Rising Powers: Unequal Powers, Authoritarian Powers, Unstable Powers?

崛起的力量：不平等的力量、独裁的力量、不稳定的力量？

• 批准号: ES/J012688/1
• 负责人: Stephen White
• 金额: $ 58.21万
• 依托单位: University of Glasgow
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FJ012688%2F1
• 关键词: Rising; Powers; Unequal; Authoritarian; Unstable

Taken together, Russia and China account for 41 per cent of the total territory of the BRICs, and for 51 per cent of their total population and 63 per cent of their GDP/PPP. On Goldman Sachs projections China will be the world's largest economy by 2050, and Russia its sixth largest; per head of population, on the same projections, Russia will have the world's fourth largest GDP/head and China its twelfth largest. A striking feature of the two countries is not just the rate but also the strikingly inegalitarian nature of their development - notwithstanding a shared (post)communist legacy. Indeed on most conventional measures, these two countries are now among the most unequal in the world. According to Russian official statistics, the Gini coefficient had risen to .42 by 2010; the best estimates of Chinese Gini coefficients indicate a very similar rise from .26 in 1983 - just after the introduction of the contract responsibility system - to .45 in 2006, the last year available. On World Bank figures, Gini coefficients were already higher in Russia than in the UK, and higher in China than in the United States. Reflecting these developments, China had moved up to second place in Forbes' list of the world's billionaires by 2011, with Russia in third place.One of the oldest findings of political science is that there is an association between economic inequality and political instability. As Aristotle pointed out in his Politics, 'when men are equal they are contented'; he drew attention to the people of Tarentum, who, 'by sharing the use of their own property with the poor, [gained] their good will'. Accordingly, 'democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy'. Concerns of this kind have been apparent in many later writers, including John Stuart Mill, who provided in his Representative Government for additional votes for those who exercised 'superior [managerial] functions' on the reasonable assumption that the poor would otherwise use their electoral preponderance to put through 'class legislation'. We seek in this project to examine the following propositions: (i) that these two BRIC countries are becoming increasingly unequal; (ii) that within them, political power and economic advantage are increasingly closely associated; (iii) that their political systems have increasingly been employed to ensure that no effective challenge can be mounted to that combination of government position and economic advantage, either by 'ballot box' or other avenues; and that (iv) set against a broader comparative perspective, an increasingly unequal society in which government is effectively immune from conventional challenge is likely to become increasingly repressive, or unstable, or both (with considerable implications for the international community as a whole).We propose to draw our evidence from national and international statistics, the academic literature that has appeared in both countries as well as the West, a series of interviews with policy specialists and relevant government officials, two dozen focus groups that will focus on issues of social justice and politics as perceived by ordinary citizens, and a detailed empirical analysis of the management of the largest companies in both countries in order to establish their connections with senior state officials. A final part of the analysis will employ crossnational evidence (including both aggregate and individual-level data such as the World Values Survey) to test a series of hypotheses relating to the association between inequality and political instability, setting both countries within a context that will include (for instance) the countries that have been affected by the 'Arab Spring'.

加起来，俄罗斯和中国占金砖国家总面积的41%，占金砖国家总人口的51%，占金砖国家GDP/购买力平价的63%。根据高盛（Goldman Sachs）的预测，到2050年，中国将成为世界最大经济体，俄罗斯将成为世界第六大经济体；如果按照同样的预测，俄罗斯的人均GDP将位居世界第四，中国将位居世界第十二。这两个国家的一个显著特征不仅在于发展速度，还在于它们惊人的不平等本质——尽管它们都有共同的（后）共产主义遗产。事实上，以大多数传统标准衡量，这两个国家现在是世界上最不平等的国家之一。根据俄罗斯官方统计，基尼系数已经上升到。到2010年达到42个；对中国基尼系数的最佳估计也显示出与此非常相似的增长。1983年26日——刚实行合同责任制后——到。2006年，也就是最后一年，有45个。根据世界银行（World Bank）的数据，俄罗斯的基尼系数已经高于英国，中国的基尼系数已经高于美国。2011年，中国在《福布斯》全球亿万富翁排行榜上的排名上升至第二位，俄罗斯排在第三位。政治学最古老的发现之一是，经济不平等与政治不稳定之间存在关联。正如亚里士多德在他的《政治学》中所指出的那样，“当人们平等时，他们就会感到满足”；他引起了人们对塔伦顿人的注意，他们“通过与穷人分享自己的财产，获得了他们的好感”。因此，“民主似乎比寡头政治更安全，更不容易发生革命”。这种担忧在后来的许多作家中都很明显，包括约翰·斯图尔特·密尔，他在他的代议制政府中为那些行使“高级（管理）职能”的人提供了额外的选票，这是基于一个合理的假设，即穷人会利用他们的选举优势来通过“阶级立法”。在这个项目中，我们试图检验以下命题：(i)这两个金砖国家正变得越来越不平等；（ii）在它们内部，政治权力和经济利益日益紧密地联系在一起；（iii）他们的政治制度越来越多地被用来确保不能通过“投票箱”或其他途径对政府地位和经济优势的结合提出有效的挑战；（四）从更广泛的比较角度来看，一个政府有效地免受传统挑战的日益不平等的社会很可能变得越来越压抑，或不稳定，或两者兼而有之（对整个国际社会有相当大的影响）。我们建议从国内和国际统计数据、两国以及西方出现的学术文献、对政策专家和相关政府官员的一系列采访、24个焦点小组（将重点关注普通公民所感知的社会正义和政治问题）中提取证据。并对两国最大公司的管理层进行了详细的实证分析，以便建立他们与国家高级官员的联系。分析的最后一部分将采用跨国证据（包括总体和个人层面的数据，如世界价值观调查）来测试一系列关于不平等和政治不稳定之间关系的假设，将这两个国家置于一个背景下，这个背景将包括（例如）受“阿拉伯之春”影响的国家。

项目成果

Putin versus the Turnout? Mapping the Kremlin's 2018 Presidential Election Support

普京与投票率？

• DOI: 10.1163/2451-8921-00303002
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Russian Politics
• 影响因子: 0.8
• 作者: Hutcheson D

Reassessing the Hu-Wen Era: A Golden Age or Lost Decade for Social Policy in China?

重新评估胡温时代：中国社会政策的黄金时代还是失去的十年？

• DOI: 10.1017/s0305741018001200
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: The China Quarterly
• 作者: Howell J

The Social Contract Revisited: Evidence from Communist and State Capitalist Economies

重新审视社会契约：来自共产主义和国家资本主义经济的证据

• DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2016.1267714
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: Europe-Asia Studies
• 影响因子: 1.4
• 作者: Cook L

Explaining Party Support in the 2016 Russian State Duma Election

解释党在 2016 年俄罗斯国家杜马选举中的支持

• DOI: 10.1163/2451-8921-00204004
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: Russian Politics
• 影响因子: 0.8
• 作者: Hutcheson D

Why do Authoritarian Regimes Provide Public Goods? Policy Communities, External Shocks and Ideas in China's Rural Social Policy Making

为什么威权政权提供公共产品？

• DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2016.1274379
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: Europe-Asia Studies
• 影响因子: 1.4
• 作者: Duckett J