In the last two decades, against the backdrop of multiple anti-foreign protests in China, among which the anti-Japanese protests were prominent, debates emerged over the rise and meaning of Chinese nationalism. This thesis analyses the nature and formation of China’s nationalism towards Japan, with an emphasis on bottom-up manifestations of nationalism. The analysis compares the anti-Japanese demonstrations and boycotts of 2010 and 2012 triggered by disputes over the contested Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. The current literature on Chinese nationalism is largely dominated by top-down perspectives which neglect the prospect of a nationalism separate from the state. This thesis argues that it is not only that bottom-up and top-down forces coexist, but that they interact in a dynamic and bidirectional process. This interaction, explained through Giddens’ structuration theory and Wendt’s constructivist theory, is significant in understanding how nationalism is shaped. In the detailed analysis of nationalism theories of instrumentalism, along with those of primordialism and ethnosymbolism are used. It is through these lenses that each step of the “nationalism” is studied - from history and triggers of nationalism to popular manifestations, current discussions of nationalism and its effect on China’s domestic and foreign policy. By placing China into the historical context of the last century, it is shown that anti-Japanese feelings in China are the result of embedded memories of war and a need of unifying the nation against Imperial Japan, rather than purely the result of a political machination. History, combined with threat perception and China’s development, led to large anti-Japanese manifestations over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in 2010 and 2012. The authorities employed a number of strategies in order to tone down these events domestically. Through interviews conducted with Chinese academics, researchers, protesters and activists, and discourse analysis applied to state media, it was identified that history, territorial sovereignty, mistrust and reactiveness to Japan’s actions frame the meaning of anti-Japanese nationalism in China. These shared themes brought together a wide spectrum of state and non-state actors, who put aside their dichotomous views over loyalty to the Party-state and loyalty to the nation, and showed their support for the Chinese government. The problematic effects of this type of “unified anti-Japanese nationalism” are that domestically it sets restrictive “standards” for what it means to be a “good nationalist” in China; internationally, it raises serious concerns over China’s foreign policy should a fatal Sino-Japanese accident in the East China Sea occur. The substance of Chinese nationalism may be indicative of the type of international power that China aspires to be and informs the domestic challenges that may influence its external behaviour. By understanding the substance of nationalism, China’s perceptions of itself and “the other”, as well as its intentions home and abroad are captured. Policymakers within China and abroad should not ignore the challenges nationalism poses at the domestic level; they should look into the intricate disputes and negotiations among state and non-state actors, driven not only by economic and political calculations, but by a shared past and emotions that contribute to the internal dynamic of Chinese nationalism.

This study is an economic and political analysis of the privatisation of state economic enterprises (SEEs) in Turkey between 1986-1996. A radical shift from planned to a market economy is observed in Turkish economic policy which occurred during the 1980s as a response to the crisis of the late 1970s. Privatisation has been one of the major elements of this new economic policy. The initial impetus towards privatisation sprang from dissatisfaction with the performance of SEEs. Attempts have been made to change the nature and the role of the public sector in the Turkish economy. It was hoped that privatisation would improve the economic performance of the SEEs by freeing them from direct state intervention and exposing them to the market forces. Within the above perspective, this thesis provides a case study of the Turkish experience with privatisation by examining the concept based on an analytical framework. After a decade of privatisation efforts, the results of the Turkish privatisation look disappointing. The study identifies political, economic and social factors as the major influences that determined the outcome of privatisation in the Turkish context. This work suggests that the implementation of successful privatisation policies hinges on the ability and capacity of the political leadership to control the bargaining process. It appears to be essential for governments to form a strong coalition which embraces support from the public and various interest groups to promote and implement the privatisation programme smoothly. The Turkish case shows that the government’s failure to control the process combined with other factors such as an unfavourable macroeconomic environment and an inefficient institutional framework all contributed to the unsuccessful outcome of its privatisation policy. In the empirical part of the research, the efficiency of the privatised firms in terms of their profitability and productivity are evaluated. The findings from the case studies show that there are significant improvements in the performance of the privatised enterprises in Turkey following privatisation. Though some poor financial performance is observed in the eight privatised enterprises studied, in general all of them have recorded significant improvements in labour productivity. There is also evidence that attempts to reduce the role of the public sector as the supplier of goods and services in Turkish cement, airline catering and telecom equipment manufacturing sectors have been largely successful. Hence, it is now widely acknowledged that the private sector can perform in these areas more efficiently and at a lower cost and offer better quality goods and services than the public sector. The study has two major conclusions. The first is that privatisation is an economic and political issue. As the Turkish case illustrates, politics plays the most important role in deciding whether or not to privatise and the outcome of privatisation policies. However, the economic justification of privatisation, which rests upon the potential improvements in efficiency, which come from greater competition, appear to be the main objective of most privatisation programmes. The second conclusion is that privatisation is not a panacea for all the economic problems that governments face, but as the successful privatisation examples show it is a way forward to promote economic efficiency at the both enterprise and macroeconomic levels. Most important of all, a radical privatisation programme can significantly reduce the state intervention in the management of the economy and eliminate the issues of political patronage, rent-seeking and favouritism especially in developing countries.

This thesis aims to provide a view point from which we can understand the long-term historical transformations of Korean politics since the late fourteenth century. I will attempt to illustrate the overall configuration of Korean politics with sociological reference to three questions: what kinds of political events have occurred? Which political issues have led to the participation of major political actors? How have these actors shown their political orientation in practice and how have events and actors determined politics, or, if there is no determination, how have they influenced the overall shape of politics? The concept of modernity in this thesis is mainly used to indicate the embodiment of political actors’ alternative visions without necessarily accepting the widely acknowledged assumption that modernity is the epochal quality of the contemporary period which exclusively enjoy. Some sociologists, especially in comparative-historical sociology, since the late 1990s have shown their intellectual interest in conceptualizing ‘multiple modernities'. They recognize the importance of theorizing the existence of plural forms of societal development for the contemporary situation, while some classical ideas on modernity based on the European or American experience have been critically evaluated in regional studies. If the Korean experience is regarded as an example of multiple modernities, it is not because the political boundary itself - which has been called Korea, as well as Chosun, Koryo, Balhac/Shilla, etc. -, has its own distinctive political and cultural color. Rather it is because the actors in Korean history generally, have shown themselves to be a good example for evaluating modernity. Regardless of quite different historical trajectories, the compatibility of the Korean experience with others under the title of multiple modernities, can be adduced both from the way in which human practices have emerged in their collective form, with their own political orientations, and in the relationship to other actors within a boundary.

This thesis entails an analysis of the relationship between space and politics in the construction and legitimisation of modern China. The thesis argues that the production of space has since the onset of modernity in China, in itself very much a spatial process, played a substantial yet, largely unexplored and academically unacknowledged role in both the construction of the nation state and the legitimisation of political ideologies. I wish to show that the production of modern space has since the mid-17th century played an increasingly vital role in the abstract concretisation and the everyday diffusion of the geographic imagination of the Chinese nation state. The state, in other words, legitimises its existence through the reification of space. This thesis contributes to a historical and spatial understanding of the role of geographies of power in creating an alternative understanding of what China is and how it is (re-)produced spatially. Such an understanding problematises the realised abstraction of the Chinese nation state and politicises the production and representation of space in China. The thesis thus questions notions of Chinese essentialism, Chinese history, Chinese architecture and other expressions of state spaces. The position that this thesis takes is that the production of space gives form and meaning to the political. The thesis looks at a variety of spatial techniques of power by analysing the politics of cartography, urban planning, architecture and other forms of production of space. By emphasising the politics of space, this thesis is a work of political geography on the subject of modern Chinese state space. This thesis comprises six chapters, an introduction and a conclusion.

No description available.

China’s remarkable economic growth heralds substantial improvements in population health for the Chinese people. While economic growth in some respects acts as a positive stimulus to the health sector, it also brings challenges to the health system, in particular, a widening inequity in healthcare across the social spectrum, rising healthcare costs and low efficiency in health provision. The overarching aim of the thesis is to investigate whether inequities and inefficiencies exist in China’s healthcare system. It then seeks to understand, whether and to what extent a newly developed social health insurance scheme—the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS)—responses to issues of inequities and inefficiencies in China’s healthcare system. This thesis uses a variety of analytical tools, such as the Concentration Index, Decomposition Analysis, Two-part Regression Analysis and Differences-in-Differences analysis. Data from a longitudinal individual level survey—the China Health and Nutrition Survey of 2004, 2006 and 2009—are used. The findings of this thesis suggest that inequalities in health and health care in China are ubiquitous and favouring better-off socioeconomic groups. Health status for the urban poor is surprisingly worse than their rural counterparts; more than two-thirds of the inequalities for the rural population are driven by socioeconomic factors. In rural areas, the NCMS was introduced to improve equity in access to healthcare and financial protection to rural farmers in 2003. This thesis finds that, even though the coverage of the NCMS reached more than 97% in 2009, the poor were still less likely to use formal care, such as preventive care, and were more likely to use folk doctor care compared with the rich. They may also have difficulty in meeting the costs of care that they need, and have to pay a substantial fraction of their incomes on healthcare. This thesis also finds that the NCMS may exacerbate the problem of inefficiency in healthcare provision because the scheme may lead to cost escalation in healthcare. Outpatient treatments for the NCMS participants incur significantly higher pre-reimbursement per episode costs than those for the uninsured. This pre-reimbursement inflation in costs is most noticeably observed at village clinics and township health centres—the backbone of the health system for poor rural farmers—than at county and municipal hospitals. This thesis urges policy makers to explore ways to improve equitable access and control supplier-induced demand in health care in China. In terms of the NCMS, it is important to improve the benefit package for both outpatient and inpatient care, and to offer additional benefits for the poor households. The government should also reform provider payment mechanism, regulate provider behavior, as well as implement other measures to prevent over prescribe of medicines and over supply of healthcare.

This research project has two interconnected goals. First, it attempts to unpack and redefine ‘hybrid regimes’ – a concept that has emerged from the ‘third wave’ democratisation literature in the late 1990s and shares with this literature its underlying cultural, ideological and teleological assumptions. I start with a critique of these dominant assumptions and point to the need to rethink hybrid regimes outside of these parameters. I then propose a more limited and lucid definition for hybrid regimes as political systems built on two contesting sources of legitimacy – elitist and popular – and corresponding institutions of guardianship and democracy. Hybrid regimes, in other words, are not ‘diminished democracies’ or ‘competitive autocracies’, but an altogether separate regime type that feature clearly defined tutelary and electoral institutions. Based on this redefinition, I present five hypotheses regarding the dynamics of change in hybrid regimes, which are subsequently applied to the two case studies: the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey. The second goal of the thesis is to present a new comparative framework to analyse the post-Cold War dynamics of change in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey, two countries with political systems that scholars have found difficult to categorise and observers often treated as polar opposites due to their seemingly inimical official ideologies, Khomeinism and Kemalism. Through studying their hybrid institutional characteristics and the role of structural factors and human agency at the critical political junctures that the two countries experienced in the late 1990s and the 2000s, I endeavour to contribute to the scholarly discussion on the dynamics of interaction and legitimation between popular and elite rule.

This study seeks to examine the impact of the EU on Turkish counter-terrorism policies towards the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It analyses what impact it has had within three distinct periods: the pre-Helsinki European Council (1984-1999) period, the post-Helsinki European Council (1999-2004) period, and the post-Brussels European Council (2004-2013) period. It conceptualizes and empirically investigates the EU’s norm diffusion role by relying on the concept of “Rule Adoption”, and by utilising two norm diffusion mechanisms: the “Conditionality” and the “Socialization” mechanism, and their domestic and EU-level determinants. The thesis argues that when the EU has promoted democratisation in Turkey, it has also implicitly impacted on Turkey’s counter-terrorism policies. It argues for this thesis by generalizing from the following empirical findings: When the EU has provided a credible membership prospect to Turkey, and when the PKK attacks have been at a low-level, then the EU conditionality mechanism has been influential on Turkey’s adoption of EU promoted norms. However, when there has been no membership prospect and high levels of PKK violence, it has been the openness of Turkish political actors that has resulted in rule adoption, in which the social learning of the Turkish political actors has led to the adoption of EU promoted norms as an appropriate way to solve existing terrorism problems.

The introduction of administrative litigation in the People's Republic of China in October 1990 initiated a new era in the Chinese ruled-rulers relationship. It broke through the entrenched ruled-rulers dichotomy and established a formal legal channel for ordinary citizens to defend their personal and property rights against any infringement by government officials' unlawful specific administrative acts. This thesis is the first empirical analysis of administrative litigation in the People's Republic of China to use a cultural approach. A microanalysis was conducted through interviews with 738 individual household proprietors and 152 government officials from the Hai Dian, Xi Cheng, and Xuan Wu districts of the Beijing municipality between mid-1996 and early 1997, with a four-page questionnaire to assess their administrative litigation cultures. Complemented by a macro analysis, the survey also examined the structure and problems of the PRC's administrative litigation through comprehensive literature reviews, in-depth personal interviews, and attendance in court hearings. The PRC's administrative litigation is a top-down contrivance of the rulers to uphold their rule. As such, it has never been a fully-fledged redress mechanism, but only a confined concession with restricted jurisdiction bound by a narrowly but cautiously construed Administrative Litigation Law. Implementation of the PRe's administrative litigation has been difficult and problematic. The resulting consequences are confined and biased towards the rulers. The overall usefulness of the mechanism is restricted. And its prospect is worrying. The empirical survey generates extraordinarily interesting findings. The affective orientation of both sample groups on the need for administrative litigation was found highly positive and supportive. Their evaluational orientation on the consequences of administrative litigation in the country was highly affirmative. And their expectational orientation towards the future of the PRC's administrative litigation was equally optimistic. The surveyed rulers were clearly better informed in their cognitive orientation, but more reserved in their jurisdictional orientation. Meanwhile, the majority of the surveyed ruled were clearly dismayed in their appraisal orientation regarding the usefulness of the PRC's administrative litigation. The latter is obviously below the acceptable threshold, and substantial improvement is needed if it is to help ameliorate the Chinese ruled-rulers relationship.

Decentralisation for local community development has become the new paradigm of development discourse in Ghana in the present times. There is currently an elaborate legal framework in Ghana on decentralisation as a means for addressing local community development. The role of law in development is therefore implicated in the discourse. This study raises provocative, startling and challenging questions not only on the decentralisation programme, but the appropriate theoretical framework for reading the role of law in development. The study argues that decentralisation in Ghana is a spatial strategy of the state for addressing the crisis of its political economy and not one necessarily for local community development. Taking its starting point in land administration in the Upper West Region of Ghana (predominantly agrarian communities), the study explores how the objectives of decentralisation in Ghana address the subjectivity of development needs of local communities in Ghana. The study's contention is that the legal regime of the decentralisation programme and its praxis fail to address a pertinent development concern (land) of the Upper West communities. The study argues that if local community development were the object of the programme, it would perforce address the problematic of land administration that is an important concern for predominantly subsistence farming communities. The study also demonstrates how a spatial reading of social phenomenon provides critical insights to an understanding of the role of law in development. The study is based on a field study conducted in Ghana and among the communities of the Upper West Region, through interviews with officials of institutions, traditional authorities and civil society organisations. The interviews were complemented by written primary and secondary sources. Primary sources include documents from the National Archives in Ghana and from decentralised institutions in the Upper West Region. Secondary sources include unpublished essays and theses, books, articles, reported cases in the Ghana Law Reports, unreported and/or pending cases in the Ghanaian courts.