence reports, and at least one video – allegedly performed the actions in question.

An Image

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

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I had never bid on eBay. It takes too much energy, too much attention to follow the vagaries of an online auction. And there never seems to be anything I want that badly. But I wanted that propaganda poster—a reproduction of an oil painting, mid-1970s—depicting, with the imagination and rhetorical power possible only in socialist realism, the May Fourth movement of 1919.

In the painting, the sky is clearing and clouds are dissipating behind the imposing presence of Tiananmen, which dominates the scene. The students, young men and women, are marching at …

Panic Room

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On my (continuing) walk across China, I have occasionally come across the kind of construction featured in the attached image — a farmhouse with a door half way up the wall, no stairs attached. I have previously assumed the house was still under construction, or perhaps they ran out of money before doing the stairs. But as I passed his one, in Guang’an county in the middle of Sichuan, last Saturday, it struck me that this is in fact a “panic room”, a way to seal off and protect the family and its assets in the top room, safe from …

Frivolous Friday: The Red Army Learns To “Just Beat It”

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” were performed by a Cultural Revolution-era musical troupe? Perhaps not. But thanks to this video on Tudou, the question you never thought to ask has been answered.

The video has been making the rounds on Twitter this week (follow us at@chinabeat!); thanks to Kaiser Kuo for bringing it to our attention.

Sodden Anniversary, Paul Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

August 8, 2010 marked the first anniversary of the Siaolin Village 小林村 tragedy, when torrential rains caused by Typhoon Morakot triggered a massive mudslide that swept this idyllic community off the face of the earth, taking 474 lives. Conditions one year later were eerily similar, with rain drenching the disaster site and another threat (Tropical Storm Dianmu 電母) lurking off the east coast (happily it did not make landfall). Southern Taiwan has suffered heavy rains during the past month, but there has been little destruction and loss of life (so far), unlike the terrible flooding that has ravaged so much …

Hong Kong’S Glass Ceiling, Reenita Malhotra

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Hong Kong’s women have the power of their purses, are freer and more educated, and enjoy more legal protection than they did 20 years ago. And since 1996, when Hong Kong signed CEDAW, the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women—which calls for 50 percent representation of women in government leadership, political parties, trade unions, professional and other representative groups—women’s participation in managerial positions has risen from 22 percent in 1998 to 29 percent in 2008. In the civil service, women held 31 percent of directorate officer positions in 2008, compared to 21 percent in …

Are You Down With Ppp? A Look At Prohibited Personnel Practices In The United States Government, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the prevalence of identified proscribed personnel practices, and the power dynamics of such identifications among federal employees.

An Interview With Chinese Underground Rock Musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou, Tim Hathaway

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A quick listen to Zuoxiao Zuzhou’s (左小祖咒）music would not be enough to explain his fame. His trademark is singing off key.

In spite of the odd sounding vocals or perhaps because of its contrast to the saccharine sweet sounds of Chinese pop and rock, Zuoxiao has become one of China’s most successful rock musicians.

He started his career in 1993 and has since produced ten albums. He has also published a best selling novel and created sculptures and artistic photography. He was a founding member of the avant garde artists residence called Beijing’s “East Village” in the early 1990s where …

Sumpter, Ward Cullin, 1902-1977 (Sc 2318), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2318. Chemistry notebook of Ward Cullin Sumpter, probably kept about 1930 while he was a doctoral student at Yale University. Includes other miscellaneous documents: a tribute to a church's departing pastor, a draft petition in support of an anti-cigarette law, and a poem relating to the 1928 presidential election.

Payback: The 1920/1921 Agib Sltu Strike In The Dublin Building Industry, John Hogan

Articles

In late 1920 a strike began in the building industry in Dublin that was to last until June of the following year. It effectively shut down building sites all across the city. The primary protagonists involved in the dispute were the Ancient Guild of Incorporated Brick and Stonelayers Trade Union (AGIBSLTU) and the building employers association, the Dublin Building Trades Employers’ Association (DBTEA). Both of these bodies had fought a bitterly contested lockout 15 years before, which had almost destroyed the union. In 1920, by dint of wider economic circumstances, and a belligerent determination, the union was to have the …

The Freshest Kids In China, George Zhi Zhao

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

R16 at the Shanghai World Expo

June 19, 2010 I hear the voice of the late James Brown shouting over the booming speakers, and I watch a crowd of dancers move and contort to every minute rhythm and sound that is being controlled and manipulated by the DJ. The energy in the air is tense, as different b-boys (breakdancers) take turns stepping inside a circle of bodies, all asserting themselves in back-to-back solo performances of gravity-defying sequences of dance movements. The competitive performance of breakdancing happens all over the world, in metropolises ranging from New York City to Tokyo, from …

Where’S Haibao? Help Us Find Him!

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Shanghai seems to have turned into a massive game of “Where’s Haibao?” as the image of everyone’s favorite Expo mascot pervades the city, in places both expected and not. Gina Bock, an entering student at Pomona College, recently returned from her first trip to China and shared a few photos of her Haibao sightings with us. They’re now in a Picasa album (link below, and also accessible through our “Media” page). If you have Haibao photos of your own to add (the more unusual, the better!), let us know by writing to thechinabeat[at]gmail.com. Though we suspect Haibao will be only …

Anthologize: A New Tool For Bloggers

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We wanted to alert readers who are fellow WordPress users to the arrival of a cool new WordPress plugin that has just been unveiled. Anthologize is the product of the “One Week | One Tool” program, a summer institute funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and held at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. The plugin — conceived, developed, and released in just one week! — enables bloggers to grab online content, edit and organize it, and produce an electronic book. Read more about Anthologize, and some ideas about how it can enhance …

The Profiler's Story, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

Courtesy of commercial television, we better be good. Or else the profilers will get us. It turns out that applied science and its sidekicks intuition and psychism (what psychics do) have our number. One step out of line and our number will be called, and we’ll be served our due comeuppance and just desserts. But is profiling more dessert or desert—or upon close inspection fated to desert us as a valuable tool in deterring or identifying perpetrators of egregious misbehavior? This article describes some implicit assumptions—as contradictory and interdependent as some may be—on which profiling often rests. For these purposes, …

Japan Chair Platform: Japan's Other Spending Problem, Gene Park

Political Science and International Relations Faculty Works

Since the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, a combination of declining revenue growth, fiscal stimulus, and growing budget commitments have made Japan the most indebted country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Attention to Japan’s growing public debt problem increased in the wake of Greece’s sovereign debt crisis, and the issue of how to go about fixing Japan’s finances shot to the forefront during July’s Upper House election as competing political parties put forth ideas from trimming wasteful spending to increasing taxes to reducing budget deficits and debt. But until just a short …

A Q-And-A With Scott Tong Of Marketplace

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As regular readers of this blog know, I spent late June and much of July in Shanghai, with brief trips to other parts of China. One aspect of this sojourn in the PRC that proved memorable was the opportunity it afforded me to finally meet several people whose reporting or commentaries I’ve admired, but whose paths had never crossed mine before, including Kaiser Kuo (whose Sinica podcasts we’ve talked up here before), David Barboza of the New York Times (whose day-in-the-life of a South China worker I singled out for praise in a recent commentary), freelancer Adam Minter (who has …

Reading Round-Up, 8/2/2010

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Before we fully embrace the arrival of August, a bit of housekeeping from July . . . some stories that we noticed during the past month and wanted to share with our readers:

• Xujun Eberlein has been busy lately, and two of her recent pieces of writing have overlaps with topics we’ve discussed here at China Beat in the past few weeks. On the matter of Wang Hui and plagiarism, see her post at Inside-Out China; for her review of the “social science fiction” novel Shengshi: Zhongguo 2013, head over to Foreign Policy.

• If you’re in Beijing and …

War Powers In The Obama Administration, Ryan Hendrickson

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

With the arrival of a new American president in 2009, the power and constitutional authority of the commander in chief to engage in military action remains as relevant as ever. Barack Obama inherited a war in Iraq, has worked with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to initiate a 17,000 American combat troop surge in Afghanistan in March 2009 and another increase of 30,000 personnel later that year, more than doubling the total American presence. He also permitted American Navy Seals to use force against Somali pirates in the first months of his presidency. In addition, nuclear development and proliferation concerns …

War Powers In The Obama Administration, Ryan C. Hendrickson Dr.

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

With the arrival of a new American president in 2009, the power and constitutional authority of the commander in chief to engage in military action remains as relevant as ever. Barack Obama inherited a war in Iraq, has worked with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to initiate a 17,000 American combat troop surge in Afghanistan in March 2009 and another increase of 30,000 personnel later that year, more than doubling the total American presence. He also permitted American Navy Seals to use force against Somali pirates in the first months of his presidency. In addition, nuclear development and proliferation concerns …

Influence Of Financial And Policy Environments On The Business Strategy Of Biotechnology Companies In India, Sumesh Mohan Arora

Dissertations

The biotechnology industry thrives on innovation and new knowledge creation, but is also capital intensive with a complex regulatory environment (Hine and Kapeleris 2007). It is seen as a sunrise industry by the Indian government (Natesh and Bhan 2009). Current literature on the business strategy of Indian biotechnology companies and the influence from external factors is very limited. The objective of this research was to qualitatively test the applicability of the Miles and Snow (1978) theory of organizational behavior which describes four strategy choices: prospector, analyzer, defender and reactor, in the context of the Indian biotechnology sector. Research on Western …

Transforming Colombia's Conflict: A Case For Re-Prioritizing U.S.-Colombia's Militaristic Approach, N. Brooke Breazeale

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United State's influence on Colombia's militaristic approach to the conflict has deprived the nation's children of quality education and socio-economic opportunities, and created a culture of violence that has provided an expansive breeding ground from which armed groups and criminal networks continue to recruit. Colombian citizens have developed and implemented various approaches that have proven effective in transforming Colombia's classrooms and largest cities into collaborative, socially responsible and accomplished communities. Yet these initiatives continue to fall short of their full potential, as the democratic security approach remains the focus of Colombia's policy and programming. In keeping with the theoretical …

201021 Obiter Dicta: Early August 2010, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The U.S.-Mexico Border Fence: An Exploration Of The Effectiveness Of This Immigration Policy, Froylan Garza

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the effectiveness of the U.S./Mexico border fence for illegal immigration. This topic is important because the recent mandate by Congress in 2006 to construct fencing along the southwest border between the U.S. and Mexico was met with great resistance from the border communities Texas that are directly affected by its construction (Haddal, et al. CRS, 2009). Border communities of the southwest region of the United States are ethnically diverse and rich in history and culture. Many of them hold annual celebrations in which their Latin culture, traditions, and history are honored. The …

Doing Well By Doing Good, Alison Brysk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

As Tom Porteous contends in The Guardian, "a humane nation is a safer nation"—and ultimately, a more prosperous, healthy, happy, and green one too. My recent book, Global Good Samaritans, explores how half a dozen disparate nations came to adopt relatively humanitarian foreign policies, and how this has benefited global governance and their own development. Let us explore the lessons of history that inspired the real (albeit uneven) contributions of countries like Sweden, Canada, and Costa Rica—and why this should inspire more states like the UK to become active human rights promoters.