Reclaiming Legitimacy in Postrevolutionary China: Bringing Ideology and Governance Back In
01 Jan 2011-pp 17-38
TL;DR: The contemporary politics of China reflect an ongoing effort by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to reclaim the right to rule in light of the consequences of economic development, international pressures, and historical change.
Abstract: The contemporary politics of China reflects an ongoing effort by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to reclaim the right to rule in light of the consequences of economic development, international pressures, and historical change. China stands out within the Asian region for the relative success the regime has achieved in that effort. While the CCP does face challenges to its legitimacy, those challenges are for the most part defeated by regime claims. In some respects, China is a classically Asian case: a democratic opposition struggles against the rational-legal and economic performance claims of the regime.
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TL;DR: The recent debate in China on the role of microblogs in the governance process, as documented in the reports issued by Chinese research institutes and advisory bodies, illustrates the efforts being undertaken by China's political elites to integrate microblogs into their new public management strategy as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The Chinese party-state is currently adapting its governance strategy. The recent debate in China on the role of microblogs in the governance process, as documented in the reports issued by Chinese research institutes and advisory bodies, illustrates the efforts being undertaken by China's political elites to integrate microblogs into their new public management strategy. Mass protests and large-scale online criticism—voiced via microblogs—directly threaten the regime's survival. As a consequence, legitimacy is no longer regarded as being inherent, but as something that has instead to be permanently regained and reaffirmed. To increase the system's efficiency and to generate a new kind of symbolic legitimacy, China's political elites tend to base the political decision-making process on strategic calculations intended to be reflective of public online opinion. The turn toward a more responsive way of governing by the Chinese party-state demonstrates once more the adaptability of authoritarian one-party states in the digital era.
71 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the Chinese state reflects the standard accounts of the developmental state, but the conventional wisdom of the DS alone cannot capture comprehensively the features of Chinese development.
Abstract: To what extent can the theory of the developmental state (DS) illuminate China’s development? This paper argues that the Chinese state reflects the standard accounts of the DS, but the conventional wisdom of the DS alone cannot capture comprehensively the features of Chinese development. In all aspects of standard accounts of the DS, China’s development embodies new characteristics. It is the Chinese DS with these new characteristics that has brought about China’s economic success. Consequently, the Chinese DS broadens the traditional concept of the DS and explores a new way for the development of some countries with similar social and economic backgrounds, particularly the economies in post-socialist transformation.
12 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnography of respect-the-elderly-home (REH) in rural China in the first decade of the 21st century is presented, which reveals a secret function of this organisation and argues for a heterotopian looking-glass perspective to conceptualize it.
Abstract: This thesis represents an endeavour to study and rethink bureaucracy through an ethnography of the bureaucratic organisation called ‘Respect-the-Elderly Home’ (REH) in rural China in the first decade of the 21st century. Its contextual concern is to examine the phenomenon of old age support being transferred from primary groups (family and village) to the state in the processes of modern state formation, a context in which elderly support is portrayed by both the Chinese government and mainstream academic discourse as a symptom of family dysfunction and moral crisis; and a state project to build up REHs to host the welfare category of ‘Five-Guarantee Elderly’ is hailed to be practically therapeutic and ideologically significant.
Based on long term fieldwork in one REH in southwestern China and more REHs generally (April 2010 – June 2011), this thesis reveals a secret function of this organisation, namely, ‘accommodative inversion’, and argues for a heterotopian looking-glass perspective to conceptualise it. The first chapter outlines the fieldwork setting in a way that its heterotopian qualities are simultaneously presented. The following chapters are divided into two parts. The first part delineates the realities of the institution-defined order and disorders of dining, spatial layout and temporal orientation, and explores the mechanisms which make the presumable incompatibility of these distinct orders practically irrelevant. The second part explores the dialectics of state and family in service delivery, guarantee and deprivation, and the condition of the residents as the served and the serving, and explains why structural inversions are inevitable through institutional processes beyond individual intention.
This research brings the myth of our era – of bureaucracy and in particular of the Chinese bureaucracy – into a dialogue with the literature on bureaucratic organisation that has emerged in social science since the 1960s. More significantly, by disclosing and expounding the violent nature of state welfare, it presents a fundamental challenge to conventional understandings of benefactor and beneficiary in state provision.
7 citations
Cites background from "Reclaiming Legitimacy in Postrevolu..."
...A number of political analysts argued that economic growth, while having provided a short-term fillip to party legitimacy, was, like revolutionary legitimacy, bound to be exhausted (Holbig 2011)....
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03 Apr 2018
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper explored media regulation in China and argued that the country's broadcasting regulatory strategies of becoming more legal-rational and law-based have been affected by two forces: the Chinese Party-state's attempt to recast the foundation of its political legitimacy, and the legitimizing power of legal rationality per se.
Abstract: This paper explores media regulation in China and argues that the country’s broadcasting regulatory strategies of becoming more legal–rational and law based have been affected by two forces: the Chinese Party-state’s attempt to recast the foundation of its political legitimacy, and the legitimizing power of legal rationality per se. The legitimization of media-regulatory efforts have primarily centered on procedural justice of the rule of law in the following ways: enacting stable new broadcasting laws (stability); instituting public consultation in rule making (procedural inclusiveness); strengthening law enforcement (enforcement); and placing checks on administrative power (restriction of state power). The advantages of this procedural legitimization are that it provides predictability by restricting arbitrariness in the exercise of administrative power and providing some opportunity for public participation, while limiting regulatory authority. On the other hand, Chinese media regulation still requires mechanisms to secure its operational transparency, accountability and deliberation to avoid being cast as a legitimizing ritual. This paper also argues that procedural legality and justice is a necessary, but insufficient condition for obtaining the media regulator’s legal–rational legitimacy, and given the status of the country’s constitution and its weaknesses in political participation, accountability and transparency in national law making, the content of the media regulation itself must also manifest the social and political values of protecting citizen and media rights.
7 citations
11 Feb 2015
1 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 2005TL;DR: The authors presented a model of social change that predicts how the value systems play a crucial role in the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, and that modernisation brings coherent cultural changes that are conducive to democratisation.
Abstract: This book demonstrates that people's basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behaviour. These changes are roughly predictable: to a large extent, they can be interpreted on the basis of a revised version of modernisation theory presented here. Drawing on a massive body of evidence from societies containing 85 percent of the world's population, the authors demonstrate that modernisation is a process of human development, in which economic development gives rise to cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely. The authors present a model of social change that predicts how the value systems play a crucial role in the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions - and that modernisation brings coherent cultural changes that are conducive to democratisation.
3,016 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: In this paper, a social science and the social construction of Legitimacy in the modern state is discussed. But the focus is not on the state itself, but on the social structure of legitimacy and its need for legitimacy.
Abstract: Preface to the 2nd edition.- Preface to the 1st edition.- Introduction.- PART I: THE CRITERIA FOR LEGITIMACY.- 1. Towards a Social-Scientific Concept of Legitimacy.- 2. Power and its need of Legitimation.- 3. The Intellectual Structure of Legitimacy.- 4. Social Science and the Social Construction of Legitimacy.- PART II: LEGITIMACY IN THE MODERN STATE.- 5. Dimensions of State Legitimacy.- 6. Crisis Tendencies of Political Systems.-7. Modes of Non-Legitimate Power.- 8. Legitimacy in Political Science and Political Philosophy.- 9. The Legitimation of Power in the 21st Century.- PART III: LEGITIMACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY.- 10. Legitimacy Within the State.- 11. Legitimacy Beyond the State.
1,603 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a quantitative measurement of the political legitimacy of states in the late 1990s and early 2000s for 72 states containing 5.1 billion people, or 83 per cent of the world's population.
Abstract: . This article presents a quantitative measurement of the political legitimacy of states in the late 1990s and early 2000s for 72 states containing 5.1 billion people, or 83 per cent of the world's population. First, the concept of state legitimacy is defined and justified. The definition includes the subjects, objects and sub-types of legitimacy. A strategy to achieve replicable cross-national measurements of legitimacy is then outlined and implemented, including a discussion of data sources and three alternative aggregation methods. The results are briefly examined and tested, and the uncertainties of quantitative measures discussed. Finally, the role of supplementary qualitative measurement is considered.
336 citations
Book•
01 Aug 2004
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper presented a map of the People-Aes Republic of China (PER of China) with a note on translation, transliteration, names, and measures.
Abstract: @fmct:Contents @toc4:Figures and Tables 000 A Note on Translation, Transliteration, Names, and Measures 000 Map of the PeopleAes Republic of China 000 Abbreviations 000 @toc2:1 Economic Transition and the Problem of Governance in China 000 2 Market Transition and the Remaking of the Administrative State 000 Appendix: The Composition of the State Council, 1992 and 2003 000 3 Institutional Development and the Quest for Fiscal Prowess and Market Order 000 4 The Smuggling Crisis and the Leveling of the Economic Playing Field 000 5 Administrative Rationalization and the Reorientation of Government Behavior 000 6 Market Incentives and the Disciplining of Government Discretion 000 7 Institutional Reforms and the Struggle against Corruption 000 8 Institutions of Horizontal Accountability and Good Governance: Legislative Oversight and Government Audit 000 9 Conclusions @toc4:Abbreviations for Journals, Newspapers, and Other Sources Notes Bibliography Index Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication:
333 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: The authors studied the causes, content, and consequences of nationalism in China, an ancient empire that has struggled to construct a nation-state and find its place in the modern world, and revealed how leaders of the PRC have adopted a pragmatic strategy to use nationalism while struggling to prevent it from turning into a menace rather than a prop.
Abstract: This is the first historically comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of the causes, content, and consequences of nationalism in China, an ancient empire that has struggled to construct a nation-state and find its place in the modern world. It shows how Chinese political elites have competed to promote different types of nationalism linked to their political values and interests and imposed them on the nation while trying to repress other types of nationalism. In particular, the book reveals how leaders of the PRC have adopted a pragmatic strategy to use nationalism while struggling to prevent it from turning into a menace rather than a prop.
326 citations