A Community of Shared Future for Mankind—The Contemporary Development of the Social Foundations Theory of International Law*

In the traditional understanding, the social basis of the emergence and existence of international law can be summed up as an international society in which interstate conflict and cooperation and interests and contradictions coexist. In recent years, the term “international community” has been widely used in national practice and academic discourse. Many scholars believe that the development of interstate relations indicates that the international community is being transformed into a global international community. The concept of “a community of shared future for mankind” reflects China’s new understanding of the social foundations of international law. It introduces Chinese traditional culture into global governance, develops Marxist theory on the community, is concerned both for mankind as a whole and for individuals, highlights the ultimate issues of the international community, and emphasizes the international community’s union of diversity and interdependence. The idea of “a community of shared future for mankind” is of great significance for the theory and practice of international law; it reflects the emergence of methodological holism, the response of international law to the questioning of its legitimacy, and the trend toward hierarchical systematization in international law. The concept of “a community of shared future for mankind” is of great value to China’s participation in the reform of the global governance system. It will help promote appreciation of the relations between China and the world, enhance China’s international discourse power and discourse force, and promote the rule of law in international relations that China advocates.     

Criticism of the Logic of the Ecological Imperialism of “Carbon Politics” and Its Transcendence

Within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, international carbon politics inevitably presents itself as the logic or essence of “ecological imperialism,” reflecting a few Western countries’ expansion and development of their historically formed international hierarchical superiority or exclusive hegemony on the basis of their domestic capitalist economies and politics. This is an intrinsic obstacle to creating a more equitable, democratic and effective global climate or environmental governance system. Criticism of international carbon politics and its “ecological imperialism,” based on traditional “green-left” theories from Marxist philosophy and political economy, provides a theoretical basis for seeking an alternative way to cope with global climate change effectively. As a responsible developing country, China’s response to climate change is not only an internal requirement for the promotion of its own sustainable development, but also reflects its responsibility to create a community of shared future for mankind. This rationale for our time determines that it is necessary for China to become a world leader in coping with global climate change and environmental governance through a leadership which lies in making a contribution rather than fighting for hegemony.     

The Influence of “Made in China” on the Great Moderation of the Global Economy：An Empirical Test Based on Value Chains*

We have collected data on China’s 22 main trading partners for 1984-2012 and used System GMM to study the influence of “Made in China” on the “Great Moderation” of the global economy. Our research shows that although trade scale, real effective exchange rate, oil prices, fixed capital investment and other variables have significantly expanded global economic volatility, “Made in China” has markedly restrained output growth rate fluctuations in countries around the world and price fluctuations in developed countries, helping the global economy develop with “high growth, low volatility.” “Made in China” is a long-term variable in the context of the global value chain. China needs to take advantage of global value chain restructuring to further upgrade and develop processing and manufacturing industry and expand its presence in the international market. It could choose to adopt a “mirror strategy” and launch trade sanctions targeting counterpart industries or enterprises to counter irrational trade sanctions from the developed countries. At the same time, however, it is important for China to make its own contribution to improve global economic governance and building a new international economic order in the era of global value chains by strengthening its policy coordination with other countries.     

全球治理:中国不干涉政策与国际法

一直以来,独立自主的和平外交政策是中国政府开展对外关系的基石,集中体现为坚定奉行不干涉政策。随着经济全球化进程以及中国"走出去"战略的不断推进,一方面,中国国家利益开始遍布海外,并与他国利益相互交织在一起;另一方面,中国参与全球治理也需要让渡部分主权性权利。越来越多的人认为,中国政府一味机械地固守不干涉政策似乎显得有点陈腐和过时。因此,在继续恪守不干涉他国内部事务和尊重他国主权等国际法基本原则的基础上,中国政府需要适时和灵活地调整以往对外严格奉行的不干涉政策,积极而创造性地介入国际事务,这对于其在新时期担负起"负责任大国"的角色、参与塑造新的世界秩序以及促进当代国际法的发展都具有十分重要的战略意义。     

Co‐production,governance and practice: The dynamics and effects of User Voice Prison Councils

Drawing on Bevir's (2013) decentered theory of governance, and Donati's (2016) theory of the relational subject, this article explores how User Voice Prison Councils in England have contributed to shifts in aspects of prison governance and practice. It discusses the cultural and policy context in which the Councils emerged and operate before exploring their perceived purposes, dynamics, and effects. User Voice Prison Councils represent an important example of different actors co‐producing alternative patterns of governance through innovations in democratic participation. Interviews with Prison Council participants, User Voice and prison staff revealed that the development of such “bottom–up” participatory governance practices require and restore interpersonal trust, the mechanisms of which are interactions underpinned by a distinct manner of relating and the establishment of a network of relations oriented to the common good. The effects include enhanced institutional legitimacy; improvements in prison officer‐prisoner relations; and greater quality of life for prisoners. Revealing the “how” of co‐production, from the “inside”, the argument advanced here is that while the effects of co‐production may be more ameliorative than transformative, such collaborative and dialogic approaches can enable differently situated people to forge new norms of interactions and forms of democratic participation to achieve collective goals.     

Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: A Sociological Analysis Based on Chinese Experience

Based on the 1997-2007 panel data of 676 listed companies and in-depth interviews with the senior executives, independent directors, fund managers and securities analysts of these companies, this paper tries to analyze the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance from a sociological perspective. The results show that the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance in the Chinese institutional environment is sharply different from the predictions of the agency theory. The empirical findings from China lend strong support to the new institutional argument that “best” corporate governance practices are socially “constructed” by various social forces and interests groups in specific social, political and cultural contexts, and how “good” a corporate governance practice is depends to a large extent on whether it fits in with the institutional environment in which it is embedded. There exists no universally “best” model of corporate governance across the world. Our empirical sociological study based on Chinese experience offers new perspectives and evidence for deconstructing the global myth of corporate governance.     

The Chinese Road in the Light of Historical Continuity

The Chinese road has deep historical roots. Its most striking feature is that it is marked by historical continuity rather than rupture, and the main force behind this continuity is its intrinsic dynamism and vitality. Unlike the paradigm of Eurocentrism or “Discovering History in China,” the comparative analytical paradigm discovers China through long-term comparisons with corresponding countries in the same time and space in an effort to find positive elements in the history of the Chinese road and to refute the long prevalent theory of Chinese stagnation. Seen over the course of world history, the impetus for the creation of the world’s most brilliant agrarian civilization was endogenous. This impetus was not a momentary “explosive force” but a sustainable institutional drive whose main constituents were the independent farming household, endogenous government capacity and adaptive national governance. In addition to the main theme of “permanent change,” Chinese development had a secondary theme of “cyclical change” which cannot be ignored. The roots of Chinese development are buried deep in the genes of this agrarian nation in the form of sticky institutions, bureaucratic inertia, arbitrary power, etc. Historical continuity provided a foundation for China’s creative revolution and development in modern times, ultimately laying down a socialist development road with Chinese characteristics, although this remains an unfinished relay process.     

Abstracts

A burgeoning literature on narrative identity has emerged during the last decades simultaneously with a “performative turn” in the methodology of qualitative social research; both changes indicate a move away from the paradigm of “representation” that emphasizes linear and singular interpretation of “facts” and toward an acknowledgment of the complexity of the social world preferring a dialogic space, open for multiple interpretations and voices. This article aims to explicate how a nonrepresentational narrative stage performance, “We Are All the Same,” by a group of people who had suffered from mental illness opened up space that made transformation possible.     

The Interplay between Global and State Governance: Theoretical Origins and Practical Reflections

Global governance largely grows out of the externalities in state governance. At present, global governance and state governance are integrated into a kind of “holistic governance” based on their interaction and interpenetration. Our understanding of their interplay can be traced back to ideas that developed from ancient Greek and Roman times to the early 20^th century. More recently, from the second half of the 20^th century, theories of the interaction between global and state governance essentially revolved around the externalities in state governance and efforts to overcome those externalities by designing an ideal world. Today, the interaction between global and state governance is of great practical significance, serving to inspire the establishment of a global order based on sharing, integration and symbiotic harmony. However, we should also be aware that this interaction may be converted by great powers to the service of their own interests. At present, China can help reshape the global governance order of the 21^st century by strengthening its own development, promoting benign interaction between global and state governance, actively harnessing the potential of its state governance capacity and sharing its experience and ideas.     

Metagovernance,political demand and policy advice: a case from Brazil

ABSTRACT

There has been a call for a “second wave” of scholarship on policy advice to expand our understanding of the relational dynamics within a policy advisory system (PAS). In this article, we use a case from Brazil to address two key gaps in the PAS literature – the lack of attention to systems of network governance and the current predominance of “Westminster” empirical cases. To better understand the impact of policy advice within a system of networked governance, we apply the frame of “metagovernance” – the steering of governance networks. We then introduce and employ the concepts of funnelling, political brokering and gate-keeping to better understand how policy advice is shaped, modified and then either rejected or accepted. The contribution of the article is that, while much of the existing PAS literature describes the contours and key actors within an advisory system, we develop new conceptual scaffolding to better understand the trajectories and impact of policy advice, and the interplay between actors and agents, within a broader system of metagovernance.     

技术自主性与国家形塑:国家与技术治理关系研究的政治脉络及其想象

技术治理进入国家视野是一个循序渐进的过程。相关研究先后拓展和增加了专家治国、技术官僚、信息技术和微观政治等概念，并分化为两个研究维度：一是一以贯之的国家如何以“技术性方式”进行治理；二是由“信息技术在政府应用”这一研究分支发展而来，分析国家如何将新技术手段引入治理。其中，前者是技术治理概念的逻辑起点，本文从这一起点展开分析国家与技术治理的关系，试图还原技术治理的本来面貌。基于技术治理具有自身发展和运作的自主性，国家与技术治理关系呈现三种基本形态：“吸纳”状态下国家对“可控”技术治理的应用、“扩散”状态下国家对“自主”技术治理的干预和“分途”状态下国家对“失控”技术治理的监管。最后，本文还进一步提出“超越技术治理”的两种路径构想，由此系统呈现了国家与技术治理相互形塑的整体图景，为技术治理研究提供了新的反思与关注的视角。     

Experiential Logic in the Transformation of Contemporary China’s Social Governance*

How does Chinese society maintain its orderly operation and show stability and harmony to the utmost while China rapidly transforms its economic system and international circumstances become increasingly complicated? This is an important question that this essay tries to answer, and the analysis mainly involves the exploratory practice of the transformation of Chinese social governance. This exploratory practice is a process through which China constantly breaks through the traditional blockades of vested interests, overcomes newly formed challenges, and forms a new Chinese-style “one axis and multiple components” pattern of social governance during its rapid re-establishment of both social relationship structure and social psychology order on the unbalanced and insufficient conditions of development within its vast territory. During this process, the constant return to the CPC’s mass line, as well as the “mechanism of reversed transmission of pressure,” the “anticipation-led mechanism” and the “mechanism of turning crisis into opportunity” that the CPC has improved during its long-term revolutionary struggles and its deepening of reform and opening-up, has played an important part. The simplistic duplication of Western theoretical analytic paradigms cannot explain the experiential mechanism for the transformation of social governance, which is peculiar to China. The creation of research framework of “system and life” is just an effort for comparison and dialogues with Western classical theories. It is not only helpful for the development of sociology about Chinese transformation, but will provide new knowledge for worldwide social transformation.     

China's Approach to Dealing with Crisis and Change in Global Governance

The outbreak of the financial crisis in Europe and America in 2008 was a landmark event in the history of global governance. It showed that the international system and governance mechanism was unable to adapt to the new global situation or solve the new challenges and problems caused by the rapid development of globalization. Global governance needs to explore new ideas, new paths and new strategies. However, to advance the transformation and development of global governance, in-depth cooperation by the great powers is not all that is involved; also inevitable are the redistribution of international power, interests and responsibilities, contradictory global concepts and fierce competition among the great powers. The next five to ten years are a key period both for the transformation and development of global governance and for China's full-scale rise. The latter is not only a process of China's integration into the global governance system but also a process whereby China influences global governance reform. China should seize the opportunity of the global governance crisis and changes to promote benign interaction between China and the world and should become an advocate, designer, shaper and leader in the improvement of the global governance system, focusing on the construction of national governance, the governance of East Asia, global governance and the governance of certain advantageous fields. Its active assumption of the historic mission of the new era of globalization has laid a solid foundation for China to grow into a great major country.     

Multiple Social Networks in Grassroots Governance in Rural China*

Existing research on grassroots rural governance in China adopts a network perspective to explore the role of traditional social vehicles including clans, clan clusters and popular beliefs in improving village governance. However, most of this research has concentrated on analyzing the way in which horizontal network relationships lead to effective village governance. It has thus to some extent neglected the basic reality of the overlapping interconnections between the “top-down” administrative system and the informal structure of village governance. In fact, an analysis that proceeds from the features of the government’s own organizational network, the social structure of the village itself and the position of its elites in order to focus on modes of interaction within the village under the intermixture of (formal) system design and (informal) social relations, shows that differences in the composition of the government’s promotional networks resulting from the traits of key officials affect the speed of policy dissemination as well as the government’s mode of interaction with the village elites. Moreover, differences in these modes of interaction further influence the subsequent operation of self-organization based on social traditions (“filial piety” or “morality”). At the same time, structural elements, including the economic and social relations of the village itself, determine whether self-organization will improve the quality of governance in the long term. This finding can serve as a reflection on and critique of the theories of “strong government” and “tradition” current in academia.     

Urban Risk Generalization in China: Space and Governance*

As an issue in Chinese urban development, handling urban risk generalization invites reflection on the structural features and internal development of the immediate or potential risks entailed in rapid urbanization across the globe. As part of research on national governance modernization, China has reached a consensus on managing urban risks. A study of spatial theory indicates that urban risk generalization in China is essentially a structural issue arising from an immature system of generalized benefits in urban space rights and interests along with an unbalanced spatial structure, functional disarray and ecological disruption arising from inequitable and unbalanced urban spatial development, readjustment and renovation. As an innovative form of modern urban public management with its target shifting from the pursuit of material things to people-centered development, spatial management enlists actors including government, business, society and citizens to seek a “community of shared spatial interests” with a rational structure, effective functions and an optimized environment at the level of spatial production and interest distribution. We need innovation in the spatial structures, drivers and mechanisms of urban public management and cultural ecology to realize their institutionalization, synthesis and reordering, strategically forestalling and resolving urbanization risks and realizing a spatial governance vision of the scientific, fair and sustainable allocation, growth and renovation of urban space in the risk era.     

改革深水区个体极端暴力事件应对与社会治理创新

中国改革进入深水区后个体极端暴力事件呈高发态势,暴露出的是政府与社会关系长期疏离致使社会进入转型期后一些社会个体境遇问题愈益突出和复杂,而基于传统管制思维的公共危机管理应对乏力。治本之策是立足“以人为本”,从国家治理体系和政府治理能力现代化层面推动创新社会管理向创新社会治理转变,构建善治意义上的治理服务型政府,通过改进社会治理方式解决公共安全问题,为民造福。     

论艾滋病防治的全球治理：基于全球基金的例证

全球化促进各国经济增长的同时,也带来了艾滋病的全球扩散,对艾滋病防治模式提出了新的挑战。全球治理以其跨国界行为主体、共同价值基础、多元权力结构以及善治目标的优势,成为全球艾滋病防治的最新途径。全球基金成功运作的经验充分证明,要实现艾滋病全球防治的目标,必须构建公共卫生的全球治理机制,促进各国政府艾滋病防治模式的转变,推动全球各类企业积极履行社会责任,提升国际和国内非政府组织的能力建设,并发挥其应有作用。     

The Legal Regulation of Irrational Elements in the Operations of Boards of Directors

The operating processes of boards of directors are delicate and complex, so corporate legislation cannot simply equate board structure law with board governance law. It is therefore necessary to start from China’s actual conditions and grasp the operating processes of Chinese boards with a sober appreciation of the irrational elements in their operating mechanisms. Board governance has entered a new stage of institutionalization, and the law should shift from its emphasis on structure to give equal attention to structure and process in optimizing institutional structure. In the construction of board operating mechanisms, we should treat differently such “living laws” as customs, experiences and traditions, give full play to the functionality of boards’ strategic choices, and provide legal regulation of irrational elements, so as to distinguish between different roles, develop consensus, select strong points and improve efficiency. We should build control over board operational procedures, improve the system of functional allocation, correct assessment mechanisms, develop a mechanism for judicial scrutiny of the affective relationships in society and curb such behavioral tendencies as relational identity, structural bias and group polarization, with a view to controlling such “living laws” within the framework of the basic values and principles of board governance.     

Distinctive policy diffusion patterns,processes and actors: drawing implications from the case of sport in international development

This article examines the diffusion of “Sport for Development and Peace” (SDP) across sub-Saharan Africa following global policy impetus provided by international organizations, including the United Nations, since the start of the twenty-first century. In so doing, the article centres on a geographical region that has been unconsidered in the policy diffusion literature and, particularly, responds to calls for research into the effects of policy characteristics on diffusion mechanisms and patterns. This rationale beget methods that differed from the predominant use of quantitative, dichotomous indicators of policy diffusion, instead integrating data from global, international and national policy documents, from a review of SDP literature, and from stakeholder interviews in Ghana and Tanzania. Patterns of increasing governmental engagement with, but limited implementation of, SDP policies contrasted with the significant expansion of SDP provision by diverse NGOs. In turn, these patterns represented the varying influence of different diffusion mechanisms on state and non-state actors. Compared with the diffusion of other types of policies, these findings indicated the effects of an instrumental, malleable but complex global policy model for SDP diffusion. There is, therefore, significant value in further research that examines how policy diffusion may depend on the configuration of particular policy characteristics, mechanisms and actors.     

Thinking on Long-term Construction of Tibet in Contemporary China

Since the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951, with a view to shaking off Tibet’s poverty and backwardness and making it prosper alongside the rest of China, the central leadership with Mao Zedong at the core, combining Marxist theory on ethnic issues with the particular realities of Tibet, gave up the earlier plan of “shifting the troops garrisoning Tibet every three years to improve their morale,” and began to consider long-term thinking on developing Tibet in which the troops would take root and settle down in Tibet and the border areas. After reform and opening up in 1978, following changes in the international and domestic situation, the CPC Central Committee called on the people to “speed development” and realize leapfrog progress in Tibet and developed the assistance method of “accountability for specific areas, paired-up support and regular rotations.” That has enriched and supplemented our long-term thinking, and is an important method and pathway towards the long-term construction of Tibet. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping has summarized the Party’s Tibet governance strategies over the past six decades, putting forward the idea that work on Tibet must uphold the important principles of “governing Tibet according to law, promoting the prosperity of the Tibetan people and the region on a long-term basis, increasing cohesion and building a solid foundation,” giving a new historical orientation and epochal meaning to long-term thinking on building Tibet. This article tries to trace the history of the long-term thinking on developing Tibet and summarize historical experience, so as to provide a historical basis and reference for work on Tibet in the new period.