To Govern China: Evolving Practices of Power

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 Goebel and Thomas Heberer.