While this means that the CCP has indeed retained its iron grip on policy making, the process of that policy making has shifted a bit over time. Today, there are more voices involved in the process: the CCP includes capitalists as well as workers and farmers. There are more interest groups involved–nowhere like in the US–but still, interest groups are a sign–no matter how small–of some civil society getting going in China. And the shift of power to local levels is important. These local govt.s have much more control over their own affairs than they did prior to 1978. The shift in the makeup of the bureaucracy is also important. A diminished role of the state in the economy has led to a shrinking of the bureaucracy and an effort to put this bureaucracy on a different footing by introducing civil service exams. How do you think this might affect policy making?

Your focus on fragmented authoritarianism is good and I appreciate what Kesselman had to say about that: there is more politics involved within the CCP than before and more voices to be heard with different perspectives.

Secondly, when it comes to welfare, the basic outlines of the the welfare state were established in 1943 by the Beveridge Report—this set up social security and the National Health Service. This welfare state is not as extensive as in other European countries. BUT both Conservatives and Labour supporters are in agreement about keeping the basics in tact–they differ on how far to go to change it. The Conservatives would role it back much more than Labour though even Labour (under Blair) took a different approach from the collectivist consensus era.

GREAT job!

You make excellent points in the second paragraph as well. This is a country where change occurs gradually and where there is a great deal of stability—a characteristic of an advanced democracy.

You also identify a key theme in that third paragraph. You can see the govt. grappling with how to balance freedom and equality in the years after World War II. The collectivist consensus era leans toward collective equality. After thirty years of that–with a more social democracy political economy–Thatcher introduces major changes and shifts the goals toward freedom and adopts the policies of a liberal political economy. Tony Blair comes to office in 1994 and promises a third way between these two extremes—does he succeed? is this really a third way? Has it been successful? We can answer that in part by looking at how Gordon Brown is faring.

Great thinking and great work.

Qaddafi is also in the news because of the Lockerbie case–look into it!

You’ve also done an excellent job with the analysis section. We will spend a great deal of time assessing the sources of authority and legitimacy in various countries and determining the degree to which they have democratized. It is certainly possible for countries to have elements of democracy–elections, elected reps–but to not be democratic at all–its actually called illiberalism. Libya is a good example.

Your focus on globalization is also interesting. Gaddafi was motivated to change his strips in order to end Libya’s isolation after the Lockerbie bombing and he’s worked hard to rehabilitate his image including paying big reparations to the family (you should know the major resource that Libya has)! Why make this move? He wants to take part in the economic dev. associated with globalization. Is the changing world economy having an impact on politics and governments around the world. You better believe it!

Very nice work and very good thinking. There were a number of good articles on Nigeria on the BBC site. I would prefer in the future that you stick to your country unless you absolutely cannot find a good article.

I love the point you made in class about the need to change the laws–you make the case for such changes very strongly in the final paragraph. Good job on that as well.