Suchergebnisse

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 'Juniority' and the generational subordination of party youth organizations -- 3 The League on Campus -- 4 The League in the workplace -- 5 Training youth cadres -- 6 In Search of Responsiveness -- Conclusion: From Hu to Xi -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index

"In 2003, President Hu Jintao instructed Communist Youth League cadres to "keep the Party assured and the Youth satisfied". This laconic recognition that winning the support of Chinese youth requires a more responsive engagement with their interests and demands, provided the League with a new youth work mandate to increase its capacity for responsiveness. This original investigation uses a combination of interviews, surveys and ethnography to examine the often contradictory and self-defeating ways the League implemented this mandate locally and nationally. By doing so, it also sheds light on Xi Jinping's decision to downgrade it politically and organizationally in 2016. This book introduces a previously unexplored organization and develops 'juniority' as a conceptual tool that captures the ways generational power is institutionalized and fuels youth political apathy. For this reason, apart from China scholars, this study will be of particular interest to those working on comparative youth politics and sociology"--Vendor's summary

Political participation entails citizens engagement to exert influence on the political process and policies in a desired direction. Therein, participation of the youth has significance as a transient yet constantly receiving community with potential to shape the course of history in any society. The activities and functions of youth organizations have been pivotal in effecting changes in the twentieth century Asian socio-political and economic realms. Under the similar circumstances, the Peoples Republic of China appears to be continuously evolving its social, economic, political and cultural regimes in response to the fluctuating demands of the citizens and the youth. This Essay fathoms changes in political participations of the youth in China, its implication on the Communist Youth League and how the Communist Youth League responds in the era of Market Economy.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards the Communist Youth League (CYL) as a critical and distinctive mass organization that acts as an "assistant" and "reserve army" for the Party. This article uses the analytical concepts of historical institutionalism and critical junctures to discuss the changes in the CYL during the post-Mao period. We focus on two critical junctures: 1982, when the CYL became a route to rapid promotion for cadres, and 2016, after which its cadres had fewer opportunities for promotion and the CYL was pushed back to its original role in youth United Front work. We also find that the CYL has refined its United Front methods to attract talented young people by offering them services. This reflects the efforts of the CCP regime to adapt to circumstances and ensure its survival. (China Q/GIGA)

The study of Soviet youth has long lagged behind the comprehensive research conducted on Western European youth culture. In an era that saw the emergence of youth movements of all sorts across Europe, the Soviet Komsomol was the first state-sponsored youth organization, in the first communist country. Born out of an autonomous youth movement that emerged in 1917, the Komsomol eventually became the last link in a chain of Soviet socializing agencies which organized the young. Based on extensive archival research and building upon recent research on Soviet youth, this book broadens our unders.

The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) youth organisation, the Communist Youth League (CYL, League), has an extensive grassroots network and approximately twelve million members in public and partially state-owned sectors of the economy, as well as a political mandate to promote 'youth' interests at work. This article examines the League's operation in the Chinese workplace by analyzing qualitative data collected during fieldwork in twelve different sites in Beijing and Zhejiang province. It was hypothesised that as League organisations are under pressure to represent youth-specific demands, their response would be similar to the Trade Unions, which try to simultaneously remain loyal to pro-management Party committees and act as grassroots channels for advocacy. The article finds that League cadres occupy junior positions in political, generational and workplace hierarchies resulting to their multifaceted subordination to more senior power holders present, namely the management, Party Committee and Union leadership. The institutionalised 'juniority' of cadres creates strong disincentives for pro-youth employee initiatives and leads to the disarticulation of a distinctive 'youth' agenda. This institutional 'gap' in workplace representation has direct implications both for the welfare of young employees and for the future of industrial relations in China.

With reference to an online platform, Qingnian zhisheng, under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Youth League, this article focuses on the process by which the Chinese government guides the public opinions of young netizens. An authoritarian performance appraisal system was adopted to command and monitor the construction and promotion process of local agencies in a top-down and hierarchical approach. Under the increasingly strict appraisal requirements, the widening contradiction between state ideology and young netizens' demands has added a burden to grassroots bureaucrats' workload and eventually forced them to deviate from the original policy objective of online youth opinion guidance by fabricating performance appraisal data. (China/GIGA)

The Communist Youth League (CYL) has attempted to engage and respond to student interests and demands by expanding its channels for participation and consultation and by deepening its involvement in the provision of welfare services. Based on qualitative and quantitative research conducted in five universities in Beijing and Zhejiang province, this article evaluates the league's engagement with its "constituency" on campus by bringing together the perspectives of both ordinary students and CYL cadres. Placing this case in a wider discussion of "authoritarian resilience" that seeks to understand the effectiveness of the Chinese regime's institutional sources of support, the article demonstrates that despite initiatives promoting responsiveness, students exhibit an even more cynical stance on both the league's newfound inclusivity and efficiency. CYL cadres occupy a weak position in the academic, generational, and political hierarchies on campus, a situation that compromises the league's potential for a renewed and more responsive engagement with students.

The Communist Youth League has developed a network of sub-organisations to expand its reach at minimum cost. It exemplifies the low-cost corporatism model. Following this model, mass organisations maintain a corporatist relationship with the Party while diversifying their activities through structures they supervise. These structures also provide them with additional material and human resources. In this configuration, the Communist Youth League maintains an equilibrium between dependence on the Party and attractiveness to young people. However, reforms put forward under Xi Jinping challenge this fragile equilibrium by strengthening Party control over the League and its sub-organisations. (China Perspect/GIGA)