Work Report
Dear Prof. Jane K. Winn:
During the period of time from the beginning of the program by now, according to my research proposal and your suggestion, I have been doing my research work actively. The activities I have taken include the followings:
1. Auditing selected classes
The classes I have attended are as follows:
- LAW IN CHINA
- INTRO TO AM POL
- AM POL SEM
- INTRO TO COMPARATIVE POL
- NEWS MEDIA PUB POL
- INTRO TO POL THEORY
- THEORIES OF STATE
- INT’L PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
- GOVT & POL OF CHINA
- INTRO TO SOC & POL PHIL
Besides the above classes, I also selected some classes, that are helpful for my future teaching, to audit. Such as:
- INTRO TO MICROECON
- INTRO TO MACROECON
- MNG HUMAN CAP
- MNG HUM RES
- INTRO TO ENTREP
- BKG & FINCL SYST
- FIN MKT
- COLLOQ IN HIST
- DOC SM IN FIN ECON
2. Getting on-site experience
The following places I have visited and got much valuable first-hand materials:
- U.S. 9th District Courthouse
- Government and Legislation of Washington State in Olympia
- King County Courthouse
- City Hall of Seattle
- King County Administration: Voters’ Registration Office
- Several museums
- Churches
- The bail bonds office
- Muckleshoot Casino as an observer not as a gambler
3. Going to library, reading and collecting data
The following libraries and databank I have been visiting very often:
- Suzzallo-Allen Library of UW
- Law School Library of UW
- East Asia Library of UW
- Seattle Public Library
- Some important political info online databanks, e.g. CQ.com
So far, I have collected the following important papers (incl. Working papers, many from John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) that can be very helpful for the literature survey in my research paper:
- Pepper D. Culpepper. 2000. The Sources of Policy Innovation: Sub-National Constraints on Negotiated Reform
- Pippa Norris. 2000. US Campaign 2000: Of Pregnant Chads,Butterfly Ballots and Partisan Vitriol
- Susan C. Eaton. 2001. IF You Can Use Them: Flexibility Policies,Organizational Commitment and Perceived Performance
- Cary Coglianese and Jennifer Nash. 2001. Bolstering Private Environmental Management
- Cary Coglianese. 2001. Is Consensus an Appropriate Basis forRegulatory Policy?
- Merilee S. Grindle. 2000. Designing Reforms:Problems, Solutions, and Politics
- Pippa Norris. 2001. Making Democracies Work: Social Capital and Civic Engagement in 47 Societies
- Pippa Norris and David Sanders. 2001. Knows Little, Learns Less? An experimental study of the impact of the media on learning
- Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski. 2001. The Iceberg And The Titanic: Electoral Defeat, Policy Moods, And Party Chang
- Pippa Norris. 2001. Preaching to the Converted? Pluralism, Participation, and Party Websites
- Cary Coglianese and David Lazer. 2001. Management-Based Regulation: Using Private-Sector Management to Achieve Public Goals
- Xavier de Souza Briggs. 2002. Community Building: The New (and Old) Politics of Urban Problem-Solving
- Joseph Zeira. 2002. Inequality and Mobility
- Taeku Lee and J. Eric Oliver. 2002. Public Opinion and the Politics of Americas Obesity Epidemic
- Joseph P. Kalt, Kenneth Grant, and Jonathan Taylor. 2002. Public Policy Analysis of Indian Gaming in Massachusetts
- Cary Coglianese. 2002. Empirical Analysis and Administrative Law
- Cary Coglianese. 2002. Is Satisfaction Success? Evaluating Public Participation in Regulatory Policymaking
- Stephen Cornell and Joseph Kalt. 2003. Alaska Native Self-Government and Service Delivery: What Works?
- David Clark, Sharon Gillett, William Lehr, Marvin. 2003. Local Government Stimulation of Broadband:Effectiveness, E-Government, and Economic Development
- Jane E. Fountain. 2003. Information, Institutions and Governance:Advancing a Basic Social Science Research Program for Digital Government
- Scott Johnson, Nolan H. Miller, John W. Pratt and Richard J. Zeckhauser. 2003. Efficient Design with Multidimensional, Continuous Types, and Interdependent Valuations
- Mathias Risse. 2003. Democracy and Social Choice: A Response to Saari
- Pippa Norris. 2003. Will New Technology Boost Turnout? Evaluating Experiments in E-Voting v. All-Postal Voting Facilities in UK Local Elections
- Archon Fung, Mary Graham, and David Weil. 2003. The Political Economy of Transparency What Makes Disclosure Policies Sustainable?
- Mathias Risse. 2003. Can There be “Libertarianism without Inequality”? Some Worries About the Coherence of Left-Libertarianism
- Mathias Risse. 2003. Do We Live in an Unjust World?
- Thomas E. Patterson. 2003. Diminishing Returns: A Comparison of the 1968 and 2000 Election Night Broadcasts
- Cary Coglianese. 2004. E-Rulemaking: Information Technology and the Regulatory Process David King and David Morehouse. 2004. Moving Voters in the 2000 Presidential Campaign: Local Visits, Local Media
- Robert Stavins. 2004. Introduction to the Political Economy of Environmental Regulation
- John Gerard Ruggie. 2004. American Exceptionalism, Exemptionalism and Global Governance
- Elaine Kamarck. 2004. Government Innovation Around the World
- Robert N. Stavins. 2004. Can an Effective Global Climate Treaty be Based on Sound Science, Rational Economics, and Pragmatic Politics?
- Robert D. Behn and Elizabeth K. Keating. 2004. Facing the Fiscal Crises in State Governments: National Problem; National Responsibilities
- Steven J. Kelman. 2004. Changing Big Government Organizations: Easier than meets the eye?
- David C. King Richard J. Zeckhauser Mark T. Kim. 2004. The Management Performance of the U.S. States
- John Gerard Ruggie. 2004. Reconstituting the Global Public Domain: Issues, Actors and Practices
- Cary Coglianese. 2004. The Internet and Citizen Participation in Rulemaking
- Todd L. Pittinsky and Cheng Zhu. 2005. Contemporary Public Leadership in China: A Research Review and Consideration
4. Doing relevant research to support the main topic
In order to improve my research, I have been doing the following relevant research topics:
(1) Study of Ameican political websites from the angle of view of politics and democracy, not technology
In this research, I have visited and been studying the following political websites:
- The White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/
- U.S. Senate: http://www.senate.gov/
- Supreme Court of the U.S.: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
- Office of Management and Budget: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/index.html
- Public Disclosure Commisssion: http://www.pdc.wa.gov/
- Federal Election Commission: http://www.fec.gov/
- American Polictical Science Association: hppt://www. apsanet.org
- Democratic National Committee: hppt://www.democrats.org
- The U.S. Social Security Administration: http://www.ssa.gov/
- Washington State Govt: hppt://access.wa.gov
(2) Study of the role of news media in structuring of formal/ informal public products
In this research, I have visited and been studying the following political websites:
- c-span.org
- CNN
- CBS
- ABC news
- FOX
(3) Study of the public participation into public management policy-making
In this research, I have visited the following political institutions and attended their activities:
- Public hearing of Seattel City Council
- Public hearing of King County Council
(4) Study of interaction btw government and the general public
In this research, I have visited and been studying the following political websites:
- Some senators’ and representatives’offical personal websites
- U.S. government websites for kids and students: http://bensguide.gpo.gov/subject.html
5. Getting some new ideas for my research
By the end of this period, I got several following new ideas for my research:
(1) All public policies can be treated as PRODUCTS that can be consumed at different consumption level or hiberarchy, just like the Maslow’s demand hiberarchy model. So public products can be classified into high-end, medium-end, and low-end public products. Different social class has different consumption focus of public products. Different social development stage has different consupmtion focus of public products. People with different cultural background have different consupmtion demand and focus of public products. So the supply of public products should fully consider these factors.
(2) Informal public policies have been playing important role in public management of China. Informal public policies/ products in China would take complete different forms and mechanics from formal public policies/ porducts to play similar or same function of formal public policies/ products. For example, I have surprisingly found that China’s bus ticketing system, public park admission system, and other similar systems have been playing the role of informal taxation system, besides their formal public service functions. So I can get some basic idea about the characteristics of informal public products, which may include that sometimes informal public management may be very far from the formal public management system in terms of form and content. So this just determines that we can not simply apply the foreign system to China. This is just where the secret is. For instance, China mustn’t learn from USA in the aspect of free bus fare.
(3) The structure of informal public products and the evolution and trendy development of informal public products can be both modularized, modelized, and take more mathematical forms to express and demonstrate. I am developing “the model of informal public products”, “the consumption classification model of informal public products”, and “the evolution model of informal public products”, etc.
(4) I am considering to apply the theory of informal public products to develop the timetable of China’s political & legal reform which includes reform goals, reform stages, reform themes, reform strategies and reform time schedule.
(5) I have developed the draft of Chinese Mainland’s most tolerable bottomline solution of peaceful solving Taiwan Issue which I will submit to relevant governmental departments of China.
In order to further my research work, according to your suggestion and guide, in the next stage, I will take more diverse and flexible research forms and methods (e.g. to have a short-time visit to New York Public Library and other large libraries, and to have a comparative politics study of North American countries) to collect more necessary data and get more on-site experience for my research topic.
Thanks again for your offering this great opportunity to me so that I can learn and experience so much during my stay in USA.
Best wishes,
Ning Zhang
Visiting Scholar, UW Law School
Assoc. Prof., Guangzhou University, China
PhD, Zhongshan University, China
Cell phone: 206-856-0132