DOCSLIB.ORG

Divide and Connect: Inter-Administration Mobility of Political Elites in Reform China

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Divide and Connect: Inter-Administration Mobility of Political Elites in Reform China Divide and Connect: Inter-Administration Mobility of Political Elites in Reform China Shilin Jia Department of Sociology, University of Chicago Introduction Division and connection are both essential and necessary components of any large-scale social organism. Division facilitates the efficiency of a system and differentiates its elements into different roles and domains. On the other hand, connection is needed for integrating different elements across social spaces via a social structure to prevent the system from falling apart. As stated in Durkheim ([1933] 1997, 84)'s classical work the Division of Labor in Society, there is an inherent tension between the two seemingly contradictory forces. One big challenge for a modern complex social organism is to figure out how these two contradictory forces could work together. In a large and complex social entity, an essential channel through which division and connection are enforced is career flows of personnels. Due to need for specialization and efficiency, people's career trajectories would tend to be separated into different domains in which they can stay focused on and develop their expertise. On the other hand, a career transfer across domains could facilitate informational exchange and bring benefits to both the involved individual and the organization (Kleinbaum 2012; Zuckerman et al. 2003). One often neglected point is that these two forces are actually inter-dependent. Career transfers, which can be seen as network ties between different subunits of a system, are always acts of division (decoupling) and connection (coupling) (White 2008, 2). Every move entails not only presence but also absence of ties. Whether a move is an act of connection or division depends on its topological relationship with other moves (Granovetter 1973). Thus, understanding how a system is divided and connected requires knowing a history of a dynamic process that is always built upon antecedent moves. Such a dynamical perspective is especially needed when the subject of a study was un- dergoing significant structural change. A typical case is the transformation of the party state of China during the past 30 to 40 years. China's unique experience of liberalizing its econ- omy under a communist party dictatorship has surprised and puzzled many of its outside 1 observers. During the course of the transformation, the party state evolved from a Soviet- style centrally planned system into a multifaceted Leviathan with increasing geographical and functional differentiation, and the change in its mode of production has produced phe- nomenal economical growth. Conventional wisdom in organizational studies suggests that as modern organizations expand and begin to face increasingly complex environments, changes from centrally coordinated systems to decentralized and multi-divisional forms of governance become necessary (Chandler 1990; Fligstein 1985). Some economic scholars have argued that China's economic reform indeed followed such a path (Qian, Roland, and Xu 1999; Xu 2011). Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) has maintained its monopoly of power after three rounds of peaceful leadership transition. Economic decentralization did not lead to regime change. It has been proposed that the secret of the party state's reform is economic decentralization, on the one hand, and centralized personnel control through its nomenklatura system on the other hand (Landry 2008, 79; L. C. Li 2010; Naughton and Yang 2004; Xu 2011; Zheng 2007, 53). The nomenklatura system that the CCP borrowed from its Soviet brother ensures that party leaders on each level of administration has final authority in deciding the appointment of lower-level posts down its administrative hierarchy. Party leaders can thus maintain political control of their subordinates through shuffling their positions. Inside a political institution, career trajectories of political elites delineate how power is delegated and congealed. Controlling the career trajectories of elites is definitely an effective means of maintaining control. That being said, the nomenklatura system itself, the rules of which have been relatively fixed, says nothing about how the party should direct the flows of its elites. As already explained, every system is built upon division and connection which generate two contradictory forces, a centrifugal force that tends to pull different elements apart and a centripetal force that tries to put them together. During the reform era, decen- tralization in mode of production was an urgent task for the party state to transform itself away from a centrally-planned system while what happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe constantly reminded the CCP to not go too much further and lose control (Landry 2008, 25). How did these two forces work together in the CCP's personnel management? Very few systematic accounts have been given for the changing topological structures of the party state's elite shuffling and their effects. Division and connection are topological properties that can be only understood on a systematic level when all moves are examined in relation with each other. Network coupling and decoupling are stochastic processes that are contingent upon antecedent moves and do not necessarily always follow a prescribed plan (Slez and Martin 2007). A full network of career moves and a dynamic perspective are needed for understanding how the party state has been divided and connected through the career trajectories of its elite members. Also, in a system with a fixed roster, career transfers are 2 always constrained by availability of vacancies. People cannot freely move inside the system, and career moves are generated by antecedent moves in vacancy chains (White 1970). Career moves can only be fully understood in light of how vacancies are distributed. Availability of data is a big challenge for studying such a system. This study overcomes this challenge by utilizing a unique dataset made possible by machine-assisted coding of the CVs of over 8000 top-level CCP elites. Their career moves over the period from 1978 to 2012 are tracked, and the moves span all important units of the party state. The moves are pieced together in vacancy chains. A common way in which local formations/divisions are integrated into a national system is through pecking orders in transitive relations (Martin 2009, 104-105,232-320), or more generally, a structural equivalence (White 2008, 7). This study documents an opposite trend. Analyses of the career moves and vacancy chains reveal a significant shift in mobility patterns from centralized functional coordination toward functional differentiation, and the main domain of activities shifted from ministries to provinces, which conforms to common understanding of the reform. However, to counter-balance this centrifugal force, the system did not rewire in a status hierarchy or any sophisticated structural equivalence. The mobility networks became increasingly cyclic. Transfers, especially among provincial administrations, became more frequent, and the most striking feature of the inter-provincial networks is their structurelessness. A closer look at the vacancy chains reveals the generating mechanisms of this change. The supply of initial vacancies shifted from provinces to ministries, and vacancy chains became consistently longer and longer over time. Ultimately, connection and division are all about survival. A major characteristics of this era is that the CCP also underwent \metabolic" transformations. Revolutionary cadres were replaced by younger generations of bureaucrats. Personnel management was not just a matter of control but also a process in which future leaders were selected. This study finds co-evolution of the party and its elite members in cohort replacement. New generations of bureaucrats trained as socialist engineers climbed up to the top of the institution through vacancy chains generated initially by retirement of old party cadres. The transformation was never taken place in a shock therapy but only gradually through homophily in the predecessors and successors, which guaranteed the continuity of the transformation. The paper will proceed in the following fashion. First, a historical account of the party state's institutional transformation will be given, and its puzzles will be presented. After explaining methodological innovations in data collection, the paper will then proceed into descriptive analyses. Based on the descriptive patterns revealed by the empirical analyses, theories and evidences of why they could have emerged will be provided. Finally, the paper will discuss the implications of the empirical findings. 3 China's Institutional Transformation and Its Puzzles The Soviet Prototype The blueprint of the central planning system of the party state of China came from its Soviet brother. Born at the time of the second industrial revolution and impressed by the giant factories that emerged in the industrialized West, Lenin, Stalin and their Bolshevik fellows envisioned their whole socialist country as a gigantic corporation ran efficiently by central planning rather than market mechanisms. As explained by Daniel Chirot (1991), the tragedy of communism was that it actually succeeded. The Soviet Union became the world's most advanced economy in heavy industry, but its system also became too big to change. As new waves of industrial revolution came, it became increasingly inefficient and unable to adapt to new environment. Gorbachev launched glasnost in the hope of relaxing the system but unintentionally
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Primer on Governance Issues for China and Hong Kong
    A Primer on Governance Issues for China and Hong Kong Michael DeGolyer October 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Canadian diplomatic relations with China. In recent years we usually think of China in terms of trade or currency issues or the potential impact of the booming Chinese economy. The political system is ignored as it is thought to be outside the western democratic tradition. This article looks at how modern China is dealing 2010 CanLIIDocs 256 with political forces arising from its increasingly capitalist economic system. It explains the very strong resistance to federalist theory although in some ways China seems headed toward a kind of de facto federalism. It suggests, particularly in the context of China-Hong Kong relations, we may be witnessing a new approach to governance which deserves to be better known among western states as they grapple with their own governance issues and as they try to come to terms with the emergence of China as a world power. entral authorities of the Peoples Republic Despite official denials that China practices any form of China are sensitive to even discussing of federalism, non-China based scholars such as Zheng Cfederalism. Those within China advocating Yongnian1 of the National University of Singapore federalism as a solution to China’s complex ethnic and may and do make the case for federalism in China. He regional relations have more than once run afoul of argues that in truth China governs itself behaviorally official suspicion that federalism is another name for as a de facto federalist state.
    [Show full text]
  • Health Privatisation in China: from the Perspective of Subnational
    Health Privatisation in China: from the Perspective of Subnational Governments By FENG Qian Submitted to Central European University Department of Political Science In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science CEU eTD Collection Supervisor: Anil Duman Budapest, Hungary 2020 Abstract From 2009, the Chinese government started to promote the policy She Hui Ban Yi/SHBY that encourages private investment in hospitals. This strategy of promoting private investment in hospitals represents the overall privatisation trend in Chinese health policymaking. Building on the national level health policymaking, the thesis focuses on the subnational governments in China and explains why are this national initiative has been implemented differently at the subnational level. Most existing studies in this topic focus either on the national level policymaking, discussing the relations between welfare policies and regime type or ideologies; or on the efficiency of public versus private hospitals in health sector by evaluating the outcomes. The thesis aims to understand SHBY and privatisation in health mainly from the local governments’ perspective, analysing how the fiscal survival pressure and political incentives affect the actual health policymaking in local governments in China. Drawing on official statistics, government policies and existing studies, the thesis mainly consider two types of influencing factors, and categorises three types of responses at the subnational levels. While the implementation of this policy requires a lot of resources and efforts, the thesis emphasises that, firstly, for the local governments, the fiscal impact, especially the hard budget constraint from the central government and soft budget constraint to the local public sector, plays the key role in health privatisation policies in China.
    [Show full text]
  • Fiscal Federalism in Chinese Taxation Wei Cui Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, [email protected]
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Allard Research Commons (Peter A. Allard School of Law) The Peter A. Allard School of Law Allard Research Commons Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 2011 Fiscal Federalism in Chinese Taxation Wei Cui Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://commons.allard.ubc.ca/fac_pubs Part of the Tax Law Commons Citation Details Wei Cui, "Fiscal Federalism in Chinese Taxation" (2011) 3 World Tax J 455. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Allard Research Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Allard Research Commons. Wei Cui* Fiscal Federalism in Chinese Taxation1 The recent policy literature on fiscal federalism in China has concentrated on the large “vertical fiscal gap” resulting in inadequate local provision of public goods and services. Thus there is an evident interest in giving local governments more taxing powers. After a brief historical survey, the article discusses a 1993 State Council directive that centralized taxing power. This has led local governments to make use of their control over tax administration to alter effective tax rates, and to the practice of “refund after collection”, whereby local governments disguise tax cuts as expenditures, following a logic opposite to tax expenditures. This study concludes, firstly, that the allocation of taxing power is still done outside the framework of the law, and secondly, that the government has not been able to settle on a stable allocation.
    [Show full text]
  • Warlord Era” in Early Republican Chinese History
    Mutiny in Hunan: Writing and Rewriting the “Warlord Era” in Early Republican Chinese History By Jonathan Tang A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Wen-hsin Yeh, Chair Professor Peter Zinoman Professor You-tien Hsing Summer 2019 Mutiny in Hunan: Writing and Rewriting the “Warlord Era” in Early Republican Chinese History Copyright 2019 By Jonathan Tang Abstract Mutiny in Hunan: Writing and Rewriting the “Warlord Era” in Early Republican Chinese History By Jonathan Tang Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Wen-hsin Yeh, Chair This dissertation examines a 1920 mutiny in Pingjiang County, Hunan Province, as a way of challenging the dominant narrative of the early republican period of Chinese history, often called the “Warlord Era.” The mutiny precipitated a change of power from Tan Yankai, a classically trained elite of the pre-imperial era, to Zhao Hengti, who had undergone military training in Japan. Conventional histories interpret this transition as Zhao having betrayed his erstwhile superior Tan, epitomizing the rise of warlordism and the disintegration of traditional civilian administration; this dissertation challenges these claims by showing that Tan and Zhao were not enemies in 1920, and that no such betrayal occurred. These same histories also claim that local governance during this period was fundamentally broken, necessitating the revolutionary party-state of the KMT and CCP to centralize power and restore order. Though this was undeniably a period of political turmoil, with endemic low-level armed conflict, this dissertation juxtaposes unpublished material with two of the more influential histories of the era to show how this narrative has been exaggerated to serve political aims.
    [Show full text]
  • Final Chien and Wu Formatted
    The Transformation of China’s Urban Entrepreneurialism: The Case Study of the City of Kunshan By Shiuh-Shen Chien, National Taiwan University Fulong Wu, University College London Abstract This article examines the formation and transformation of urban entrepreneurialism in the context of China’s market transition. Using the case study of Kunshan, which is ranked as one of the hundred “economically strongest county-level jurisdictions” in the country, the authors argue that two phases of urban entrepreneurialism—one from the 1990s until 2005, and another from 2005 onward—can be roughly distinguished. The first phase of urban entrepreneurialism was more market driven and locally initiated in the context of territorial competition. The second phase of urban entrepreneurialism involves greater intervention on the part of the state in the form of urban planning and top-down government coordination and regional collaboration. The evolution of Kunshan’s urban entrepreneurialism is not a result of deregulation or the retreat of the state. Rather, it is a consequence of reregulation by the municipal government with the goal of territorial consolidation. Introduction There is no doubt that local authorities the world over play a crucial role in promoting economic development in the context of globalization (Harvey 1989; Brenner 2003; Ward 2003; Jessop and Sum 2000). On the one hand, globalization may cause huge unexpected job loss when investors decide to shut down their companies and move out. Capital flight may also create opportunities in a different site. To deal with these challenges and opportunities, local authorities become entrepreneurial in improving their regions, in the hopes of accommodating more business investment and attracting more quality human capital.
    [Show full text]
  • When Business Met Politics the Case of Want Want, a Different Type of Media Capital in Taiwan
    China Perspectives 2017/2 | 2017 Processual Change in Taiwan When Business Met Politics The Case of Want Want, a Different Type of Media Capital in Taiwan Lihyun Lin and Chun-Yi Lee Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/7333 ISSN: 1996-4617 Publisher Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Printed version Date of publication: 1 June 2017 Number of pages: 37-46 ISSN: 2070-3449 Electronic reference Lihyun Lin and Chun-Yi Lee, « When Business Met Politics », China Perspectives [Online], 2017/2 | 2017, Online since 01 June 2018, connection on 28 October 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ chinaperspectives/7333 © All rights reserved Special feature China perspectives When Business Met Politics The Case of Want Want, a Different Type of Media Capital in Taiwan LIHYUN LIN AND CHUN-YI LEE ABSTRACT: Since 2008, the Taiwanese business group Want Want, having made a fortune in China, has returned to Taiwan to buy a major media group and attempt to exert political influence on Taiwanese society. This paper analyses the rise and rationale of this new type of media inves - tor in the light of the business-government relationship under China’s model of state capitalism. According to the analysis developed in this paper, when China needed foreign investment in the early 1990s, Taiwanese investors were warmly welcomed by the Chinese government, which provided Taiwanese businesses with tax incentives at that time. After 2000, however, when not only domestic Chinese entrepreneurs emerged but also more non-Chinese investors entered the Chinese markets, Taiwanese businesses realised that the investment environment had become much more competitive, so they had to work hard on building ties with Chinese officials.
    [Show full text]
  • Taobao, Federalism, and the Emergence of Law, Chinese Style Lizhi Liu
    University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository Minnesota Law Review 2018 Taobao, Federalism, and the Emergence of Law, Chinese Style Lizhi Liu Barry R. Weingast Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Liu, Lizhi and Weingast, Barry R., "Taobao, Federalism, and the Emergence of Law, Chinese Style" (2018). Minnesota Law Review. 111. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr/111 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Article Taobao, Federalism, and the Emergence of Law, Chinese Style Lizhi Liu∗ & Barry R. Weingast† INTRODUCTION When a startup in the West invents a new form of consumer electronics and creates a website from which to sell its products, all of national law stands behind it, helping to reduce various forms of fraud, theft, and encroachment on intellectual property. Similarly, disputes that arise between the firm and its custom- ers, suppliers, or competitors are negotiated in a rich legal and commercial environment. Because China lacks a strong legal in- frastructure,1 a similar venture attempting to sell by website is far riskier. The inchoate, variable, and sometimes corrupt na- ture of the Chinese legal system makes the prevention and res- olution of legal problems much harder.2 Chinese startups and small and medium firms that sell products by their own website are considerably more vulnerable than similar ventures in Eu- rope or the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • Federalism in Russia: How Is It Working
    National Intelligence Council Federalism in Russia: How Is It Working Conference Report February 1999 This conference was sponsored by the National Intelligence Council and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the US Department of State. John Battilega of the Science Applications International Corporation served as rapporteur. The views expressed in this conference summary are those of individuals and do not represent official US Government positions or views. Contents Conference Highlights Section One: Opening Remarks Section Two: Federalism in Practice: A Comparative Approach Section Three: How Russian Federalism Is Working in Practice Section Four: Russian Regional Views on Federalism Section Five: How Real Is the Danger of Disintegration? Appendixes A. Conference Agenda B. Speaker Biographies C. The Prospect for Disintegration Is Significant D. The Prospect of Disintegration Is Low Conference Highlights On 9-10 December 1998 the National Intelligence Council and the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research jointly sponsored a conference that examined the current state of federalism in Russia. The conference consisted of 22 presentations from experts outside the government, interspersed with general discussion between the experts and government attendees. The agenda focused separately on global experiences with federalism, current institutional arrangements between the center and the regions, current political interactions between the center and the regions, and Russian regional views on federalism. The final session featured a competitive analysis of the case for and against disintegration. John Battilega of the Science Applications International Corporation served as rapporteur. Conference participants did not endeavor to produce a coordinated summary of findings. Nevertheless, most participants seemed in agreement on some major issues.
    [Show full text]
  • Fiscal Decentralization in China: History, Impact, Challenges and Next Steps
    ANNALS OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE 13-1, 1{51 (2012) Fiscal Decentralization in China: History, Impact, Challenges and Next Steps Chunli Shen CEMA, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China E-mail: [email protected] Jing Jin CEMA, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China and Heng-fu Zou CEMA, Central University of Finance and Economics Shenzhen University Peking University Wuhan University The World Bank Fiscal decentralization has been a fundamental aspect of China's transition to a market economy, and the country has made substantial effort to break down its highly centralized fiscal management system with various forms of fiscal contracting systems (1978-1993) and later a tax sharing system (1994- present). This paper is aimed to provide a comprehensive review of China's ex- perience in fiscal decentralization, explore the impact of fiscal decentralization on economic growth and public expenditures, and to identify political as well as economic issues arising after the 1994 tax sharing reform. As the government is shifting the development policy towards building a harmonious society, the current fiscal system requires immediate policy attention for its opaque and in- appropriate expenditure assignment, particularly at the sub-provincial levels, the vertical fiscal gap and widening fiscal disparities, the complex and mal- functioning intergovernmental transfer system, the neglected sub-provincial fiscal arrangements, and the weakness in the vertical accountability of local governments to the Center as well as the horizontal accountability of local administrations to local needs and preferences. Key Words: Fiscal decentralization; Fiscal federalism; Public finance; Fiscal policy; Public expenditure; China. JEL Classification Numbers: H1, H2, H3, H5, H7, R5.
    [Show full text]
  • Ch 4 Center-Local Relations: Hu's in Charge Here?
    4 Center-Local Relations: Hu’s in Charge Here? The mountains are high, the Emperor is far away. — Chinese proverb Many in the United States believe that China’s one-party system gives Beijing total power and control over all levels of government. The image, perhaps left over from the Maoist cult of personality era, of a single leader or core group of leaders responsible for and in command of all aspects of Chinese society still pervades the American imagination. This perception of absolute authority has led US policymakers and industry groups to focus on securing top-down commitments from Chinese leaders to re- solve bilateral economic and other issues. That the leaders sometimes do not fulfill these commitments endlessly frustrates the Americans who have sought them, who view this as negligence on the part of Chinese leaders, lack of political will, or even outright malfeasance. Beijing’s ability to unilaterally impose its will throughout China is, however, highly limited. For a variety of reasons discussed in this chap- ter, China’s authoritarian regime lacks the capacity to implement many of its decisions throughout the polity, a limitation that has important impli- cations for policymaking in Beijing. The leadership has to gauge carefully what it can and cannot get away with vis-à-vis local authorities; how much political capital will be required to enact controversial policies at local levels; and how much discretion to allow local authorities in policies set at the national level—recognizing that the center has no capacity to en- force absolute obedience to its edicts.
    [Show full text]
  • Chinese Reform and Chinese Regional Decentralization (Preliminary and Incomplete Background Paper)
    Chinese Reform and Chinese Regional Decentralization (preliminary and incomplete background paper) 29 November 2006 Chenggang Xu London School of Economics Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Tsinghua University Abstract The Chinese economic reform has created world-record breaking prolonged fast growth and has reduced poverty at an unparallel scale in world history. However, the Chinese institutions look notoriously weak. The Chinese reforms pose great challenges to economics. This paper explains Chinese reform strategies and outcomes by regional decentralization. Regional governments are major players to the bulk of the Chinese economy. Under the supervision of the central government they initiate, negotiate, implement, divert and resist reforms, policies, rules and laws. Chinese reform trajectories have been shaped by regional decentralization. Spectacular performance on the one hand grave problems on the other hand are all created or closely associated with this governance structure. Empirical evidence is provided to support theoretical arguments. In addition to explain the reforms this paper will also confront the problems and tradeoffs posed by the Chinese regional decentralization. 1. Introduction The Chinese economic reform, which has undergone for nearly three decades, has transformed the world’s largest developing country from a centrally planned economy into a mixed economy. This reform has created world-record breaking prolonged fast growth and has reduced poverty at an unparallel scale (World Bank, 2002). During the reform period the Chinese per capita GDP has increased by almost eight-folds. China has turned from one of the poorest countries in the world1 to a major economic power. Today’s China is the world largest producer and consumer of many conventional industrial staples and high tech products, such as steel, TV sets, PCs and cell phones etc.
    [Show full text]
  • Rising Powers and State Transformation: the Case of China
    EJT0010.1177/1354066115578952European Journal of International RelationsHameiri and Jones 578952research-article2015 E IR Article J European Journal of International Relations Rising powers and state 1 –27 © The Author(s) 2015 transformation: The case Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav of China DOI: 10.1177/1354066115578952 ejt.sagepub.com Shahar Hameiri Murdoch University, Australia Lee Jones Queen Mary, University of London, UK Abstract This article draws attention to the transformation of statehood under globalisation as a crucial dynamic shaping the emergence and conduct of ‘rising powers’. That states are becoming increasingly fragmented, decentralised and internationalised is noted by some international political economy and global governance scholars, but is neglected in International Relations treatments of rising powers. This article critiques this neglect, demonstrating the importance of state transformation in understanding emerging powers’ foreign and security policies, and their attempts to manage their increasingly transnational interests by promoting state transformation elsewhere, particularly in their near-abroad. It demonstrates the argument using the case of China, typically understood as a classical ‘Westphalian’ state. In reality, the Chinese state’s substantial disaggregation profoundly shapes its external conduct in overseas development assistance and conflict zones like the South China Sea, and in its promotion of extraterritorial governance arrangements in spaces like the Greater Mekong Subregion. Keywords China, development assistance, Greater Mekong Subregion, International Relations theory, rising powers, South China Sea, state transformation Corresponding author: Lee Jones, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK. Email: [email protected] 2 European Journal of International Relations Introduction Recently, ‘rising powers’ have gripped scholars and political leaders alike.
    [Show full text]