Ben Hillman
Biographic Data
| ID | 897403 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ben Hillman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ben |
| FAMILY NAME | Hillman |
| SIGNATURE | BEN HILLMAN |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8159-299X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 171 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The Communist Party of China: Understanding the Durability of the World's Most Powerful Political Organization
The Communist Party of China has ruled mainland China since 1949. From Marxist revolution and class struggle to market reforms and national rejuvenation, the Party has repeatedly reinvented itself and its justification for monopolizing political power. Bringing together experts from a range of disciplines around the globe, this collection serves as a guide to understanding the Party's unparalleled durability. They examine a range of themes includ…
Bureaucratic Avoidance in China’s Local Governments: The Persistence of Formalism and the Limits of Central Control
During the past decade, China’s leaders have asserted more centralized control over the country’s vast bureaucracy through stricter discipline and accountability mechanisms, expanded administrative regulations, stringent reporting requirements, and elaborate performance evaluations. Local government leaders, particularly at the county and township levels, have, for the purposes of self-preservation, responded to the increased pressures with a var…
The End of Village Democracy in China
Since Xi Jinping became China’s paramount leader in 2012, his top domestic priority has been the strengthening of the Chinese Communist Party’s power over government, economy, and society. This extends to village life, where a decades-long experiment with direct elections is being unwound by new efforts to establish Party control at the rural grassroots level. This essay draws on first-hand observation and Chinese sources to examine the ongoing C…
Law, Order and Social Control in Xi’s China
In his first term (2012–2017), Xi Jinping’s signature domestic policy was an anti-corruption campaign that targeted political enemies and venality in public office. The anti-corruption work has continued in his second term while being superseded in domestic political importance by a campaign to “Sweep Away Black and Eliminate Evil (2018–2020).” On the surface, the campaign to Sweep Away Black and Eliminate Evil is an anti-crime campaign that focu…
Quotas and ballots: The impact of positive action policies on women's representation in Indonesia
This article examines the impact of the legal candidate quota for women in Indonesia following the 2019 general elections. It argues that the legal candidate quota is working to increase women's numerical representation, even if progress is gradual and hard won. Second, it has become clear that the position of candidates on party lists is critical for electoral success. Awareness of this issue empowers women candidates and activists to lobby poli…
Urbanizing Tibet: Differential inclusion and colonial governance in the People’s Republic of China
This article examines the urbanization of Tibet. We argue that urbanization is a new technique of colonial governance for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and is characterized by what Yen Le Espiritu calls ‘differential inclusion’: a form of forcible incorporation resulting in particular spaces and populations being ‘deemed integral to the nation ... only or precisely because of their designated subordina…
China Dreams
The year 2019 marked a number of significant anniversaries for the People's Republic of China (PRC), each representing different 'Chinese dreams'. There was the centennial of the May Fourth Movement - a dream of patriotism and cultural renewal. The PRC celebrated its seventieth anniversary - a dream of revolution and national strength. It was also thirty years since the
The State Advances, the Private Sector Retreats
State media called Xi's media blitz an 'anti-anxiety pill', an antidote to a growing sense of unease among China's business community about the rapid expansion of SOEs at the expense of the private sector. An online essay published by former investment banker Wu Xiaoping in September 2018 had added to entrepreneurs' alarm by suggesting that having helped advance China's economy, the private sector should now fade away. 2 Even though online commen…
The Limits of Gender Quotas: Women's Parliamentary Representation in Indonesia
The potential for gender quotas to increase women’s parliamentary representation has been the subject of intense scholarly interest around the world. Although, at a global level, quotas are believed to have contributed to a steady increase in women’s share of parliamentary seats, there is significant variation across regions and countries. The conventional wisdom holds that cultural factors are the major constraint on the gender quota’s potential…
Increasing Women's Parliamentary Representation in Asia and the Pacific: The Indonesian Experience
In recent years, governments across Asia and the Pacific have adopted gender quotas to increase women's representation in parliament. In 2003, Indonesia introduced a 30% gender quota that, over two election cycles, contributed to an increase in women's share of seats in the national parliament from 9 per cent to 18 per cent. In the most recent (2014) elections, despite stronger enforcement of the quota provisions, expansive civil society‐led effo…
Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China's West
Despite more than a decade of rapid economic development, rising living standards, and large-scale improvements in infrastructure and services, China’s western borderlands are awash in a wave of ethnic unrest not seen since the 1950s. Through on-the-ground interviews and firsthand observations, the international experts in this volume create an invaluable record of the conflicts and protests as they have unfolded—the most extensive chronicle of e…
Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China's West
Despite a decade of rapid economic development, China’s western borderlands have experienced a wave of ethnic unrest not seen since the 1950s. Through on-the-ground interviews and firsthand observations, this volume creates an invaluable record of the conflicts and protests as they have unfolded—the most extensive chronicle of events to date
Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China
Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China
Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork in a rural southwest China county, this book examines the unwritten rules of Chinese officialdom and suggests that these rules have helped to hold the one-Party state together during decades of tumultuous political, social, and economic change. While scholars have long recognized the importance of informal institutions in Chinese politics, this study goes behind the scenes to explain how informal institu…
The Causes and Consequences of Rapid Urbanisation in an Ethnically Diverse Region: Case study of a county town in Yunnan
In contrast with China’s coastal regions, where rural urbanisation has largely been a result of industrialisation, urbanisation in the once predominantly rural towns of the interior is sometimes driven by local government policies. This article focuses on a case study of Zhongdian (Shangri-la), where urbanisation has mainly been driven by tourism. It shows that while the problem of land seizures has been generally less violent in this sparsely po…
Ethnic politics and local political parties in Indonesia
Since Indonesia's return to multiparty democracy in 1999, national law makers have introduced regulations that effectively ban ethnic or regionally based political parties. A major exception to the rule can be found in the province of Aceh where ethnic separatists were granted the right to form their own political party to contest local elections in return for giving up their armed struggle for independence. In legislative elections held in 2009 …
Power-sharing and political party engineering in conflict-prone societies: The Indonesian experiment in Aceh
Establishing legitimate political leadership through non-violent means is an essential step in the rebuilding of post-conflict societies. For this reason the successful holding of democratic elections is often seen as the crowning achievement of the peace process. In recent years, however, it has become clear that elections do not always guarantee the peace, and may in fact, make societies more dangerous.1 This has prompted political scientists t…
The policy-making dimension of post-conflict governance: The experience of Aceh, Indonesia
Rebuilding and strengthening the essential functions of government is a critical aspect of peace-building and recovery after conflict. There is now a wide literature on the challenges of post-conflict state-building based on the international community's experiences in such places as Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of this literature is concerned with the challenges of strengthening administration and service provision what might b…
Doing Business in Rural China: Liangshan's New Ethnic Entrepreneurs . Thomas Heberer
Factions and Spoils: Examining Political Behavior Within the Local State in China
While students of Chinese politics have long been interested in the impact of fiscal and administrative decentralization on patterns of governance in China, few have examined the impact of decentralization on political dynamics within the local state. Focusing on the county the level of government primarily responsible for delivering public services, managing local state-owned enterprises, and coordinating the economy this article explains how th…
China's many Tibets: Diqing as a model for ‘development with Tibetan characteristics
Using Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture as a case study, this article argues that local governance and local policies have had a major impact on local Tibetan economies and societies in China. It argues that a combination of liberal social policies and smart economic policies have helped Diqing to achieve both growth and stability in recent years. While each Tibetan region in China represents a unique blend of social, cultural, economic, geogr…
State and Ethnicity in China's Southwest . Xiaolin Guo
Lhasa: Streets with Memories . Robert Barnett
Rethinking China's Tibet Policy
Both official Chinese and exile Tibetan responses to the protests that broke across Tibet last month followed a familiar, worn-out script. For the Tibetan exiles and their international supporters, this was a last gasp for independence by the victims of cultural genocide. For the Chinese government this was premeditated mayhem orchestrated by the "Dalai clique" and "criminal elements" bent on splitting China. Both sides have it wrong
Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China . Ian Johnson
Paradise Under Construction: Minorities, Myths and Modernity in Northwest Yunnan
Until recently, Zhongdian County was a little known corner of Northwest Yunnan. All that changed when it began to call itself 'Shangri-la', the mythical paradise of the Tibetan Himalayas. On 17 December 2001, after years of intense lobbying by the county government, the State Council finally granted Zhongdian permission to officially rename itself 'Shangri-la County'. This article is an account of the economic and political forces behind the camp…
Factions and Spoils: Examining Political Behavior Within the Local State in China
While students of Chinese politics have long been interested in the impact of fiscal and administrative decentralization on patterns of governance in China, few have examined the impact of decentralization on political dynamics within the local state. Focusing on the county the level of government primarily responsible for delivering public services, managing local state-owned enterprises, and coordinating the economy this article explains how th…
The Limits of Gender Quotas: Women's Parliamentary Representation in Indonesia
The potential for gender quotas to increase women’s parliamentary representation has been the subject of intense scholarly interest around the world. Although, at a global level, quotas are believed to have contributed to a steady increase in women’s share of parliamentary seats, there is significant variation across regions and countries. The conventional wisdom holds that cultural factors are the major constraint on the gender quota’s potential…
Macho Minority: Masculinity and Ethnicity on the Edge of Tibet
This article explores the role of masculinity in articulating ethnic Tibetan identity in China. Based on interviews with Tibetans and Han Chinese in a Tibetan autonomous prefecture in China's southwest and on an examination of recent Chinese publications, the study explores the dialogue between Tibetans’ own perceptions of their ethnic identity and public representations of that identity. While previous scholarship has highlighted the role that e…
Urbanizing Tibet: Differential inclusion and colonial governance in the People’s Republic of China
This article examines the urbanization of Tibet. We argue that urbanization is a new technique of colonial governance for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and is characterized by what Yen Le Espiritu calls ‘differential inclusion’: a form of forcible incorporation resulting in particular spaces and populations being ‘deemed integral to the nation ... only or precisely because of their designated subordina…
The Causes and Consequences of Rapid Urbanisation in an Ethnically Diverse Region: Case study of a county town in Yunnan
In contrast with China’s coastal regions, where rural urbanisation has largely been a result of industrialisation, urbanisation in the once predominantly rural towns of the interior is sometimes driven by local government policies. This article focuses on a case study of Zhongdian (Shangri-la), where urbanisation has mainly been driven by tourism. It shows that while the problem of land seizures has been generally less violent in this sparsely po…
Monastic Politics and the Local State in China: Authority and Autonomy in an Ethnically Tibetan Prefecture
The Rise of the Community in Rural China: Village Politics, Cultural Identity and Religious Revival in a Hui Hamlet
China's many Tibets: Diqing as a model for ‘development with Tibetan characteristics
Using Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture as a case study, this article argues that local governance and local policies have had a major impact on local Tibetan economies and societies in China. It argues that a combination of liberal social policies and smart economic policies have helped Diqing to achieve both growth and stability in recent years. While each Tibetan region in China represents a unique blend of social, cultural, economic, geogr…
Law, Order and Social Control in Xi’s China
In his first term (2012–2017), Xi Jinping’s signature domestic policy was an anti-corruption campaign that targeted political enemies and venality in public office. The anti-corruption work has continued in his second term while being superseded in domestic political importance by a campaign to “Sweep Away Black and Eliminate Evil (2018–2020).” On the surface, the campaign to Sweep Away Black and Eliminate Evil is an anti-crime campaign that focu…
Ethnic politics and local political parties in Indonesia
Since Indonesia's return to multiparty democracy in 1999, national law makers have introduced regulations that effectively ban ethnic or regionally based political parties. A major exception to the rule can be found in the province of Aceh where ethnic separatists were granted the right to form their own political party to contest local elections in return for giving up their armed struggle for independence. In legislative elections held in 2009 …
The End of Village Democracy in China
Since Xi Jinping became China’s paramount leader in 2012, his top domestic priority has been the strengthening of the Chinese Communist Party’s power over government, economy, and society. This extends to village life, where a decades-long experiment with direct elections is being unwound by new efforts to establish Party control at the rural grassroots level. This essay draws on first-hand observation and Chinese sources to examine the ongoing C…
Quotas and ballots: The impact of positive action policies on women's representation in Indonesia
This article examines the impact of the legal candidate quota for women in Indonesia following the 2019 general elections. It argues that the legal candidate quota is working to increase women's numerical representation, even if progress is gradual and hard won. Second, it has become clear that the position of candidates on party lists is critical for electoral success. Awareness of this issue empowers women candidates and activists to lobby poli…
Increasing Women's Parliamentary Representation in Asia and the Pacific: The Indonesian Experience
In recent years, governments across Asia and the Pacific have adopted gender quotas to increase women's representation in parliament. In 2003, Indonesia introduced a 30% gender quota that, over two election cycles, contributed to an increase in women's share of seats in the national parliament from 9 per cent to 18 per cent. In the most recent (2014) elections, despite stronger enforcement of the quota provisions, expansive civil society‐led effo…
Power-sharing and political party engineering in conflict-prone societies: The Indonesian experiment in Aceh
Establishing legitimate political leadership through non-violent means is an essential step in the rebuilding of post-conflict societies. For this reason the successful holding of democratic elections is often seen as the crowning achievement of the peace process. In recent years, however, it has become clear that elections do not always guarantee the peace, and may in fact, make societies more dangerous.1 This has prompted political scientists t…
The policy-making dimension of post-conflict governance: The experience of Aceh, Indonesia
Rebuilding and strengthening the essential functions of government is a critical aspect of peace-building and recovery after conflict. There is now a wide literature on the challenges of post-conflict state-building based on the international community's experiences in such places as Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of this literature is concerned with the challenges of strengthening administration and service provision what might b…
Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi . Thomas Gold , Doug Guthrie , David Wank
China's Tibet Policy . Dawa Norbu
Paradise Under Construction: Minorities, Myths and Modernity in Northwest Yunnan
Until recently, Zhongdian County was a little known corner of Northwest Yunnan. All that changed when it began to call itself 'Shangri-la', the mythical paradise of the Tibetan Himalayas. On 17 December 2001, after years of intense lobbying by the county government, the State Council finally granted Zhongdian permission to officially rename itself 'Shangri-la County'. This article is an account of the economic and political forces behind the camp…
Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China . Stevan Harrell
Mutual Empowerment of State and Peasantry: Village Self-Government in Rural China . Xu Wang
The Rise of the Community in Rural China: Village Politics, Cultural Identity and Religious Revival in a Hui Hamlet
Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi . Thomas Gold , Doug Guthrie , David Wank
The Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity . Uradyn E. Bulag
Monastic Politics and the Local State in China: Authority and Autonomy in an Ethnically Tibetan Prefecture
Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China . Ian Johnson
Governing China's Multiethnic Frontiers . Morris Rossabi
Dislocating China: Muslims, Minorities and Other Subaltern Subjects . Dru C. Gladney
Macho Minority: Masculinity and Ethnicity on the Edge of Tibet
This article explores the role of masculinity in articulating ethnic Tibetan identity in China. Based on interviews with Tibetans and Han Chinese in a Tibetan autonomous prefecture in China's southwest and on an examination of recent Chinese publications, the study explores the dialogue between Tibetans’ own perceptions of their ethnic identity and public representations of that identity. While previous scholarship has highlighted the role that e…
Lhasa: Streets with Memories . Robert Barnett
Rethinking China's Tibet Policy
Both official Chinese and exile Tibetan responses to the protests that broke across Tibet last month followed a familiar, worn-out script. For the Tibetan exiles and their international supporters, this was a last gasp for independence by the victims of cultural genocide. For the Chinese government this was premeditated mayhem orchestrated by the "Dalai clique" and "criminal elements" bent on splitting China. Both sides have it wrong
State and Ethnicity in China's Southwest . Xiaolin Guo
Doing Business in Rural China: Liangshan's New Ethnic Entrepreneurs . Thomas Heberer
Factions and Spoils: Examining Political Behavior Within the Local State in China
While students of Chinese politics have long been interested in the impact of fiscal and administrative decentralization on patterns of governance in China, few have examined the impact of decentralization on political dynamics within the local state. Focusing on the county the level of government primarily responsible for delivering public services, managing local state-owned enterprises, and coordinating the economy this article explains how th…
China's many Tibets: Diqing as a model for ‘development with Tibetan characteristics
Using Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture as a case study, this article argues that local governance and local policies have had a major impact on local Tibetan economies and societies in China. It argues that a combination of liberal social policies and smart economic policies have helped Diqing to achieve both growth and stability in recent years. While each Tibetan region in China represents a unique blend of social, cultural, economic, geogr…
The policy-making dimension of post-conflict governance: The experience of Aceh, Indonesia
Rebuilding and strengthening the essential functions of government is a critical aspect of peace-building and recovery after conflict. There is now a wide literature on the challenges of post-conflict state-building based on the international community's experiences in such places as Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of this literature is concerned with the challenges of strengthening administration and service provision what might b…
Ethnic politics and local political parties in Indonesia
Since Indonesia's return to multiparty democracy in 1999, national law makers have introduced regulations that effectively ban ethnic or regionally based political parties. A major exception to the rule can be found in the province of Aceh where ethnic separatists were granted the right to form their own political party to contest local elections in return for giving up their armed struggle for independence. In legislative elections held in 2009 …
Power-sharing and political party engineering in conflict-prone societies: The Indonesian experiment in Aceh
Establishing legitimate political leadership through non-violent means is an essential step in the rebuilding of post-conflict societies. For this reason the successful holding of democratic elections is often seen as the crowning achievement of the peace process. In recent years, however, it has become clear that elections do not always guarantee the peace, and may in fact, make societies more dangerous.1 This has prompted political scientists t…
The Causes and Consequences of Rapid Urbanisation in an Ethnically Diverse Region: Case study of a county town in Yunnan
In contrast with China’s coastal regions, where rural urbanisation has largely been a result of industrialisation, urbanisation in the once predominantly rural towns of the interior is sometimes driven by local government policies. This article focuses on a case study of Zhongdian (Shangri-la), where urbanisation has mainly been driven by tourism. It shows that while the problem of land seizures has been generally less violent in this sparsely po…
Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China
Patronage and Power: Local State Networks and Party-State Resilience in Rural China
Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork in a rural southwest China county, this book examines the unwritten rules of Chinese officialdom and suggests that these rules have helped to hold the one-Party state together during decades of tumultuous political, social, and economic change. While scholars have long recognized the importance of informal institutions in Chinese politics, this study goes behind the scenes to explain how informal institu…
Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China's West
Despite more than a decade of rapid economic development, rising living standards, and large-scale improvements in infrastructure and services, China’s western borderlands are awash in a wave of ethnic unrest not seen since the 1950s. Through on-the-ground interviews and firsthand observations, the international experts in this volume create an invaluable record of the conflicts and protests as they have unfolded—the most extensive chronicle of e…
Political science (30 works) · Law (27 works) · Sociology (24 works) · Law (23 works) · China (22 works) · Politics (17 works) · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations (15 works) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Library science (10 works)