Rethinking Chinese Politics

A comprehensive but accessible examination of how elite Chinese politics work covering the period from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping.

Joseph Fewsmith (Author)

9781108831253, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 June 2021

250 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.478 kg

'Rethinking Chinese Politics is a refreshing reexamination of many long-held assumptions about Chinese elite politics.  By focusing on the core Leninist institutions of the Chinese system, Fewsmith provides an original and deeply insightful framework illuminating the critical drivers of change in Chinese politics and policy in post-Mao China.' Minxin Pei, Claremont McKenna College

Understanding Chinese politics has become more important than ever. Some argue that China's political system is 'institutionalized' or that 'win all/lose all' struggles are a thing of the past, but, Joseph Fewsmith argues, as in all Leninist systems, political power is difficult to pass on from one leader to the next. Indeed, each new leader must deploy whatever resources he has to gain control over critical positions and thus consolidate power. Fewsmith traces four decades of elite politics from Deng to Xi, showing how each leader has built power (or not). He shows how the structure of politics in China has set the stage for intense and sometimes violent intra-elite struggles, shaping a hierarchy in which one person tends to dominate, and, ironically, providing for periods of stability between intervals of contention.

Introduction: Rethinking Chinese politics
1. The dengist structure of power
2. Succession and the art of consolidating power
3. Hu Jintao and the limits of institutionalization
4. The pathologies of reform leninism
5. Xi Jinping's centralization of power
6. The nineteenth party congress and reinvigorating Leninism.

Subject Areas: Political structures: totalitarianism & dictatorship [JPHX], Constitution: government & the state [JPHC], Marxism & Communism [JPFC], Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1], Asian history [HBJF], History [HB]