The Qing dynasty office purchase system (juanna), which allowed individuals to pay for appointments in the government, was regarded in traditional Chinese historiography as an inherently corrupt and anti-meritocratic practice. It enabled participants to become civil and military officials while avoiding the competitive government-run examination systems. Lawrence Zhang’s groundbreaking study of a broad selection of new archival and other printed evidence—including a list of over 10,900 purchasers of offices from 1798 and narratives of purchase—contradicts this widely held assessment and investigates how observers and critics of the system, past and present, have informed this questionable negative view. The author argues that, rather than seeing office purchase as a last resort for those who failed to obtain official appointments via other means, it was a preferred method for wealthy and well-connected individuals to leverage their social capital to the fullest extent. Office purchase was thus not only a useful device that raised funds for the state, but also a political tool that, through literal investments in their positions and their potential to secure status and power, tied the interests of official elites ever more closely to those of the state.

The Qing dynasty office purchase system (juanna), which allowed individuals to pay for government appointments, was regarded in traditional Chinese historiography as inherently corrupt and anti-meritocratic. Lawrence Zhang's groundbreaking study of a broad selection of new archival and other printed evidence contradicts this widely held assessment.

Power for the People examines the tension between the social and political interests of states and the market in the case of energy policy. The author has conducted extensive research on California's experience with electricity restructuring, and assesses how the diverging interests of the market vs. the state resulted in that notable failure of energy deregulation. She includes overviews of many other states, and offers analysis on how states can balance their own interests with the market without imposing high costs on their citizens or the environment. This is the first book to look at deregulation from the point of view of the consumer and the states. Exceptionally clear, balanced, and well-written, it is essential reading for anyone interested in public policy, energy studies, and government deregulation of services, and would also be an ideal supplement for any courses in these areas.

Regulation of the Power Sector is a unified, consistent and comprehensive treatment of the theories and practicalities of regulation in modern power-supply systems. The need for generation to occur at the time of use occasioned by the impracticality of large-scale electricity storage coupled with constant and often unpredictable changes in demand make electricity-supply systems large, dynamic and complex and their regulation a daunting task. Arranged in four parts, this book addresses both traditional regulatory frameworks and also liberalized and re-regulated environments. First, an introduction gives a full characterization of power supply including engineering, economic and regulatory viewpoints. The second part presents the fundamentals of regulation and the third looks at the regulation of particular components of the power sector in detail. Advanced topics and subjects still open or subject to dispute form the content of Part IV. In a sector where regulatory design is the key driver of both the industry efficiency and the returns on investment, Regulation of the Power Sector is directed at regulators, policy decision makers, business managers and researchers. It is a pragmatic text, well-tested by the authors’ quarter-century of experience of power systems from around the world. Power system professionals and students at all levels will derive much benefit from the authors’ wealth of blended theory and real-world-derived know-how.