Party vs. State in Post-1949 China: The Institutional Dilemma

by Shiping Zheng

• ISBN13: 9780521588195
• ISBN10: 0521588197
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-07-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book provides the most comprehensive analysis of one of the most important issues in China today: the tensions between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state legislative, judicial, administrative, and military institutions. Taking the 'neo-institutionalist' approach, the author suggests that the Communist Party in post-1949 China faces an institutional dilemma: the Party cannot live with the state, and it cannot live without the state. Zheng demonstrates that it is not only conceptually constructive, but analytically imperative to distinguish the state from the Communist Party. Secondly, he integrates detailed study with broader generalizations about Chinese politics, thus making efforts to overcome the tendency toward specialized scholarship at the expense of comparative and systemic understanding of China. He also opens a new dimension of Chinese politics - the uncertain and conflictual relationship between the Communist Party and the Chinese state.

Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction: 1. Understanding the state and party in China

2. Where did the Chinese state come from?

Part II. State-building under a Revolutionary Party: the Mao Zedong Era: 3. Revolution, laws and party

4. Party leadership and state administration

5. Army-building and revolutionary politics

6. Politics of campaigns: the Cultural Revolution

Part III: State-building under a Reformist Party: the Deng Xiaoping Era: 7. Reform, legal system and party rule

8. Changing party-government relations

9. Military modernization and party politics

Conclusion

Appendix A: CCP Membership Changes, 1921-1994

Appendix B: Campaigns in China, 1950-1989.