Autocratic Tradition and Chinese PoliticsThis book examines the Chinese political tradition over the past two thousand years and argues that the enduring and most important feature of this tradition is autocracy. The author interprets the communist takeover of 1949 not as a revolution but as a continuation of the imperial tradition. The book shows how Mao Zedong revitalised this autocratic tradition along five lines: the use of ideology for political control; concentration of power in the hands of a few; state power over all aspects of life; law as a tool wielded by the ruler, who is himself above the law; and the subjection of the individual to the state. Using a statist approach, the book argues that in China political action of the state has been the single most important factor in determining socio-economic change. |
Contents
The rise of the Chinese bureaucratic empire | 15 |
PreQin political philosophy | 28 |
Imperial ideology and authority | 47 |
Traditional Chinese political institutions | 70 |
Domination of the imperial state over society | 87 |
The imperial legal order | 104 |
The centrality of the emperor and imperial political practices | 121 |
The fall of the empire and the rise of the PRC | 145 |
The capabilities of the partystate | 220 |
The new legal order | 243 |
I | 265 |
II | 287 |
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 19661976 | 308 |
PostMao politics | 329 |
Conclusion | 352 |
Bibliography | 369 |
Common terms and phrases
administration authority autocracy autocratic became Beijing Bureau bureaucracy cadre-officials cadres CCP Central Committee Chairman Mao China Chinese Chinese imperial Chinese political Chinese traditional command Communist Confucian classics Confucius counterrevolutionary court criticism Cultural Revolution Deng Xiaoping Emperor Ming established executed feudalism Han dynasty Han Wudi households ideology indoctrination institutions Lao Zi leadership Legalist Lin Biao major Mao Zedong Thought Mao's Marxism Marxism-Leninism ment military million ministers Ministry monopoly official orthodox organs orthodox Confucianism party committee Party Congress party-state peasants Peng Peng Dehuai period Politburo political culture political movements political system prefecture provincial punishments purge Qin Shihuang Qing dynasty reform Renmin Ribao revolutionary rightists RMRB rule ruler scholars schools Shang Shang Yang Shi ji social socialist society Song supervised Tang tion Wang Western Xun Zi Yuan Zhang Zhou