Elites and Governance in China

✍ Scribed by Xiaowei Zang, Chien-wen Kou

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 176
• Series: Routledge Studies on China in Transition, 45
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book reveals the complex relationship between elite perceptions and behaviour, and governance, in China. It moves away from existing scholarship by focusing on functionaries, grass-roots elites, leading intellectuals, and opinion-makers in China and by looking beyond the top leadership, makes a significant contribution to our understanding of shared governance and broadened political participation in China.

The chapters in this collection explore the elites’ role as opinion-makers, technical experts, producers of knowledge, and executives or managers, and pose a number of questions, the answers to which are crucial to understanding future political and economic development in China. What are elite perceptions of governance, inequality and justice; what do the elites mean by good governance; what is the influence of non-Chinese Communist Party elites in policy-making and implementation in China; how have they exerted their influence in the PRC and influenced its direction of future development; and what have grass-roots elites contributed to governance in local communities?

Providing a keen insight into the role elites have played in governing China since 1978, this book is a pioneering effort to bring together elite studies and governance studies. As such, it will be highly relevant for policy-makers within international organizations, governments, and NGOs outside China as well as appealing to scholars and students interested in Chinese politics and governance.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
List of contributors
1. Introduction: elites and governance in China
References
2. Discourses of justice and class: impact of China’s
intellectual elites on social policy
Introduction
Intellectual elites vis-à-vis the party-state
Discourses of social justice
A party-state perspective
Intellectual discourses
Discourses of social classes
The CCP and class
Intellectual elites and class
Overlapping consensus on the middle class(es)
Conclusion
Notes
References
3. The role of intellectual elitesin China’s political reform: The discourse of governance
Importing ‘governance’ and ‘good governance’ to China
More zhili (governance), less tongzhi (government)
Good governance vs democracy
Conclusion
Notes
References
4. Moving between the inner circle and the outer circle: think tanks and policy making in China
Institutions
Changes and continuities
Channels between the inner and outer circles
Channel 1: consultations with policy makers
Channel 2: internal reports via government channels
Channel 3: conferences and public policy debates
Channel 4: policy NGOs
Channel 5: outside-system (tizhiwai体制外) discussions
Channel 6: overseas scholars
Channel 7: highly specialized professional community
Reasons for change
Future directions
Notes
References
5. Master planning the nation: elites and the transformation of China’s built environment
Introduction: Mrs Guo moves house
Elites and the built environment
Master planning
Urban Planning Exhibition Centres
Xiaoqu part I: the planner
Xiaoqu part II: the developer
Conclusions
Notes
References
6. Community governance and elite activism in urban China
Introduction
Sources of the elite’s neighborhood activism
The evolution of grassroots politics in urban China
Elite activism in the Renheng community
Conclusion
Notes
References
7.Intermediate associations,grassroots elites and collective petitioning in rural China
Introduction
Definitions of key concepts
Existing theories of intermediate associations and collective action
Descriptive statistics of national survey data
A new approach
Respective cases
Shadow
Puppet
Maverick
Cooperator
Conclusions and discussion
Notes
References
8. Information collection and anticorruption in China
Introduction
Information collection and anticorruption
Anticorruption in China: sources of information
Limitations of citizens’ reports
Constraints faced by citizens
Political calculations as a screening mechanism
Inconsistency in disciplining malfeasant agents
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index