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This article aims to study an issue of "double absence" embedded in the rapidly changing construction industry and to explore how it induces serious collective action among construction workers in post-socialist China. (**) The political economy of the construction industry has shaped a specific labour use system - a labour subcontracting system. The system generates a specific capital-labour relationship in which the legal labour identity and labour relationship are highly subsumed by an "absent" employer. It creates a double absence in legal terms: an "absent" boss and an "absent" labour relationship. This double absence has led to a perpetual process of wage arrears and struggles by construction workers to pursue delayed wages in various ways, usually involving legal action or non-legal collective action. The findings of this study are drawn from case studies conducted between 2008 and 2009 in seven Chinese cities. The labour struggle - the fight for delayed payment - was understood not as a form of legal labour activism, but as incipient class action in a specific context. (China Perspect/GIGA)

AbstractIn Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) contracts, the manufacturer specifies the resale price that retailers must charge to consumers. We study the role of using a RPM contract in a market where demand is influenced by retailer sales effort. First, it is well known that RPM alone does not provide incentive for the retailer to use adequate sales effort and some form of quantity fixing may be needed to achieve channel coordination. However, when the market potential of the product is uncertain, RPM with quantity fixing is a rigid contract form. We propose and study a variety of RPM contracts with quantity fixing that offer different forms of flexibility including pricing flexibility and quantity flexibility. Second, we address a long‐time debate in both academia and practice on whether RPM is anti‐competitive in a market when two retailers compete on both price and sales effort. We show that depending on the relative intensity of price competition and sales effort competition, RPM may lead to higher or lower retail prices compared to a two‐part tariff contract, which specifies a wholesale price and a fixed fee. Further, the impact of RPM on price competition and sales effort competition is always opposite to each other. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006

L'auteur examine les racines de l'image et le sens du dragon chinois dans le domaine de l'imaginaire, couvrant un large spectre allant des mythes antiques à la société contemporaine. La recherche commence par l'analyse du symbolisme du dragon dans les mythes anciens, révélant son étroite connexion avec la prédominance culturelle, puis elle explore les multiples symbolismes du dragon dans la culture traditionnelle chinoise, incluant ceux du pouvoir impérial, l'autorité et les symboles de bonheur et de bienfaits. L'auteur explore ensuite le domaine de l'imagination artistique : analyse détaillée des images de dragons dans les œuvres littéraires ainsi que de leur représentation imaginaire dans les formes d'art, telles que la peinture, la sculpture et la danse. Sur cette base, il examine l'influence et l'évolution du dragon chinois dans la société contemporaine, en particulier dans les médias culturels actuels, tels le cinéma, l'animation et les jeux vidéo. Enfin, l'article résume l'évolution de l'image et du sens du dragon dans l'imaginaire en mettant l'accent sur ses transformations continuelles et ses enrichissements tout au long de l'histoire puis propose des directions et des perspectives de recherche pour l'avenir.

The Standing Committee of the State Council (SCSC) is the principal government institution in China and is often referred to as the "Chinese Cabinet." This article seeks to explain how the SCSC fulfills two functions that are required in all government executives: coordination and the resolution of disputes. It describes the membership of the SCSC, its supporting structures and its working practices, and identifies the alternative strategies available to the premier. The article challenges two popular accounts of the State Council that underplay its role in Chinese politics by either attributing all authority up to the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party or downward to the bureaucracies. The article concludes by suggesting a series of nuanced roles that the SCSC plays as it seeks to meet those key challenges of governing that, regardless of regime, all executive governments must face. (China J/GIGA)

Chrik Poortman, an international civil servant, worked for the World Bank for more than three decades. This profile uses his career and experiences to illustrate the functions and roles played by World Bank staff at each level of its "flat" hierarchy and the capacities needed to face challenges that are unique to their ilk. Each section explores a different range of functions, including working as a country director, working as a vice president, and working as a member of the World Bank's senior management team.

International civil servants (ICS) are largely excluded from the analysis of International Organizations (IOs) because states are assumed to be the determining force in shaping their behaviour. Even principal-agent and constructivist analyses often treat an IO's staff as a unit and are concerned primarily with states' capacities to control IOs. Examining the opportunities of ICS, rather than the choices of states, provides a better means of understanding the capacities of ICS to contribute to the operation of IOs, and especially when they participate in multilateral negotiations. We suggest that structure, competence, legitimacy and culture provide a framework for analysing ICS variable capacity. We use the Secretariat of the WTO, known as a 'member-driven organization', to illustrate how ICS can play a critical role in achieving the IO's objectives. A word on our title. It comes from Esse, non videri in the original, as quoted by a director at the WTO in an interview in April 2003. Adapted from the source document.