Ciines Politics and Government
Chinese Politics and Government
Fall 2012 Prof. Chien-min Chao
Tel：29387286
Email：
Office: 7th Fl. North Wing, Twin Towers
Reference：
June T. Dreyer, China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition, 7th edition (NY: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010).
James Wang C. F. Wang, Contemporary Chinese Politic: An Introduction, 7th edition (NJ: Upper Saddle River, 2002).
Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China: From Revolution through Reform (N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 2004).
Chien-min Chao & Bruce J. Dickson, ed., Remaking the Chinese State: Strategies, Society, and Security (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Tony Saich, Governance and Politics of China, 2nd edition (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
Requirements: Students are required to read the assignments with the * sign in front. A mid-term exam is to be held to gauge the effectiveness of the learning. Three short papers (2-3 pages each) as well as a term paper with a length of 5,000-7,000 words are also required. Group discussion and class participation are encouraged.
1. (9/18) Introduction: A brief introduction of plans to the class
2. (9/25) The CCP’s Rise to Power
*Lieberthal, chapter 2.
*Wang, “The Origin and Rise of the Chinese Communist Movement: From Military Communism to Deng’s Reforms,” chapter 2, pp. 15-36.
Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London: Flamingo, 1991).
3. (10/2) Leadership and Ideology
Questions: What’s ideology? What does it mean for the Chinese political community? What’s Mao Zedong thought? What’s Deng Xiaoping theory and Jiang Zemin and Hu Jingtao’s political thinking?
* Wang, “The Erosion of Chinese Communist Ideology,” chapter 3, pp. 37-68.
*David Shambaugh, “Rebuilding the Party: The Ideological Dimension,” in China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (Wash. D.C.; Woodraw Wilson Center Press, 2008), pp. 103-127.
Fox Butterfield, “Mao Tse-Tung: Father of Chinese Revolution,”
4. (10/9) Politics under Mao
Find out who Mao Zedong is and what his policies were?
*Dreyer, chapter 5.
*Lieberthal, “The Maoist Era,” chapter 4, pp. 85-121.
5. (10/116) Film 1: Morning Sun
6. (10/23) Politics in the Post-Mao Era
Find out who Deng Xiaoping is and what his reforms were all about?
* Dreyer, chapter 6.
*Wang, chapter, 11.
7. (10/30) Succession and Factionalism
Try to understand who Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jingtao are.
*Alice L. Miller, “Institutionalization and the Changing Dynamics of Chinese Leadership Politics,” in Cheng Li, ed. China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2008), pp. 61-79.
*Cheng Li, “China’s Fifth Generation: Is Diversity a Source of Strength or Weakness?” Asia Policy, No. 6 (July 2008), pp. 53-93.
Wang, “Elites and the Cadre System: Leadership Style, Factionalism, Succession, and Recruitment,” chapter 5, pp. 105-138
@Tang Tsou, “Chinese Politics at the Top: Factionalism or Informal Politics? Balance-of-Power Politics or a Game to Win All?” The China Journal, No. 34 (July 1995), pp. 95-156.
.1st paper due
8. (11/6) Power Structure and Decision-making
Find out functions of the CCP Party Congress in general and the 17th Party Congress in particular
* Wang, “Political Institutions of the Party-State,” chapter 4, pp. 69-103.
*Cheng Li, “From Selection to Election? Experiments in the Recruitment of Chinese Political Elites,” China Leadership Monitor, No. 26 (2008).
Juan J. Linz, “Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regime,” in Handbook of Political Science, Vol.3, edited by Fred I. Greenstein and B.W. Polsby (Menlo Park, Cal.: Addison-Wesley, 1975), pp.175-412.
9. (11/13) Political System
*Lieberthal, ““The Organization of Political Power and its Consequences: The View from the Outside,” “The Organization of Political Power and its Consequences: The View from the Inside,” chapter 6 and 7, pp. 157-218.
*Pierre F. Landry, Decentralized Authoritarianism in China (Cambridge University Press, 2008), chap. 1, pp. 1-27.
10. (11/16) Film 2: TAM Incident
Transitions and Adaptation
Dreyer, chapter 7.
@Victor Nee, “The Emergence of a Market Society: Changing Mechanisms of Stratification in China,” American Journal of Sociology, 101 (1996).
Bruce J. Dickson, “Cooptation and Corporatism in China: The Logic of Party Adaptation,” Political Science Quarterly, 115:4 (2001), pp. 517-540.
*Minxin Pei, “Why Transitions Get Trapped: A Theoretical Framework,” China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 17-44.
*David Shambaugh, “Rebuilding the Party: The Organizational Dimension,” “Can the Chinese Communist Party Survive?” in China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation, pp. 128-160.
11. (11/20) The Chinese Model
“China as an Economic Superpower,” in Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World (London: Allen Lane, 2009), pp. 151-193.
12. (11/27) Internet Politics, Protests, Demonstrations
Use the internet to find out recent demonstrations in rural as well as urban China; get some idea as to how extensive the corruption in China is.
Dreyer, Chapter 12.
*Guobin Yang, “Online Activism in an Age of Contention,” in The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (NY: Columbia University Press, 2009), pp. 25-43.
The 2nd short paper due
13. (12/4) Health, Demography, and the Environment
Find a few corruption cases including former Shanghai mayor Chen Liangyu and the need for political reform in China. Find out the state of media reforms in China.
Dreyer, Chapter 11.
*Susan L. Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 1-12.
14. (12/11) Grass-roots Democracy
*Lianjiang Li & Kevin O’Brien, “Accommodating ‘Democracy’ in a One-Party State: Introducing Village Elections in China,” The China Quarterly (July 2000), pp. 465-489.
Robert A. Pastor and Tan Qingshan, “The Meaning of China’s Village Elections,” China Quarterly 162 (June 2000), pp.490~511.
*Linda Jakobson, “Local Governance: Village and Township Direct Elections,” in Jude Howell, ed., Governance in China (NY: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 97-120.
Yang Zhong, Jie Chen, “To Vote or Not to Vote: An Analysis of Peasants’ Participation in Chinese Village Elections,” Comparative Political Studies, 35:6 (August 2002), pp. 686-712.
15. (12/18) Mid-term Exam
16. (12/25) Future Prospects: Is Democracy an Option?
What is the value of democracy? Is democracy necessary for China? Is it possible to have a
“democracy with Chinese characteristics”?
*Wang, “Democracy, Dissent, and the Tiananmen Mass Movement,” chapter 10, pp.269-300.
*@ Andrew J. Nathan, “Authoritarian Resilience,” Journal of Democracy, 14:1 (January 2003), pp. 6-17.
*@ Henry S. Rowen, “When Will the Chinese People Be Free?” Journal of Democracy, 18:3 (July 2007), pp. 38-52.
@Minxin Pei, “How Will China Democratize?” Journal of Democracy, 18:3 (July 2007), pp. 53-57.
Suzanne Ogden, Inklings of Democracy in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).
Stephen Manning, “Social and Culture Prerequisites of Democratization: Generalizing from China” in Edward Friedman ed., Generalizing East Asian Experiences (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).
Andrew J. Nathan, Chinese Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
17. (1/1) Holiday
18. (1/8) Group discussion
Due the third short paper: to review the films
************************************************************************
19. The Role of the Military
＊ Dreyer, chapter 9.
Interesting web sites for your reference:
China Leadership Monitor
Stanford Project for U.S.-China Dialogue
YaleGlobal online
China Brief
民主法治網
中國期刊網
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