National Polity And Local Power

Despite efforts to attain a more balanced approach, Western historians have largely interpreted China's modern period in terms of China's "response to the West." To a surprising extent, this bias has prevailed even among Chinese historians, for whom the reaction to imperialism has remained a dominant concept. This book, by a scholar who is neither Chinese nor Western,goes far to set the balance right. Min Tu-ki, Korea's leading Sinologist, shows how China's own internal agenda has conditioned Chinese political life during the transition to modernity. Min sets the stage with two chapters about Chinese scciety under Ch'ing rule, one on a Korean visitor's reaction to eighteeenth-century China, the other on the social condition of the lower gentry. Each casts new light on the Chinese elite and their relation to state power. The chapters that follow-particularly the discussion of "political feudalism"-examine the conceptual resources available within the Chinese tradition for coming to terms with modernity. Min's internalist approach provides both a creative new vision of the encounter between two civilizations and a distinguished introduction to Korean Sinology.

This book is about why and how central and local governments clash over important national policy decisions. Its empirical focus is on the local politics of Japan which has significantly shaped, and been shaped by, larger developments in national politics. The book argues that since the 1990s, changes in the national political arena, fiscal and administrative decentralization, as well as broader socio-economic developments have led to a decoupling of once closely integrated national and local party systems in Japan. Such decoupling has led to a breakdown of symbiotic relations between the centre and regions. In its place are increasing strains between national and local governments leading to greater intra-party conflict, inter-governmental conflicts, and more chief executives with agendas and resources increasingly autonomous of the national ruling party. Although being a book primarily focused on the Japanese case, the study seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of how local partisans shape national policy-making. The book theorizes and investigates how the degree of state centralization, vertical integration for party organizations, and partisan congruence in different levels of government affect inter-governmental relations. Japan’s experience is compared with Germany, Canada, and the UK to explore sources of multi-level policy conflict.

Focusing on the marginal region of Toyama, on the Sea of Japan, the author explores the interplay of central and regional authorities, local and national perceptions of rights, and the emerging political practices in Toyama and Tokyo that became part of the new political culture that took shape in Japan following the Meiji Restoration. Lewis argues that in response to the demands of the centralizing state, local elites and leaders in Toyama developed a repertoire of supple responses that varied with the political or economic issue at stake.

Provides a comparative study of the variety of local government systems throughout the world, accompanied by a consideration of the conceptual issues involved in the development of institutions and services.

Ordinary people's everyday political behavior can have a huge impact on national policy: that is the central conclusion of this book on Vietnam. In telling the story of collectivized agriculture in that country, Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet uncovers a history of local resistance to national policy and gives a voice to the villagers who effected change. Not through open opposition but through their everyday political behavior, villagers individually and in small, unorganized groups undermined collective farming and frustrated authorities' efforts to correct the problems.The Power of Everyday Politics is an authoritative account, based on extensive research in Vietnam's National Archives and in the Red River Delta countryside, of the formation of collective farms in northern Vietnam in the late 1950s, their enlargement during wartime in the 1960s and 1970s, and their collapse in the 1980s. As Kerkvliet shows, the Vietnamese government eventually terminated the system, but not for ideological reasons. Rather, collectivization had become hopelessly compromised and was ultimately destroyed largely by the activities of villagers. Decollectivization began locally among villagers themselves; national policy merely followed. The power of everyday politics is not unique to Vietnam, Kerkvliet asserts. He advances a theory explaining how everyday activities that do not conform to the behavior required by authorities may carry considerable political weight.

Indonesia is experiencing an historic and dramatic shift in political and economic power from the centre to the local level. The collapse of the highly centralised Soeharto regime allowed long-repressed local aspirations to come to the fore. The new Indonesian Government then began one of the world's most radical decentralisation programmes, under which extensive powers are being devolved to the district level. In every region and province, diverse popular movements and local claimants to state power are challenging the central authorities.This book is the first comprehensive coverage on decentralisation in Indonesia. It contains contributions from leading academics and policy-makers on a wide range of topics relating to democratisation, devolution and the blossoming of local-level politics.

Power and Patronage examines the unwritten rules and inner workings of contemporary China's local politics and government. It exposes how these rules have helped to keep the one-Party state together during decades of tumultuous political, social, and economic change. While many observers of Chinese politics have recognized the importance of informal institutions, this book explains how informal local groups actually operate, paying special attention to the role of patronage networks in political decision-making, political competition, and official corruption. While patronage networks are often seen as a parasite on the formal institutions of state, Hillman shows that patronage politics actually help China's political system function. In a system characterized by fragmented authority, personal power relations, and bureaucratic indiscipline, patronage networks play a critical role in facilitating policy coordination and bureaucratic bargaining. They also help to regulate political competition within the state, which reduces the potential for open conflict. Understanding patronage networks is essential for understanding the resilience of the Chinese state through decades of change. Power and Patronage is filled with rich and fascinating accounts of the machinations of patronage networks and their role in the ruthless and sometimes violent competition for political power.