Reviving Legitimacy: Lessons for and from China

(Hardback)

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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.

Reviews

This collection of essays sheds new light not just on the potential for democratic rule in China, but also on sources of legitimacy that do not fit neatly in the dichotomy between "good" democratic and "bad" authoritarian regime types. Highly recommended reading for anybody concerned about the theory and practice of Chinese politics and what it can offer to the rest of the world. -- Daniel Bell, Tsinghua University (Beijing) and Jiaotong University (Shanghai)

Author Bio

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.