Township Government Research Articles

Tax for Fees An Inevitable Choice for Township Financial Management Under the Tax Division System

Along with the implementation of the division system, financial responsibilities are divided at every level of government in order to ensure scientific management and a balanced budget. At the grassroots level, the way in which the township government fully exercises its financial functions and rationalizes the distributive relationship between government and peasants has become an important issue. A year ago, the Hunan provincial government carried out experimental tax for fees in Wugang City with good results. The experiments have shown that tax for fees regulates the fee collection mechanism and eases the burden on the peasants and that it is an inevitable choice for township financial management under the division system. The practice of tax for fees should therefore be popularized soon.

Holland and the Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century: The Politics of Particularism.

Introduction. I. TOWN POLITICS IN THE PROVINCE OF HOLLAND. 1. The Urban Setting 2. The Town Governments of Holland 3. The Regents 4. Party and Faction 5. Religion, the Reformed Church, and Urban Politics 6. Catholics, Dissenters, and Politics 7. The Schuttery, Popular Influence, and Public Order. II. THE POLITICS OF THE PROVINCE OF HOLLAND. 8. The States of Holland 9. The Stadhouder 10. Provincial Administration and Courts 11. Republicans and Orangists 12. Urban Rivalry 13. Religion and Politics in Holland. III. HOLLAND AND THE POLITICS OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 14. The States General and the Generality 15. The Not So United Provinces 16. The Influence of Holland 17. The Power of the Princes of Holland 18. Religion and the Dutch State 19. Provincial Autonomy and the Survival of the Union. Select Bibliography. Index.

Arable Land Loss in Rural China: Policy and Implementation in Jiangsu Province

This article discusses the loss of farmland in Jiangsu Province China the Land Administration Law and the national effectiveness of land management policies. The article presents a description of the arable land loss in Jiangsu Province the land management bureaucracy and land management practices in three townships. Evidence reveals that arable land loss is continuing despite national efforts to slow or reverse the losses. The relationship between the Chinese state and townships is complex and far from unified. Local self-interests may differ from the interests of higher level leaders. The bureaucratic apparatus of the nation penetrates local areas but local bureaucrats must balance competing interests. Local leaders must place a priority on conservation of arable land. Arable land accounts for 9.96% of total land area. During 1949-92 cultivated land area declined by 2.51% but population increased from about 542 million to over 1.158 billion. Per capita arable land area declined from an estimated 2.71 mu to about 1.26 mu during 1949-91. Land losses resulted from expansion of rural housing factories roads and other construction projects during the 1980s. A National Land Administration Law was passed in 1986. An estimated 20-33% of reclaimed farmland escaped registration. A Land Management Bureau was set up with offices at all levels. Each township or town level government was required to work out a management plan that would restrict nonagricultural uses of land and promote construction on nonagricultural land. Capital construction must follow established rules and approval by governments. The law stipulates penalties and compensation. In Jiangsu 18% of farmland was lost during 1949-92. Per capita arable land declined from 2.35 mu to .98 mu in Jiangsu. Loss was primarily due to village construction. Administration of national law resulted in many cases of illegal land use. Land losses increased when rural economic growth increased during the 1990s.

Mexican ethnohistory: Cultural adaptation and social inequality

Lockhart, James. Nahuas and Spaniards: Postconquest Central Mexican History and Philology. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1991. xiii + 304 pp. including notes, glossary, bibliographical appendix, references, and index. $42.50 cloth. Haskett, Robert. Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991. xii + 294 pp. including tables, map, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $17.50 paper. Harvey, H. R., ed. Land and Politics in the Valley of Mexico: A Two‐Thousand Year Perspective. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991. xiii + 325 pp. including references and index. $35.00 cloth. Murphy, Arthur D. and Alex Stepick. Social Inequality in Oaxaca. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. xix + 282 pp. including figures, notes, bibliographic essay, and index. $39.95 cloth, $16.95 paper.

Conflicten Rond Predikantsbenoemingen in Enkele Hollandse Steden, Ca. 1670-1770

AbstractWithin the rather complex relationship between State and Church the appointment of ministers has always been of the greatest importance. Attempts to make a regulation, which would be valid in all the towns of the province of Holland, were not successful because of the fundamental disagreement between church and civil authorities on the limits of competence on both sides. The "broad" church council, composed of ministers, elders and deacons and sometimes also former elders and representatives of the town government (commissarissen politiek) officially decided on the selection of ministers. In almost every town however, the church council had to ask the burgomasters for permission to set the procedure in motion. In the end the council had to present a select list of three candidates and finally the name of the candidate the majority of its members thought preferable. This procedure offered the town governments ample opportunities to intervene. They could decline to initiate the selection process, impose conditions or veto unsuitable candidates. Many church councils considered these interventions as unacceptable encroachments on their rights and freedom. The appointments of ministers were always potential causes of discord between the civil authorities and the church councils. The article deals with the many conflicts in a number of towns in the province of Holland between 1670 and 1770. The beginning is marked by the political crisis of 1672 which resulted in the restoration of the stadholderly regime under William III. The Voetians, the Reformed orthodoxy, hoped for support of the stadholder in their theological struggle with the adherents of Coccejus. In the second half of the 18th century this conflict had lost its original character and furthermore the dissension within the Reformed Church was no longer mainly based on disagreement between these two groups but the changed situation had produced a tripartition. Somewhat later political elements began influencing the internal relations. Analysis of the conflicts leads to the conclusion, that local circumstances often played a decisive part. It also demonstrates the complex and comprehensive character of these collisions. Yet it is possible to categorize the various conflicts by distinguishing between different, although closely interconnected, dominating factors: 1. religious antagonism within the Reformed Church (the richtingenstrijd); 2. discord between political factions within the town governments; 3. differing opinions on the relation between church and state at the local level and more specifically the part played by the church council in the selection procedure; 4. nepotism and favouritism; and 5. meddling by the Orange stadholders in the appointments of ministers under William III and after the restoration of the Orangist regime in 1747.

The Social Mechanisms of Urban Rebellion: A Case Study of Leadership in the 1614 Revolt at La Rochelle

What enabled one man to become the audacious and redoubtable leader of a prolonged urban rebellion that transformed the government of a major seventeenth-century French provincial town? In the pages that follow, I will provide some preliminary answers to this question. The town was La Rochelle, a seaport of twenty thousand inhabitants and a heavily fortified Calvinist outpost dominating the wild, marine west country of France. The rebellion was an ensemble of increasingly violent conflicts from February to August 1614, which pitted a coalition of unenfranchised merchant entrepreneurs and artisans seeking electoral access to civic offices against the one-hundred-member town council, long dominated by men from the city's oldest and wealthiest Calvinist merchant families. The council, with the strong support of La Rochelle's Calvinist church consistory, refused to relinquish exclusive control over management of civic affairs, the selection of new council members, and the staffing of subordinate municipal posts. The rebels capitalized on deep popular support within La Rochelle's large laboring population and exercised strong influence over key civic militia units. They effectively com-

Efficiency in the Production of Rural Road Services: The Case of New England Towns

An analysis of size and managerial efficiency of northern New England towns in the production of rural road services is reported. A stochastic cost frontier was used as the normative efficiency reference set. Empirical results provide evidence of economies of size in the production of road service in New England and that size inefficiencies are present. Results also suggest that managerial inefficiencies, or input use inefficiencies, are present and costs may be 40 percent higher than necessary. At issue is the effectiveness of current institutional arrangements: small town governments may best match local demand with services, but at high cost.

The future of federal city — Washington, DC

Washington, DC, the federal city, is a planner’s ideal playground. As a one-industry town (government), forces at play and their potential interactions are relatively clear and therefore are a good place to begin exploring future choices for it and larger, more complex communities. Primary emphasis will be on forces and factors shaping the future of the federal government, the economic base of the community, and the associated implications for change. Changes in the Washington, DC, situation over the next 60 years conveniently break into three clusters.

The Common Fields of England.

The characteristics of English common fields the origins of common fields field-courses field and fold town government common field and severality common fields overseas.

Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca

Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca. Robert Haskett. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991. xii + 294 pp. $17.50 (paper). ISBN 0–8263–1287‐X.

Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca

Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca

Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca

Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca

Ethnology in the Third ReichVolkerkunde im Nationalsozialismus: Aspekte der Anpassung, Affinitat und Behauptung einer wissenschaftlichen Disziplin.Hans Fischer

Previous articleNext article No AccessBooksEthnology in the Third Reich Volkerkunde im Nationalsozialismus: Aspekte der Anpassung, Affinitat und Behauptung einer wissenschaftlichen Disziplin. Hans Fischer Jan J. De WolfJan J. De Wolf Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 33, Number 4Aug. - Oct., 1992 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/204100 Views: 5Total views on this site Copyright 1992 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological ResearchPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca

Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca

Indigenous rulers: an ethnohistory of town government in colonial Cuernavaca

Indigenous rulers: an ethnohistory of town government in colonial Cuernavaca

Anti-puritanism and urban politics: Charles I and Great Yarmouth

AbstractThis article is a study of political conflicts in Yarmouth during the 1620s and 1630s between a group of puritan aldermen and their anti-puritan opponents. These focused firstly on efforts initiated by Bishop Harsnet to remove the stipendiary lecturers supported by the puritans; and secondly on attempts by the anti-puritan aldermen to introduce a less ‘popular’ form of town government by revising Yarmouth's charter. Throughout these conflicts the anti-puritan side were able to secure considerable backing at court, particularly from Charles I, through employing a rhetoric which highlighted the threat to order and authority presented by a combination of puritanism and ‘popularity’. The article shows how strong fears of this threat were at the heart of the Caroline regime, and how the actions which resulted could cause deep local divisions. It also illustrates the ways in which local interest groups and their supporters manoeuvred around the king to achieve their ends.

Hakka Mausoleums in North Taiwan

This essay is about an unusual form of corporate kin group burial practiced by Hakka in northern Taiwan. Following a brief history of settlement in the district under consideration, I describe two contrasting styles of burial, with the emphasis placed on the arrangement of the dead in family mausoleums. Several principles which reveal the hierarchy of the ancestors are derived from the examples presented. Burial practices encountered on the Chinese mainland which are analogous to the Taiwan form are later discussed. The object of this comparative exercise is to show that Chinese corporate kin groups exist in the absence of common property; the manipulation of agnatic relations through ritual and common action are sufficient expressions of corporateness. Burial in southeastern mainland China and on Taiwan is usually of single individuals or of individuals together with their spouses in dispersed graves at scattered locations.1 This emphasis on the physical remains of the individual ancestor stands in marked contrast to the collective representation of the souls of the ancestors by means of ancestor tablets (tsu-hsien p'ai-wei) placed together on altars in lineage halls (ts'u-t'ang) and, for kin groups not organized as lineages, on domestic altars. Ahern (1973), Chuang (1990), Freedman (1979), Pasternak (1973) and Watson (1982) discuss the placement of graves in Chinese society and show that the preferred, dispersed pattern is an attempt on the part of the living to avail themselves of benefits which may be channelled from the magical forces of the earth (feng-shui) through the proper siting of their ancestor's graves. The efficacy of these forces varies according to highly specific topographic conditions, an understanding of the rules of which is an esoteric study mastered by ritual specialists. In light of the Chinese preference for dispersed burials and the underlying belief in the magical forces of the earth, an innovative practice of common burial in monumental tombs is worthy of attention. The analysis of corporate burials which follows is based on research carried out in Chung-hsin Village in Hsin-chu County (hsien), Taiwan. Chung-hsin, and the district in which it is located, is populated by Hakka whose ancestors migrated to Taiwan from coastal counties in Kwangtung Province during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The district is in the foothills of the mountains which form Taiwan's central spine; the Hakka population which settled the area generally arrived later from the mainland than Hokkien who inhabit the coastal plains immediately to the west. The district is primarily rural and is comprised of three administrative townships (hsiang), the dominant town of each of which is also the seat of the township government. The three townships of the district are together called the Ta-ai (great guardpost) by residents. The Ta-ai district was carved out of the frontier between Chinese settlers and unsinicized aborigines (sheng-fan) between 1830 and 1860. Prior to 1830, the Ta-ai district was an unknown, unsurveyed, and ungoverned area. While the availability of virgin land attracted

An Introduction to China's Health Care System

The Chinese health care system was originally a highly centralized one. It had great success in improving the people's health. The county-township-village three-tier health care system has contributed much to rural primary health care, and has set an example of primary health care to the developing nations. In the 1980s, this system experienced transformations along with the changes of the country's administrative system and economic policy. The transformations are characterized by the disintegration of the rural cooperative medical service, by the decentralization of township hospitals from county to township governments, by official permission for private practice, by the implementation of the personal responsibility system in health institutions, by the health security reform, and by the development of health insurance in rural areas. The long-existing health administrative problems which were aggravated in the last decade are the rural-urban differences in resource allocation and the large proportion of people without health security. With the increase of medical service prices in recent years due to the inflation of the whole economy, it is believed that the cost of health care will create an economic burden to the low-income, fee-for-service paying individuals and will further affect the health of the population. In the process of the national economic reform, it is an important and difficult task for the health administrators to adjust the health care system promptly and properly. Only by continuously carrying forward good traditions, correcting mistakes and consistently persisting in health reform, can China further raise its health care to a new, prosperous stage.

Pareto‐Efficiency and the Provision of Public Goods Within a Rural Setting

ABSTRACTThe ability of small rural governments to provide local public goods in a Pareto‐efficient manner is examined. A test developed by Brueckner (1982) is used to examine the efficiency of a sample of town governments in rural Maine. The empirical results suggest that local property values are maximized, which implies that local public goods are provided in a Pareto‐efficient manner.

The Least Glorious, Most Local, Most Trivial, Homely, Provincial, and Most Ignored Form of Local Government

Scholars in the area of state and local government, for the most part, ignore local governments called towns and townships, write them off as insignificant, or assume they will wither away and disappear over the next few years. Yet, these presumably insignificant local governments serve 51 million residents, nearly half the population of township states, and are of increasing importance as local governing bodies in urban and suburban areas. The activities of township governments range from providing very limited service to acting as full-scale municipal corporations that provide all local public schools and even county-type services.