The Experts below are selected from a list of 24054 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Anthony J. Spires - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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advocacy in an Authoritarian State how grassroots environmental ngos influence local governments in china
China Journal, 2018Co-Authors: Jingyun Dai, Anthony J. SpiresAbstract:AbstractWhile many NGOs in China are seen mainly as service providers working to fulfill State goals, in this article we show that Chinese grassroots environmental NGOs (ENGOs) regularly employ a variety of advocacy strategies to influence local-level government policy. Based on in-depth interviews with ENGOs active in Guangdong, this study examines these groups’ advocacy efforts and considers their implications for the further development of Chinese civil society. Our analysis finds that these groups employ three main advocacy strategies: (1) cultivating a stable, interactive relationship with the government using existing institutional means to communicate their concerns; (2) carefully selecting the “frames” used to present their preferred policy goals and outcomes; and (3) obtaining media exposure to mobilize societal support for their goals in order to put pressure on the local State. ENGOs use these strategies concurrently, though their concrete choices vary case by case. Taken as a whole, such pract...
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contingent symbiosis and civil society in an Authoritarian State understanding the survival of china s grassroots ngos1
American Journal of Sociology, 2011Co-Authors: Anthony J. SpiresAbstract:In the study of civil society, Tocqueville-inspired research has helped illuminate important connections between associations and democracy, while corporatism has provided a robust framework for understanding officially approved civil society organizations in Authoritarian regimes. Yet neither approach accounts for the experiences of ostensibly illegal grassroots nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in an Authoritarian State. Drawing on fieldwork in China, I argue that grassroots NGOs can survive in an Authoritarian regime when the State is fragmented and when censorship keeps information local. Moreover, grassroots NGOs survive only insofar as they refrain from democratic claims-making and address social needs that might fuel grievances against the State. For its part, the State tolerates such groups as long as particular State agents can claim credit for any good works while avoiding blame for any problems. Grassroots NGOs and an Authoritarian State can thus coexist in a “contingent symbiosis” that—far ...
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Contingent Symbiosis and Civil Society in an Authoritarian State: Understanding the Survival of China’s Grassroots NGOs1
American Journal of Sociology, 2011Co-Authors: Anthony J. SpiresAbstract:In the study of civil society, Tocqueville-inspired research has helped illuminate important connections between associations and democracy, while corporatism has provided a robust framework for understanding officially approved civil society organizations in Authoritarian regimes. Yet neither approach accounts for the experiences of ostensibly illegal grassroots nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in an Authoritarian State. Drawing on fieldwork in China, I argue that grassroots NGOs can survive in an Authoritarian regime when the State is fragmented and when censorship keeps information local. Moreover, grassroots NGOs survive only insofar as they refrain from democratic claims-making and address social needs that might fuel grievances against the State. For its part, the State tolerates such groups as long as particular State agents can claim credit for any good works while avoiding blame for any problems. Grassroots NGOs and an Authoritarian State can thus coexist in a “contingent symbiosis” that—far ...
James Cotton - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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understanding the State in south korea bureaucratic Authoritarian or State autonomy theory
Comparative Political Studies, 1992Co-Authors: James CottonAbstract:South Korea cannot be seen as an example of the bureaucratic-Authoritarian State type. Neither its position in the world system nor its industrialization strategy can be used to give a sufficient explanation of its political and social character. Although these factors have played a part, particular historical, political, and cultural circumstances have permitted the State to enjoy a degree of autonomy during the period of rapid social and economic transformation from the 1960s to the 1980s. The determinants and character of the transition to democratization generally support this analysis, but also indicate that limits exist to the degree of liberalization to be expected in the political system.
Tuna Tasan-kok - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Confronted and Disappointed? : Struggle of Turkish Planners against Authoritarian State-Regulated Urban Development
From Student to Urban Planner, 2017Co-Authors: Tuna Tasan-kok, Mehmet PenpecioğluAbstract:Planning in Turkey has always been a rather peculiar profession, in that while its regulation is based on strict top-down rules and principles, in implementation there are actually many grey areas of flexibility, informality, and exception. Moreover, planning education is based on the principles of modernist urban planning and design, and so with the creation of an ‘ideal city’ in mind, young planners, equipped with their newly acquired urban planning and design tools, find themselves facing the contradictions created by market domination, top-down bureaucracy, and informality in an increasingly neoliberal world in which private interests override the principles of ‘public interest’. This struggle has been made even harder by the increasingly interventionist and Authoritarian regime in urban regulation under the leadership of the Justice and Welfare Party (AKP) government over the course of the last decade (Eraydin & Tasan-Kok, 2014; Lovering & Evren, 2011; Penpecioglu, 2011). As a result of these ongoing complex processes, the taught value systems and principles of planning education contradict practice, and recent decades have shown that the gap between planning education and practice is growing. Lacking the instruments to fight Authoritarian State-regulated neoliberalism, young planners, we argue in this chapter, are becoming disillusioned with their profession. The findings of this chapter are based on the findings of discussions with young planners (questionnaires, interviews) related to their setbacks, although we believe there is still hope for planning in Turkey. During our research, we came across many boundary-pushing planners, and this chapter will highlight the confrontations and disappointments, turning the spotlight on those who continue to struggle against Authoritarian State-regulated urban development.
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Alienated and politicized? Young planners’ confrontation with entrepreneurial and Authoritarian State intervention in urban development in Turkey
European Planning Studies, 2016Co-Authors: Mehmet Penpecioğlu, Tuna Tasan-kokAbstract:Planning in Turkey is dominated by powerful market interests and Authoritarian State regulation, resulting in a conflictual socio-political environment. Caught in the crossfire between interventionist urban policies and a planning education system that is oriented towards the public good, planners have come to feel alienated from their work. This paper considers how young planners respond to these challenges, drawing upon questionnaires and semi-structured in-depth interviews with planners with fewer than 10 years of experience. Their confrontation with entrepreneurial and Authoritarian State interventions in urban development alienates them from their ideals, leading them to explore new ways of dealing with increasing political authority and economic neoliberalism. The participants of the study came up with a number of diverse responses related to this process. Disappointed with the practice of their profession ‘lost planners' begin searching for alternative pathways outside their practice towards a more meaningful society. In contrast, ‘profiteer planners' focus on getting more business and play a conformist and opportunistic role in the existing planning practice; while ‘struggling planners' develop alternative ways to pursue the public good by participating in urban movements. In short, they cope with alienation through politicization, solidarity and the identification of new means of engaging with society.
Stefan Berger - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Between Challenging the Authoritarian State and Democratising It: German Social Democracy, 1914–1945
European Socialists and the State in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, 2020Co-Authors: Stefan BergerAbstract:Berger traces the relationship of German Social Democracy to the State during the first half of the twentieth century. He reviews the Marxist conceptions of the State that the SPD adopted in Imperial Germany. During the years of the Weimar Republic the SPD managed to shape the State in its image to a certain degree. In exile, parts of the SPD became more radical but the majority of the party leadership, especially those who spent their exile years in the West, adopted an anti-totalitarian and Western understanding of the State that played an influential role in the post-Second World War orientations of the party.
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between challenging the Authoritarian State and democratising it german social democracy 1914 1945
2020Co-Authors: Stefan BergerAbstract:Berger traces the relationship of German Social Democracy to the State during the first half of the twentieth century. He reviews the Marxist conceptions of the State that the SPD adopted in Imperial Germany. During the years of the Weimar Republic the SPD managed to shape the State in its image to a certain degree. In exile, parts of the SPD became more radical but the majority of the party leadership, especially those who spent their exile years in the West, adopted an anti-totalitarian and Western understanding of the State that played an influential role in the post-Second World War orientations of the party.
David Lewis - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Civil Society and the Authoritarian State: Cooperation, Contestation and Discourse
Journal of Civil Society, 2013Co-Authors: David LewisAbstract:Contemporary Authoritarian regimes frequently coexist with a range of non-governmental associations, while resisting any trajectory towards democratization. This article reviews three major explanations for such political interactions, before proposing an alternative explanatory framework, using Young's dualistic approach to civil society. This approach stresses that the discursive role of civil society needs to be understood in order to explain the dynamics of coercion and cooperation faced by civil society organizations under Authoritarian rule.
