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Contributors
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Foreword
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The Changing Nature of Chinese Socialism Comparative Perspectives
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This paper reviews the evolution of the Chinese socialist regime since the early reforms introduced in 1978. It explores the revisionist concept and innovative practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Differently from the East Asian newly industrialized countries, the Chinese reform had to deliver from the beginning both on the economic and socio-political fronts. This explains why China has forged its own model of economic and political development through redefining the concept of Chinese socialism, learning from Western and Eastern capitalisms.
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The Changing Nature of Chinese Socialism Comparative Perspectives
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This paper reviews the evolution of the Chinese socialist regime since the early reforms introduced in 1978. It explores the revisionist concept and innovative practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Differently from the East Asian newly industrialized countries, the Chinese reform had to deliver from the beginning both on the economic and socio-political fronts. This explains why China has forged its own model of economic and political development through redefining the concept of Chinese socialism, learning from Western and Eastern capitalisms.
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Transformative State Capacity in Post-Collective China: The Introduction of the New Rural Cooperative Medical System in Two Counties of Western China, 2006–2008
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In 2002, the Chinese leadership announced a turnaround in national welfare policy: Local insurance at county level, called the New Rural Cooperative Medical System (NRCMS), was to cover all counties by 2010. This paper addresses the main characteristics of NRCMS as an example of 'transformative state capacity' in decentralised policy fields and its feature 'responsiveness' as a market-based means of its introduction.
Reviewing the modes of governance and comparing the introduction of local schemes based on two case studies of western China since 2006, this paper argues that the flexibility shown by local administrators in considering structural and procedural adjustments is the result not only of central directives but also of local initiatives. Forms of locally embedded responsiveness to the needs and perceptions of health care recipients are crucial in enhancing the accountability and responsiveness of local cadres. These new modes of 'responsiveness' or responsive regulation are important in understanding and conceptualising the transformative state capacity. Responsive settings using centrally defined local feedback loops are different from hierarchical control and the formal institutionalised representation of the interests of the local population, and are a rough but effective means of enhancing both flexibility and the efficiency of control and financing by the central state. These feedback loops, which are based on voluntary enrolment and on central state subsidies made dependent on contributions received from participants and local government, are complementary forms of governance at grassroots level.
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Inter-Firm Relations and Regional Development: Experiences from the Central Visayas, Philippines
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In spite of economic globalisation and new technologies that 'shrink' the world, locality and proximity remain important for businesses. Many firms may increasingly be inserted into global chains of production, but the local environment in many ways remains the key playing field for entrepreneurs. Embedded in a relational economy, 'the local' presents powerful institutional opportunities and constraints for firms. In the central Visayas Islands of the Philippines, insertion into the global economy has been a patchy process, creating remarkably different production networks in the three neighbouring provinces of Bohol, Cebu and Negros Oriental. Despite their geographical proximity and shared national institutional framework, these provinces have clearly distinct economic structures and development paths. They thus allow a comparative analysis of the role of regional institutions. How is this diversity reflected in terms of regional differences in inter-firm networks, both in vertical production chains and in regionally embedded horizontal networks? And how do differences in networking affect economic activity and development in the provinces? Using key elements of Whitley's comparative business systems approach at the sub-national level, this paper seeks answers to these questions.
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Partnerships for Sustainable Development in China: Adaptation of a Global Governance Instrument
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Hybrid governance instruments such as public-private partnerships are increasingly applied in so-called emerging countries, in particular Brazil, India and China (the 'BRICs'). With a more diverse set of influential political actors involved in global governance, the question arises whether existing global governance institutions are effective and legitimate.
This paper focuses on partnerships in China's sustainable development. China has witnessed rapid economic transition from a plan economy to a market economy. In the course of these developments, China faces increasing ecological stress and social inequity. Reform and intensification of China's sustainable development governance seems necessary. Are partnerships the road to go? Does China successfully appropriate the partnership model and integrate it into its domestic governance? This paper discusses how Partnerships for Sustainable Development were brokered at the 2002 Worlds Summit for Sustainable Development, in spite of initial resistance by developing countries; and whether a prevalent partnership model is emerging in China.
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Extramarital Court and Flirt of Guizhou Miao
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The Miao in Eastern Guizhou, Hmub is providing an alternative in the theorizing of courtship and marriage, since they have a flirtation zone for continued expression of personal desire within a larger context of social restraint. Today, much like before 1949, there are two forms of institutional flirt as manifested in everyday and ritualized settings. One is the long term flirtation alliance lasting during the life time of one's own marriage, while the short term will end either with a break up or marriage. The textual description of the Hmub courting songs also reveals there are no necessary relations between marriage and courtship, and the hybrid display of flirtatious physical contacts are among courting men and women with diverse genealogical ties, affinal relations and marital status—unmarried and married. Along this direction, this article explores how the Hmub may be a special case of allowing for a private personal emotional zone to be created within a highly structured or institutional setting that honors social status, age and gender separation. Institutionalized flirting of the Hmub does serve as a means to an end—marriage, a sociological identity. It is also the psychological reassurance of one's personal identity in the form of a viable, sexual and desirable human being.
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