To Govern China: Evolving Practices of Power

Cambridge University Press, 10/26/2017
EAN 9781107193529, ISBN10: 1107193524

Hardcover, 334 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English

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.

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 Göbel and Thomas Heberer.