Globalization And Public Sector Reform In China

This book analyses public sector reform comprehensively in all parts of China’s public sector – government bureaucracy, public service units and state-owned enterprises. It argues that reform of the public sector has become an issue of great concern to the Chinese leaders, who realize that efficient public administration is key to securing the regime’s governing capacity and its future survival. The book shows how thinking about public sector reform has shifted in recent decades from a quantitative emphasis on 'small government', which involved the reduction in size of what was perceived as a bloated bureaucracy, to an emphasis on the quality of governance, which may result in an increase in public sector personnel. The book shows how, although Western ideas about public sector reform have had an impact, Chinese government continues to be best characterized as 'state capitalism', with the large state-owned enterprises continuing to play an important – and increasing – role in the economy and in business. However, state-owned enterprises no longer provide care for large numbers of people from the cradle to the grave – finding an alternative, efficient way of delivering basic welfare and health care is the big challenge facing China’s public sector.

China’s structure of governance has also been substantially altered in response to globalization. A unique model of political development is underway in China, which differs considerably from those conceived under both traditional socialist and liberal Western models. This volume tackles these issues of global importance through the analytical prowess of one of China’s leading intellectuals.

Written by an international team of experts, this important and interesting text gives vital insights into China's likely development and international influence in the next decade.

In both the literal and metaphorical senses, it seemed as if 1970s America was running out of gas. The decade not only witnessed long lines at gas stations but a citizenry that had grown weary and disillusioned. High unemployment, runaway inflation, and the energy crisis, caused in part by U.S. dependence on Arab oil, characterized an increasingly bleak economic situation. As Edward D. Berkowitz demonstrates, the end of the postwar economic boom, Watergate, and defeat in Vietnam led to an unraveling of the national consensus. During the decade, ideas about the United States, how it should be governed, and how its economy should be managed changed dramatically. Berkowitz argues that the postwar faith in sweeping social programs and a global U.S. mission was replaced by a more skeptical attitude about government's ability to positively affect society. From Woody Allen to Watergate, from the decline of the steel industry to the rise of Bill Gates, and from Saturday Night Fever to the Sunday morning fervor of evangelical preachers, Berkowitz captures the history, tone, and spirit of the seventies. He explores the decade's major political events and movements, including the rise and fall of détente, congressional reform, changes in healthcare policies, and the hostage crisis in Iran. The seventies also gave birth to several social movements and the "rights revolution," in which women, gays and lesbians, and people with disabilities all successfully fought for greater legal and social recognition. At the same time, reaction to these social movements as well as the issue of abortion introduced a new facet into American political life-the rise of powerful, politically conservative religious organizations and activists. Berkowitz also considers important shifts in American popular culture, recounting the creative renaissance in American film as well as the birth of the Hollywood blockbuster. He discusses how television programs such as All in the Family and Charlie's Angels offered Americans both a reflection of and an escape from the problems gripping the country.

China and Globalizationis a compact, highly readable introductory text on contemporary China and the massive changes it is presently undergoing. It focuses primarily on how economic structural change is driving the processes, but discusses many other issues as well--politics, social change, reform, international economics, and cultural change. In its quarter-century long shift from communism to capitalism, China has transformed from a desperately poor nation into a country possessing one of the fastest-growing and largest economies in the world. Doug Guthrie covers the social, economic, and political factors responsible for the revolutionary changes, and interweaves this broader structural analysis with a consideration of social changes at the micro and macro levels. The book also considers the potential for further change. Will China become more democratic? Will the government become more serious about protecting human rights and creating a transparent legal system? How will China's explosive growthimpact both East Asia and the larger global economy? In sum, this will be a sophisticated, definitive yet compact overview of the effects of massive social, economic, and political reforms on the most populous nation in the world. Books in this series look at how nations and regions across the world are navigating the tumultuous currents of globalization. Concise, descriptive, interdisciplinary, and theoretically informed, they serve as ideal introductions to the peoples and places of our increasingly globalized world.

China continues to transform apace, flowing from the forces of deregulation, privatization and globalization unleashed by economic reforms which began in late 1978. The dramatic scope of economic change in China is often counterposed to the apparent lack of political change as demonstrated by continued Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. However, the ongoing dominance of the CCP belies the fact that much has also changed in relation to practices of government, including how authorities and citizens interact in the management of daily life. New Mentalities of Government in China examines how the privatization and professionalization of ‘public’ service provision is transforming the nature of government and everyday life in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The book addresses key theoretical questions on the nature of government in China and documents the emergence of a range of ‘new mentalities of government’ in China. Its chapters focus on areas such as clinical trials, conceptualizing government, consumer activity, elite philanthropy, lifestyle and beauty advice, public health, social work, volunteering; and urban and rural planning. Offering a topical examination of shifting modes of governance in contemporary China, this book will appeal to scholars in the fields of anthropology, history, politics and sociology.

This book is the first attempt to conceptualize ChinaOCOs central-local relations from the behavioral perspective. Although China does not have a federalist system of government, the author believes that, with deepening reform and openness, ChinaOCOs central-local relations is increasingly functioning on federalist principles. Federalism as a functioning system in China is under studied. The author defines the political system existing in China as OC de facto federalismOCO, and provides a detailed analysis of its sources and dynamics in the book. The system is mainly driven by two related factors OCo inter-governmental decentralization and globalization. While economic decentralization since the 1980s has led to the formation of de facto federalism, globalization since the 1990s has accelerated this process and generated increasingly high pressure on the Chinese leadership to institutionalize de facto federalism by various measures of selective recentralization."

Based on new field research, this book assesses the current state of governance and public sector reforms in eleven Asian countries and jurisdictions, especially in the wake of the recent regional financial crisis that seriously affected some of them. It analyses reform efforts comparatively against a backdrop of governance problems, and seeks to establish whether these efforts represent a substantive shift in attitudes towards reform or whether they serve simply to reinforce existing practices. The authors explore a number of important themes that are central to governance and public sector reform issues. These include the role of the state, the success or failure of organizational reforms, corruption, the applicability of the new public management model in the Asian context, and the governance values and reform models promoted by regional and international agencies.