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Xi Chen explores the question of why there has been a dramatic rise in and routinization of social protests in China since the early 1990s. Drawing on case studies, in-depth interviews and a unique data set of about 1,000 government records of collective petitions, this book examines how the political structure in Reform China has encouraged Chinese farmers, workers, pensioners, disabled people and demobilized soldiers to pursue their interests and claim their rights by staging collective protests. Chen suggests that routinized contentious bargaining between the government and ordinary people has remedied the weaknesses of the Chinese political system and contributed to the regime's resilience. Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China challenges the conventional wisdom that authoritarian regimes always repress popular collective protest and that popular collective action tends to destabilize authoritarian regimes.

Chinese politics are at a crossroads as President Xi Jinping amasses personal power and tests the constraints of collective leadership.In the years since he became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, Xi Jinping has surprised many people in China and around the world with his bold anti corruption campaign and his aggressive consolidation of power.Given these new developments, we must rethink how we analyze Chinese politics-an urgent task as China now has more influence on the global economy and regional security than at any other time in modern history.Chinese Politics in the Xi Jinping Eraexamines how the structure and dynamics of party leadership have evolved since the late 1990s and argues that \"inner-party democracy\"-the concept of collective leadership that emphasizes deal making based on accepted rules and norms-may pave the way for greater transformation within China's political system.Xi's legacy will largely depend on whether he encourages or obstructs this trend of political institutionalization in the governance of the world's most populous and increasingly pluralistic country.Cheng Li also addresses the recruitment and composition of the political elite, a central concern in Chinese politics. China analysts will benefit from the meticulously detailed biographical information of the 376 members of the 18th Central Committee, including tables and charts detailing their family background, education, occupation, career patterns, and mentor-patron ties.

\"This book argues that democracy is the inevitable product of China's industrialization and modernization, and is necessary for the development of China's current society. It provides a political guarantee for China's industrialization and modernization. There are both similarities and differences between China's version of democracy and those versions of other countries. In this book, the author discusses the country's important experiences in constructing democracy with Chinese characteristics, which it has gathered during the long struggle for national independence, prosperity and social development. The democracy system embodies basic values and universal principles of democracy with uniquely Chinese characteristics.\" -- Back cover.

This book emphasizes the centrality of cities in China's ongoing transformation. Based on fieldwork in twenty-four Chinese cities between 1996 and 2007, the author forwards an analysis of the relations between the city, the state, and society through two novel concepts: urbanization of the local state and civic territoriality. Urbanization of the local state is a process of state power restructuring entailing an accumulation regime based on the commodification of state-owned land, the consolidation of territorial authority through construction projects, and a policy discourse dominated by notions of urban modernity. Civic territoriality encompasses the politics of distribution engendered by urban expansionism, and social actors' territorial strategies toward self-protection. Findings are based on observations in three types of places. In the inner city of major metropolitan centers, municipal governments battle high-ranking state agencies to secure land rents from redevelopment projects, while residents mobilize to assert property and residential rights. At the urban edge, as metropolitan governments seek to extend control over their rural hinterland through massive-scale development projects, villagers strategize to profit from the encroaching property market. At the rural fringe, township leaders become brokers of power and property between the state bureaucracy and villages, while large numbers of peasants are dispossessed, dispersed, and deterritorialized; their mobilizational capacity is consequently undermined.

This book analyzes the 'intellectual political culture' of post-Tiananmen China in comparison to and in conflict with liberalism inside and outside the P.R.C. How do mainland politics and discourses challenge 'our' own, chiefly liberal and anti-'statist' political frameworks? To what extent is China paradoxically intertwined with a liberal economism? How can one understand its general refusal of liberalism, as well as its frequent, direct responses to electoral democracy, universalism, Western media, and other normative forces? Vukovich argues that the Party-state poses a challenge to our understandings of politics, globalization, and even progress. To be illiberal is not necessarily to be reactionary and vulgar but, more interestingly, to be anti-liberal and to seek alternatives to a degraded liberalism. In this way Chinese politics illuminate the global conjuncture, and may have lessons in otherwise bleak times.

Providing quality public service is one of the essential functions of a government. In the turbulent time, however, governments worldwide are experiencing a variety of unprecedented challenges to meet citizens' increasing demands and expectations. In China, building a service-oriented government and a harmonious society is central to the 12th Five-Year Plan and challenges the governance philosophies, capacities and competencies of Chinese government at every level. Researchers of Nanyang Centre for Public Administration (NCPA) at Nanyang Technological University systematically examined the concept of service-oriented government in the context of China and developed an assessment scheme to evaluate the performance of building service-oriented government in Chinese cities. Under the auspices of the Lien Foundation in Singapore, based on the assessment scheme, they conducted large-scale telephone surveys of citizens and businesses in 32 major Chinese cities in 2011. This book presents their findings and empirical studies on public service performance, citizen satisfaction, political trust and government transparency based on the data collected from the 2011 Lien project. Moreover, it also includes selected papers presented at the 2012 Lien International Conference on Public Administration in Singapore. Contributed by scholars from Mainland China, the US, Hong Kong and Singapore, these papers discuss various important issues related with building a service-oriented government including public ethical values, the roles of NGO, social accountability, urban integration, performance measurement and emotional labor in public service.Contents:Evaluating Public Service Performance in Urban China: Findings From the 2011 Lien Chinese Cities Service-Oriented Government Project (WU Wei, YU Wenxuan, LIN Tingjin, WANG Jun and TAM Waikeung)Public Ethical Values and Service-Oriented Government (Kuotsai Tom LIOU)The Role of Emotional Labor in Public Service (Meredith A NEWMAN)Irrationality, Bricolage, Quality and Performance Measurement: Unpacking the Conundrum in a Comparative East-West Context (Paul HIGGINS)Social Accountability for Public Service in Higher Education: A Text Analysis of Chinese Research Universities' Undergraduate Teaching-Learning Quality Annual Reports (TIAN Linghui and XIONG Qingnian)Integrated Development of Metropolitan Governance and Public Service: A Case Study of the Pearl River Delta Region (YE Lin)The Role of NGOs in Maintaining Social Stability in China - Based on the Perspective of Public Security Service Delivery (HAN Lin)Political Trust, Public Service Performance and Government Transparency in China (YU Wenxuan)Explaining Citizens' Satisfaction With Public Service Quality in Chinese Cities 2010: Citizen-Level Predictors vs. City-Level Predictors (LIN Tingjin)Public Satisfaction Survey and Its Analysis on Chinese Cities Public Education Service - An Empirical Study Based on 2010 Lien Chinese Cities Public Service Quality Evaluation Survey Data (WANG Jun and WU Wei)Readership: Students and researchers in the fields of policy studies and China studies.

Two sharply contrasting views of China exist today; one of a rising superpower, and the other of an anachronistic, authoritarian regime. So which is the real China? Randall Peerenboom offers a controversial, first-hand account of modern China focusing on its economic, political and legal attributes within the context of the developing world.