Tradition of the Law and Law of the Tradition: Law, State, and Social Control in China

(Hardback)

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Traditionally, social theorists in the West have structured models of state social control according to the tenet that socialization is accomplished by means of external controls on behavior: undesirable actions are punished and desirable actions result either in material reward or a simple respite from the oppressive attentions of an authoritarian state. In this volume, the author presents the tradition of law in China as an exception to the Western model of social control. The Confucian bureaucracy that has long structured Chinese social life melded almost seamlessly with the Maoist revolutionary agenda to produce a culture in which collectivism and an internalized adherence to social law are, in some respects, congenital features of Chinese social consciousness. Through her investigation of the Maoist concept of revolutionary justice and the tradition of conformist acculturation in China, the author constructs a fascinating counterpoint to traditional Western arguments about social control.

Reviews

"The author identifies and illustrates systematically the historical roots of the Communist mode of totalitarian social control which uses penal sanction as a coercive instrument for ensuring ideological and social conformity. This constitutes a valuable contribution to the study of Chinese law...[This] book deserves serious attention as it offers an alternative perspective on the Chinese legal system."-China Information, Vol 13, #2/3, 1998
"Xin Ren has succeeded admirably in this scholarly, readable, and useable book in tracing the Chinese traditions of law and government as they coalesced into the present sytem....[T]his volume clearly develops previously undiscovered relationships between these two concepts into a dynamic modern system of morality that has evolved into the surrent system of Chinese government and law....This book offers a well organized ideological, imperial, and historical study of Chinese legal tradition and its influence on contemporary Chinese law and government. I find it to be one of the most succinct and useful among the current studies of the changes and trends in Chinese law."-International Criminal Justice Review
[R]en's performance of her thesis is masterful.-China Review International
The author identifies and illustrates systematically the historical roots of the Communist mode of totalitarian social control which uses penal sanction as a coercive instrument for ensuring ideological and social conformity. This constitutes a valuable contribution to the study of Chinese law...[This] book deserves serious attention as it offers an alternative perspective on the Chinese legal system.-China Information, Vol 13, #2/3, 1998
Xin Ren has succeeded admirably in this scholarly, readable, and useable book in tracing the Chinese traditions of law and government as they coalesced into the present sytem....[T]his volume clearly develops previously undiscovered relationships between these two concepts into a dynamic modern system of morality that has evolved into the surrent system of Chinese government and law....This book offers a well organized ideological, imperial, and historical study of Chinese legal tradition and its influence on contemporary Chinese law and government. I find it to be one of the most succinct and useful among the current studies of the changes and trends in Chinese law.-International Criminal Justice Review
[R]en's performance of her thesis is masterful.China Review International
"Ren's performance of her thesis is masterful."-China Review International
"[R]en's performance of her thesis is masterful."-China Review International

Author Bio

XIN REN is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at California State University at Sacramento.