May 27 2008
My Jackson School Papers
I have very mixed feelings about the papers I just finished.
The first one, the coal mine paper, started in Christine Wong’s class. I was driven by the non-stop coal mine disasters. But never found a framework in CW’s class that I can fit the paper in. CW’s class is perhaps best for MPA students: full of details but lack of narrative. And that is how the first version of this coal paper ended up with.
However, while writing it, I came to realize how BS it is for the showy part of the post-diaster damage control: officials crying for the victims and blaming everything on the locals. It was too late to change anything then.
In winter quarter, I started to consider developing my late realization into a full thesis. Gary really liked it. We hit it off really well. But none others did. Whiting’s reactions really stung. So I lived on Gary’s emotional and academic life support for about a whole quarter. I almost wandered into the Tibetan issue before Migdal stopped me cold. Only then did I forced myself to come up with something: a thesis, a framework, a narrative so I can put things together. I kept telling everyone I had everything ready, I only need a spark.
The spark came late but I delivered on the promise. The first draft took me about ten days. The second a week and last about two and half days. By no means I am satisfied with the final version. I probably never will.
The second paper was the one I did for Chirot’s ethnic conflict class. He has a sharp eye for the world and humanity and a warm personality, but not as much an eloquent lecturer as Joel. I remember after reading Herbst’s book on Africa, I was pretty disturbed and asked whether it was OK to left power consolidation to take its own course. He seemed to agree with that. It was a pretty gutsy statement.
Anyway, that paper was about natioanlism in Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Dan still wonders how I picked those two (answer: inspired by “Life in Debt”) But that was a fun little paper. It was one of those cases where I had little trouble finding support for my argument and was full of “a-ha” moments.
The current version of the coal mine paper is here.
Some excerpts:
Abstract
Today, China has the World’s worst coal mine safety record. According to one account, the number of deaths per million ton in China is about 100 times of that of the U.S., 30 times of that of South Africa, and 10 times of that of India. Although coal mining is considered one of the most dangerous industrial occupations, the fact that fatality rate remains so high for so long (for at least two decades) suggests that something is fundamentally wrong with the Chinese coal industry.
To answer the question, “Why fatality rate remains so high for so long in Chinese coal mines”, this paper studies China’s industrial policy with regard to the coal industry and the impact such a policy had on economic and institutional development. We find that the decentralization development model, often credited with having successfully transitioned China out of planned economy, may be responsible for a larger share of coal mine safety problem than some other popularly accepted factors. In other words, the structural cause of coal mine disasters is a case of flawed development policy.
Comment: promising but fuzzy.