This book reviews the antinomy of rationality and selfishness raised from egoism, though rationality and selfishness are understood as basic evolutionary dynamics of humans and other organisms in both classical economics and evolutionary biology. Based on the research and a comparison with human’s social cooperative behavior, the author presents his belief that the social cooperative system, in its essence, cooperation and conflict are of uncertain stochasticity resulting from their intrin...

China in the Era of Social Media discusses how social media is changing the world in an unprecedented way through speed, scope, and depth. In the last decade or so, social media in China has witnessed the most explosive growth in the world. Being the most populous nation in the world, it has the most social media users in the world as well. This book examines the current situation and unique characteristics of Chinese social media, the significance of social media in the country’s...

The Sinews of State Power seeks to explain why rural China has been so unstable since 2000, despite numerous national reforms. Using original fieldwork, it traces the rise and demise of cohesive local states in rural China since the Maoist era. It shows that, the county, township, and village levels of government, when in alliance, have facilitated economic growth and caused social grievances. However, national reforms redressing local deviation, together with individual responses...

Comprehensive, systematic review of advances in key CRISPR/Cas technologies, such as TALENS and zinc finger nucleases, double-strand break repair techniques, insertion-based genome edits, base editing, guide RNAs, gRNA/Cas9 constructs and CRISPR/Cas off targetingCovers both techniques and their practical application to particular cereal and other cropsDiscusses challenges in regulating this emerging technology

"A clearheaded, multidimensional tour of China's political, economic, and social landscapes." — Current History"Packed with facts and figures, but enlivened with firsthand observations. . . . An excellent introduction to China for anyone in search of solid but concise information about that complicated country." — The New York Times Book ReviewFor more than a decade, John Bryan Starr's indispensable guide has introduced un...

This comprehensive and authoritative account of the development of the Korean economy combines an historical approach with a substantial treatment of the new economy. Its fresh analysis of the recent transition and systematic treatment of labour issues represent a significant contribution to the scholarship on the politics of development. It is an essential resource for students of comparative political economy and East Asian development.

In the 1990s China embarked on a series of political reforms intended to increase, however modestly, political participation to reduce the abuse of power by local officials. Although there was initial progress, these reforms have largely stalled and, in many cases, gone backward. If there were sufficient incentives to inaugurate reform, why wasn't there enough momentum to continue and deepen them? This book approaches this question by looking at a number of promising reforms, understanding...

The Balkan countries have responded differently to the EU’s conditional offer of membership. This book examines the diverging compliance patterns of the Balkan accession states and asks why some of them have complied substantially, some only partially and others have defied the EU.The book examines the compliance of the Balkan states with the EU accession conditionality, arguing that the variation in the compliance behavior of Balkan governments hinges on three main factors – the l...

This expanded and fully revised edition of Contemporary Hong Kong Government and Politics critically assesses the main strands of continuity and change in Hong Kong’s government and politics since the creation of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 1997. It first investigates the core institutions of the SAR, focusing on the Executive, the Legislature, the Judiciary, the civil service, District Councils, and advisory and statutory bodies. It then examines progress in democratic ...

In this interdisciplinary study of governance, Hyuk-Rae Kim traces how civil society and NGOs have evolved over time, how they differ in motivation from their Western counterparts, and the role civil society NGOs have played in consolidating democracy as the governance system in Korea changes from a state-centric to a contested one.This book presents civil society's rise in Korea through in-depth analyses of today's most pressing issues, in order to chart the shifting role of a for...

It is often assumed that privatization leads to profit, and that well-delineated property rights and a strong private sector will help boost an economy. This book investigates the property rights in Chinese enterprises in the reform era, finding that distinction between the public and the private are blurred, that national reform policies are implemented unevenly across the country, and that enterprises owned by local governments, in Shanghai, for example, are actually extremely profitable...

Chinese government officials have played a crucial role in China's economic development, but they are also responsible for severe problems, including environmental pollution, violation of citizens' rights, failure in governance, and corruption. How does the Chinese Party-state respond when a government official commits a duty-related malfeasance or criminal activity? And how does it balance the potential political costs of disciplining its own agents versus the loss of legitimacy in tolera...