Author : Yuhua Wang
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 215 pages
File Size : 31,24 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Law
ISBN : 1107071747
Tying the Autocrat's Hands provides a comprehensive, empirical evaluation of legal reforms in contemporary China. Based on the author's extensive fieldwork and analyses of original data, the book tells a story in which foreign investors with weak political connections push for judicial empowerment in China, while Chinese investors struggle to hold on to their privileges.
Author : Yuhua Wang
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 30,47 MB
Release : 2022-10-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0691237514
How social networks shaped the imperial Chinese state China was the world’s leading superpower for almost two millennia, falling behind only in the last two centuries and now rising to dominance again. What factors led to imperial China’s decline? The Rise and Fall of Imperial China offers a systematic look at the Chinese state from the seventh century through to the twentieth. Focusing on how short-lived emperors often ruled a strong state while long-lasting emperors governed a weak one, Yuhua Wang shows why lessons from China’s history can help us better understand state building. Wang argues that Chinese rulers faced a fundamental trade-off that he calls the sovereign’s dilemma: a coherent elite that could collectively strengthen the state could also overthrow the ruler. This dilemma emerged because strengthening state capacity and keeping rulers in power for longer required different social networks in which central elites were embedded. Wang examines how these social networks shaped the Chinese state, and vice versa, and he looks at how the ruler’s pursuit of power by fragmenting the elites became the final culprit for China’s fall. Drawing on more than a thousand years of Chinese history, The Rise and Fall of Imperial China highlights the role of elite social relations in influencing the trajectories of state development.
Author : Masha Gessen
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 33,75 MB
Release : 2021-06-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0593332245
“When Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen.” —The New York Times “A reckoning with what has been lost in the past few years and a map forward with our beliefs intact.” —Interview As seen on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and heard on NPR’s All Things Considered: the bestselling, National Book Award–winning journalist offers an essential guide to understanding, resisting, and recovering from the ravages of our tumultuous times. This incisive book provides an essential guide to understanding and recovering from the calamitous corrosion of American democracy over the past few years. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Masha Gessen has a sixth sense for the manifestations of autocracy—and the unique cross-cultural fluency to delineate their emergence to Americans. Gessen not only anatomizes the corrosion of the institutions and cultural norms we hoped would save us but also tells us the story of how a short few years changed us from a people who saw ourselves as a nation of immigrants to a populace haggling over a border wall, heirs to a degraded sense of truth, meaning, and possibility. Surviving Autocracy is an inventory of ravages and a call to account but also a beacon to recovery—and to the hope of what comes next.
Author : Tom Ginsburg
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 283 pages
File Size : 31,33 MB
Release : 2014
Category : Law
ISBN : 1107047668
This volume explores the form and function of constitutions in countries without the fully articulated institutions of limited government.
Author : Tom Gallagher
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : pages
File Size : 36,66 MB
Release : 2020-09-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1787384519
Fifty years after his death, Portugal's Salazar remains a controversial and enigmatic figure, whose conservative and authoritarian legacy still divides opinion. Some see him as a reactionary and oppressive figure who kept Portugal backward, while others praise his honesty, patriotism and dedication to duty. Contemporary radicals are wary of his unabashed elitism and skepticism about social progress, but many conservatives give credit to his persistent warnings about the threats to Western civilization from runaway materialism and endless experimentation. For a dictator, Salazar's end was anti-climactic--a domestic accident. But during his nearly four decades in power, he survived less through reliance on force and more through guile and charm. This probing biography charts the highs and lows of Salazar's rule, from rescuing Portugal's finances and keeping his strategically-placed nation out of World War II to maintaining a police state while resisting the winds of change in Africa. It explores Salazar's long-running suspicion of and conflict with the United States, and how he kept Hitler and Mussolini at arm's length while persuading his fellow dictator Franco not to enter the war on their side. Iberia expert Tom Gallagher brings to life a complex leader who deserves to be far better known.
Author : Melanie Manion
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 49,73 MB
Release : 2015-12-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1107049113
This book studies representation in Chinese local congresses, drawing on qualitative fieldwork and quantitative surveys of congressmen and women.
Author : Anne Meng
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 42,89 MB
Release : 2020-08-20
Category : History
ISBN : 1108834892
Examining constitutional rules and power-sharing in Africa reveals how some dictatorships become institutionalized, rule-based systems.
Author : Benjamin L. Liebman
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 481 pages
File Size : 28,23 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0190250259
This text examines the domestic and global consequences of Chinese state capitalism, focusing on the impact of state-owned enterprises on regulation and policy, while placing China's variety of state capitalism in comparative perspective.
Author : Oliver Wendell Holmes
Publisher :
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 40,45 MB
Release : 1900
Category : American essays
ISBN :
Author : Timothy Frye
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 34,58 MB
Release : 2022-09-27
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0691246289
"Media and public discussion tends to understand Russian politics as a direct reflection of Vladimir Putin's seeming omnipotence or Russia's unique history and culture. Yet Russia is remarkably similar to other autocracies -- and recognizing this illuminates the inherent limits to Putin's power. Weak Strongman challenges the conventional wisdom about Putin's Russia, highlighting the difficult trade-offs that confront the Kremlin on issues ranging from election fraud and repression to propaganda and foreign policy. Drawing on three decades of his own on-the-ground experience and research as well as insights from a new generation of social scientists that have received little attention outside academia, Timothy Frye reveals how much we overlook about today's Russia when we focus solely on Putin or Russian exceptionalism. Frye brings a new understanding to a host of crucial questions: How popular is Putin? Is Russian propaganda effective? Why are relations with the West so fraught? Can Russian cyber warriors really swing foreign elections? In answering these and other questions, Frye offers a highly accessible reassessment of Russian politics that highlights the challenges of governing Russia and the nature of modern autocracy. Rich in personal anecdotes and cutting-edge social science, Weak Strongman offers the best evidence available about how Russia actually works"--
