Modern China
January 2010; 36 (1): pp3 - 133
Introduction to ''Constitutionalism, Reform, and the Nature of the Chinese State: Dialogues among Western and Chinese Scholars, III''
Philip C. C. Huang
Abstract：The two articles that form the core of this special issue share an emphasis on how things actually work rather than how they are represented. Both aim to uncover the underlying logics of operative realities, or practices, and both adopt a change-over-time perspective. The commentators, while acknowledging the value of such an approach, raise specific as well as broader issues.As is often customary in scholarly discussions, approbation and criticism alike are not always explicit; at the risk of doing violence to some of the comments,this introduction will state and pose problems more starkly than perhaps thecommentators themselves intended.
Written and Unwritten Constitutions: A New Approach to the Study of Constitutional Government in China
Jiang Shigong
Beijing University Law School, Beijing, China, jiangsg
Criticizing the formalism in China’s constitutional studies over the past 30 years and following an empirical-historical perspective to deal with the dilemma of representation and practice, the author argues that both a written constitution and an unwritten constitution are basic features of any constitutional system, and China’s constitutional order can only be understood if China’s unwritten constitution is taken into account. Selecting four important constitutional issues (the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and the National People’s Congress; the position of state chairman and the trinity system of rule; the relationship between the center and localities; and the constitutional structure of “one country two systems”), the author explores four sources of China’s unwritten constitution—the party’s constitution, constitutional conventions, constitutional doctrine, and constitutional statutes—and calls for taking into account China’s unique political tradition and reality to enrich current constitutional scholarship.
The Institutional Logic of Collusion among Local Governments in China
Xueguang Zhou
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA,
Abstract
A salient organizational phenomenon in the Chinese bureaucracy is collusion among local governments in response to policies and directives from higher authorities; local governments often form alliances to compromise the original intention behind state policies. There are thus significant and persistent deviations and goal displacement in policy implementation. This article develops an organizational analysis and theoretical explanation of this phenomenon. It argues as follows: Collusion among local governments, though informal, is generated and perpetuated by the institutional logic of the Chinese bureaucracy, results from organizational adaptation to its environment, and hence acquires legitimacy and becomes highly institutionalized. In particular, the institutional logic of the Chinese bureaucracy has generated three organizational paradoxes—uniformity in policy making and flexibility in implementation, incentive intensity and goal displacement, bureaucratic impersonality and the personalization of administrative ties—which provide legitimate bases for collusion among local governments. Bureaucratic collusion has been greatly exacerbated in recent years because of the unintended consequences of the centralization of authority and the enforcement of incentive mechanisms in the bureaucracy.
How Authoritarian Rule Works
Kevin J. O'Brien
University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
Abstract：Common features of the articles by Xueguang Zhou and Jiang Shigong include attention to governance rather than reform or regime change, to informal as well as formal rules, and to practice over texts. The articles differ mainly in their level of abstraction and the reach of their findings. But even here, Zhou’s “organizational practices” are essentially micro-level variants of the broader, constitutional principles that Jiang explores. Both authors make a persuasive case that there are abiding rules that pattern behavior between Chinese political elites, though what these rules are, and what distinguishes constitutional principles from other institutions (and temporary political compromises), await further study.
New Approaches to the Study of Political Order in China
Donald C. Clarke
George Washington University Law School, Washington, DC, USA
Abstract：Both Xueguang Zhou and Jiang Shigong are interested in the way in which China’s political order actually functions, but for different reasons. Zhou takes how things are—in this case, the way central-local relations work— more or less as a given and seeks to provide an explanation. Jiang, on the other hand, writes precisely because he believes that how China’s political order actually operates has received far too little attention in constitutional scholarship. Zhou focuses on the narrow issue of collusion between different levels of lower-level government when faced with demands from a higher-level authority. His focus is useful in drawing attention to this ill-understood feature of central-local relations. Yet many of the problems he discusses seem to be less those of collusion as such and more those of ordinary principal-agent conflicts. Jiang calls for less formalism and more realism when analyzing China’s constitutional order. While fully acknowledging the merits of Jiang’s proposed methodology, the comment finds that Jiang’s own approach retains some formalist elements.
Chinese Constitutional Currents
Lynn T. White III
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
Abstract：The Chinese constitution in action is far more flexible than the written state charter might suggest. Jiang Shigong and Xueguang Zhou best capture China’s actual constitutional patterns of power, appointment, jurisdiction, and amendment when they treat China as complex, evolving, and large.
Beyond the Right-Left Divide: Searching for Reform from the History of Practice
Philip C. C. Huang
People's University of China, Beijing, China, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Abstract：Does a history-of-practice-based research approach lack prospective vision—as the commentators suggest? Seen in terms of practice, local governments working under a decentralized system allowing for initiative and competition, and a centralized cadre evaluation-appointment system that prizes gross domestic product growth above all else, have been the driving force for economic development. Their secret in attracting investments has been cheap peasant labor, used without regard to labor laws and benefits or environmental protection. That is the system that lies at the root both of stunning economic development and mounting social-environmental crisis. Such an analysis calls for better provision of public services and social welfare to address the issue of social equity and also to expand the domestic market. But the central leadership’s stated goal of changing the state system from an extractive-controlling one to a service-oriented one can only be so much empty talk unless the cadre evaluation system itself is revamped.