Showing papers in "East Asia in 2001"

Media effects on political confidence and trust in the People's Republic of China in the post-Tiananmen period

Abstract: Based on a nationwide survey conducted in mainland China between September 1993 and June 1994, this study explores the impact of propaganda of the Communist government on people's attitudes toward specific political institutions and toward the government in general. Our study shows that the news media in China have negative effects on people's attitudes toward political institutions in general and make people distrust government. Several competing interpretations are offered to explain the negative correlation between media exposure and political trust. Despite serious efforts, we are unable to falsify the relationship between media exposure and people's attitudes toward government. These findings clearly demonstrate that the propaganda of the regime failed in nurturing supportive sentiment among people in Chinese society in the post-Tiananmen era.

Using grid-group theory to explain distinctive Japanese political institutions

Abstract: Particularly for Americans, Japanese political institutions present a paradox. On one hand, in comparison to other advanced industrial societies the size of Japan's public sector (as a proportion of GDP) is extremely small. On the other hand, Japan's small but expert state is highly interventionary, leaving far less to the vagaries of markets than the United States or even the more statist societies of Europe (Johnson 1982). This contrast leaves many American analysts, particularly economists but others (Esping-Andersen 1997) as well, in a quandary as to whether Japan is a liberal individualistic society. I draw on Douglas-Wildavsky “grid-group” theory to explain these seemingly contradictory institutional characteristics as the result, not of liberal individualistic influence, but of conflict between and the alternation in dominance of two factions of Japanese hierarchy. My primary focus of attention rests on showing how these two hierarchical factions produce a public policy orientation with a predisposition toward state social intervention but periodic restraint with respect to public social programs that accounts for the modest fiscal size of the active Japanese state. I also examine Japanese public policy responses to recent difficulties in overcoming recession and confronting increasing immigration to clinch the case that Japan is a society in which various factions of hierarchy, rather than liberal individualism, dominate.

Commercial development and the evolution of political cultures: Ming/Qing China and 17th century England

Abstract: Extensive commercial development occurred in China in the late Ming (1368–1644) and early Qing (1644–1911) dynasties and in 17th century England. In both countries the scale of activity and the institutional innovations that were introduced to safeguard transactions threatened the status rules of the hegemonic political culture. In England, however, these challenges were part of a larger panorama of change. Conceptions of law rooted in the past were refashioned to meet challenges posed by religious and political conflict as well as rapid commercial development. A new legal culture emerged that powerfully influenced the political culture. In China commercial expansion led to the development of novel banking and trading organizations. New patterns of social interaction came into being that existed side by side with inherited forms that had roots in antiquity. Tendencies favoring the evolution of Chinese political culture, however, were curtailed by political authority which upheld traditional Confucian culture and the legitimacy that this culture accorded to traditional elites. In both societies prevailing values and beliefs influenced the direction and degree of change in their political cultures.