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Category: Politics

Published July 18, 2012

Authoritarianism in the New York Times?

The view that China should become more democratic is widely held in the West. But framing the debate in terms of democracy versus authoritarianism overlooks better possibilities.

The political future of China is far likelier to be determined by the longstanding Confucian tradition of “humane authority” than by Western-style multiparty elections.

That’s from an op-ed in last Wednesday’s New York Times, in which the authors essentially take a pro-authoritarian stance. In short, their argument is that they have have found a better scheme. The op-ed has prompted surprisingly few responses (see here for a Chinese philosophical perspective, see here for an excellent critical perspective, and see here for Tom Pepinsky’s take).

Rather than Western-style democracy, what the authors have in mind is

… a tricameral legislature: a House of Exemplary Persons that represents sacred legitimacy; a House of the Nation that represents historical and cultural legitimacy; and a House of the People that represents popular legitimacy.

The leader of the House of Exemplary Persons should be a great scholar. Candidates for membership should be nominated by scholars and examined on their knowledge of the Confucian classics and then assessed through trial periods of progressively greater administrative responsibilities — similar to the examination and recommendation systems used to select scholar-officials in the imperial past. The leader of the House of the Nation should be a direct descendant of Confucius; other members would be selected from descendants of great sages and rulers, along with representatives of China’s major religions. Finally, members of the House of the People should be elected either by popular vote or as heads of occupational groups.

So what the authors suggest, then, is a mixture of technocracy and monarchy, with just enough of a bone thrown in to the people so to prevent uprisings?

Continue readingAuthoritarianism in the New York Times?
Published July 16, 2012

Contributing to Public Goods: “How Should a PhD Student Be?,” Part 1 (Updated)

Last week, two of my colleagues and I were invited to a professional development workshop held by the PhD students in the Sanford School of Public Policy on the topic of getting the most out of a PhD.

Specifically, the PhD students wanted to know what we had done (and when) in years 1 to 5 of our doctoral studies, and how we had navigated the process leading to our first publication.

Here are my slides for the workshop, and here is the audio, which you can also stream below. I speak from the beginning until about 16:00, when Nick Carnes takes over. Amar Hamoudi starts at around 28:00.

Continue readingContributing to Public Goods: “How Should a PhD Student Be?,” Part 1 (Updated)
Published July 12, 2012

All Politics Might Be Local, but the Returns to Local Politics Are Frugal

Or at least, the returns from involvement in local politics in China are. From a new working paper by Jian Zhang, John Giles, and Scott Rozelle:

Recruiting and retaining leaders and public servants at the grass-roots level in developing countries creates a potential tension between providing sufficient returns to attract talent and limiting the scope for excessive rent-seeking behavior. In China, researchers have frequently argued that village cadres, who are the lowest level of administrators in rural areas, exploit personal political status for economic gain. Much existing research, however, compares the earnings of cadre and non-cadre households in rural China without controlling for unobserved dimensions of ability that are also correlated with success as entrepreneurs or in non-agricultural activities. The findings of this paper suggest a measurable return to cadre status, but the magnitudes are not large and provide only a modest incentive to participate in village-level government. The paper does not find evidence that households of village cadres earn significant rents from having a family member who is a cadre. Given the increasing returns to non-agricultural employment since China’s economic reforms began, it is not surprising that the returns to working as a village cadre have also increased over time. Returns to cadre-status are derived both from direct compensation and subsidies for cadres and indirectly through returns earned in off-farm employment from businesses and economic activities managed by villages.

For more about local politics in the context of developing countries, I would start with Michael Bratton’s 1980 book The Local Politics of Rural Development and his 1989 article in World Politics, Christian Lund’s 2006 article in Development and Change and his 2010 Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa.

Continue readingAll Politics Might Be Local, but the Returns to Local Politics Are Frugal