Institution and Reform in China

GPA4385

Wang Shaoguang

 

Office Hour: Tuesday & Wednesday 10:00-12:00                                    

Phone: 2609-7515

Email: wangshaoguang@cuhk.edu.hk

 

Goal

This course will utilize contemporary theoretical perspectives and historical material to analyze the creation and evolution of Chinese state institutions. It surveys and evaluates recent literature and compares the case of China with other countries in the world. The topics considered will include coercion, tax extraction, assimilation, regulation, steering, redistribution, and interest aggregation. This course will also be open to postgraduate students, but with higher requirement in terms of workload and/or marking scheme. (Not for students who have taken GPA 2385.)

 

Reading

ü       A package of readings is available for download before January 22, 2008 from my WebPages at: www.cuhk.edu.hk/gpa/wang_files.

ü       For a long list of books on China, please download it from the following site: http://www.princeton.edu/~lynn/chinabib.pdf.

 

Requirements

1.       As relatively few articles are assigned each week, the expectation is that you will read the articles carefully before coming to class.

2.       You are required to lead-off discussion in the seminar on a rotating basis. These presentations entail a 15-20 minute presentation of the week’s readings. Rather than simply summarizing the reading under question (presumably all will have read it), as the discussion leader, you should tease out special questions or problems that appear worthy of attention, and also make effort to show the relevance of the reading to broader issues under consideration. In preparation for the seminar, the discussion leader is required to prepare a one page discussion guideline that can be shared with other seminar participants.

3.       As a successful seminar requires widespread discussion, every participant of the seminar is expected to actively contribute to the scholarly exchange throughout the semester.

4.       You are required to write an original research paper (for conference presentation, journal publication, and/or dissertation proposal or chapter) of about 20-25 pages (including references and in-text tables and figures, but not appendices). This is expected to be an empirical analysis of the topic in which the student will design and execute a research project. The paper process has a number of steps.

n       The first step is a 1-2 page research proposal, including a few key references.

n       The second step is a 5-6 page research design, accompanied by an adequate, annotated bibliography. The research designs will be discussed with the instructor.

n       The penultimate drafts of the paper will also be presented and discussed in class during the last part of the semester.  

n       The final paper is due on April 29. Late papers are penalized one letter grade per day.

 

Evaluation

ü       Participation: 20% (on your evident grasp of the readings as indicated by your questions and informed participation in classroom discussion)

ü       Discussion Précis: 15% (quality and relevance of your discussion questions)

ü       Proposal and Design: 15% (particularly design)

ü       Research Paper: 50% (quality of paper)

 

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1.     Organization Meeting: Overview & Logistics of Course (Jan. 8)

²      Joshua Cooper Ramo, “The Beijing Consensus”

 

2.     Institutions and Institutional Changes (Jan. 15)

²      Sven Steinmo, “Institutionalism”

²      Elisabeth S. Clemens and James M. Cook, “Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change”

²      Adam Przeworski, “Institutions Matter?”

 

3.     Socioeconomic Transformation and Institutional Changes (Jan. 22)

²      Julia Strauss, “Morality, Coercion and State Building by Campaign in the Early PRC” Regime Consolidation and After, 1949-1956”

²      David Bachman, “Aspects of an Institutionalizing Political System: China, 1958-1965”

²      Yang Dali, “Economic Transformation and State Rebuilding in China

 

4.     Coercive Control (Jan. 29)

²      Murray Scot Tanner and Eric Green, “Principals and Secret Agents: Central versus Local Control over Policing and Obstacles to ‘Rule of Law’ in China

²      Xiaoming Chen, “Community and Policing Strategies: A Chinese Approach to Crime Control”

²      Kam C. Wong, “Community Policing in Comparative context: P.R.C. vs. U.S.A.

²      Shanhe Jianga, Eric Lamberta and Jin Wang, “Correlates of formal and informal social/crime control in China: An exploratory study”

 

5.     Consensus Formation (Feb. 5)

²      Yuchao Zhu and Dongyan Blachford, “China’s Fate as a Multinational State: a preliminary assessment”

²      Beatrice Leung, “China’s Religious Freedom Policy: The Art of Managing Religious Activity”

²      Li Xiguang, “ICT and the Demise of Propaganda in China

²      Li Ping, Zhong Minghua, Lin Bin and Zhang Hongjuan, “Deyu as moral education in modern China: ideological functions and transformations”

 

[Research Proposal Due]

 

6.     Resource Extraction (Feb. 19)

²      Kai-yuen Tsui and Youqiang Wang, “Between Separate Stoves and a Single Menu: Fiscal Decentralization in China

²      John James Kennedy, “From the Tax-for-fee Reform to the Abolition of Agricultural Taxes: The Impact on Township Governments in North-west China

²      OECD, “Challenges for China’s Public Spending”

²      Susan H. Whiting, “Central-Local Fiscal Relations in China

 

7.     Regulating Economy and Society (Feb. 26)

²      Margaret M. Pearson, “Mapping the Rise of China’s Regulatory State: Economic Regulation and Network and Insurance Industries”

²      Donald C. Clarke, “Empirical Research into the Chinese Judicial System”

²      Philip C. C. Huang, “Whither Chinese Law?”

²      Kenneth W. Foster, “Improving Municipal Governance in China: Yantai’s Pathbreaking Experiment in Administrative Reform”

 

8.     Regulating State Agents (Mar. 4)

²      Hon S. Chan, “Cadre Personnel Management in China: The Nomenklatura System, 1990–1998”

²      Hongbin Lia and Li-An Zhou, “Political turnover and economic performance: the incentive role of personnel control in China

²      Andrew Wedeman, “Anticorruption Campaigns and the Intensification of Corruption in China

 

9.     Regulating State Agencies (Mar. 11)

²      Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, “Institutional Reform and the Bianzhi System in China

²      Andrew C. Mertha, “China’s “Soft” Centralization: Shifting Tiao/Kuai Authority Relations”

²      Tim Wright, “State Capacity in Contemporary China:closing the pits and reducing coal production’”

 

[Draft Research Designs Due]

 

10.  Finalizing Research Design (Individual meetings during this week) (Mar. 18)

 

11.  Interest Articulation and Interest Aggregation (Mar. 25)

²      Young Nam Cho, “From ‘Rubber Stamps’ to ‘Iron Stamps’: The Emergence of Chinese Local People’s Congresses as Supervisory Powerhouses”

²      Young Nam Cho, “The Politics of Lawmaking in Chinese Local People’s Congresses”

²      Laura Paler, “China’s Legislation Law and the Making of a More Orderly and Representative Legislative System”

²      James S. Fishkin, Baogang He, Robert C. Luskin, and Alice Siu, “Deliberative Democracy in an Unlikely Place: Deliberative Polling in China

 

12.  Redistribution (Apr. 1)

²      UNDP, “China Human Development Report, 2005”

²      Yanzhong Huang, “Bringing the Local State Back In: the political economy of public health in rural China

²      Zunyou Wu, Sheena G Sullivan, Yu Wang, Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus, Roger Detels, “Evolution of China’s response to HIV/AIDS”

 

[Draft Papers Due]

 

13.  Presentation of Draft Papers (Apr. 8)

 

14.  Presentation of Draft Papers (Apr. 15)

 

[Final Paper Due on April 29]