To govern China : evolving practices of power

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To govern China : evolving practices of power

edited by Vivienne Shue, Patricia M. Thornton

Cambridge University Press, 2018

  • : pbk

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Description

How, practically speaking, is the Chinese polity - as immense and fissured as it has now become - actually being governed today? Some analysts highlight signs of 'progress' in the direction of more liberal, open, and responsive rule. Others dwell instead on the many remaining 'obstacles' to a hoped-for democratic transition. Drawing together cutting-edge research from an international panel of experts, this volume argues that both those approaches rest upon too starkly drawn distinctions between democratic and non-democratic 'regime types', and concentrate too narrowly on institutions as opposed to practices. The prevailing analytical focus on adaptive and resilient authoritarianism - a neo-institutionalist concept - fails to capture what are often cross-cutting currents in ongoing processes of political change. Illuminating a vibrant repertoire of power practices employed in governing China today, these authors advance instead a more fluid, open-ended conceptual approach that privileges nimbleness, mutability, and receptivity to institutional and procedural invention and evolution.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction: beyond implicit political dichotomies and linear models of change in China Vivienne Shue and Patricia M. Thornton
  • Part I. Leadership Practices: 1. Cultural governance in contemporary China: 're-orienting' party propaganda Elizabeth J. Perry
  • 2. China's core executive in economic policy: pursuing national agendas in a fragmented polity Sebastian Heilmann
  • 3. Maps, dreams, and the trails to heaven: envisioning a future Chinese nation-space Vivienne Shue
  • Part II. People's Government: 4. 'Mass supervision' and the bureaucratization of governance in China Joel Andreas and Yige Dong
  • 5. Shared fictions and informal politics in China Robert P. Weller
  • Part III. Expedients of the Local State: Bargains and Deals: 6. Seeing like a grassroots state: producing power and instability in China's bargained authoritarianism Ching Kwan Lee and Yong Hong Zhang
  • 7. Finding China's urban: bargained land conversions, local assemblages, and fragmented urbanization Luigi Tomba
  • Part IV. Governance of the Individual and Techniques of the Self: 8. Governing from the middle? Understanding the making of China's middle classes Jean-Louis Rocca
  • 9. A new urban underclass? Making and managing 'vulnerable groups' in contemporary China Patricia M. Thornton
  • 10. The policy innovation imperative: changing techniques for governing China's local governors Christian Goebel and Thomas Heberer.

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