China Experiments Florini, Ann M; Lai, Hairong; Tan, Yeling
01/2012
eBook
All societies face a key question: how to empower governments to perform essential governmental functions while constraining the arbitrary exercise of power. This balance, always in flux, is ...particularly fluid in today's China. This insightful book examines the changing relationship between that state and its society, as demonstrated by numerous experiments in governance at subnational levels, and explores the implications for China's future political trajectory.
Ann Florini, Hairong Lai, and Yeling Tan set their analysis at the level of townships and counties, investigating the striking diversity of China's exploration into different governance tools and comparing these experiments with developments and debates elsewhere in the world. China Experiments draws on multiple cases of innovation to show how local authorities are breaking down traditional models of governance in responding to the challenges posed by the rapid transformations taking place across China's economy and society. The book thus differs from others on China that focus on dynamics taking place at the elite level in Beijing, and is unique in its broad but detailed, empirically grounded analysis.
The introduction examines China's changing governance architecture and raises key overarching questions. It addresses the motivations behind the wide variety of experiments underway by which authorities are trying to adapt local governance structures to meet new demands. Chapters 2-5 then explore each type of innovation in detail, from administrative streamlining and elections to partnerships in civil society and transparency measures. Each chapter explains the importance of the experiment in terms of implications for governance and draws upon specific case studies. The final chapter considers what these growing numbers of experiments add up to, whether China is headed towards a stronger more resilient authoritarianism or evolving towards its own version of democracy, and suggests a series of criteria by which China's political trajectory can be assessed.
Contents
1. China at a Crossroads
2. Streamlining the State
3. The Evolution of Voting Mechanisms
4. Civil Society
5. From Local Experiments to National Rules: China Lets the Sunshine In
6. Where is China Going?
A key to good governance is to make governments and markets transparent. Transparency runs counter to incentives of agents to create feifdoms at the expense of those they have been chosen to serve. ...This is true of national governements, corporations, international organizations, and even organizations designed to promote transparency. Dr. Florini discusses the history of transparency in government, in corporate life, and in international organizations. Increased calls for transparency arose after the Cold War in the 1990s, but backsliding has occurred since September 11, 2001. Of particular interest is the author's discussion of transparency issues related to the World Bank, the WTO, and to environmental protection.
The increased use of satellite photographic imaging is discussed, focusing on how governments will deal with the up-and-coming commercial satellite industry. Government concerns include commercial ...satellites' imaging capabilities, possibilities of unauthorized military attacks, and misuse of imaging intelligence.
A new role for transparency Florini, Ann M.
Contemporary security policy,
08/1997, Volume:
18, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Examines the problems of nuclear proliferation and environmental toxification over the long term, describes why these problems will require a transparency-based approach, and analyses what that ...approach should entail. The prospects for applying the transparency-based approach to proliferation and toxification at the international level are discussed. (Quotes from original text)
Implications of non-superpower and civilian use; policy options. Existing and planned satellite systems; what they can see; implications for US national security in peacetime, crisis, and war.
Goodwill Missions for Castoff Missiles Florini, Ann M.; Potter, William C.
Bulletin of the atomic scientists,
11/1/1990, 1990-11-00, 19901101, Volume:
46, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
U.S. and Soviet negotiators don't want to scrap all those missiles to be retired under the START treaty, but they can't agree on how to use them peacefully. The United States would like to save some ...for Star Wars.
Transparency -- openness, secured through greater availability of information -- is increasingly seen as part of the solution to a complex array of economic, political, and ethical problems in an ...interconnected world. The "transparency turn" in global environmental governance in particular is seen in a range of international agreements, voluntary disclosure initiatives, and public-private partnerships. This is the first book to investigate whether transparency in global environmental governance is in fact a broadly transformative force or plays a more limited, instrumental role.After three conceptual, context-setting chapters, the book examines ten specific and diverse instances of "governance by disclosure." These include state-led mandatory disclosure initiatives that rely on such tools as prior informed consent and monitoring, measuring, reporting and verification; and private (or private-public), largely voluntary efforts that include such corporate transparency initiatives as the Carbon Disclosure Project and such certification schemes as the Forest Stewardship Council. The cases, which focus on issue areas including climate change, biodiversity, biotechnology, natural resource exploitation, and chemicals, demonstrate that although transparency is ubiquitous, its effects are limited and often specific to particular contexts. The book explores in what circumstances transparency can offer the possibility of a new emancipatory politics in global environmental governance.
This volume examines the consequences, implications, and opportunities associated with issues of diversity in the electronic media. With a focus on race and gender, the chapters represent diverse ...approaches, including social scientific, humanistic, critical, and rhetorical. The contributors consider race and gender issues in both historical and contemporary electronic media, and their work is presented in three sections: content, context (audiences, effects, and reception), and culture (media industries, policy, and production). In this book, the authors investigate, problematize, and theorize a variety of concerns which at their core relate to issues of difference. How do we use media to construct and understand different social groups? How do the media represent and affect our engagement with and responses to different social groups? How can we understand these processes and the environment within which they occur? Although this book focuses on the differences associated with race and gender, the questions raised by and the theoretical perspectives presented in the chapters are applicable to other forms of socially-constructed difference.
PDF
