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9 results

  • The Digital Silk Road between National Rhetoric and Provincial Ambitions

  • Elisa Oreglia, Weidi Zheng
  • Journal:
    The China Quarterly , First View
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 October 2024, pp. 1-13
    • Article
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  • The Digital Silk Road (DSR) is usually described as the digital component of the Belt and Road Initiative that is reshaping the digital world order. Most existing research is concerned with the possible long-term consequences of the DSR rather than on what the DSR encompasses, how it developed and how it has changed since it was announced in 2015. We address this gap by reconstructing the origins of the DSR within China, with a focus on both rhetoric and concrete plans as they developed between central and provincial actors. We collected and analysed a corpus of 31 national and 130 provincial DSR-related plans. In contrast to prevailing views of the DSR as a unified, outward-facing strategy, we show that after an initial surge of related documents, the central government ceased to discuss the DSR in a meaningful way. Provincial governments then appropriated its rhetoric to legitimize their own digitization agendas, including upgrading infrastructure in poorer provinces and remaining plugged into export markets for those with an IT industry. Rather than reshaping the digital world order, the DSR has been appropriated by some provincial governments to attempt, mostly unsuccessfully, to shore up their own digital ambitions.

  • The Political Economy of China's Local Debt

  • Zhenfa Li, Fulong Wu, Fangzhu Zhang
  • Journal:
    The China Quarterly / Volume 257 / March 2024
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    21 July 2023, pp. 100-118
    Print publication:
    March 2024
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  • By analysing the development and operation of local government bonds (LGBs), a new tool fashioned by the Chinese government to finance infrastructure projects, this article improves the understanding of the political economy of China's local debt. We find that the central government uses LGBs to intervene in local debt and pursue policy objectives, and designs a quota system to decide the bond issuing amount and the project selection. When calculating quotas, the central government prioritizes limiting financial risk and achieving national development goals. Local debt should match the fiscal capacity of local governments, and the projects should contribute to the sectors emphasized by the central government as important for national development, reflecting the centralization of central–local relations. However, LGBs hardly fix the problem of local debt, and the pressure to maintain economic growth by expanding infrastructure investment has pushed local debt to an alarming level.

  • 7 - Vertical and Horizontal Decentralisation for Equity and Stability

  • from Part II - Policies and Institutions for Social Cohesion
  • Edited by Hiroyuki Hino, Arnim Langer, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, John Lonsdale, University of Cambridge, Frances Stewart, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    From Divided Pasts to Cohesive Futures
    Published online:
    05 August 2019
    Print publication:
    22 August 2019, pp 223-245

  • Summary

    This chapter considers the role of decentralization in multiethnic societies. It distinguishes between vertical decentralization, in which powers are handed down from the central government to local authorities, and horizontal decentralization, in which powers at the centre are diffused among different Ministries and different arms of government, including extending democratic checks on government action. It is argued that both types of decentralization can lead to more inclusive governments and more peaceful societies, as well as improving efficiency and possibly reducing corruption. The chapter reviews the examples of Kenya, Uganda and Indonesia. In each case, both types of decentralization have increased in recent years, albeit with some retreat in the case of Indonesia. There have been some positive results, but the process has also shown problems of service quality, local level resource deficiency and continued high levels of corruption. The chapter concludes that successful vertical decentralization needs to be accompanied by a process of horizontal decentralization that can provide guidance and accountability to decision makers at all levels. Over time, the magnitude of local taxes needs to be increased relative to central grants following the pattern in more developed countries.

  • Part II - Policies and Institutions for Social Cohesion

  • Edited by Hiroyuki Hino, Arnim Langer, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, John Lonsdale, University of Cambridge, Frances Stewart, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    From Divided Pasts to Cohesive Futures
    Published online:
    05 August 2019
    Print publication:
    22 August 2019, pp 191-400

  • Summary

    This chapter considers whether there is a trade-off between growth and equality, as economists sometimes assert, differentiating between vertical inequality (among individuals) and horizontal inequality (among groups). Most evidence challenges the supposed trade-off, suggesting greater equality increases growth, especially sustained growth. Inequality among individuals tends to limit human resources, while inequality among groups can lead to violent conflict, and both constrain growth. Greater equality also supports other desirable objectives, including better nutrition, less crime, and better health. The impact of growth on equality is analysed. This depends on how far earnings are spread via employment; and the redistributionary effects of tax and government expenditure. Labour-intensive activities tend to improve distribution, while capital-intensive ones, heavy reliance on minerals for exports and rising skill requirements tend to worsen it. For horizontal inequality, the impact of growth varies according to group location, economic specialization and policies, illustrated by the experience of Ghana, Peru, Malaysia and Northern Ireland. The chapter surveys policies likely to improve vertical and horizontal distribution, with examples drawn from many countries. Finally, the chapter considers the political conditions needed to support equalising policies.

  • 2 - Governance and Administration in Hong Kong

  • from Part I - The Constitutional and Administrative Context
  • Stephen Thomson, City University of Hong Kong
  • Book:
    Administrative Law in Hong Kong
    Published online:
    12 December 2018
    Print publication:
    11 October 2018, pp 7-23

  • Summary

    This chapter sets the background context to the book’s discussion of administrative law, by considering governance and administration in Hong Kong. It begins by examining central government, in particular the Chief Executive, the Executive Council, the Chief Executive-in-Council and the civil service. It then considers local government, in particular the District Councils, the Rural Committees and the Heung Yee Kuk. An overview is then given of the administration of Mainland affairs in Hong Kong, and the administration of Hong Kong affairs in the Mainland. The chapter then discusses the system of licensing, permits and certification, followed by the system of public procurement and tendering.

  • 19 - The central government and its institutions

  • from Part III - Russia Under the First Romanovs (1613–1689)
  • Edited by Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 September 2006, pp 433-463

  • Summary

    This chapter begins the survey of seventeenth-century institutions with the ruler Tsar Aleksei and his court. The sovereign's court was the locus of political power in Muscovy. It was not a place but rather a hierarchy of ranks. After the Romanov political settlement, Russian high politics were marked by a general peace for over thirty years. As the boyar and court elite led Muscovy, chancellery personnel, the prikaznye liudi, administered it. The world of the prikaz people was different from that of any other Muscovite in a number of ways. The tsar, the court and the prikazy were the central stable elements of Muscovite governance throughout the seventeenth century. This being said, there were two other institutions, quite different in character, that one finds in this era: the so-called 'boyar council' (boiarskaia duma) and 'Assembly of the Land' (zemskii sobor). In the end, the seventeenth-century Muscovite state proved to be quite robust.

  • 20 - Central government

  • from Part V - Government
  • Edited by Dominic Lieven, London School of Economics and Political Science
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Russia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    17 August 2006, pp 427-448

  • Summary

    A solid understanding of the workings of central government of the Russian Empire helps to determine the extent to which it and its personnel held responsibility for the collapse of the Romanov regime. Peter the Great's reform of the central government marked the beginning of the imperial bureaucracy's evolution on two different but equally important and mutually linked levels. The ministerial bureaucracy from the early nineteenth century staffed the so-called subordinate organs (podchinennye organy), which at least theoretically handled activities in a designated field. The supreme organs (verkhovnye organy) had the responsibility to manage and co-ordinate the activities of the subordinate organs. Alexander I established Russia's ministerial system which lasted until the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in February 1917. The young emperor initially toyed with the idea of constitutional change but soon showed a preference for administrative reform which he saw as more essential for effective government and Russia's modernisation and less threatening to his autocratic power.

  • 9 - Central goverment and the towns

  • from Part II - Governance
  • Edited by Martin Daunton, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Urban History of Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    25 January 2001, pp 259-286

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the municipal city, Victorian system, local government, national efficiency, borough extension, 1929 Local Government Act, central-local relations, central government and towns. The aim of central government in the Victorian period was not so much to bully local authorities into conforming with centrally prescribed policies as to ensure the observance of minimum standards in what were seen as national services at a time of otherwise undirected municipal expansion. As central government found itself being pushed into social politics by electoral pressure and party competition, local government distanced itself from the early welfare state. The First World War enhanced the problems faced by local authorities. In the first place the destruction of the Liberals as a party of government removed the only party seriously interested in reforming the rating system. County opinion became steadily more splenetic in its opposition to borough extension, with the vocal support of shire backbenchers in the Commons.