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Begin New Search Content Type Journal Article Publishing Institution German Institute of Global and Area Studies

61. Survey of Experts on Climate Change Awareness and Public Participation in China

Author:
Berthold Kuhn and Yangyong Zhang
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Climate protection issues are receiving more attention in China. Responding to this survey, 133 environmental and climate protection experts indicated that the government is a key factor in raising awareness of climate protection in China. Experts participating in the survey also referred to the role of the media – in particular social media – NGOs and educational institutions in spreading climate protection awareness. Additionally, interviews were carried out with 40 of the experts, who were grouped into different categories to discover whether there were any striking differences of opinion between experts of different backgrounds. Their assessments revealed few statistically relevant differences, though some are worth noting: Chinese researchers, project managers and representatives of NGOs were more positive than international experts regarding the impact of the Rio+20 conference on climate change discourse in China. Also, the youngest experts with the least international experience evaluated the potential of green volunteer work highest.
Topic:
Environment, Government, and Non-Governmental Organization
Political Geography:
China

62. The KMT–CCP Forum: Securing Consent for Cross-Strait Rapprochement

Author:
Andre Beckershoff
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The recent rapprochement between China and Taiwan cannot be understood if our conceptual apparatus is unable to cope with the distinctive new quality of cross-Strait relations. A critical framework provides a transnational account of cross-Strait dynamics. An analysis of the KMT–CCP Forum through the lens of the neo-Gramscian notion of hegemony sheds light on the Forum's strategies, mechanisms, practices and instruments to secure consent for cross-Strait rapprochement. While this mode of governance has broadened the KMT's strategic options, it has also compromised Taiwanese democracy.
Political Geography:
China and Taiwan

63. Pastor Paulo vs. Doctor Carlos: Professional Titles as Voting Heuristics in Brazil

Author:
Taylor Chase Boas
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
In low-information elections, voters are likely to rely on heuristics when choosing candidates. Based on survey experiments conducted prior to Brazil's 2012 municipal elections, I examine the effect of candidates' professional titles, such as “doctor” and “pastor,” on voting behavior. Using the “pastor” title in one's electoral name tends to decrease vote intention, although evangelical Christians respond positively while members of other religious groups are repelled. The broader at-mosphere of political competition between Brazilian evangelicals and Catholics helps explain the presence of both out-group and in-group cueing effects. The “doctor” title has a positive effect on vote intention that appears to be mediated by the positive stereotypes, such as intelligence and competence, associated with members of this profession.
Topic:
International Law
Political Geography:
Brazil

64. The Effects of Gubernatorial Influence and Political Careerism on Senatorial Voting Behavior: The Argentine Case

Author:
Hirokazu Kikuchi and Germán Lodola
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
What forces shape the behavior of incumbent legislators in a federation? Do subnational political elites (particularly governors) influence legislators' decisions on national policies? Do legislators' own political backgrounds and office ambitions motivate their actions in the chamber? We address these questions by estimating the causal effect of gubernatorial influence and individual political careerism on the voting behavior of regionally based legislators (i.e., senators) in Argentina, where electoral and candidate nomination rules provide little room for individualistic behavior in Parliament. Taking advantage of roll call voting data, we calculate the distance between each senator and her or his national party leader in the chamber. We document evidence that, on average, senators from governors' parties systematically break party unity. This effect grows as gubernatorial power increases. Moreover, we find that senators with successful local level political careers are also more likely to behave autonomously from their national party leaders. Finally, we show that the impact of senators' office ambitions on their voting patterns is surprisingly small.

65. Civil–Military Relations in Brazil: A Reassessment

Author:
Scott D. Tollefson and Thomas Charles Bruneau
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article analyzes Brazilian civil–military relations using a framework that directs attention to the institutions of not only democratic civilian control, but also of military effectiveness and efficiency. The article argues that democratic civilian control over the armed forces in Brazil is exercised by a wide variety of mechanisms, many of which are not specifically designed for this purpose, but are instead part of a vast array of institutions that exercise control and oversight over public bureaucracies in general. Military prerogatives that were once high are now moderate or low, and there is currently no question of civilian control of the armed forces. However, several questions remain regarding the effectiveness of the armed forces. The article also emphasizes the importance of civilian staff assuming responsibilities in defense, as they have in virtually all other areas of government policy.
Political Geography:
Brazil

66. Evaluating Theories of Decision-making on the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal

Author:
Aldo Fernando Ponce and Lydia Brashear Tiede
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
High courts with abstract review powers to find laws unconstitutional may provide a strong check on other political actors and influence public policy if the judges in these courts are impartial decision makers. This paper tests existing judicial decision-making theories in relation to the behavior of judges on the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal who are selected exclusively by Congress. Taking advantage of an original data set of judges' votes on the Tribunal, we find that the origin of the law and whether the enacting governments at the national and subnational levels are still in power at the time of judicial review are important determinants of judicial behavior. Judges' own political loyalties seem to have no perceived effect on decision making, which suggests that political affiliations are trumped by strategic concerns of judges due to the institutional design of the Tribunal as well as the political context in which it operates
Political Geography:
Peru

67. Taxing with Dictators and Democrats: Regime Effects, Transfers and Revenue in Argentina's Provinces

Author:
Melissa Ziegler Rogers
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Political institutions strongly influence incentives to tax. In this article, I examine differences across national regimes in provincial taxation in Argentina from 1959–2001 and compare them to sub-national regimes under national democracy. I argue that elections fundamentally shape taxation by guiding career incentives of provincial leaders. Under autocratic regimes, sub-national leaders have strong motivation to tax because they answer to national leaders who reward extraction. I find that national autocrats tax at higher levels, using more difficult taxes. In democratic systems, governors judged by local constituents use political resources to avoid taxation. Governors in closed electoral regimes generally collect less tax revenue than governors in competitive provinces, but this effect is largely driven by national coalition-building and privileged access to national resources. An important difference across sub-national regime type is incidence – closed provinces extract disproportionately from the dependent business sector.
Political Geography:
Argentina

68. Subnational Electoral Contexts and Corruption in Mexico

Author:
Brian M. Faughnan, Jonathan T. Hiskey, and Scott D. Revey
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Scholars of the world's most recent democratization processes have tended to focus on how national-level institutions have developed and how citizens have interpreted and responded to those developments. In this paper, we argue that the distinct subnational political environments that emerge from uneven national regime transitions are important determinants of how people view their political world. Specifically, we argue that citizens' experiences with and attitudes towards corruption are particularly influenced by the subnational political context in which those citizens live. We use survey data from across Mexico to test our theoretical expectations that a multi-party electoral context will heighten citizens' awareness of corruption as a governance issue, even as their chances of being victimized by corrupt behavior is reduced. Conversely, we posit that one-party electoral environments should facilitate a "business as usual" attitude toward corruption among government officials and citizens. As efforts to deepen democracy and improve governance continue across the developing world, our findings highlight the need to incorporate subnational political processes into efforts to under- stand and address such critical issues as corruption and its consequences.
Topic:
Corruption and Democratization
Political Geography:
Mexico

69. Determinants of Judicial Dissent in Contexts of Extreme Institutional Instability: The Case of Ecuador's Constitutional Court

Author:
Santiago Basabe-Serrano
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This article identifies the variables that explain the dissenting legal vote in courts that operate under conditions of extreme institutional instability. Drawing on three logistic regression models, this article proposes that judges' ideological preferences constitute a good predictor of the dissenting vote. Contrary to the classic argument, which indicates that the instability of judges encourages strategic voting, this article argues that this relationship can be demonstrated only up to a certain point – that is, until an exponential increase in institutional instability leads the judges to vote sincerely, even when this means being part of a minority or "losing" coalition.
Political Geography:
Ecuador

70. Great Promise, but Poor Performance: Understanding the Collapse of Venezuela's Causa Radical

Author:
Daniela Nogueira-Budny
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Rising meteorically to national prominence amidst the collapse of Venezuela's ossified two-party system, the leftist Radical Cause (LCR) seemed poised to ease the country's crisis of representation and win the presidency in 1993. Instead, it imploded, paving the way for radical populist Hugo Chávez. How can the poor performance of a party with such great promise be explained? This article explains LCR's initial success and eventual failure through the party's adoption of internally democratic mechanisms. Its highly participatory approach attracted progressive groups, helping LCR's early "meteoric" success. But it also sowed the seeds of LCR's collapse: the absence of formalized decision-making rules and hierarchical leadership hindered the resolution of a political impasse. Internal democracy proved harmful to institutional growth and prevented the party from confronting factional conflict and instituting much- needed reforms in the long run. It is not only a heavy hierarchy and bureaucracy that prevent political change, but also the opposite in a base democracy.
Political Geography:
Venezuela

71. Partisan Protesters and Nonpartisan Protests in Brazil

Author:
Matthew S. Winters and Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
In young democracies with weak parties, there is some evidence that partisan identification may shift in response to short-term government performance. The massive protests that erupted in Brazil in June 2013 sharply increased the salience of, and public attention to, poor government performance and took most observers by surprise. They were also widely depicted as nonpartisan or even antipartisan. We use two well-timed surveys to examine the effects of the protests on mass partisanship. We find that the protests led to increased nonpartisanship and decreased attachment to the governing Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party, PT) among the public as a whole. We also show that small leftist parties were more broadly represented among protesters than has been previously recognize.
Political Geography:
Brazil

72. Western–Chinese Academic Collaboration in the Social Sciences

Author:
Sascha Klotzbücher
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
It would be naïve to pretend that politics and the actual needs of governance do not play a role in social sciences in any part of the world. However, the political dismissal of faculty members in Chinese universities, along with other political interventions reported in recent Western media, reveals the outspoken trend toward scientific professionalisation and scientific autonomy in a different light.
Political Geography:
China

73. Shifting Ideologics of Research Funding: The CPC's National Planning Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences

Author:
Heike Holbig
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
For more than two decades, the National Planning Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences (NPOPSS) has been managing official funding of social science research in China under the orbit of the Communist Party of China's (C PC) propaganda system. By focusing on "Major Projects", the most prestigious and well-funded program initiated by the NPOPSS in 2004, this contribution outlines the political and institutional ramifications of this line of official funding and attempts to identify larger shifts during the past decade in the "ideologics" of official social science research funding – the changing ideological circumscriptions of research agendas in the more narrow sense of echoing party theory and rhetoric and – in the broader sense – of adapting to an increasingly dominant official discourse of cultural and national self-assertion. To conclude, this article offers reflections on the potential repercussions of these shifts for international academic collaboration.
Political Geography:
China

74. The Impact of Changing Incentives in China on International Cooperation in Social Science Research on China

Author:
Doris Fischer
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Over the past three decades, China's fast economic development has induced considerable changes in China's university and research institution landscape, research financing and academic career incentives. This paper argues that these changes have affected the motivation and the ways in which Chinese scholars engage in international research cooperation. Most recently it has been observed that strong pressures on scholars and scientists – especially at leading academic institutions – to excel in international publications while simultaneously fulfilling their obligation to generate income for their institutions can lead to a dilemma with regard to international research cooperation: Those institutions and scholars most interesting for foreign scholars to cooperate with may be the ones with the least amount of both incentive and time to enter into serious cooperation. This article invites us to reflect on the implications of these changes in the incentive structure for cooperation in social science research on China.
Political Geography:
China

75. Changes in International Research Cooperation in China: Positive Perspectives

Author:
Josef Gregory Mahoney
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper discusses how cooperation between Chinese researchers and their foreign counterparts has changed. The paper draws on current literature and the author's experience as a researcher in the US and in China, arguing that while cooperation has increased overall, it has done so in ways that have crowded out old forms of cooperation or made them passé. The paper focuses particularly on how changes at leading Chinese research institutions have impacted international cooperation, both positively and negatively, and suggests ways in which foreign scholars might effectively pursue new avenues for cooperation and exchange.
Political Geography:
China

76. "Embedded Research" in Collaborative Fieldwo

Author:
Sascha Klotzbücher
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
In the era of the "scientific development concept" of the Hu/Wen leadership, agents of knowledge transfer that eventually translates into policy comprise not only think tanks for policy formulation in central-state institutions but also researchers in universities supporting policy implementation at local levels. Well-established patterns of local scientific advisory frame collaborative fieldwork in Sino-Western scientific projects on local governance. However, there is a gap between our active integration into these patterns during fieldwork and our ability to clarify them as resources, reconstruct the selection of research topics and contextualize the research results within our academic discourses. Analysing site-finding, data collection, aggregation and dissemination of a research project with Chinese public health researchers on rural health service reform in Xinjiang between 2005 and 2010, I argue that fieldwork and the role performed as a scientific advisor for the political principal is the localized and daily interface where politics crosses into science.

77. Let's Not Go There: Coping with (Pre-) Selection Bias in Collaborative Field Research

Author:
Christian Gobel
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Field research in China often requires the researcher to cooperate with two kinds of actors: research collaborators, such as those at universities or official think tanks, and local officials. These actors facilitate or enhance field access, but such access comes at the price of a potential "pre-selection bias" in data collection. Some scholars have argued that dependence on these "gatekeepers" introduces a significant bias into research outcomes. I argue, however, that the constraints faced by China scholars in their field studies are not absolute, but function by degree. The CCP is monolithic neither in its organization nor in the thoughts of its agents, and close collaboration with local partners can help remove normative bias rather than necessarily introducing it. Most importantly, an argument built exclusively on the power of structural constraints discounts China scholars' most crucial abilities: to learn, to think critically and to research holistically.
Political Geography:
China

78. Religious Revival among the Zhuang People in China: Practising "Superstition" and Standardizing a Zhuang Religion

Author:
Ya-ning Kao
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper examines two cases of Zhuang religious revival involving multiple actors. It shows how consideration of "superstition" (迷信, mixin) places some religious practice outside the institutional framework when discussing the modern concept of religion in China. In this paper, I particularly focus on two main dimensions of religious revival among the Zhuang people. The first is a grassroots dimension that involves the revival of a so-called "superstitious" cult in which Zhuang people along the Sino-Vietnamese border carry out shamanic rituals to make offerings to a powerful chief-turned-deity, Nong Zhigao, and his wife. The second dimension is a top-down dynamic and involves a series of projects conducted by Zhuang officials, scholars and business persons, which aim to standardize a Zhuang religion, known as Mo religion. These two cases of religious revival demonstrate the varied strategies utilized by different actors in response to government policies regarding religion in China.
Political Geography:
China

79. Of Canons and Commodities: The Cultural Predicaments of Nuosu-Yi "Bimo Culture"

Author:
Olivia Kraef
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The Nuosu are a subgroup of the so-called Yi ethnic group. Today around two million Nuosu live in Liangshan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province and translocal urban contexts, such as Chengdu and Beijing. For many centuries, the Nuosu have cultivated a belief system composed of a combination of animism and ancestor worship. Since the resurrection of religious activity across China that began in the early 1980s, this faith – represented by the three types of religious practitioners known as bimo, sunyi, and monyi – has reportedly been experiencing a comprehensive revival at folk level. For the bimo, this revival has been paralleled and increasingly overlaid by a scholarly reappraisal of Nuosu religion under premises other than religious. Bimo practice and identity have thus become subsumed under the illustrious concept of "bimo culture". In this article, I trace the genealogy of the concept of "bimo culture" as part of a cultural canon of and for the Yi which is intended to promote development at the local level but which is also contributing to a weakening of the status of the bimo and Nuosu ritual life in Liangshan today.

80. Re-Fusing Ethnicity and Religion: An Experiment on Tibetan Grounds

Author:
Martin Saxel
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The relation between ethnicity and religion has had a troubled history in the People's Republic of China. Conflating religious practice with ethnic culture is considered to carry the risk of breeding "splittism" – especially in Tibet and Xinjiang. While in the post-Mao era the outright hostility against religion has given way to a religious revival, keeping religion and (nationality) politics separate has remained a major concern for the Chinese Communist Party. Religion is supposed to be a private matter that does not interfere with politics. Against this backdrop, a recent phenomenon in the Tibet Autonomous Region is all the more remarkable: the (re-)fusion of ethnicity and religion under the label of cultural heritage and its protection. This paper approaches this officially endorsed re-fusion ethno-graphically and examines its wider implications. I argue that endorsing religion as an attribute of Tibetan heritage corresponds to the concept of defining public spaces and events in which religious practice is legitimate and expected. Simultaneously, religious practices outside these dedicated spaces and events become even more problematic, leading to everyday Buddhist practices, such as circumambulation, being seen as (and performed as) political acts.
Political Geography:
China