Publisher's Synopsis
Political power is a great enigma in contemporary China, as it operates often behind the closed doors of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the recent decades of reform, it has changed greatly in many ways while retaining its authoritarian nature. How do Chinese leaders rule this huge country? How does the regime communicate with its bureaucracies and ordinary citizens? What happened to politics in recent decades as economic marketisation and social liberalisation formed the major currents of the nation's developments? And, what are the implications of all these domestic affairs to China's foreign relations and vice versa? This volume is an intellectual exercise to explore these questions that have for a long time occupied a central position in academic explorations of Chinese politics. The book covers topics such as state-enterprise relationship (a fundamental indicator of the political economy of Chinese reform), central-local relations (an issue that has perplexed the power arrangements in China for over a thousand years in general and since 1949 in particular), relations between popular participation and political reform, and the relationship between individual liberty and political democracy (a classic question in political theory that frames political debates in contemporary China). These collected essays give the reader an insightful peek behind the closed doors of Chinese politics and governance.
