Journal ArticleDOI
China's Turn Against Law
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Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper argue that Chinese leaders' shift against law is a distinct domestic political reaction to building pressures in the Chinese system and is a top-down authoritarian response motivated by social stability concerns.Abstract:
Chinese authorities are reconsidering legal reforms they enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. These reforms had emphasized law, litigation, and courts as institutions for resolving civil grievances between citizens and administrative grievances against the state. But social stability concerns have led top leaders to question these earlier reforms. Central Party leaders now fault legal reforms for insufficiently responding to (or even generating) surging numbers of petitions and protests.Chinese authorities have now drastically altered course. Substantively, they are de-emphasizing the role of formal law and court adjudication. They are attempting to revive pre-1978 Maoist-style court mediation practices. Procedurally, Chinese authorities are also turning away from the law. They are relying on political, rather than legal, levers in their effort to remake the Chinese judiciary. This Article analyzes the official Chinese turn against law. These Chinese developments are not entirely unique. American courts have also experienced a broad shift in dispute resolution patterns over the last century. Litigation has fallen out of favor. Court trials have dropped in number. Alternative dispute resolution mechanisms have increased in number. Observing such long-term patterns, Marc Galanter concluded that the United States experienced a broad “turn against law” over the 20th century. China’s shift also parallels those in other developing countries. In recent decades, nations such as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines have resuscitated or formalized traditional mediative institutions. This is part of a global reconsideration of legal norms and institutions imported or transplanted from the West.Despite these similarities with global trends, this Article argues that Chinese leaders’ shift against law is a distinct domestic political reaction to building pressures in the Chinese system. It is a top-down authoritarian response motivated by social stability concerns. This Article also analyzes the risks facing China as a result of the shift against law. It argues that the Chinese leadership’s concern with maintaining social stability in the short term may be leading them to take steps that are having severe long-term effects of undermining Chinese legal institutions and destabilizing China.Last, this Article argues for rethinking the trajectory of Chinese legal studies. Scholars need to shift away from focusing on formal Chinese law and legal institutions in order to understand how the Chinese legal system actually operates and the direction it is heading.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
China’s 2008 Labor Contract Law: Implementation and implications for China’s workers
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present empirical evidence from household and firm survey data collected during 2009-2010 on the implementation of the 2008 Labor Contract Law and its effects on China's workers.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Rise of the Chinese Security State
Yuhua Wang,Carl F. Minzner +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that this trend goes back to the early 1990s, when central Party authorities adopted new governance models that differed dramatically from those of the 1980s.
Journal ArticleDOI
Law and Courts in Authoritarian Regimes
TL;DR: The authors examines the ways in which law and courts are deployed as instruments of governance, how they structure state-society contention, and the circumstances in which courts are transformed into sites of active resistance.
Book
Authoritarian Legality in China: Law, Workers, and the State
TL;DR: For example, this article found that workers with high levels of education are far more likely to claim these new workplace rights and be satisfied with the results, while many others, left disappointed with the large gap between law on the books and law in reality, reject the courtroom for the streets.
Journal ArticleDOI
The authoritarian logic of regulatory pluralism: Understanding China's new environmental actors
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for a subjective definition of regulation in a context of pluralism, and find that regulatory pluralism need not coincide with a decentring of regulation, and highlight how entry onto the regulatory landscape affects the non-regulatory roles of new actors.
References
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Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: The Case of Divorce
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Journal ArticleDOI
State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China: CCP Cadre Management from a Township Perspective
TL;DR: Li et al. as mentioned in this paper argue against the view that the capacity of the central state has declined in the reform era in China and examine how reforms have been introduced into the old system of cadre management to make it more effective, but also how higher levels of the party-state have improved monitoring and strengthened political control through promoting successful township leaders to hold concurrent positions at higher levels and rotating them between different administrative levels and geographical areas.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mobilizing the Law in China: “Informed Disenchantment” and the Development of Legal Consciousness
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors examined the development of legal consciousness among legal aid plaintiffs in Shanghai and observed positive changes in feelings of individual efficacy and competency that are combined with more negative evaluations/perceptions of the legal system in terms of its fairness and effectiveness.
BookDOI
Law in Imperial China : exemplified by 190 Ch'ing dynasty cases (translated from the Hsing-an Hui-lan), with historical, social, and juridical commentaries
Derk Bodde,Clarence Morris +1 more
Book ChapterDOI
The Cadre Evaluation System at the Grass Roots: The Paradox of Party Rule
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the nature of the evaluation system helps to explain dysfunctional aspects of policy implementation at the grass roots and that problems with policy implementation, in turn, help to explain subsequent changes in evaluation system itself.