Suchergebnisse

Carl Schmitt in China: Warum wird er gebraucht und wie wird er verstanden? Gegen Ende des ersten Jahrzehnts des 21. Jahrhunderts erlebt Carl Schmitts Verfassungstheorie in der Volksrepublik China eine unerwartete Rennaissance und trägt ganz wesentlich zum Aufkommen und zur Blüte der chinesischen politischen Verfassungstheorie bei. Im Wege einer präzisen Beschreibung der Verfassungsgeschichte der Volksrepublik China untersucht dieser Beitrag zunächst den Hintergrund dieser Entwciklung und geht der Frage nach aus welchem Grunde Schmitts Verfassungstheorien in China von Nutzen sind. Der Beitrag analysiert sodann die Hauptpunkte seiner Theorie, welche ausgewählt und angepasst zur Erklärung und Rechtfertigung der Wirklichkeit des Parteistaates dienen. Der Beitrag schließt mit der Erkenntnis, dass die chinesische politische Verfassungstheorie durch die Herabsetzung und Vorenthaltung der Normativität, wie sie in der heutigen chinesischen Verfassung zu finden ist, die Kernassoziationen des gerade erst ins Werk gesetzten "sozialistischen Rechtsstaates"aushöhlt, die Durchsetzung der Verfassung behindert und diese letztlich einschläfert. ; Carl Schmitt's constitutional theory has been unexpectedly revived at the end of the first decade of the 21st century inChina and contributes essentially to the emergence and boom of Chinese political constitutional theory. Through a concisedescription of constitutional history in the People's Republic of China, this article examines firstly the background as to whyhis constitutional theory is needed in China. It then proceeds to analyse the principle theoretical points made by Carl Schmitt,which are selected and reconstructed so as to explain and justify the special political reality under the Party-state. The articleconcludes that by degrading and withholding the normativity present in the existing Chinese Constitution, Chinese politicalconstitutional theory hollows out the core connotations of the recently established "socialist rule of law state", impedes theenforcement of the constitution and finally serves to euthanize the existing Chinese Constitution.

During the last thirty years, market reforms have turned China into an economic behemoth as the country moves deeper and deeper into capitalist development. The study of Chinese labor owes its dynamism in recent years to this dramatic economic and social transformation. Scholars are intrigued by two parallel historical transformations: On the one hand, millions of peasant migrants have been transformed into urban industrial and service workers; on the other hand, millions of former state-owned enterprise employees have lost their lifelong "iron rice bowl" job security and other benefits that they enjoyed under the Maoist socialist system. The new directions of labor studies about China reflect the unique trajectories of these important institutional and social changes. If earlier discussions mainly focused on the harsh labor conditions in sweatshops and despotic management in all kinds of factories, recent research and writing have explored a variety of emergent questions, from the impact of the new labor laws and institutional arrangements to the formation of a new working class and its relation to Chinese workers' recently highlighted legal rights and resistance. These studies have already contributed greatly to our knowledge of what is going on with Chinese workers and their labor movements in the twenty-first century.

None of the award-winning films reviewed in this article has a blissful tone. In these films, we watch young girls in assembly lines producing all sorts of commodities in China as well as four hundred Chinese workers disassembling a coking plant in Germany. We are immersed in people's personal stories, such as a peasant woman forced to leave her farm and her lone hut, located in the area due to be submerged by the Three Gorges Dam project, and a sixteen-year-old girl learning to labor on a cruise ship along the Yangtze River. In most of the films we also meet managers, Chinese or foreign, who are concerned with nothing but maximizing profit through intense exploitation of labor. These films document how the massive force of modernization in a globalized world affects lives of common people in China. Their struggles with poverty, corrupt officials, and greedy business owners are displayed in sharp contrast to both shining metropolitan glory and rural banality. In this regard, the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's photographs of China, as shown in the filmManufactured Landscapes, seem emblematic enough: Modernization in China has altered the trajectory of people's lives as well as the landscapes of their nation. This article discusses the issues embedded in the stories the seven documentaries present: the impact of global capitalism; the relations between national development and globalization; the conflicts between corporate social responsibility and profit-making; and the predicament of migrant workers and their human agency.

This article examines the organizational structure and functions of trade unions in China today. Previous literature on Chinese trade unions has focused on the debate over whether or not the organizations serve workers' interests, and whether or not they are independent from the state apparatus. Based on ethnographic interviews and document analysis, I present three major findings: (1) unions are not independent from the state, but the changing role of the state enables unions to promote workers' legal rights and welfare; (2) unions are no longer monolithic; there is a discrepancy between the rhetoric of government unions and the practice of enterprise unions; and (3) the absence of independent workers' organizations leaves workers no choice but to rely on the state and unions for protection and social justice. I argue that the dominant paternalistic ideology, clothed in modern rhetoric, is key to understanding these findings.

AbstractThis article examines shop-floor bargaining in China in both the socialist and reform eras. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in three manufacturing factories, document analysis, and secondary sources, the author discusses how government policies and organizational structure shape the interaction between workshop managers and workers and how the practice on the shop floor alters managerial attempts in return. The author argues that, despite different economic structures in the two historical periods, Chinese workers are not the docile labor force often portrayed in literature and media. Instead, they utilize any leverage given within organizational structures and bargain for not only economic gains, but also for respect and autonomy. Their bargaining, though different from institutionalized union bargaining, influences managerial decisionmaking in a subtle way with ideological implications.