Pronunciation: \-ˈmi-tənt\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin intermittent-, intermittens, present participle of intermittere
Date: 1601
: coming and going at intervals : not continuous ; also : occasional
— in·ter·mit·tent·ly adverb
Source: Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Intermittent
Retrieved 2 December 2010 The year is nearly half over and the first few days of July are near. I'll be avoiding the red glare of rockets for the next few days and probably away from things online. Go ahead, talk amongst yourselves. And ask your students, next time you see them, about national holidays in the countries they study. Occasions? Traditions? Observations? Symbolism?
If you find a bit of information that might be useful for teaching comparative politics, post it at Sharing Comparative or send me a note with the information. I will be back online next week.
Remember, the 2,239 entries here are indexed at delicious.com/CompGovPol. There are 77 categories and you can use more than one category at a time to find something appropriate to your needs. The Fourth Edition ofWhat You Need to Knowis available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).
State elections this weekend in Mexico are shaping up as a revealing test of whether the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, on a steady march to retake the presidential palace, has changed its old autocratic ways.
The party, which ruled Mexico with an iron fist for 70 years but lost the presidency in 2000, insists it has reformed and modernized…
In Mexico state, the region of 15 million people that hugs this capital, political parties opposed to the PRI are crying foul.
On Wednesday, they demanded that the results of Sunday's election be nullified because of what they allege are egregious campaign-spending abuses by the PRI and its candidate, Eruviel Avila. The statehouse there is already controlled by the PRI, and the outgoing governor, Enrique Pena Nieto, a PRI member, is the early favorite to win the presidency next year.
The alleged campaign violations, including the use of state money to buy votes, represent a throwback to the patronage politics of the PRI of past decades…
PRI operatives have been handing out everything from rice, paint and cement to gym-class memberships and debit cards in Mexico state. This kind of payola is a time-honored tradition in Mexico and not necessarily illegal…
Jorge Buendia, a political analyst and pollster, said the PRI has been effective at "changing faces" by adding newer and younger politicians to the mix. He noted that Avila is a visibly younger candidate and that his two gray-haired opponents, the PRD's Alejandro Encinas and the PAN's Luis Felipe Bravo Mena, ran for the same office two decades ago.
But, he said, the PRI has been less convincing in changing its practices. "It's new wine in old bottles," Buendia said…
Ninety years after its formation, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has grown from an over 50-member revolutionary Party to an 80-million-strong political party ruling over the world's most populous country…
An emblem of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is seen surrounded by flowers on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, capital of China, June 28, 2011. (Xinhua/Ren Zheng Lai)
[T]he CPC accomplished three major tasks in 90 years, which are national independence and the liberation of the people, the establishment of the basic system of socialism, and blazing the trail of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The CPC turned an impoverished and backward China into the world's second largest economy…
History has proved that only the CPC can save China… The Chinese people followed the CPC in the cause of liberation and socialism, which is their choice and the only road for China's development.
The current situation has proved that socialism with Chinese characteristics, founded by the Chinese people under the CPC's leadership, is a path which is suited to China's conditions and complies with the world trend. The CPC, practical and realistic, is willing to emancipate the mind and keep pace with the times, which makes it able to go through difficult situations and overcome challenges.
The future will prove that the CPC will retain its vitality, and will lead the people in creating better lives. The CPC gains all its strength from the people, and it takes the people's most fundamental interests as the starting point and the object of its work. Such a party will have a bright future with the support of the people…
The Nigerian authorities have imposed a curfew on nightclubs, beers parlours and cinemas in Abuja two weeks after a major bomb attack on the capital city…
Eight people died in the recent attack on the police headquarters carried out by the Islamist sect Boko Haram.
It is also accused of Sunday's attack on a beer garden in Maiduguri.
The group, which usually targets the north-eastern state of Borno, around Maiduguri, says it is fighting for Islamic rule, and campaigns against all political and social activity associated with the West.
Boko Haram, evidently a Nigerian version of al Qaeda, has become more active and more deadly. The government of President Jonathan has promised to put an end to the terror.
A bomb attack in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Maiduguri has killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens, security sources say.
They say they believe the attack, which occurred in a beer garden, was carried out by the Islamist sect Boko Haram.
The group wants to establish an Islamic government in Nigeria…
The police have not officially said how many people died in the attack but correspondents say that if 25 people have been killed, it would be the most deadly attack yet carried out by Boko Haram…
The world's largest political party keeps growing even though only a small percentage of applicants is accepted.
Heard of guanxi? If you've been reading this blog, you have. See: Guanxi and ethics or Xi Jiping and guano. And that might help explain why so many people want to join the Party.
China's governing Communist Party, the world's largest political party, says its membership now exceeds 80 million.
Some 21 million people applied to join in 2010 but only about 14% were accepted, a party official said.
Applicants need the backing of existing members and must undergo exhaustive checks. Membership brings many perks including better career opportunities…
Most significantly in China, where correspondents say personal relationships [guanxi] often matter more than ability, members get to network with decision-makers influencing their careers, lives or businesses…
The percentage of full party members in 2010 who were under 35 was 24%, while women made up about 22%…
Being a member of today's Communist Party of China has little to do with the writings of Marx or Mao, though both have some lingering adherents. Many party officials are now better known for their love of high-fashion labels and sleek sports-utility vehicles than the rigorous classlessness sought by the clutch of staunch socialists who gathered on July 1, 1921, in Shanghai…
As the party gets set to celebrate the 90th anniversary of its foundation on July 1 with gala performances and a big-budget propaganda movie (known in Chinese as The Founding of a Party and in English as Beginning of the Great Revival), the official Xinhua newswire extolled people to “draw profound inspiration from the glorious historic journey of the party and stride confidently toward the lofty goal of national rejuvenation under the guidance of the glorious banner of the party.”
Iranian lawmakers urged the government on Sunday to prevent a UN investigator from coming to the country to look into allegations of human rights abuses.
Ahmed Shaheed, a former Maldives foreign minister, was last week named special rapporteur on Iran by the UN Human Rights Council, which had voiced concern at Tehran’s crackdowns on opposition figures and increased use of the death penalty…
Iran’s Deputy Judiciary Chief Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi told IRNA: “If they (Western countries) investigate the issue of human rights in Iran in a fair and non-political way, they will understand that at the current juncture, the Islamic Republic is the only country that attaches the greatest significance to human rights principles.”…
The June 25 issue of The Economist has a 14-page special report on China. Some of the mini-articles seem to be replays of older articles, but the collection looks like it is valuable as a source of teaching material. If you don't have a subscription, check with your librarian to see if you can access the articles online or get a copy of this issue.
See the sidebar next to the fourth paragraph of the introduction for the contents of the special report.
In less than a decade China could be the world’s largest economy. But its continued economic success is under threat from a resurgence of the state and resistance to further reform, says James Miles
Traditionally in newspapers, it was the person holding the title of “news editor” who controlled the final content of print pages, often exercising power late at night, long after the top editors had gone home. Now, at The Times, news editors ride herd all day and deep into the night — steering content to digital platforms and, yes, the daily paper…
Unlike print, digital news is often updated throughout the day and night, sometimes many times. Versions evolve and sometimes morph into something quite different. Mistakes happen and are fixed…
For example, in the days after news broke that Arnold Schwarzenegger had fathered a child with his family’s housekeeper before becoming California’s governor, The Times ran an article about her, describing her neighborhood in Bakersfield. Some readers complained that this invaded her privacy.
You won’t find that article anywhere on NYTimes.com now, though, because later the same day a completely different story, written with a different focus by a different reporter, replaced it online and eventually appeared in the paper…
It’s problematic when content just disappears. It can also be problematic in a different way when content changes more subtly…
Finally, in addition to changes that vaporize information and leave people wondering, there are occasions when corrections are likewise vaporized and therefore go unacknowledged in the often-ephemeral digital domain.
Philip B. Corbett, associate managing editor for standards, told me that The Times published a correction online after an article on Jan. 8 erroneously reported that Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona had been killed in the Tucson shooting. I hadn’t realized a correction was ever published, and I can’t go online to verify it now because the correction is no longer there.
The reason, as Mr. Corbett explained, is that the story itself, crafted in New York early in the coverage, was replaced later by a new article written by a Times reporter in Tucson…
The political conflict in Iran goes another round. And while I was away, (and President Ahmadinejad was off at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting trying to firm up Iran's relationships with Russia and China) there was another round that I missed. Thanks to Kevin James at Albany HS (California), for posting the story of Malekzadeh's arrest on the AHS Comparative Government blog.
Iran's newly appointed deputy foreign minister has resigned under pressure from hard-liners who view him as part of a movement seeking to weaken the role of Iran's powerful Muslim clerics, media reports said Tuesday…
Malekzadeh… is an ally of the president's chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.
Mashaei is sharply opposed by hard-liners who accuse him of seeking to undermine Iran's ruling system. He has been described by hardline clerics as the head of a "deviant current" that seeks to elevate the values of pre-Islamic Persia and promote nationalism at the cost of clerical rule.
Ahmadinejad has strongly defended Mashaei, whose daughter is married to the president's son, saying the attacks against Mashaei are actually directed at him…
A close ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has been arrested, Iranian news agencies reported Thursday, a development that suggested the power struggle between the president and the country’s highest religious leader is deepening…
Mr. Malekzadeh is believed to be the most senior Ahmadinejad associate to be arrested — and one of the first to have his arrest reported in Iran’s press…
Mr. Malekzadeh is also an ally of the president’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is unpopular among the country’s most conservative clerics and is seen to be at the center of the political struggle. Last month, a hard-line newspaper called for Mr. Mashaei’s arrest, calling him a “very dangerous person who is propping up a new cult.”
Political analysts cautioned that the rift was unlikely to devolve into a permanent rupture. “The president now knows he lacks institutional power to challenge the prerogatives of the supreme leader,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Iran adviser to the Obama administration. “And Khamenei appreciates that an impeachment crisis would prove destabilizing for the system. Thus, a weakened Ahmadinejad who stays in his lane is good for the supreme leader.”
Iran welcomes the opportunity to host the leaders of countries ostensibly aligned with the US to bolster its own international influence and the legitimacy of the regime (and Ahmadinejad?). Can it overcome its reputation as a promoter of Shiite interests?
Thanks to Blanca Facundo for pointing out the Asia Times article about the meeting (even though it over-explains things).
Tehran will host a two-day international conference on terrorism this weekend, Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday…
According to local reports, officials from 80 countries as well as experts from regional and international organizations will take part in the conference. No further details were given.
The presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan reportedly already confirmed their attendance.
Iran has on several occasions criticized the United States and its Western allies for having deteriorated security in both Afghanistan and Iraq by their military presence.
Tehran says the most effective option to fight terrorism is to allow regional countries to take care of security and force foreign troops to leave the region.
Medvedev says he won't run against Putin. Medvedev says he wants to run for re-election. Medvedev says he and Putin are not rivals. Medvedev bemoans the lack of political competition. What messages is he sending?
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said he finds it "hard to imagine" that he and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would run against each other at next year's presidential election.
Competition between them could, he said, "be harmful".
But, speaking to the Financial Times, Mr Medvedev declined to confirm whether he would stand for a second term…
Mr Medvedev repeated his vow to modernise the country, and said this depended on expanding political competition.
He warned that "in the absence of political competition the foundations of a market economy were beginning to disappear."
He hinted at reversing some of the political centralisation and state control of the economy put in place under Mr Putin.
"In some countries there is a rather successful coexistence of market-oriented economies and limited political competition," he said. "This is not for us."…
"Above the Law" is a reporting project of Clifford Levy and Ellen Barry in The New York Times. The series of articles and videos is meant to "examine corruption and abuse of power in Russia two decades after the end of Communism."
If you are teaching about rule of law or corruption in Russia, these articles are a great resource, especially when there are videos and graphics to accompany the articles.
The Mexican government has rolled out a new way of reporting on the death toll in the war on and between drug cartels. Does it better display the extent of the problem faced by the government? Does it indicate whether or not the government can deal with the problem?
The launch this week of a comprehensive official database of drug-related killings around Mexico provides a new insight into the complexity of the conflict with criminal groups that traffic drugs into the United States.
Until now, the public relied mostly on tallies elaborated by national media outlets or on sporadic - and sometimes confusing - figures released by different government institutions.
Many in Mexico have therefore welcomed the publication of a unified set of data that for the first time includes not only fallen gang members, but also police, soldiers and innocent civilians killed in the fight against the cartels.
However, that positive development has been overshadowed by the grim scenario that the figures depict - and some complain that they only show one, even if the most tragic, aspect of the conflict…
Mexican officials have repeatedly said that the overall per capita murder rate in Mexico (including those not related to the drugs conflict) is lower than rates in other Latin American countries like Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.
But the newly-released statistics paint a complex security scenario in some parts of Mexico…
But as the country gears up for a presidential election next year, the drugs conflict seems set to dominate the political agenda…
Blanca Facundo from Puerto Rico found another article on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It's very good on history and analysis of what its members are intending for the group. And it's view from outside of the Western perspective that we're in. The article is by M. K. Bhadkrakumar writing in Asia Times.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) marked its 10th anniversary at the summit meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday…
[I]t turned out to be a sober, introspective occasion for charting out a course rather than an excuse for grandstanding. No tall claims were made. There was sombre stocktaking that security threats remained and economic cooperation could be a lot better…
SCO realizes that Central Asian and South Asian security are indivisible. Integration of two major South Asian countries - India and Pakistan - is in the cards - the summit finalized their membership norms and negotiations. Indian officials exude optimism. As and when the process is completed, SCO will have transformed beyond all recognition from its humble beginnings…
There's a call in Nigeria to declare June 12 Democracy Day. It marks the day in 1993 when military rulers annulled the election of Mashood Abiola as president. It's a proposal by Yoruba leaders, in part to honor a Yoruba hero, but it's also a proposal for a unifying national holiday. Nigeria could use more of those.
On June 12 1993, millions of Nigerians voted in the election adjudged to be the best ever conducted in the history of Nigeria.
It was possible for the people to vote right because the elections were properly planned and well conducted. There were pre-election debates and it was easy to know who was intelligent and who was really dull.
The people voted and the results were rolling in more to the favour of MKO Abiola. When it became evident that Abiola would win, Bashir Tofa (the opponent) was said to have sent him congratulatory messages.
That was the spirit and mood until Nigerians received the announcement that cancelled or annulled the election …
[R]enown [sic] constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay, has urged the Federal Government to declare June 12 of every year a national holiday
In a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Sagay described June 12 as a "watershed" in the political history of Nigeria.
The widely acclaimed election of late Chief Moshood Abiola was annulled by the military government on June 12, 1993.
According to him, honouring past heroes such as Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Moshood Abiola with national holidays is a befitting way of acknowledging their contributions to the nation.
He said that the decision of some states of the federation to declare June 12 as "Democracy Day" was indicative of the autonomy of states in a true federalism…
Many Americans have never heard of the SCO. It was created to counterbalance Western influence in things economic, military, and diplomatic.
For students of AP Comparative Government, it's worth keeping an eye on the SCO since Russia and China are the movers and shakers in the SCO. And Iran is an official observer.
The SCO is meeting now in Kazakhstan. It's a good opportunity to collect teaching materials.
It's the only major international organization that has neither the US nor any US ally among its members, and its influence is growing rapidly in trouble-plagued Central Asia…
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday joined the Chinese and Russian leaders in a rare encounter at a summit in Kazakhstan, where he launched a new attack on the "slavers and colonisers" of the West…
Iranian men have been banned from wearing necklaces in the latest crackdown by the Islamic regime on "un-Islamic" clothing and haircuts.
Thousands of special forces have been deployed in Tehran's streets, participating in the regime's "moral security plan" in which loose-fitting headscarves, tight overcoats and shortened trousers that expose skin will not be tolerated for women, while men are warned against glamorous hairstyles and wearing a necklace.
The new plan comes shortly after the Iranian parliament proposed a bill to criminalise dog ownership, on the grounds that it "poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the west".
The Iran state news agency said the trend was aimed at combating "the western cultural invasion" with help from more than 70,000 trained forces, known as "moral police", who are sent out to the streets in the capital and other cities…
Western observers often try to understand China in Western contexts. Stephen S Roach, of Yale University and Morgan Stanley Asia suggests that approach won't work when analyzing China's economy. He wrote for Project Syndicate and Al Jazeera.
Blanca Facundo, who teaches in Puerto Rico, suggested this article. Thank you.
The China doubters are back in force. They seem to come in waves - every few years, or so. Yet, year in and year out, China has defied the naysayers and stayed the course, perpetuating the most spectacular development miracle of modern times. That seems likely to continue…
There is a kernel of truth to many of the concerns cited above, especially with respect to the current inflation problem. But they stem largely from misplaced generalisations. Here are ten reasons why it doesn't pay to diagnose the Chinese economy by drawing inferences from the experiences of others:
Strategy
Commitment
Wherewithal to deliver
Saving
Rural-urban migration
Low-hanging fruit: Consumption
Low-hanging fruit: Services
Foreign direct investment
Education
Innovation
Yale historian Jonathan Spence has long cautioned that the West tends to view China through the same lens as it sees itself. Today's cottage industry of China doubters is a case in point. Yes, by our standards, China's imbalances are unstable and unsustainable. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has, in fact, gone public with a similar critique.
But that's why China is so different. It actually takes these concerns seriously. Unlike the West, where the very concept of strategy has become an oxymoron, China has embraced a transitional framework aimed at resolving its sustainability constraints. Moreover, unlike the West, which is trapped in a dysfunctional political quagmire, China has both the commitment and the wherewithal to deliver on that strategy. This is not a time to bet against China.
The seventh Oyo State House of Assembly was formally inaugurated with a woman, Monsurat Jumoke Sunmonu from Oyo East/Oyo West constituency of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) emerging Speaker of the assembly…
Sunmonu… was an Immigration Officer and a Civil Servant… [H]er election [was] sponsored by Ibrahim Bolomope of the Accord Party and supported by Ganiu Adekunle of the ACN…
David Olaniyan of the Accord Party representing Ibadan North 1 constituency emerged the Deputy Speaker to signal a seeming alliance between the ruling ACN and the AP in the assembly.
For a country where the official line is that minorities are merely cultural artifacts of ancient times (well, except, perhaps, in Tibet), there is a surprising amount of dissatisfaction around the edges of the "central kingdom."
The Mongol nomads who have ranged across these blustery grasslands for millenniums have long had a tempestuous relationship with their Han Chinese neighbors to the south…
By the time Mao’s Communist rebels declared victory in 1949, the Mongolians who occupied what became the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China had been by and large pacified through Han immigration, intermarriage and old-fashioned repression.
But the ethnic Mongolian protests that have swept a number of cities in recent weeks are a sobering reminder that government largess, assimilation or an iron fist cannot entirely extinguish the yearnings of some of China’s 55 ethnic minorities, who account for 8 percent of the country’s population…
Although the immediate trigger of the demonstrations was a hit-and-run accident in which a Han coal truck driver struck and killed a Mongolian herder in early May, the underlying enmity can be tied to longstanding grievances that spilled out during interviews with more than a dozen Mongolians last week: the ecological destruction wrought by an unprecedented mining boom, a perception that economic growth disproportionately benefits the Han and the rapid disappearance of Inner Mongolia’s pastoral tradition…
“The Mongolian situation is very worrying for the Chinese leadership because you can’t just throw money at an issue like ethnic identity,” said Minxin Pei, a China expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College in California…
If devolution works to give representation and self-government to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, why not to England? There's a movement afoot to bring devolution to the 40 English counties. One of the leading organizations in this effort is The English Democrats.
The English Democrats believe that our heritage is the bedrock of the future of England. Day by day we see this great country being undermined by legislation that puts the interests of minority pressure groups first whilst breaking down the English way of life. It is as if England never stood for anything, but we always have. We have five key messages here…
When Delicious, the service that hosts an index for the 2,200 entries in this blog, was sold by Yahoo a few weeks ago, there was a glitch in making the transfer to the new owner.
My Delicious index was abandoned and a new one started (without the older entries).
I went back today and got the newer entries posted at the regular index, which has now migrated to the new owners.
It might not matter because it's all behind the scenes, but there's now only one place you have to search for previous blog entries. There are 70+ categories and you can search for sub-categories as well. It's a great service.
If there's a topic that I've neglected in the blog, please ask, and I'll try to find things. You can leave messages in the comments section of any blog entry.The Fourth Edition ofWhat You Need to Knowis available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).
Blanca Facundo, who teaches in Puerto Rico and finds items like this one more readily than those of us in the English-speaking world, sent a reference to this report from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Do your students know which of the countries they study have endorsed human rights in this way?
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay on Thursday welcomed the enactment of Mexico’s Constitutional Reform on Human Rights, saying it paved the way for greater promotion and protection of internationally recognized human rights in the country.
The reform enacted today by President Calderón gives constitutional status to all human rights that are guaranteed in international treaties to which Mexico is party. This means that individuals are guaranteed the most favourable interpretation of human rights law, including internationally recognized human rights, in all settings. Eleven articles of the Constitution have been amended…
Pillay cited as important the restrictions that the reform places on the declaration of a state of emergency and the protection of human rights in such circumstances. She also highlighted the strengthened role of the human rights ombudsman and the provisions on rights protection in educational settings and detention centres.
“I am looking forward to my visit to Mexico in July, when I hope to talk more about the reform in the context of the most pressing human rights concerns of the people of Mexico,” the High Commissioner said.
For those of you who teach about Russia, The Washington Post is offering a great deal: a retrospective of the end of the USSR. News snippets, headlines, photos, and video. This is the kind of treasure trove you should mine for teaching material.
Between now and the end of the year, The Post will track the major developments, in real time, of the last six months of the U.S.S.R. With the benefit of hindsight, it's possible to see harbingers of the future: Russians alarmed by the sudden visibility of corruption, angry Muslims occupying a government office in Dagestan, disdain for democracy and fear of disorder.
It might seem quixotic to outsiders, but there does seem to be a small independent movement in Chinese politics. This report by Brice Pedroletti in The Guardian (UK) was originally in Le Monde.
Then again, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that independent candidacies are not allowed by electoral law. And you know how important it is that the law be followed to the letter.
Xu Chunliu, 31, walks into the cafeteria at Sohu, the Chinese internet conglomerate… Talk focuses not on current fashions in China, less still the US stock market on which Sohu is quoted, but on politics.
Xu is a journalist and one of a new generation of young Chinese who are determined to compete in the coming general election. They want to serve as delegates to one of the people's congresses at district, township or county level, the only echelon at which direct suffrage is possible for independent candidates in communist China.
Theoretically anyone may run for office, providing they are endorsed by 10 fellow citizens, but in practice delegates are often appointed on-high. All sorts of obstacles await independent candidates, who numbered 100,000 in 2006-07. Above all, the media have instructions to mention neither their name nor their platform…
The censors are ready and waiting for the coming electoral season, from July 2011 to December 2012, but they may yet be bettered by microblogging services such as Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter…
This new sally by civil society may seem doomed to failure, but in fact, despite the climate of repression, previously taboo political issues are being aired…
Weibo candidates are led by a striking figure, Li Chengpeng, 43, who will be standing in a district of Chengdu, Sichuan. A former journalist, Li is the author of a novel on forced demolition programmes that caused a stir when it was published in January. His blog now boasts 2.9 million followers and he promises to "supervise the government"…
The next day this article appeared at Xinhua, the official government news agency:
China said Wednesday that there is no such a thing as an "independent candidate," as it's not recognized by law, amid ongoing elections starting this year of lawmakers at the county and township legislatures.
The Electoral Law stipulates that candidates for lawmakers at the county- and township- levels should be first nominated as "deputy candidate" and then confirmed as "official deputy candidate" in due legal procedures, said an official of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.
The official, head of the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the NPC Standing Committee, made the remarks when asked about campaign announcements by "independent candidates" to run for deputies to the grassroots people's congresses…
The procedures follow four steps. A citizen must first register and win confirmation of his or her qualifications for lawmaker candidacy. Then receive a nomination as "deputy candidate" by political parties, social organizations, or 10 or more voters in one constituency.
Later, the list of official deputy candidates is determined based on the majority of opinions of the constituency, or in a preliminary vote if necessary. All campaign activities must be organized by electoral committees, said the official, citing the Electoral Law…
The New York Times followed up with this report the next day.
Chinese authorities on Wednesday appeared to restrict attempts by a handful of citizens to run in local legislative elections as self-proclaimed independent candidates, stating that such candidacies are illegal and that no one can run for office without first clearing a series of procedural hurdles…
Wednesday’s statement in People’s Daily, which quoted an unnamed National People’s Congress official, said that election rules permit only “official deputy candidates” who have negotiated a series of procedures to run for office. “There are no so-called ‘independent candidates,’ the statement said, “and ‘independent candidates’ have no legal basis.”
The article also hinted that grass-roots campaigning of the sort spawned on microblogs this year might run afoul of the rules. Xinhua quoted the unnamed National People’s Congress official as stating that “both introductive activities of candidates and their meetings with voters must be arranged by electoral committees in strict accordance with the law.”
Under the rules, candidates for county and township offices first must register and be deemed qualified to run for office, then secure support from at least 10 local voters, a political party or a citizens’ organization. The list of candidates is then winnowed by “the majority of opinions in the constituency,” the official was quoted as saying, and all subsequent campaigning is regulated by official electoral committees…
Bunmi Oloruntoba, a Nigerian living in the USA, writes a blog he calls, A Bombastic Element. He pointed out a photo essay in The Atlantic about Nigeria's relationship to oil. It's a powerful illustration of something that our textbooks vainly try to describe. Students out to see these pictures when learning about Nigerian politics. Notice how often Ogoniland is mentioned?
For over 50 years now, the extraction of crude oil and natural gas from Nigeria's Niger Delta has meant wealth for a privileged few but has exacted heavy costs on residents and the environment. Nigeria is the world's 8th largest producer of crude oil, yet remains one of its poorest nations -- an estimated 70 percent of its 150 million residents live below the poverty line. The environment is paying a steep price as well. An estimated 500 million gallons of oil have spilled into the delta -- the equivalent of roughly one Exxon Valdez disaster per year. A number of factors have contributed to these disasters: poor construction and maintenance, lax regulation, militant attacks, and petroleum thieves, not to mention government instability and abuse of power. According to cables released by WikiLeaks, Shell Oil claimed to have planted staff in all of Nigeria's main ministries, gaining access to key government decisions. Gathered here are some scenes from Nigeria's long, disastrous relationship with the crude oil industry.
My guess is that the health statistics cited here represent other, more politically relevant cleavages. What would your students hypothesize those other cleavages to be? Could they find evidence to support their hypotheses?
On the political side, arguments about reforming NHS might become more heated.
A four-year north-south divide in life expectancy at birth for men is revealed in official figures for the UK published on Wednesday.
For men in the south-east of England it is 79.4 years, while in Scotland the figure is 75.4, according to the Office for National Statistics. For women the gap is slightly less: 83.3 in south-east and south-west England against 80.1 in Scotland…
The pattern in the geographic age gaps remains similar to those of previous years, showing just how stubborn social and economic inequalities remain…
The number of patients waiting more than six weeks for diagnostic tests on the NHS has tripled within 12 months, according to figures released a day after David Cameron pledged not to lose control of NHS waiting times…
When I looked at blog statistics this morning, I noticed something unexpected. Here are the top five countries from which people viewed this blog in the past month.
Is there a school in Romania teaching comparative politics? Is there a school in Romania using posts here to teach English? Or are there spammers and hackers in Romania looking for ways to exploit the blog?
After three decades of uninhibited economic growth, one vexing crisis China faces is this: more money, more cars, more drinking, more problems…
Chinese officials have begun responding to drunken driving the way they would to any threat to social stability — with overwhelming force.
Last month, China instituted its first law making drunken driving a criminal act. Soon after, officials declared a full-on war in China’s streets. In Beijing alone, 7,000 police officers were deployed to set up checkpoints, armed with tear gas and 10-meter, tire-puncturing nail strips. And for several weeks, state-owned media plastered stories of such arrests on their front pages.
In just two decades, China has transformed from a land of bicycles to a country where cars are the preeminent symbol of status. The numbers are staggering, rocketing from 5.5 million civilian-owned cars and trucks in 1990 to 214 million vehicles now clogging China’s streets. Last year, more than 18 million vehicles were sold, making it the world’s largest auto market.
China’s healthy love for liquor has been celebrated for centuries. Its history and literature are practically soaked in it — especially the traditional Chinese grain alcohol baijiu.
Baijiu remains ubiquitous in restaurants. Business dinners inevitably feature the fiery, sorghum-based liquor, with each side making toasts and forcing the other to drink under threat of losing face…
The promises are ambitious. If the history of the law is a portent of the future, progress will be very slow. Jeremy Weate reposts an article from The Lancet.
Celebrations are afoot in Abuja. On May 19, the two Houses of the Nigerian National Assembly finally passed the National Health Bill into law, after 7 years of inaction and procrastination. The controversial bill, which promises to provide all Nigerians with a basic minimum package of health services, was originally proposed in 2004…
The bill provides a framework for the regulation and provision of national health services, defines the rights of health workers and users, and stipulates guidelines for the formulation of a national health policy…
The bill pledges to develop a national health policy that includes 60 billion naira (about US$380 million) devoted to primary health care each year, commitments to the provision of essential drugs, and comprehensive vaccination programmes for pregnant women and children younger than 5 years of age. It rightly devotes a whole section to strategies to reduce the crippling effect of the brain drain on health care; there are as many Nigerian doctors working in the USA as there are in the public health-care sector of Nigeria…
China must bolster its online defences in the battle for public opinion, two military officers said on Friday as Beijing sought to portray itself as a victim rather than a perpetrator of cyberwarfare.
Two days after the US-based search engine Google revealed China was the origin of a high-profile hacking attack, senior colonel Ye Zheng and his colleague Zhao Baoxian of the People's Liberation Army emphasised the need for a robust internet strategy…
An editorial in the nationalist Global Times newspaper [described] Google as "snotty-nosed" and resentful about its failure to secure a larger share of the market in China…
[T]he search engine traced the attacks to Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong and home to a school that has previously been suspected of hosting hackers. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton described the allegations as "very serious".
Chinese officials acknowledged last week that their army – like that of several other nations – had established a cyberwarfare unit…
His reputation should have been a clue. Somehow, Bankole was low hanging fruit in the corruption investigation in Nigeria. And, he lost his legislative immunity last Friday.
One of Nigeria's most powerful politicians has been arrested by anti-corruption police.
Outgoing House of Representatives speaker Dimeji Bankole was held over allegations he misappropriated tens of millions of dollars of government funds - charges he has denied…
The BBC's Jonah Fisher says Mr Bankole's arrest comes as no great surprise after weeks of speculation in local newspapers that he would be detained.
A spokesman for Nigeria's anti-corruption body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), said it had received information that Mr Bankole was planning to flee the country.
Along with all other lawmakers, Mr Bankole's term of office expired on Friday - a new parliament is due to be sworn in on Monday.
If you weren't paying attention to what happened in Hong Kong on Saturday, you missed a clue that helps explain why the Chinese establishment reacts so immediately to events in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Inner Mongolia, and Beijing.
Dan Harris, lawyer and experienced expert on things Chinese, writes a blog (China Law Blog) with his law partner Steve Dickinson. They offer legal and other advice to clients who do business in China.
Recently, Dan Harris offered some advice for people wanting to understand China. If you're about to begin teaching about China or if you want to refresh your frame of reference, these books are great.
Just got the following email from one of my best friends from college: … what are 3-5 good books to read to understand China (contemporary but also something providing some historical perspective to current doings)...
Start with Jeffrey Wasserstrom's book, China in the 21st Century, which is accurately subtitled "What Everyone Needs to Know." It is 192 pages and it can (and should be) easily read on the plane between meals. It is meant to be basic and it is, but it is a good a first book as can be found and it is not in any way simplistic.
He should then read the following, all of which will give him a good feel for where China was and where it is:
Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China, by Phillip Pan
One from the following by Peter Hessler: Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China, by John Pomfret
Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China, by James Fallows…
The policing of Mexico City will come under particular scrutiny as next year’s presidential election nears. That is because governance of the sprawling capital is split between Marcelo Ebrard, the mayor of the Federal District, which encompasses the heart of the city, and Enrique Peña Nieto, the governor of the surrounding Mexico State, which mops up just over half of the capital’s 20m residents. Mr Peña is the front-runner for the presidential nomination of the formerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party [PRI], whereas Mr Ebrard is vying to carry the flag of the left-of-centre Party of the Democratic Revolution [PRD]…
Mr Ebrard argues that mob recruitment can be stifled by getting young people into school and jobs. Mr Peña wants to hit gangsters’ finances by shrinking the informal economy…
The records of both Mr Ebrard and Mr Peña on security are greatly flattered by the failures of their counterparts in some other parts of Mexico. It is worrying that despite lying far from the centres of the drugs business they preside over such thoroughly corrupt criminal-justice apparatuses. If Mr Ebrard has a slight edge in keeping a lid on violence, that is mainly because he has a big, unified police force. That is something both men might bear in mind on the way to the presidency.
Jeff Silva-Brown posted a link to this op-ed that I had missed. I think Okanta's analysis is a bit more superficial than the one offered by The Economist recently, but it does consider some details overlooked by the magazine's editors. The two together would be good reading for students — especially in the next school year, when students could evaluate these analyses.
The writer is Ike Okonta, an Abuja-based policy analyst, who is currently a fellow of the Open Society Institute, New York.
Nigerians like political theater, particularly if it is loud, colorful, and has a rich cast of “good” and “bad” characters. Such melodrama abounded from November 2009, when ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua was flown out of the country for treatment, until the just-concluded general elections, Nigeria’s fourth since military rule ended in 1999. According to the official results, Goodluck Jonathan, who succeeded Yar’Adua upon his death and became the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, was sworn in as President on May 29…
In the legislative elections on April 9, the presidential contest on April 16, and state elections ten days later, the PDP’s dominance was indeed reduced. But its losses were not significant enough to enable any of the four main opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), or the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) – to take its place. The PDP is still in firm control of the central and state legislatures, and has retained the majority of the state governorships…
Nigeria’s main challenge now is to maintain peace and unity between the country’s fractious ethnic groups while implementing policy, political, and constitutional reforms aimed at quickening the pace of democratization, delivering shared prosperity, and firmly binding Nigeria’s constituent parts into a “more perfect union.”…
On the face of it, there is little reason to expect that another four years of incompetent PDP rule will make Nigeria a more stable and prosperous federal state. Still, the fact that the post-presidential-election violence was contained, and that the opposition, particularly in the ACN-led Yoruba South-West, is now finding its feet, amounts to a sliver of hope. Nations, like democratic politics, take time to form and consolidate. Perhaps Nigeria’s just-concluded elections gained for it a small slice of that better future.
I thought this title looked familiar. When I looked back, I found that I'd cited an article titled "Slouching toward democracy," by Paul Beckett on May 5. That analysis is also still worth reading. The phrase "slouching toward..." appears to have its origins in a William Butler Yeats 1919 poem, "The Second Coming." (The poem also contains the phrase, "the center cannot hold.") A Wikipedia search for the phrase brings up an incredible variety of references: from Joni Mitchell to Robert Bork to Joan Didion. The phrase is often used in headlines, but its use is so varied, I'm unsure of its meaning.
An online dictionary says slouching means to "walk with an awkward, drooping, excessively relaxed posture." So Yeats' meant what by "slouching toward Bethlehem"? and "slouching toward nationhood"? "slouching toward democracy" "slouching toward" anything? Yeats had a way with a turn of ambiguous phrase. Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. The Fourth Edition ofWhat You Need to Knowis available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).
Jeremiah Jenne, an American historian studying and teaching in China, has a whack at explaining Mao and Chinese politics. It's probably good for teacher background.
It’s the question I get asked most often after “How can a white dude from New Hampshire be teaching Chinese history in Beijing?” and “How’s the dissertation coming?”*
My usual answer is that if Mao had exited the stage in the early 1950s, his historical legacy might have been relatively secure as a brilliant, if often ruthless, revolutionary general and master propagandist. But as is too often the case in history, great revolutionaries seldom make good leaders of the nations they found. The skill sets required are just too different…
The Party has always had a hard time dealing with memories of Mao. On one hand, most of the people in power today had a difficult go of it during the Cultural Revolution. They came of age and came to power under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, who cagily egged on resentment over the excesses of the Mao era to consolidate his own hold on power.
(Part of the reason for Mao going batshit crazy in the 1960s was just such a fear: that members of his own Party would do to his legacy what Khrushchev had done to Stalin. There were many suspected “Khrushchevs” in the CCP… )…
The boys and girls who write their “We Love Mao and anybody else can suck it” posts and comments on Utopia recently convened a whole lynch mob/pep rally in Shanxi over the weekend. Seriously, these yahoos come across like the Chinese version of those American wing nuts who claim their love of the Confederacy and flying the Stars and Bars has nothing to do with race…
Blanca Facundo sent me a Washington Post article about population projections in China. [Thank you very much.] And this morning I find a New York Times article about rising wages in China. Do these trends help explain why a major manufacturer of compact florescent lightbulbs (CFLs) is considering moving some of its production from Zhengjiang to Cleveland, Ohio? What else do those trends mean for governance in China?
In a shift that is intensifying the economic competition between China and the United States, China’s working-age population has plateaued in size and will begin getting smaller sometime in the next five years…
The shift has… prompted a national push to develop technology- and innovation-driven industries that need fewer workers — industries in which the United States has traditionally held an advantage. Instead of the “cheap” China of the past 30 years, U.S. business and government officials face a country that is demographically stagnant, increasingly expensive and pressing hard to compete…
Wages are surging this year in China and among its main low-wage Asian rivals, benefiting workers across the region. But the increases confront trading companies and Western retailers with cost increases and are making higher prices likely for American and European consumers...
Rising wages and strengthening currencies in Asia are making it less attractive to move higher-value industries like auto manufacturing out of the West. But little mentioned by almost anyone making or trading consumer goods in Asia these days is the possibility of moving these relatively labor-intensive manufacturing industries back to the United States or Europe.
“I never thought it would take so long,” said Shi Zhongquan, who helped craft what the party hopes will be the final word on some of the most politically sensitive and also bloodiest episodes of China’s recent history — a new 1,074-page account of the party’s early decades in power.
As China races into the future, the Communist Party — which marks its 90th birthday in July — still takes the past, especially its own, very seriously. “Writing history is not easy,” said Shi, a veteran party historian.
It gets particularly hard when it includes not only two of the past century’s most lethal man-made catastrophes — the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution — but also a modest yet now ticklish upset back in 1962 — the disgrace of Xi Zhongxun, the father of Xi Jinping, China’s current vice president and leader-in-waiting.
“It’s an old communist joke that Marxists can predict the future, but the past is more difficult,” said Roderick Macfarquhar, a Harvard University scholar and leading authority on Chinese politics under Mao Zedong, who died in 1976. The past, added Macfarquhar, “is important because it legitimates the present” and “what went wrong then has to be justified now.” …
As China gears up to mark the July anniversary of the party’s founding in 1921, history has become a boom industry…. [T]he party is hammering a message it views as crucial to its grip on power: China’s surging economy and growing international clout are entirely the fruit of uninterrupted one-party rule…
Teaching (and learning) comparative government and politics is a complex and demanding task. We can all use all the help we can get. This cyber place is somewhere to facilitate helpful interactions.
