Flemming Christiansen

Parliamentary Opposition under Minority Parliamentarism: Scandinavia

Opposition parties are essential to parliamentary democracy. Through parliament and electorate they are the means of holding government accountable. However, as noted by Robert Dahl, opposition is found in very different patterns. In this paper we assess how opposition parties perform under minority government in the three countries of Scandinavia by looking at four aspects of those parties: their composition in terms of strength, ideology and fragmentation, their institutional setting, their role in the legislative process and, finally, their importance compared to non-parliamentary oppositions. We find that parliamentary opposition is influential under minority government, but during the last two decades government and opposition parties have become more ‘integrated’ in policy-making, although this has been achieved differently in each country.

Chinese consumers: The Romantic reappraisal

Drawing on evidence from Anshan City, Liaoning Province, the People’s Republic of China, we argue that the recent commodification and proliferation of idyllicized representations of rurality, a trend that runs directly counter to the symbolic infrastructure of China’s mass urbanization and industrialization, indicates a paradigm shift in Chinese consumer perceptions. We explore a theory of the ‘Romantic reappraisal of Chinese consumer values’, drawing upon the reappraisal of values ascribed to the ‘Romantic period’ which followed the industrial revolution in Britain and Western Europe in the late 18th century. Similarities and differences with this earlier shift are explored. One of the authors has spent several lengthy periods of ethnographic investigation in Anshan since 2005, drawing on networks from a wide range of social spheres.

The legacy of the mock dual economy: Chinese labour in transition 1978–1992

The article looks at labour transition in China as resulting from the gradually disintegrating institutional dualism (formed by the planned economy), and modified by various social dynamics. The structure of the planned economy is explained as a ‘mock dual economy’, an institutional framework aimed at achieving growth without creating poverty (a precondition for the socialist leadership) by appropriating rural surpluses for planned, targeted investment in urban growth sectors. The actual functioning of this institutional system, however, did not create sufficient growth. To solve the problem of systemic obstacles to growth, the reforms of 1978 (and even some earlier policies) created room for growth outside the planned sector. The persistence of state dominance in the economy and the institutional dualism led to a strong imbalance between the planned and the unplanned sectors, generating significant expansion of the private and other non-planned sectors. The labour migration is analysed within this contex...

Remaking peasant China : problems of rural development and institutions at the start of the 1990s

Remaking Peasant China - Problems of Rural Development & Institutions at the Start of the 1990s

Chinese Identity in Europe

When one seeks to understand the Chinese communities as communities, the issue of identity becomes paramount. Identity (meaning the characteristics that bind people together as a group) is evasive, and yet a well established concept (see, among others, Eriksen, 1993). Ethnic identity among overseas Chinese in Europe simultaneously reflects and influences their modes of social interaction. It manifests itself in how people deal with each other; this definition reflects the need for a concept that captures changing behavioural patterns and diverse embodiments of Chineseness.

An Analysis of Recent Developments in China's Land Legislation: Some New Trends in Chinese Land Ownership and Land Use

During the first half of the 1980’s, the nature of Chinese socialist land ownership changed. It is true that land ownership continues to be public, either in the form of state ownership (of urban land, wasteland and State Farm land) or collective ownership, over 90% of all farmland and pastures. However, the economic reforms of the post-Mao era have resulted in a practical division of land ownership into what could be termed &dquo;legal land ownership&dquo; and &dquo;land use right&dquo;. In urban areas, the gradual development towards decentralised decision-making and economic

Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Beijing : Engaging China

This contribution examines Arrighi’s effort in Adam Smith in Beijing to understand the trajectory of China’s political economy and the effects of that trajectory on the current reforms and changes in China. This article discusses these reforms from the perspective of China’s ’internal’ dynamics and suggests that Arrighi’s argument has been developed without proper reference to China’s complex realities. As an alternative, the contribution proposes a research-agenda that could better account for these realities.

The 1989 Student Demonstrations and the Limits of the Chinese Political Bargaining Machine: an Essay:

* Flemming Christiansen (1954), graduated in Chinese from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, in 1980, and has subsequently done research on the Chinese Democracy Movement, land reclamation policies during 1900-1949, and recent rural reforms. Presently, he is a Visiting Scholar at the Sinological Institute in Leiden, doing research on Chinese rural households during the 1978-1989 reforms. The author is indebted to W.L. Chong for her valuable comments on the initial version of this essay. He takes full responsibility for any inaccuracies, and misinterpretations of the events. Foreign spectators were in a peculiar situation when the dramatic power struggle was enacted in Beijing in May and June 1989. During the prelude to the tragedy, viewers all over the world were placed at the seeming centre of events in T’iaa’anmen Square, by the t.v. coverage of the historic meeting in Beijing between Michail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping. However, this feeling was created by a VhfiwndungrqfliEkq the real drama of power struggle

Chinese Women in Rural–Urban Transition: surrogate brothers or agents of their own fate?

How has the joint family structure—one of the basic institutions of rural organisation in China—been used by families in the transition from rural to urban reality since the early 1980s? During the 1960s and 1970s, the rural peoples communes consolidated the role of patrilocal marriage patterns and the shared inheritance and responsibilities of brothers (both hallmarks of the joint family), while in the 1980s and 1990s, the joint family was used to maximise the economic interests of the new entrepreneurial groups in rural China. However, the transition to urban status and life gradually changed the role of sisters among siblings, as existing social patterns gradually eroded and changed meaning. This contribution explores how these macro-level institutional transitions manifest themselves in the social practice and institutional arrangements of a family case study.

Chinese Rural Policy Between Social Change and State Planning

Summary Flemming Christiansen, ‘Chinese Rural Policy Between Social Change and State Planning’, Forum for Development Studies, 1998:1, pp. 67–95. Chinese rural policy since 1978 has followed several different paradigms. Two of these are examined: the ‘social transformation’ and the ‘planning and programming’ paradigms. The former aimed to change irrational forms of social and economic organisation, while the latter sought to achieve more rational overall use of Chinas agricultural resources. Their political and institutional settings differed greatly.