AHS Comparative Government

In the 1980s, the Thatcher Government severely weakened Britain's trade unions, economically and politically.  As a result, British unions represent fewer workers than they once did.  In 1979, over half of British workers were unionized; today about 25% of British workers are union members.  Moreover, the number of working days that Britain currently loses each month to strike activity is 5-10% of the number of working days that Britain typically lost each month to strikes in the 1970s.

Nonetheless, Britain's transportation sector remains heavily unionized   This month, British transport unions went on strike over pay and working conditions, frustrating holiday travelers.  As a result, some Members of Parliament from the governing Conservative Party have called for new legal restrictions on the right of transport workers to go on strike.

While Prime Minister Theresa May would prefer to focus the Government's attention on the Brexit negotiations that Britain will begin this winter, she might be willing to consider pursuing legislation imposing further restrictions on unions.  First, crafting such restrictions would help unite her party, which remains deeply divided over Brexit.  Second, transportation strikes are unpopular with the public.  Developing legislation aimed at curbing them would be popular -- it would also remind voters how close Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn is to the leaders of Britain's main transport union:

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21712150-though-their-economic-clout-has-fallen-their-political-importance-has-soared-series-planned

In Nigeria, crime is common and people do not trust the police.  As a result, mobs of angry Nigerians often kill suspected criminals.  Both the Nigerian government and "volunteer security organizations" are trying to address the problem of mob justice:

https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21712099-why-criminals-prefer-cops-mob-suspects-are-beaten-and-burned-jungle

For the past 35 years, the Chinese Communist Party has pointed to China's rapid economic growth to justify its monopoly on political power in the country.  In recent years, the CCP has also begun to rely on Chinese nationalism as an explicit source of legitimacy.  To this end, the Chinese public is reminded frequently of China's great historic achievements.  This is in contrast to the period when Mao Zedong was the Chairman of the CCP; Mao tended to ignore and even belittle China's past philosophical and technological achievements.

According to The Economist, some of the claims made by Chinese historians to feed nationalism in China may be a tad exaggerated:

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21712173-golf-footballyou-name-it-what-china-claims-have-invented

The Economist reports this week on the Chinese Government's plan to establish a digital "social credit system."  The proposed system will be like the credit score system familiar to most American consumers -- except that Chinese citizens will be scored on the desirability of their social and political behavior.  Citizens' scores will then be used to determine their eligibility for such things as the right to travel abroad, job promotions and access to public housing.  It's high-tech social control:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21711902-worrying-implications-its-social-credit-project-china-invents-digital-totalitarian

This week's issue of The Economist profiles Igor Sechin, the President of Rosneft, Russia's leading oil company.  Rosneft is state-controlled and more than 50% state-owned; Sechin, once an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is now one of Russia's wealthiest and most powerful men.  He remains a loyal Putin ally:

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21711921-russian-oil-king-former-aide-vladimir-putin-and-friend-rex-tillerson-igor-sechin-head

The New York Times reported Sunday on a tactic allegedly used by the Russian security services to discredit the opponents of the Putin regime, both inside Russia and in other countries: planting child pornography on their computers and then reporting them to the police.  Given the tactics known to have been used in the past by the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB) and its Soviet-era predecessor, the Committee for State Security (KGB), the allegation is plausible:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia-fake-news-hacking-cybersecurity.html

Eight Iranian fashion models have been sentenced to prison terms of up to six years for appearing in photographs on Instagram; the women who were convicted appeared in the photographs without hijabs (headscarves).  Four fashion bloggers who helped to disseminate the photographs were also sentenced to prison terms of up to six years.  The twelve models and bloggers were convicted of "spreading prostitution and a Western-style culture of nudity;" in addition to receiving prison terms, they were banned from working in the fashion industry.  They plan to appeal their convictions.

The sting in which the models and bloggers were arrested found 170 Iranians maintaining fashion-oriented Instagram pages; criminal proceedings were initiated against 21 of them.  Instagram remains accessible in Iran while Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are blocked.

"Twelve Fashion Bloggers and Social Media Models are Jailed in Iran for 'Spreading Prostitution and a Western-Style Culture of Nudity.'" The Daily Mail, 7 Dec. 2016. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4008684/Twelve-fashion-bloggers-social-media-models-jailed-Iran-spreading-prostitution-Western-style-culture-nudity.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2016.

Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren has completed the second phase of his investigation of the systematic use of performance-enhancing drugs by Russian athletes.  The report of McLaren's investigation, conducted on behalf of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), concludes that Russia's state-sponsored athletic doping program involved over 1000 world-class athletes in more than thirty sports; it also acknowledges that the program may have been far more extensive than what McLaren has been able to document to date.

The report finds that the 2012 London Olympic Games were "corrupted on an unprecedented scale."  It identifies the Russian Ministry of Sports, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) as the Russian state agencies that both supplied performance-enhancing drugs to Russian athletes and helped those athletes avoid detection by international sports officials:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/dec/09/more-than-1000-russian-athletes-benefitted-from-state-sponsored-doping

An article in this week's issue of The Economist explores how the example of Russian President Vladimir Putin's conservative, nationalist authoritarianism has influenced the development of right-wing populism in Europe, Asia and the United States.  The article distinguishes between what it describes as Putin's "imperial nationalism" (which is based not on Russian ethnicity but on Russian citizenship) with the "ethnic nationalism" found in right-wing, populist governments and movements in, say, Western and Central Europe:

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21711538-1930s-moscow-beacon-international-movement-russian-propaganda

Chinese industrial workers are angry about growing economic inequality in their country.  They are also worried that well-paid jobs in manufacturing are disappearing, and are being replaced by less well-paid jobs in the service sector:

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21711508-so-why-are-its-workers-unhappy-china-has-gained-hugely-globalisation

Over the past 30 years, more than 250 million people have moved from China's rural villages to the country's booming cities. Under China's tough hukou (household registration) system, almost all of this migration has been illegal. As a result, the migrants have typically been excluded from the housing, health care and educational services made available to lawful residents of Chinese cities.

Until recently, most of the migrants have been young men and women. Migrants with children have usually left them in their home villages, in the care of their own parents. This is because the children of illegal migrants are unable to attend school in Chinese cities, or are only permitted to attend separate schools for migrant children at which fees are charged and quality is low.  The same children, left in rural villages with their grandparents, are generally eligible for nine years of free education.

In the past few years, however, increasing numbers of migrants have brought their children from the countryside to live with them in Chinese cities. This reflects the greater prosperity enjoyed by the migrants, and the beginning of Chinese government efforts to reform the hukou system. (Under reforms initiated by the Chinese government, roughly one-third of the illegal migrants in Chinese cities will eventually secure legal status).

The elderly parents of the illegal migrants have also begun to move to Chinese cities. In some cases, their sons and daughters have invited them to move in, to help provide childcare to their grandchildren. In other cases, the jobs performed by these senior citizens have disappeared, and they have moved to China's cities to find work:

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21711098-more-children-more-grandparents-changing-face-chinas-migrant-population