The Internet was supposed to be an antidote to authoritarianism. It can enable citizens to express themselves freely and organize outside state control. Yet while online activity has helped challenge authoritarian rule in some cases, other regimes have endured: no movement comparable to the Arab Spring has arisen in China. In Contesting Cyberspace in China, Rongbin Han offers a powerful counterintuitive explanation for the survival of the world’s largest authoritarian regime in the digital age.
Han reveals the complex internal dynamics of online expression in China, showing how the state, service providers, and netizens negotiate the limits of discourse. He finds that state censorship has conditioned online expression, yet has failed to bring it under control. However, Han also finds that freer expression may work to the advantage of the regime because its critics are not the only ones empowered: the Internet has proved less threatening than expected due to the multiplicity of beliefs, identities, and values online. State-sponsored and spontaneous pro-government commenters have turned out to be a major presence on the Chinese internet, denigrating dissenters and barraging oppositional voices. Han explores the recruitment, training, and behavior of hired commenters, the “fifty-cent army,” as well as group identity formation among nationalistic Internet posters who see themselves as patriots defending China against online saboteurs. Drawing on a rich set of data collected through interviews, participant observation, and long-term online ethnography, as well as official reports and state directives, Contesting Cyberspace in China interrogates our assumptions about authoritarian resilience and the democratizing power of the Internet.

Can authoritarian regimes use democratic institutions to strengthen and solidify their rule? The Chinese government has legislated some of the most protective workplace laws in the world and opened up the judicial system to adjudicate workplace conflict, emboldening China's workers to use these laws. This book examines these patterns of legal mobilization, showing which workers are likely to avail themselves of these new protections and find them effective. Gallagher finds that workers with high levels of education are far more likely to claim these new rights and be satisfied with the results. However, many others, left disappointed with the large gap between law on the books and law in reality, reject the courtroom for the streets. Using workers' narratives, surveys, and case studies of protests, Gallagher argues that China's half-hearted attempt at rule of law construction undermines the stability of authoritarian rule. New workplace rights fuel workers' rising expectations, but a dysfunctional legal system drives many workers to more extreme options, including strikes, demonstrations and violence.

Under what conditions would authoritarian rulers be interested in the rule of law? What type of rule of law exists in authoritarian regimes? How do authoritarian rulers promote the rule of law without threatening their grip on power? Tying the Autocrat's Hands answers these questions by examining legal reforms in China. Yuhua Wang develops a demand-side theory arguing that authoritarian rulers will respect the rule of law when they need the cooperation of organized interest groups that control valuable and mobile assets but are not politically connected. He also defines the rule of law that exists in authoritarian regimes as a partial form of the rule of law, in which judicial fairness is respected in the commercial realm but not in the political realm. Tying the Autocrat's Hands demonstrates that the rule of law is better enforced in regions with a large number of foreign investors but less so in regions heavily invested in by Chinese investors.

“政策试点”，是中国治理实践中所特有的一种政策测试与创新机制，具体形式包括各式各样的试点项目、试验区等。作为在中国“土生土长”起来的一项治国理政策略和政策方法论工具，作为对于渐进性转型路径和“摸着石头过河”思维的具体实现形式，“政策试点”在中国治理实践中的普遍性和重要性有目共睹，是从中微观层面来理解中国政策过程尤其是改革开放进程的重要标识。
本书以历史归结和现实归纳为切入点，对中国各级政府开展政策试点及推广行为的经验事实进行全方位系统梳理。全书在基于对大量典型试点案例进行实证分析的工作基础上，客观和严肃地对“政策试点”这一政策过程领域里的“中国经验”进行理论抽象，从一个特定视角展示中国政策过程的内在逻辑，讲述政策过程的“中国道理”和“中国故事”。

The rise of China as a great power is one of the most important developments in the twenty-first century. But despite dramatic economic progress, China's prospects remain uncertain. In a book sure to provoke debate, Minxin Pei examines the sustainability of the Chinese Communist Party's reform strategy--pursuing pro-market economic policies under one-party rule. </p>
Pei casts doubt on three central explanations for why China's strategy works: sustained economic development will lead to political liberalization and democratization; gradualist economic transition is a strategy superior to the \"shock therapy\" prescribed for the former Soviet Union; and a neo-authoritarian developmental state is essential to economic take-off. Pei argues that because the Communist Party must retain significant economic control to ensure its political survival, gradualism will ultimately fail. </p>
The lack of democratic reforms in China has led to pervasive corruption and a breakdown in political accountability. What has emerged is a decentralized predatory state in which local party bosses have effectively privatized the state's authority. Collusive corruption is widespread and governance is deteriorating. Instead of evolving toward a full market economy, China is trapped in partial economic and political reforms. </p>
Combining powerful insights with empirical research, China's Trapped Transition offers a provocative assessment of China's future as a great power. </p>

China's rapid and complex political and socioeconomic changes provide fertile ground for pioneering analysis, but they also present daunting theoretical and practical challenges. This reader takes up the challenge, offering the most comprehensive assessment of Chinese domestic politics available by bringing together the best recent scholarship in the field. The anthology focuses on the origin, content, and significance of the post-1989 phase of China's reform and opening to the world, commonly known in the PRC as "deep reform." This period has been unfolding in interaction with globalization, marketization, privatization, political institutionalization, as well as with financial and legal changes. Deep reform includes new policy initiatives that have penetrated political, legal, economic, and social sectors untouched by previous initiatives as reformers have been forced to deal with the consequences—intended and unintended—of earlier reforms.
These carefully selected essays by leading scholars have been revised and updated for this text. In addition, a substantive introduction and conclusion place the articles in their broader context for readers new to the subject. With the successful transition of the leadership of the party, state, and military since 2002, the time is ripe for a comprehensive evaluation of China's deep reform as it enters a new stage. This timely reader will offer students, scholars, and policymakers invaluable insights into the dynamics of change in one of the world's emerging political and economic dynamos.
Contributions by: Marc Blecher, Bruce J. Dickson, Lowell Dittmer, Joseph Fewsmith, Ting Gong, Baogang Guo, William Hurst, Cheng Li, Guoli Liu, Andrew J. Nathan, Kevin J. O'Brien, Veronica Pearson, Randall Peerenboom, Yingyi Qian, Tony Saich, Tianjian Shi, Edward S. Steinfeld, Shaoguang Wang, Lynn White, Yu-Shan Wu, and Guobin Yang

This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars working to address the puzzling durability of communist autocracies in Eastern Europe and Asia, which are the longest-lasting type of nondemocratic regime to emerge after World War I. The volume conceptualizes the communist universe as consisting of the ten regimes in Eastern Europe and Mongolia that eventually collapsed in 1989–91, and the five regimes that survived the fall of the Berlin Wall: China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba. Taken together, the essays offer a theoretical argument that emphasizes the importance of institutional adaptations as a foundation of communist resilience. In particular, the contributors focus on four adaptations: of the economy, of ideology, of the mechanisms for inclusion of potential rivals, and of the institutions of vertical and horizontal accountability. The volume argues that when regimes are no longer able to implement adaptive change, contingent leadership choices and contagion dynamics make collapse more likely. By conducting systematic paired comparisons of the European and Asian cases and by developing arguments that encompass both collapse and resilience, the volume offers a new methodological approach for studying communist autocracies.
Offers a new theoretical explanation of the resilience of communist autocracies that emphasizes the structural conditions under which these regimes are able to implement adaptive change
Offers a new methodological approach for studying communist autocracies by conducting paired comparisons between the ten regimes that eventually collapsed in 1989�91 and the five regimes that survived past 1989: China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba
Makes a major empirical contribution to our knowledge of how communist autocracies function by: 1) adopting a global perspective onto the phenomenon of global communism; 2) analyzing unfamiliar adaptations, such as the development of institutions of accountability; and 3) using new evidence to challenge existing interpretations of communist durability (especially for countries like China, Vietnam, and North Korea) and of the eventual collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and in Mongolia

《当代中国的社会治理与政治秩序》对当代中国的社会治理来说，如何在社会发展与政治秩序之间保持合理平衡和良性互动，始终是一个难题。一方面，由于复杂的历史原因和国内外形势，整个社会的发展高度依赖于国家的强力领导，并确实取得了不凡的成就，但另一方面，快速而卓有成效的社会发展却反过来对国家的强力领导和既有的政治秩序构成严重挑战。冯仕政编著的《当代中国的社会治理与政治秩序》从逻辑与历史相统一、理论与实证相结合的思路出发，兼用定性和定量两种社会学研究方法，深入分析这一难题的形成、演变及其在组织与制度、行为与观念、遵从与抗争等多个层面的表现，揭示其中的规律、经验和教训，预测它在未来的走向，提供政策建议，并在此基础上，对当前社会学关于中国社会的分析范式做了反思。

《中国"小组机制"研究》选取广泛存在于中国各级党政机关中以各种“领导小组”为代表的议事协调机构为研究对象，沿着两条平行的主线对“领导小组”和以其为内核而衍生出来的“小组机制”展开解读和分折。一条线索主要是基于政府过程的分析视角，对中国共产党的“小组机制”的运转过程进行全面剖析；另一条线索主要是基于机构改革的分析视角，对行政系统中议事协调机构的改革问题进行全面分析。《中国"小组机制"研究》作为一项有关“小组机制”和议事协调机构的系统性研究，在纵向上注重历史感，以尽可能为读者还原“领导小组”等议事协调机构发展演变的过程；在横向上注重比较，为读者审视中国的议事协调机构提供参照系；在现实分析中立足于过程研究，注重揭示这一较少为人所关注的机构的运转过程；在对策建议上注重可操作性和长期性，希冀能为决策部门提供有益的参考。

Received wisdom suggests that social organizations (such as non-government organizations, NGOs) have the power to upend the political status quo. However, in many authoritarian contexts, such as China, NGO emergence has not resulted in this expected regime change. In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt shows how NGOs adapt to the changing interests of central and local governments, working in service of the state to address social problems. In doing so, the nature of NGO emergence in China effectively strengthens the state, rather than weakens it. This book offers a groundbreaking comparative analysis of Chinese social organizations across the country in three different issue areas: environmental protection, HIV/AIDS prevention, and gay and lesbian rights. It suggests a new way of thinking about state-society relations in authoritarian countries, one that is distinctly co-dependent in nature: governments require the assistance of NGOs to govern while NGOs need governments to extend political, economic, and personal opportunities to exist.

中国的改革开放30年间，华夏大地上演了一场人类历史上的伟大变迁，世人称之为“中国奇迹”。中国发展的历史记录、经验不同于西方国家，鉴于此，现有西方经济学理论就不能完整地解释中国发展。本书正是从政治经济学的角度出发，探究中国国情的特殊性与发展道路的独特性，并在此基础上分析中国在改革三十年中所经历的变革和转型过程。

What is “Chinese” about China’s modern state? This book proposes that the state we see today has developed over the past two centuries largely as a response to internal challenges emerging from the late empire. Well before the Opium War, Chinese confronted such constitutional questions as: How does the scope of political participation affect state power? How is the state to secure a share of society’s wealth? In response to the changing demands of the age, this agenda has been expressed in changing language. Yet, because the underlying pattern remains recognizable, the modernization of the state in response to foreign aggression can be studied in longer perspective.
The author offers three concrete studies to illustrate the constitutional agenda in action: how the early nineteenth-century scholar-activist Wei Yuan confronted the relation between broadened political participation and authoritarian state power; how the reformist proposals of the influential scholar Feng Guifen were received by mainstream bureaucrats during the 1898 reform movement; and how fiscal problems of the late empire formed a backdrop to agricultural collectivization in the 1950s. In each case, the author presents the “modern” constitutional solution as only the most recent answer to old Chinese questions. The book concludes by describing the transformation of the constitutional agenda over the course of the modern period.