Another road sign pointing to the future
Sometimes in Chinese politics, small, seemingly mundane signs indicate major changes. Is this one?
China's Xi Anointed 'Core' Leader, on Par With Mao, Deng
China's Communist Party gave President Xi Jinping the title of "core" leader on Thursday, putting him on par with past strongmen like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, but it signaled his power would not be absolute...
The collective leadership system "must always be followed and should not be violated by any organization or individual under any circumstance or for any reason", it said.
 |
| Xi |
But all party members should "closely unite around the Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core", said the document, released through state media.
The "core" leader title marks a significant strengthening of Xi's position ahead of a key party congress next year, at which a new Standing Committee, the pinnacle of power in China, will be constituted…
While head of the party, the military and the state, Xi had not previously been given the title "core".
Deng coined the phrase "core" leader. He said Mao, himself and Jiang Zemin were core leaders, meaning they had almost absolute authority and should not be questioned…
Xi's immediate predecessor, Hu Jintao, was never called the "core"…
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Labels: China, leadership, politics
Brexit is complicated
Superficially, getting the UK out of the EU might seem as simple as voting in a referendum. Not so. Here's one complication.
Banks poised to relocate out of UK over Brexit, BBA warns
Large banks are getting ready to relocate out of the UK early next year over fears around Brexit, the British Bankers' Association (BBA) has warned.
Writing in The Observer, its boss Anthony Browne also says smaller banks could move operations overseas by 2017.
"Their hands are quivering over the relocate button," he wrote. Most banks had backed the UK remaining in the EU…
"Banking is probably more affected by Brexit than any other sector of the economy, both in the degree of impact and the scale of the implications," he told the newspaper.
"It is the UK's biggest export industry by far and is more internationally mobile than most. But it also gets its rules and legal rights to serve its customers cross-border from the EU."…
Banks want to see the continuation of the EU's "passporting" system, allowing UK-based financial services to operate across Europe without needing separate authorisation…
Analysis: Joe Lynam, BBC Business correspondent
One of the perks of Europe's Single Market - which also currently includes the UK, Norway and EU countries such as the Netherlands - is "passporting". Passporting allows banks and insurance companies to sell their services anywhere in the single market without having to establish a base in every country in Europe.
But single market membership comes with conditions: freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and (crucially) people. Theresa May has already said she intends to restrict the free movement of people from the EU after Brexit, while EU leaders have meanwhile said the four freedoms are indivisible ie non-negotiable.
That means the UK may have to quit the single market and lose passporting. What Anthony Browne from the BBA is doing is upping the ante on the government, by saying some banks will start to relocate in the coming months without passporting...
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Labels: EU, political culture, regime, UK
Do you know your civil society score?
In the USA, three big credit rating companies keep track of people's incomes, debt levels, use of credit, and punctuality in making payments. Plans seem to be afoot in China to rate everyone of those kinds of things and their political and civil society behaviors.
China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone
Imagine a world where an authoritarian government monitors everything you do, amasses huge amounts of data on almost every interaction you make, and awards you a single score that measures how “trustworthy” you are.
In this world, anything from defaulting on a loan to criticizing the ruling party, from running a red light to failing to care for your parents properly, could cause you to lose points.
And in this world, your score becomes the ultimate truth of who you are — determining whether you can borrow money, get your children into the best schools or travel abroad; whether you get a room in a fancy hotel, a seat in a top restaurant — or even just get a date…
[I]t could be China by 2020…
A high-level policy document released in September [2015] listed the sanctions that could be imposed on any person or company deemed to have fallen short. The overriding principle: “If trust is broken in one place, restrictions are imposed everywhere.”…
The ambition is to collect every scrap of information available online about China’s companies and citizens in a single place — and then assign each of them a score based on their political, commercial, social and legal “credit.”…
The Sesame Credit app, available in China, offers a financial credit score and your ratings on five other measures of "social credit."
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
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Labels: China, civil society, political culture
Vocabulary 101
Be sure to add "by-election" to your list of words to know when studying the UK.
Witney by-election: Tory majority slashed in David Cameron's former seat
The Conservatives have held ex-PM David Cameron's former seat of Witney in a by-election, but with a majority reduced by more than 20,000 votes.
 |
| Courts |
Robert Courts won by 5,702 votes, with the party's vote share falling from 60% in 2015 to 45%, as the Lib Dems surged past Labour into second…
Meanwhile, Labour's Tracy Brabin held the Batley and Spen seat where Jo Cox was MP before she was killed in June.
The former Coronation Street actress received an 85% share of the vote in the seat, which was not contested by other major parties out of respect for Mrs Cox, who was shot and stabbed in her West Yorkshire constituency…
The by-election [in Witney] was called after Mr Cameron stood down as an MP following June's Brexit vote and is the first electoral test for the Conservatives since Theresa May succeeded him as prime minister in July…
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
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Labels: elections, politics, UK
China's confession TV
What better way to publicize your anti-corruption campaign than to put the miscreants on TV, confessing to their crimes. Remember that in an inquisitorial judicial system, like China's, confessions are often crucial to convictions.
China officials confess to corruption in new TV series
A new television series showing corrupt Chinese officials making confessions has proved a hit, officials say.
More than 10 disgraced figures will appear over eight episodes of "Always on the Road" - a reference to the government's wide-ranging crackdown on corruption in the Communist Party.
The first episode featured weeping, repentant men and the controversial burial of a tortoise…
"People everywhere are talking about 'Always on the Road,'" the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which investigates corruption and made the film with China Central Television, said in a statement…
 |
| Zhou Benshun |
Three of the so-called "tigers" accused of taking bribes and abusing power appear in the first episode of the documentary: Bai Enpei, a former party boss who received a life sentence, Zhou Benshun, an ex-party chief awaiting trial, and Li Chuncheng, a former deputy party boss sentenced to 13 years in jail.
The story of Zhou went beyond simple corruption, revealing the former official had buried his tortoise with religious scrolls - despite this being against the law for party officials…
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
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Labels: China, corruption, politics
Redistricting in Scotland
The decision to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons was partly a response to the lack of space. There aren't enough places on Commons benches for all the members. As with any redistricting, there are conflicts about which districts are shrinking and which are growing.
A list of the proposed constituencies appears at the end of the article.
Boundary changes: Political map of Scotland to be redrawn
The political map of Scotland is to be almost completely redrawn under plans to cut the number of Scottish seats at Westminster from 59 to 53…
They could threaten the seats of the only Labour and Conservative MPs in Scotland…
 |
| Proposed constituencies |
The move forms part of proposals to reduce the total number of MPs in the House of Commons from 650 to 600.
But the proposed boundary changes have been described as "unacceptable" by Labour and the SNP - which won 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland at the last general election…
[Forty] sitting MPs will be facing a scramble for only 34 new seats…
The Boundary Commission for Scotland was required to ensure each of the new constituencies - with the exception of the island seats - has between 71,031 and 78,507 voters and does not cover an area of more than 13,000 sq km (5,019 sq miles)…
Lord Matthews, deputy chairman of the commission, said he believed the proposals were a "good implementation" of the rules set by parliament.
He added: "Today is the start of a process, and we now want to hear the views of the public. We will reflect on responses to the consultation and makes changes if needed where the legislation allows us to do so…"
The SNP's new deputy leader, Angus Robertson, criticised the proposed reduction in the number of elected representatives in Scotland.
He said: "At a time when Scotland already faces a deep and growing democratic deficit, with a Tory government that we didn't vote for imposing increasingly right-wing policies against our will, it is vital that the Scottish people have strong elected representation at Westminster to stand up for Scotland's interests and to hold the UK government to account."…
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
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Labels: legislature, politics, representative government, UK
Comparative taxation
There are arguments in the USA over the proper level of taxation, but most Americans have only a vague idea of how taxes in this country compare with taxes in other countries.
Here is how income and national sales taxes in the the AP6 compare to those taxes in the USA. If you're not familiar with value added taxes,VAT, they are basically national sales taxes.
Country Income Taxes Social Security Taxes VAT
Corporate Individual Employer Employee
China 25% 3-45% 30% 11% 17%
Iran 15-35% 10-35% ( 15-35% ) 0-9%
Mexico 30% 0-30% 7% 2% 16%
Nigeria 30% 7-24% ( none ) 5%
Russia 20% 13% 30% 0% 18%
UK 20% 0-45% 13.8% 12% 20%
USA 15-35% 0-39% 7.65% 5.65% 0%
What policy differences would you predict from these numbers? What political issues would you expect to be argued over taxes in each nation?
Labels: concepts, taxes
Expressing a country's power beyond its borders
When I think about a country exercising power beyond its borders, I think of military and economic power. The USA has military bases and 2.5 million "soldiers" all over the world. Russia, China, Finland, Sweden, and Mexico are among the few countries that do not host US military bases. Russian military bases outside of Russia are primarily in former USSR states. China has few military bases outside of China.
Economics is another way of extending the power of a state beyond its borders. We could debate about whether this is coercive power or not, but it's usually just a few steps away from direct military power. China and the USA are the world's largest economies and therefore the biggest projections of power. International organizations like the World Bank and the Chinese-inspired Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank gather like minded countries together to extend economic power even further.
You might also read about "soft power" extensions of countries' influence. This concept describes a country's ability to get voluntary cooperation (co-optation) rather than coercing other countries to support and go along with the more powerful country. Offering foreign aid is often cited as a form of soft power. The USA's Peace Corps is another. China's Confucius Institutes are another form of soft power extensions of a country's influence.
The boundaries between coercive hard power and persuasive soft power are not bright lines. They are, like so many things in comparative politics, blurry, ambiguous boundaries. Is economic power a coercive force? Well, it depends on how it's used, doesn't it? Is the use of military power a coercive force? That might depend too. If the US Navy sends troops to Haiti to rebuild roads and dams destroyed by Hurricane Matthew, is that coercive? If the Confucius Institute at Miami Dade College offers courses and opportunities for travel only if the college alters its curriculum, is it being coercive?
 |
| Belt and Road connections |
Then there's the
Belt and Road Initiative from China. Citing the ancient "Silk Road" that promoted "peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit" for all the countries along its route, the Chinese state wants to create a 21st century effort to promote "peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit." It is obviously a plan to extend China's power and influence to South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa.
The plan includes the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to finance roads, railroads, seaports, and airports. An alliance of universities centered in Xi'an Jiaotong University to do research on commercial law that will promote trade. A Hong Kong-based maritime institute would coordinate logistical policies along the "belt and road" route.
The goals seem to include benefits for all participants. Is the plan cooperative and persuasive or is it coercive?
The issue is still undecided. The plans are still rather ephemeral. As concrete proposals are made, the debate might proceed. Is the "belt and road" initiative a use of soft power? or hard power? or something in between? or both?
Some research and thinking about ways of exercising power would make the basis for a good debate or a complex research paper.
Labels: China, economics, soft power
Rival loyalties in Scotland
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has made it clear that she prefers Scotland to be part of the EU, but it could remain in the UK if given the power to be in the single market.
SNP's Nicola Sturgeon announces new independence referendum bill
A consultation gets under way next week on plans for a second Scottish independence referendum, the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed.
She told the party's Glasgow conference that an Independence Referendum Bill would be published next week.
It marks the first step to holding a second vote…
However, Scottish Secretary David Mundell called on Ms Sturgeon to "commit her government to working constructively with the UK government to seize the opportunities that will bring, not taking Scotland back to the divisive constitutional debates of the past"…
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Labels: economics, leadership, Scotland, UK
Woman power in Nigeria
Wives of Nigerian presidents are public figures, but usually they operate politically behind the scenes. Mrs. Buhari has stepped out.
Nigeria's president warned by First Lady Aisha Buhari
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's wife has warned him that she may not back him at the next election unless he shakes up his government.
 |
| Aisha Buhari |
In a BBC interview, Aisha Buhari said the president "does not know" most of the top officials he has appointed.
She suggested the government had been hijacked, saying a "few people" were behind presidential appointments…
His wife's decision to go public with her concerns will shock many people, but it shows the level of discontent with the president's leadership, says the BBC's Naziru Mikailu in the capital, Abuja…
Aisha Buhari… kept a low profile at the start of the administration and was barely seen or heard. She was restricted to her work on the empowerment of women and helping victims of the Boko Haram conflict in the north-east of the country where she is from.
Her comments also bolster accusations that his government has been hijacked by a small group of individuals…
Mrs Buhari was prompted to to speak out in an effort to end those practices so that party loyalists who contributed to his election victory could benefit.
Her critics say she is speaking out only because she failed to convince the president to appoint her own people…
Asked to name those who had hijacked the government, she refused, saying: "You will know them if you watch television." …
The next day, the BBC reported this:
Nigeria's President Buhari: My wife belongs in kitchen
"Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has responded to criticism from his wife by saying she belongs in his kitchen.
"On a visit to Germany, he said: 'I don't know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.'
"Mr Buhari was standing next to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who seemed to glare at him… "
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
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Labels: gender, leadership, Nigeria, politics
Once again, there will be no independent civil society in China
If said often enough, it's likely to be important. President Xi emphasizes party control of pretty much everything in China.
P.S. the headline reflects a violation of
The New York Times' editorial standards: identify people by their title and family name. The president should have been called Mr. Xi according to those standards.
Jinping Reminds China’s State Companies of Who’s the Boss
A typical big company is chock-full of bosses, from the basement mail room all the way up to the executive suite. Even at the top, those in charge sometimes have to answer to big investors pushing for change…
But this week, China’s top leader made clear to the chiefs of the country’s biggest companies that there is only one boss who matters. In an unusual meeting that ended on Tuesday, President Xi Jinping announced that the Chinese Communist Party had the ultimate say over state companies.
“Party leadership and building the role of the party are the root and soul for state-owned enterprises,” said Mr. Xi… “The party’s leadership in state-owned enterprises is a major political principle, and that principle must be insisted on.”…
 |
| Party leadership: the guys in red ties |
The comments add to areas where the Communist Party has extended its dominance under Mr. Xi, including civil society and the arts. They are at odds with more market-friendly measures the Chinese government has pushed in recent years…
The attendance of Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli and Liu Yunshan — members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top decision-making body — underscored the importance of Mr. Xi’s comments.
Mr. Wang, the head of the party’s powerful discipline and inspection commission, has been instrumental in the far-reaching anti-corruption campaign that has brought down thousands of high-ranking leaders…
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Labels: China, civil society, Communist Party
Recession? Stimulus spending
Look it up in your econ text. When the economy needs a boost, government spending is the most direct way to stimulate the economy. (Even if you have to pay for it later.) [From the
Daily Trust]
Govt Set to Employ 200,000 Graduate Teachers
The Federal Government says the implementation plan for effective commencement of its social investment programmes has reached an advanced stage.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo… said the selection of the first 200,000 unemployed graduates for teaching jobs was being completed…
"Definitely, before the end of this month, we expect that several states would have come on stream with their home-grown school feeding programme. The programme will energise agriculture in the different states because it is what you plant that you feed the children with.
"We'll be hiring caterers, cooks, etc in each state because it'll be federal government-funded from primary 1 to 3 and the state governments, hopefully, would be able to cater for the other classes…
Osinbajo added that the micro-credit scheme in which very low-cost loans would be given to more than one million artisans, traders, market women and others ranging from N60,000 to N100,000, would also kick off this month…
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6,
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Labels: economy, Nigeria, policy, recession, stimulus
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
