Lamas,Empresses and Tea: Early Twentieth-Century Sino-British Encounters in Eastern Tibet

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Tibetan plateau was a zone of intense imperial contact—and competition—between British India and Qing China. Even before the 1904 Younghusband Expedition to Lhasa, Indian rupees had become the primary currency of commercial exchange across the plateau, and British explorers had gathered detailed knowledge of both the presumed natural resource bounty of eastern Tibet and the lucrative border tea trade traversing it. This article explores models manifested by these interactions between British and Qing officials, merchants and explorers in the Kham region of ethnographic Tibet and the role empires played in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century global spread of Euro-American norms. Although Sichuan officials directly engaged with administering Kham shared a common perception of Khampa society with their British counterparts, they also recognised the encroachment of Indian rupees and British explorers as challenges to Qing authority, if not a prologue to territorial expansion paralleling the contemporaneous scramble for concessions in coastal China. Beginning with the establishment of the Zongli Yamen in 1861, close Sino-British interaction along two tracks, British ‘lessons’ in statecraft and diplomacy in the imperial capital Beijing and commercial and political actions in the imperial borderland of Kham, provided models for Qing assertion of exclusive authority on the plateau. Two globalising norms inflected in these British models—territoriality and sovereignty—fostered transformative policies in the borderland during the first decade of the twentieth century. Implemented by Sichuan officials, these policies sought to undermine Lhasa's local challenge to Chinese authority via monasteries, thereby legitimising appeal to international law to repel regional challenges from both British India and Russia. This article analyses in depth two examples of these policies in action: a silver coin modelled on the Empress Victoria Indian rupee and a monopoly tea company partly modelled on British Indian tea firms and the Indian Tea Association. Both contributed to weakening the political, social and economic power projected into Kham by British India and Lhasa. The adaptation of these models in Qing policies fostered by the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Sino-British encounter in Kham reveals the conduits through which Euro-American norms of authority were shared, and demonstrates their power to transform relations in the interstices of global power, where empires met empires and states met states.     

Tibet and the Problem of Radical Reductionism

Abstract:  This article takes issue with a mode of argumentation advanced by a number of left-leaning, radical scholars, including those associated with China's New Left, about the causes of the Tibetan unrest in China in spring 2008. According to this stance, the Tibetan protests were the result of external manipulation by neoconservative, reactionary forces, ranging from the CIA to the Dalai Lama. The unstated premise of this response is that taking a critical stance against western imperialism and neoliberal globalization necessitates a defense of China's policies in Tibet. Such arguments take the form of unfavorable comparisons between Tibetans and Palestinians especially because the former are often romanticized, suggestions that Tibetans are unfortunate ideological victims of US-funded propaganda, and claims that they should be grateful for Chinese state-funded development. This response renders Tibetans incapable of being authentic political subjects. A radical stance on Western imperialism and capitalism should reject such reductionism.     

The evolution of the cultural policy regime in the Anglophone Caribbean

This paper addresses the complexities involved in developing cultural policies in the Anglophone Caribbean. The first section examines the evolution of the cultural policy agenda in the 40‐odd years since the independence era. It traces and analyses the policy trajectory from one that sought to promote the intrinsic values of culture, to one that currently espouses the more instrumental value of the cultural industries. The next section analyses the efficacy of the policy path by examining a regional cultural policy initiative, the Caribbean Festival for the Arts (CARIFESTA). The paper suggests that the Caribbean cultural policies have under performed because of critical disjunctures. These generally involve the imposition of a nationalistic policy framework on the transnational structure of the Caribbean cultural sector. The paper concludes by suggesting a regional cultural approach to policy formulation can provide a more effective mechanism to encourage and harness the cultural wealth of the Anglophone Caribbean.     

The Conditioning Effects of Policy Salience and Complexity on American Political Institutions

Years ago, Bill Gormley introduced public policy scholars to a new and innovative salience- complexity typology for regulatory policies. This typology not only helps scholars catalog numerous policies into distinct categories, but also helps explain variation in political processes. Specifically, different policies provide different incentives for political actors to be involved in policymaking. Salience encourages activity on the part of elected officials; complexity often requires policymaking outside of the public sphere. In this article, I extend Gormley's salience-complexity typology to more than just regulatory policies and confirm that levels of institutional activity vary across this range of public policies. I also expand on Gormley's contribution by differentiating the distinct impacts that policy type has on the policy activities of Congress and the presidency, and propose that institutional activity differs according to the dynamics of a policy's salience.     

Nationalism,party political discourse and Scottish independence: comparing discursive visions of Scotland's constitutional status

This article critically examines the predominant narratives which emanated from party political discourse in relation to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Utilising a methodological approach centring on political discourse analysis (Fairclough and Fairclough 2012), this paper analyses party manifestos and constitutional policy documents produced by the three largest political parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, namely, the pro‐independence Scottish National Party, and two pro‐union parties, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. The emergent discourse of each party is interrogated by drawing upon pertinent theoretical concepts from previous academic analyses of Scottish nationalism, with particular attention given to those which have deployed modernist and ethnosymbolist theoretical approaches when analysing the Scottish context. This facilitates a critical reflection on the contrasting and nuanced narratives of the Scottish nation's past and future espoused by each political party vis‐à‐vis modernist and ethnosymbolist theory, illustrating the ways in which contrasting theorisations of nationalism are empirically tangible within political discourse and are thus not simply theoretical abstractions.     

Go East,Young Cadre: Experiments in Inter‐Provincial Training of Party and State Managers in China

This article situates China's local policy experimentation in the broader context of policy experiments in decentralized political systems, through a case study which represents a local state response to China's transition to a market economy. With growing regional and urban–rural inequalities evident after the initial reform period (1978–1994), local party leaders of inland provinces devised strategies for addressing these inequalities and encouraging public–private sector mobility among party officials. County and township‐level leaders pursued local policy experiments in which they selected and sent officials to find private‐sector work in China's booming coastal cities. Initiated in the 1990s and peaking in the 2000s, these policy experiments and inter‐provincial transfers demonstrate the discretion that local officials possess to conduct programmatic/policy experiments in a unitary political system and show how officials resort to extra‐institutional strategies in order to bridge perceived knowledge gaps. The ultimate demise of these programmes illuminates the challenges to extra‐institutional policy innovations in transitioning states.     

评清朝的西藏政策

清朝重新统一西藏后,通过册封、定制、设官、驻军等措施,并扶持达赖、班禅成为西藏的政教领袖,建立了政教合一的噶厦制度,实现了对西藏的有效管理和统治,维护了清朝在西藏的主权和领土完整,其西藏政策对后世产生了深远影响。本文从反分裂主义的角度重新审视清朝的西藏政策,认为清朝的治藏政策重政治、军事,而轻经济、文化,导致西藏与祖国内地的经济文化交流、民族融合明显滞后,为近代西藏分裂主义的产生埋下了隐患。     

Continuity and transformation: the institutions of the Beijing government, 1912–1928

The period of the Beijing government of Republican China (1912–1928) occurred after the 1911 Revolution that toppled the imperial system and before the rule of the Nanjing Nationalist government. For modern China, it was an era of frequent trial and error in implementing political systems, as well as a significant phase of institutional transition following the New Policy reforms of the late Qing. Many twists and turns during this period of historical evolution stemmed from problems of the late Qing political reform. The three major issues occurring during the 1912–1928 era, namely the legitimacy of the government, the relationship between its legislative and executive branches, and the relationship between the central government and the provinces, were all dominated by the profound influence of traditional Chinese political and cultural frameworks. All of this made the 1912–1928 era more complicated than the late Qing period, increased the difference between one stage of institutional change and another, and accelerated the change in political systems while also broadening the choices available. Therefore, we should not only focus on the complex contention among all parties, but also acquire a deeper understanding of the limits imposed upon institutional renovation by tradition and circumstances through examination of the institutional adaptations behind the chaotic partisan politics.     

论明前期的清官循吏

明前期的清官循吏数量较多,形成一个群体,明中后期的清官循吏数量锐减,成为偶发的个体。但就名气而言,明前期的清官循吏却明显不如中后期的清官循吏。这主要是因为明前期和中后期的政治环境和君主的治国之策不同造成的。     

When is a nation ‘a nation’? Identity‐formation within a French West Indian people (Martinique)*

ABSTRACT. Nationhood is usually considered a subjective state of being acquired by a self‐conscious group sharing cultural distinctiveness and political goals. Social scientists and historians also endeavor to delineate objective factors that impart national status to minority peoples. Rarely do the elected officials of a non‐sovereign people have the opportunity to vote on whether or not their constituency constitutes a discrete nation. The extraordinary Congress of 2002 in Martinique did provide such an opportunity, however. The contradictory outcomes of that seminal event – including the plebiscite one year later on a proposed change of status for this Caribbean island within the French Republic – reveal much about the ambiguous status of Martinican group identity. They also underline the need for theoreticians of nationalism to take into account politically and culturally specific understandings of the very concept of ‘nation’. That a formerly colonised people may materially benefit disproportionately from ongoing institutional relationships with its former colonial power – countercolonialism – also needs to be considered.     

论宋初兴文教抑武事的形成

宋初统治者吸取了五代时期武将得宠骄行所形成的君弱臣强的教训,改变统治策略,确立了“以文化成天下”的国策来巩固政权。作为为这一政治目的服务的国家文教政策则通过“兴文教”和“抑武事”的两个方面具体贯彻统治意图。一方面通过重振儒术和完善科举制度,用以提高文臣地位;另一方面又将“抑武事”作为达到长治久安的手段,对军事将领施以压制和打击。由此形成了在国家政治生活中文武分途的情景,在极大地提升了文臣地位的同时又使武将精神状态发生变化,造成了国家军事发展长期赢弱的恶果。     

Who governs culture? Actors,federalism and expertise in Swiss regional cultural policy

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a novel approach to cultural policies and cultural policy change, drawing on public policy and institutional analysis to study how decision-making power is distributed between actors in the public and private sectors and at different state levels, as well as the precise roles of public administrations, elected officials and cultural actors. Indeed, rather than directly defining cultural policy, laws on culture mostly designate actors in charge of policy implementation. Based on an empirical application of this analytical framework to the case of Swiss cantons and focusing specifically on the positions of cultural actors, findings show that cultural policies are transformed in different ways, affording more or less power to actors from the cultural sector in implementation arrangements generally dominated by administrative actors.     

Theoretical reflections

The article starts with a discussion about the frequent statement that culture is a marginal area in politics. It proceeds with an analysis of the phenomenon and concept of “the cultural turn” and its possible consequences for cultural democracy. Then there follows a reflection on the potential power of religion and culture in political developments. After these introductory sections I present and discuss what I call five “democracy dimensions” of cultural policy: norms and ideologies; distribution of economic resources; institutional structures and decision‐making procedures; agents and interests in the policy‐making process; and access to and participation in cultural life. The conclusion is that under certain circumstances culture may mobilise huge masses of people in political actions but this is unlikely to happen in Western European democracies where culture in a long historical process has been privatised and isolated from big politics by the establishment of a specific sphere with its own structures, norms, logics and discourses. It is questionable if cultural policies will be more democratic under the reign of global capitalism and new liberalism. “The cultural turn” is an ambivalent phenomenon which cannot by itself bring about more cultural democracy. The future of cultural democracy cannot be decided for by cultural life or the cultural policy system themselves, it is dependent on what will happen to democracy as a total political system, of which cultural policy is only a small part.     

Soviet rule,nation and film: the Kyrgyz ‘Wonder’ years

ABSTRACT. What happens if a community is encouraged to imagine itself visually when its political vessel is a modernising nation‐state within a multinational communist federation? Cinematic works, in their distillation of time and space, contribute to the kinds of imaginings that sustain nation‐states. How this cultural technology reflected and promoted nation‐building in the Soviet era is the subject of this article. It explores how the tensions within the diktat ‘national in form, socialist in content’ played out in practice in the Soviet cultural landscape of 1960s Kyrgyz film, dubbed by Soviet critics as a ‘wonder’.     

Private Conflict and Policy Passage: Interest-Group Conflict and State Medical Malpractice Reform

James Madison argued in Federalist 10 that "rival political factions" work against the public good. In contrast to Madison's pessimistic account, I suggest that factional conflict can lead to more representative public policy, and thus further the will of the people. I theorize that elected officials often seek a safe political position—one that corresponds to the preferences of the public at large—during periods of high conflict. I assess this theory in one, salient policy area, medical malpractice. I measure conflict with contributions for state candidates given by (i) the health and insurance industries, which generally support malpractice laws, and (ii) lawyers, who frequently oppose the laws. I find that group conflict matters to policy outcomes. I also find evidence that, under conditions of elevated conflict, adopted policies are more likely to move toward the general ideological preferences of the public at large. These results suggest that group conflict affects both the quantity and character of policy in the American states.     

Draper,the “Conflict Thesis” and Secularising Politics in Late Nineteenth‐Century Argentina

Despite appearances to the contrary, late nineteenth‐century Buenos Aires (Argentina) seems to be a suitable scale model to explore the relationships between the “conflict thesis” and secularisation. John W. Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) arrived in the country in the midst of political battles over the shape of the future relationships between the state and the majoritarian Catholic Church. In the decade between 1875 and 1885 variants of the “conflict thesis” were expounded, discussed, and used as rhetorical weapons in the battles over the issue of religious teaching in elementary schools. This article analyses the discussions over the “conflict thesis” between liberal secularists and Catholics in newspaper articles, public speeches, parliamentary debates, and other forms of public discourse during that period. Against the backdrop of a weak institutional church, a vigorous growth of nascent scientific institutions, and a cultural atmosphere permeated by positivism, the opposing parties argued about the “conflict thesis” while each reclaimed for itself the legitimacy of science. The episode permits a close look at how the intellectual leaders who conceived the project of a secularised state utilised science‐based philosophies for purposes of political argument and ideological legitimation.     

The critical geopolitics of the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary dispute, 1999–2000

In 1999 the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary became a brutal reality in the lives of borderland inhabitants, when it became the key issue in a crisis of inter-state relations. Mainstream explanations have suggested that the Soviet boundary legacy and convergent post-Soviet macro-economic policies made conflict inevitable. Drawing on critical geopolitics theory, this paper questions the implicit determinism in these accounts, and seeks to augment them by a political analysis. It suggests that ‘the border crisis’ was the product of the interaction of complex domestic power struggles in both countries, the boundary itself acting as a material and discursive site where elites struggled for the power to inscribe conflicting gendered, nationalistic visions of geopolitical identity. It concludes by insisting upon a moral imperative to expose and challenge the geographical underpinnings of state violence.     

新时代边疆治理现代化研究:内涵、价值与路向

边疆治理现代化,不仅构成了国家治理这一循环链条赖以持续运转的物质性基石,也是国家治理之治理追求在价值层面得以存立的要素补充。实现边疆治理的逻辑更新,将边疆由一“边缘性”话语进位为一个蕴含生机与创造活力的前沿领域,使其实现“本体性”价值的复归与实践路径的“整体性”嵌合,是新时代边疆治理现代化的应有之义。推进边疆治理现代化,要坚持正确的政治导向,深化问题导向意识,注重梳理“知识性”内容,在“以人民为中心”的价值指引下持续夯实基础性资源。     

边疆的概念与边疆的法律

本认为在中国古代,边疆的概念有其特定的化含义。不仅如此,边疆概念还有特定的、不同于西方以主权概念为中心的含义。边疆概念的这种特殊性质与中国古代特殊的、以汉化为主体的多民族国家的政治传统和多元一体的化格局有关,反映在中国古代的立法和司法制度上就是边疆的法律与边疆的概念和边疆的民族之间呈现出一种历史性的波动和相对稳定的统一。作从这一角度对之进行探讨,弥补了相关研究的不足。     

World Heritage listing and changes of political values: a case study in West Lake Cultural Landscape in Hongzhou,China

World Heritage themes and frameworks, as well as the criteria for assessing the ‘outstanding universal values’ (OUV) of World Heritage sites, have been extensively criticised for being Eurocentric. Asia is a region of extraordinary levels of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, which often comes into conflict with UNESCO understandings of heritage. Due to the influence of UNESCO, and the persuasiveness of the heritage discourses it authorises, Asian nations tend to utilise assessments and management ideologies that derive from a European viewpoint. This paper explores the changes in the political role of heritage during the process of World Heritage listing of a Chinese cultural heritage site, West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou. The study is based on three and a half months of fieldwork in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Firstly, I examine how the government officials and experts formulated the nomination dossier, and explore their purposes in seeking World Heritage listing and their understanding of heritage. In addition, tensions between governments’ understanding of the values of the site and those of UNESCO and ICOMOS will be mapped. Secondly, I examine how the Chinese government used the World Heritage ‘brand’ and policies to construct national and local narratives during and after the World Heritage listing. In this paper, I argue that both national and local governments are quite cynical about the listing process, in that they not only recognise they are playing a game, but that the game is ‘played’ under Eurocentric rules and terms. They know some Chinese values do not fit into UNESCO’s conception of ‘outstanding universal value’ (OUV), and they have ‘edited out’ those Chinese values, which could not be explained to Western experts, and utilised the discourses of international policy and expertise. Ultimately, these values and ‘rules’ frame the management of the sites to some extent, as the Chinese government must not, in order to maintain the WH listing, deviate too much from the rules of the game.