Archiv für September 2013

From Minimum Wage to Standard Work Hour: HKSAR Labour Politics in Regime Change

This paper aims to highlight the significance of labour issues – namely, the minimum wage (MW) and standard working hours (SWH) – in shaping candidates’ electoral platforms in the 2012 chief executive (CE) election of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) under the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We first offer a brief review of labour politics regarding the MW case as a precursor to the SWH drafting and enactment process. We then provide an analytical delineation of some of the labour and socio-economic dimensions of the CE electoral contest by comparing the candidates’ campaign planks in relation to SWH. We then attempt to predict the likely course of the SWH debate under the leadership of Leung Chun-ying, who eventually won the CE election and assumed power on 1 July 2012. We conclude by examining Leung’s social engineering attempts to increase popular support amongst low- and middle-income (LMI) households as part of his long-term strategy for the 2017 CE elections and his broader Beijing-entrusted political agenda.

Local Autonomy in Action: Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macau Policies

This paper investigates how Beijing governs its two special administrative regions (SARs) of Hong Kong and Macau through leverages on their local autonomy. First, a conceptual analysis of local autonomy will be provided. Local autonomy is more than a zero-sum game between the central and local authorities over how much power should be granted or taken from the local authorities; it also concerns the space for cultural expression and the use of local customs in public administration. Second, the degree of local autonomy in Hong Kong and Macau will be critically examined. On paper, both SAR governments are able to freely make decisions on a wide range of policies. In practice, however, Beijing has the absolute authority to override the decisions of Hong Kong and Macau. It is argued that the autonomy in cultural expression can compensate for the institutional constraints on the two SARs’ decision-making power and is thus able to alleviate public discontent – as long as the constraints do not conflict with the people’s core values and ways of life.

Resident Evaluation and Expectation of Social Services in Guangzhou

China’s welfare system is a typical “residual welfare regime”, which did not manifest too many flaws in the planned economy era. However, economic reform and market-oriented transformations in recent decades have shaken the original well-balanced “residual” and “needs” pattern. The decline of the “work unit system” has led to two consequences: First, it radically transformed the social and economic structures, which gave rise to increased and diversified needs of social welfare. Second, the government is being pressed to shoulder more responsibility for social welfare provisions. This article adopts a case study approach to examine changing social welfare needs and expectations in Guangzhou, a relatively developed city in southern China. With particular focus on the major strategies adopted by the Guangzhou government in addressing people’s welfare needs, this article critically examines how far the new measures have met the changing welfare expectations of citizens in mainland China.

Central Control and Local Welfare Autonomy in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau

Introduction to Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 3/2013: Local Autonomy and Welfare Policy in Greater China

The Politics of Gender in Victorian Britain: Masculinity, Political Culture and the Struggle for Women’s Rights, by Ben Griffin

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/128/534/1275?rss=1

Otto von Bismarck: Gesammelte Werke. Schriften 1882-1883, ed. Ulrich Lappenkuper * Otto von Bismarck: Gesammelte Werke. Schriften 1884-1885, ed. Ulrich Lappenkuper

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/128/534/1277?rss=1

Landscapes of the Western Front: Materiality during the Great War, by Ross Wilson

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/128/534/1282?rss=1

Imperialismus vom Grunen Tisch: Deutsche Kolonialpolitik zwischen wirtschaftlicher Ausbeutung und ‚zivilisatorischen‘ Bemuhungen, by Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/128/534/1279?rss=1

A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain and Ireland, by Catriona Pennell

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/128/534/1281?rss=1

The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and Internationalism, c.1918-45, by Helen McCarthy

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/128/534/1288?rss=1