Reviving Legitimacy Lessons for and from China

by Deng, Zhenglai; Guo, Sujian; Ahlers, Anna L.; Chan, Alfred L.; Chu, Yun-han; Zhenglai, Deng; Ho, C.S Bryan; Holbig, Heike; Huang, Min-hua; Mahoney, Josef Gregory; Moody, Peter R.; Schmitter, Philippe C.; Schubert, Gunter; Tong, Yanqi; Zhu, Yuchao

• ISBN13: 9780739165225
• ISBN10: 0739165224
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-22
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

The Chinese government has attempted to bolster its legitimacy as a political response to emerging social, cultural, political, economic, environmental challenges and crises experienced during market-oriented reforms and rapid modernization in China. However, contrary to the Western preference for liberal democracy and "procedural legitimacy," the Chinese government's attempt at bolstering legitimacy has emphasized performance-based, responsibility-based, morality-based, and ideology-based arguments in order to gain popular support and maintain regime stability. In order to understand and explain political phenomena in China, it is necessary to revisit the concepts, theories, and sources of legitimacy and their applications in the Chinese context. Contributors of this book have approached legitimacy from both normative and empirical perspectives, and from Western and Chinese perspectives, thus this edited volume offers lessons and insights for and from China, and contributes to the ongoing theoretical debates as well as empirical research on legitimacy in the Chinese context.

Author Biography

Deng Zhenglai is distinguished professor of Fudan University, dean of the Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, and director of the Fudan University Center for Contemporary China Research. Sujian Guo is distinguished professor of Fudan University and associate dean of Fudan University Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, and concurrently professor of political science and director of the Center for US-China Policy Studies at San Francisco State University.

Table of Contents

Figures and Tables	p. vii
Contributors	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction A Cosmopolitan Moment of Legitimacy and Governance	p. 1
Legitimacy in Theoretical Perspectives
Typological Analysis of Democratic Legitimacy	p. 15
What Is Political Legitimacy and How Can It Be Acquired? Lessons from a Deviant Case	p. 27
International Dimensions of Legitimacy: Reflections on Western Theories and the Chinese Experience	p. 37
"Adaptive Authoritarianism" in Contemporary China: Identifying Zones of Legitimacy Building	p. 61
Re-conceptualizing "Legitimacy" for Studying Village Elections in China	p. 83
Reviving Legitimacy in China
Confucianism as a Legitimizing Ideology	p. 111
Legitimizing Leninism	p. 131
Authoritarian Legitimacy and Legitimation in Contemporary China	p. 155
"Performance Legitimacy" and China's Political Adaptation Strategy	p. 175
Morality, Benevolence, and Responsibility: Regime Legitimacy in China from Past to the Present	p. 195
Index	p. 215
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