REVEALING CONTINGENCY THROUGH SHUN'S 舜 ASCENSION TO THE THRONE

This article examines the story of Shun's 舜 ascension to the throne. This story has drawn considerable attention throughout Chinese history because of its significance with regard to political succession. However, in this article, I shed light on a different dimension of the story: its relevance to the issue of contingency. I investigate four texts, two excavated and two transmitted: Qiongda yi shi 窮達以時 (Failure and Success Depend on Times), Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道 (The Way of Yao and Shun), the Mengzi 孟子, and the Xunzi 荀子. At one extreme, Qiongda yi shi highlights that Shun became a king by pure chance, while at the other extreme, Xunzi interprets the event as a necessary one, emphasizing that Shun cannot but succeed Yao. The other two texts fall somewhere in between the two extremes. I use these four texts to showcase different ways of thinking about areas over which humans are believed to lack control. My claim is that these four texts offer different accounts of the same event—Shun's ascension—because they see the event from different perspectives: from a perspective of the chosen, from a perspective of the chooser, from a mise-en-scène, and from a perspective of not of this world, respectively. I argue that the diverse perspectives of these texts entail the different understandings of several related issues such as the degree of human control over the event, the important features of the event, and the content of the moral and political lessons that we draw from the event.

Cyberspace : Ruang Publik Baru bagi Aktivitas Politik Muhammadiyah

The presence of various political movements lately indicates a new appearance in the Indonesian middle class. Muhammadiyah in various previous studies has always been associated with the sociological class of the Indonesian middle class. Analysis of the middle class is always placed as "relaxed class" or "spoiled class". However, in recent cases, the class has transformed itself into a strong actor from the extra-parliamentary political arena that is able to influence political succession. The use of social media then becomes important in encouraging middle class political awareness to be an effective partisan class. This article uses the perspective of cyberactivism to elaborate more deeply on the potential of Muhammadiyah's political activism in the 2019 political year.

Leadership succession in politics: The democracy/autocracy divide revisited

Leadership succession marks a truly ubiquitous phenomenon with manifold and wide-ranging implications, which explains the major attention that issues of succession have received in the international literature. Most contributions to the field continue, however, to focus on political succession in either democratic or non-democratic regimes. This article develops an integrated perspective on key aspects of leadership succession at the level of political chief executives in democracies and autocracies. A comparative assessment across time and space reveals several features that challenge established notions, and stereotypes, of leadership succession in democratic and autocratic regimes. The empirical ambivalences identified suggest that the way leaders come to and fall from power should be made a more explicit part of conceptualisations of political regimes, and comparative evaluations of their respective democratic quality.

Kazakh business climate improves but needs reform

Subject The business climate in Kazakhstan. Significance Kazakhstan is improving its score as a business environment but much remains to be done. Corporate regulation has improved and anti-corruption efforts have been undertaken, albeit with uneven effect. Major privatisations often do not happen or end up redistributing assets within Kazakhstan. A recent restructuring of ministerial responsibilities seems likely to complicate rather than simplify the task of attracting foreign investment. Impacts Aside from structural issues, unanswered but increasingly urgent questions of political succession will weigh on investor interest. The low level of economic diversification limits the pool of investor opportunities. Kazakhstan will continue to be the main regional magnet for FDI but Uzbekistan may start catching up.