Table of Content

20 March 2018, Volume 38 Issue 2

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“Bureaucratic & Economic Markets” and China's Growth Story

ZHOU Li

2018, 38(2):  1-45. 

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This paper extends the theory of "bureaucratic & economic markets" and reinterprets the unique growth mechanism of the Chinese economy and the intriguing interaction between government and market. In China we observe an interesting "mutual embededness" of bureaucratic markets for local officials and economic markets for firms across jurisdictions:local leaders compete in bureaucratic markets where their promotion is closely linked with economic performance of firms in their jurisdictions, and in the meantime, firms compete in economic markets and receive critical support for their respective jurisdictional governments. The performance-based bureaucratic competition motivates local leaders to help local firms grow and win the economic competition, and the interregional mobility of physical and human capital limits the tendency of local leaders to predate or grab local firms. The economic performance of firms in market competition provides feedback and is an ultimate test of the effectiveness of government-business cooperation and local industrial policies. The extended theory of "bureaucratic & economic markets" contributes to the existing literature by highlighting three critical preconditions for effective government-market cooperation:providing political incentives to ensure bureaucrats "do things in the right way", external market constraints to "prevent bureaucrats from doing evil", and necessary information feedback to guide bureaucrats to "do the right thing". For any country or region, its ability to satisfy these three conditions becomes critical for fostering an effective interaction between government and market and sustaining economic growth. In the past decades China has shaped a growth model based on the interplay of "bureaucratic & economic markets" which generally satisfied the three preconditions and laid the institutional foundation for China's economic miracle. This dual-markets model has resulted in friendly handshaking between political and private entrepreneurs, productive cooperation between political and economic elites, and a remarkable combination of China's time-honored heritage of strong bureaucracy with the western tradition of market economy. The dual-markets model also has its limitations, especially in the sphere of provision of public services, which exactly explains various "government failures" associated with China's high economic growth in the past 40 years.

Financial Globalization and the Transnational Diffusion of Shareholder-Oriented Corporate Governance Institutions: A Sociological Analysis of Corporate Governance Reform in China

YANG Dian

2018, 38(2):  46-83. 

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Since the rise of financial globalization and American "shareholder capitalism"in the 1980s, the shareholder-oriented corporate governance model has become more and more prevalent around the world. It was widely perceived as the "best" corporate governance model or "international best practices", which has not only impacted the stakeholder-oriented corporate governance model of Germany and Japan, but also shaped corporate governance reform of developing countries and transitional countries like China. The author argues that the adoption of shareholder-oriented corporate governance institutions in China was mainly driven by two endogenous and exogenous factors,and diffused through three mechanisms in two phases. In the first phase, at the transnational level (from America to China), mimetic isomorphism and normative isomorphism are at play. In the second stage, at the domestic firm-level, the government requires companies to adopt new corporate governance institutions through laws, regulations and policies, that is,the mechanism of "coercive isomorphism" has played a leading role. This paper contributes to organizational theory and economic sociology theory by extending the basic postulates of the new institutionalism to the study of international diffusion and isomorphism of organizational practices. While the importance of imitation among network members in the diffusion of organizational practices has often been shown at the interpersonal and inter-organizational (firm) levels,this research offers support for a similar mechanism operating at the international level. Taken together, the findings demonstrate the importance of power (vs. efficiency) in the adoption of organizational practices in general, and the role of the state (vs. financial market) in the international diffusion of American corporate governance practices in particular.Furthermore, the sociological analysis of China's corporate governance reform in this paper is helpful for us to deepen our understanding of China's financial market and listed companies,providing a new perspective different from that given by Economics and Management Science. The analysis has important theoretical and practical significance in reflecting the Western neo-liberal enterprise model and constructing a "modern enterprise system" with Chinese characteristics.

The History and Future of Kham: Perspectives Based on the Historical Anthropological Reading of Alai's Four Novels

ZHENG Shaoxiong

2018, 38(2):  84-110. 

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Up to present the distinguished Tibetan writer Alai has published four full-length novels, namely, King Gesar, Nyarong (Zhandui), Red Poppies, and the Hollow Mountain series, which have, to a great extent, shaped outsiders' impressions of Kham, or Eastern Tibet, one of the three traditional divisions of "cultural Tibet" or "ethnographical Tibet". Based on historical anthropological perspectives, this article examines the spatial and temporal dimensions of Kham history reflected from these four novels. On the one hand, it shows that the native Khampa's senses of space referring to surrounding political entities has changed from an ancient model of "four regimes at four directions," to a dual model related to central and the local Tibetan polities in late Imperial China and the Republican Period, and finally to the unitary model of a single central government in the contemporary period. On the other hand, this article also points out, Khampa have experienced a changing sense of time from circulatory Tibetan Buddhist time to the dynastic time-scale of Chinese Empires and finally to a modern linear time-scale. Beyond revealing the transformations in the spatial and temporary senses of Khampa people, Alai also implicitly demonstrates alternative models in Sino-Tibetan relations, as both historical reality and ideality:Spatially, the process of forced integration of Han Chinese and Tibetan people has simultaneously preserved a dialectical distinction, this distinction has been buffered and connected through the medium of the Khampa. Temporally, free borderland markets, acting the role of historical transcendence, have been protective and under control, especially for the sake of Tibetans.
The above narratives consist of both the empirical facts and Alai's expectations and constructions. On the one hand, as an ethnic-minority writer and native speaker of Tibetan dialect, Alai loves his siblings and tends to understand the conditions of the Tibetans from the bottom up, on the other hand, raised at a peripheral Tibetan village near the Han area, educated in a modern Mandarin-language schools and college, and not able to write in his mother tongue, Alai's conception of history has been from above to below. It is easy to understand that when faced with issues of frontiers and ethnic minorities, native elites like Alai are quite likely to develop a historical construction of literary complexity. This complexity further diversifies the impressions of Tibet for outsiders.

Buddhism in the Shang Chuan Nan Region and Local Society in the Ming Dynasty

CHEN Zhigang

2018, 38(2):  111-133. 

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In the Ming dynasty the Shang Chuan Nan region close to the Tibet was the only road by which foreign envoys could carry out trade and bring tributes. Lizhou, Yazhou and Diaomen were the three important tea and horse trading sites, and the tributary trade practiced there stimulated the long-distance tea trade along the upper and middle Yangtze River. During the Longqing period, the trade volume of tea reached 3 million jin per annum from 1567 to 1572, and a tributary route took shape called the "Yangtze-Grand Canal". The collaborative relationship between the Tibetan and the Han ethnicities became intimate. Tibetan Buddhism and Han Buddhism could be practiced without conflict, Han and Tibetan society and the Chinese society were well integrated. The Buddhist monks and the Confucian scholars reconciled the Confucian ideological principles of "Shan" (goodness) and "Yi" (righteousness). The Buddhism temple offered birthday congratulations to the emperor, prayed for longevity for the emperor, prayed for the peace and stability of the state, prayed for good weather for the crops, and so on. Buddhists invited the Confucian scholars to inscribe the record of events on temple tablets, while Confucian scholars retreated within the beautiful scenery of Buddhist temples to prepare for the imperial examination. Buddhist temples also cooperated with the needs of local governments, and local officials would often retreat to Buddhist temples in times of drought to pray for rain. Buddhism and Confucianism had broad contact with society, causing Confucian scholars to come into close contact with Buddhist beliefs and lifestyle. The local government exercised the imperial court's ceremonies and held royal celebrations in Buddhist temples. Because Buddhist rites could help villagers deal with the problem of death, the descendants of layman in order to fulfill their filial piety asked Buddhist yogi to release their ancestors from the cycle of samsara. Local families relied on Buddhist rites to sacrifice their ancestors and hold together the family clan. By means of donating tea plantations and land to Buddhist temples, the big local families set up local positions of authority. Buddhism cultivated a social atmosphere which commended charitable deeds and developed a united spirit, where local groups enjoyed authority, so that the locals of the Shang Chuan Nan region could defend themselves during a period of enormous turbulence in the late Ming. Buddhism was an important contributor to social stabilization and continuity during the late Ming's Dynasty's period of unrest.

State-Building and the Changes of Urban Land Property Rights in Guangzhou during the Republic of China Era (1911-1935)

HUANG Sujuan

2018, 38(2):  134-153. 

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This paper took the change of urban land property rights in Guangzhou during the Republic of China as an example to investigate how the modern national government using new legal provisions, tax systems, administrative management and other measures to set up a "New Management" system of urban land property rights. The paper also tried to explore the mechanism of the urban land property rights system in the specific time and space of modern China, and how the modern government achieves the shift from local land to land with public functions.After the Revolution of 1911, the Guangdong military government classified "public property" or "official property" by legislation. The modern government made efforts to draw a precise line of demarcation between "public" and "private" land in the city. The emergence of many cases of "private houses constructed on official land" and "unlawful auction of private property" showed that there was no sharp demarcation between the ownership of public and private land. It's too difficult to solve with a single piece of legislation. After the establishment of the Guangzhou Municipality, the Municipality used the name "municipal property" to divide the scope of jurisdiction of provincial and municipal governments in fiscal taxation. In this way, the Municipality also accomplished the purpose of managing public land in the city. The excessive expansion of "municipal property" further confused the unclear demarcation line between public and private property rights, sparking massive protests. The appearance of a "private property guarantee" was a compromise between the government and the people on the boundary of public and private property rights. In addition to setting boundaries between public and private land ownership, modern state governments had tried to eliminate double ownership of shops. However, the government's efforts to expand the power of administration were opposed by the majority of business people, led by the General Chamber of Commerce. The compromise between the government and business people resulted in the implementation of the registration of the rights to rent a shop. In this way, the government indirectly implemented part of the management of private property rights. After the Guangzhou Municipality reorganized into a committee system in 1925, the government set up a land bureau to carry out land survey and land registration, which met with some resistance. It was not carried out in Guangzhou until the end of 1927. Through land surveying and land registration, the government solved the problem of the recognition of land property rights, and then linked the recognized property to specific tax obligations. It meant that private property rights were recognized and protected by the government by paying land tax. To this extent, the modern government and the people had come to a new agreement of financial relationships in land affairs. The basics of the urban land property management system had been established.

Science and the Movements to Directional Values: The Centennial of Max Weber's Wissenschaft als Beruf

TIAN Geng

2018, 38(2):  154-187. 

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The meaning of "Science as Vocation", this paper argues, in Max Weber's lecture on Wissenschaft als Beruf (1917) goes beyond the conventional understanding of "science for its own sake", and is about how actions that bear the ultimate values of the actors can be possible. In Weber's Wissenschaftslehre, such actions can come only after the process of value rationalization which transfers our initial personal feelings of value to real belief in the validity of values. Without such a process, actors don't even know what they need to defend or strive for as consistent social beings. The process of value rationalization, however, for Weber is only driven by the willingness to truth, not any primordial attachment to any convention or cultural heritage that is assumed as self--evidently or naturally valid by other theorists. Thus, the value rationalization that Weber conceptualizes leaves one critical question for modern social theory to answer:how should we theoretically think about the human groups which are supposed to live their cultural values (i.e.the idea of Gemeinschaftsschicksale)?

“From Ignorance to Guilt”: The Triple Interweaving of Knowledge-Power in Foucault's Analysis of Oedipus the King

ZHU Wencheng

2018, 38(2):  188-212. 

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The thematic relationship between knowledge and power is of great importance through the whole of Foucault's theoretical thought. Thus his interpretation of the Greek tragedy Oedipus the King should not be neglected, because it can be treated as a supplement to his early writing on this "knowledge-power" relationship. In his analysis of Oedipus the King, Foucault introduces the concept of will to know. Through that concept, he attempts to replace the traditional causal chain, which is prima facie natural, between knowledge and the will to know, with a more complicated relationship between knowledge and power so as to account for the birth of modern systematized institutions of true discourse. Foucault's begins his own interpretation with a critique of Freud. He argues that, though Freud's psychological interpretation of Oedipus the King breaks off the traditional understanding of universal form of desire, it has overvalued the status of sexuality in human culture. On the contrary, what Oedipus the King exactly shows, according to Foucault, is the manifestation of truth and the operation of power institutions in discursive knowledge. Foucault establishes his "Oedipal Knowledge" in three levels. On the first level, the Oedipus fable reveals how some certain types of self-knowledge come into being, and how these different types of knowledge confront each other and finally fit together. On the second level, the Oedipus complex is not about sex, but the complicated interweaving of power-knowledge relation linked with Oedipus's identity:he is both at the same time a king, a criminal and incestuous. On the third and the last, the fable manifests a particular kind of juridical form of truth which originated in ancient times, and figures out how this juridical form of knowledge operates in the modern. Finally, I argue that Foucault's multi-level analysis of Oedipus the King suggests a transition of his research interest, which shifts from investigations of specific institutions of power to ancient thoughts on power.

College Major Choice and Gender Difference in Entering Male-Dominated Occupations: Evidence from Beijing College Student Panel Survey

HE Guangye

2018, 38(2):  213-241. 

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The 1990s has witnessed a dramatic expansion in Chinese higher education. Educational gender gap converges over time,and moreover,with respect to college enrollment,young women have even surpassed men nowadays. Horizontal stratification in education becomes far more substantial in understanding gender inequality in China's urban labor market. Drawing the data from Beijing College Student Panel Survey(BCSPS),this research attempts to investigate distribution pattern of college majors between men and women,and how the gender differences in majors have led to the gender differences in entering male-dominated occupations. Results have shown a great gender disparity in college majors. Men are over-represented in the subjects such as,science and engineering,whereas women are concentrated in literature,history and arts. The differences in major choices can largely explain the gender differences in the attainment of first occupation,especially the chances of entering male-dominated occupations. Compared with men,women are less likely to enter male-dominated occupations. However,after controlling for college majors,women's disadvantages are largely decreased. The non-linear Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition results further suggest that if men and women have the same major distribution,gender difference in entering male-dominated occupations would decrease by 40%~50%. Thus,gender differences in college major provide one potential explanation for the persisting occupational gender segregation among the highly educated in China's urban labor market.