COURSE OUTLINE

Section I. Foundational Lectures (One Week)

1. An overview of government and politics
2. Various approaches to understand Chinese political system

Section II.Historical Background (One Week)

1. Imperial traditions: Confucian and bureaucratic
2. Government and politics in China during 1911-1949

Section III. Government and Politics under Mao Zedong (Three Weeks)

1. Ideology in Chinese politics
2. Structures and processes
3. Party and People’s Liberation Army

Section IV. Government and Politics in Contemporary China (Seven Weeks)

1. New structures and processes
2. Economic development and Chinese politics
3. Urban politics: state and workers
4. Rural politics: grassroots democracy
5. National minorities in China
6. Dissident movement: intellectuals, democracy and science
7. Civil society and its growth

Section V. Overview (One Week)

1. Chinese political system’s contribution to its international image
2. Problems and prospects

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1. Seminar - 10 marks- to be presented as and when that particular section is taught.
2. Book Review-10 marks - to be given by the end of September.
3. Research Essay-20 marks- to be handed over before the End Semester exams begin. (15th November).
4. Class Participation-10 marks.
5. End Semester Exam- 50 marks.

Students are required to refer to various primary sources such as:

The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, 1982
Selected Works of Mao Zedong and
Deng Xiaoping, Beijing Review and China Daily.

1. Catarina Kinnvall, Cultural Diffusion and Political Learning: The Democratization of China(Lund: Lund Political Studies, 1995).
2. Harold C. Hinton, An Introduction to Chinese Politics (Newton Abbot: David And Charles, 1973).
3. June Tuefel Dryer, China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition (London: Macmillan, 1993).
4. Jurgen Domes, The Government and Politics of the PRC: A Time of Transition (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985).
5. Marc Blecher, China Against Tide: Restructuring through Revolution, Radicalism and Reform (London: Pinter, 1997).
6. Orville Schell and David Shambaugh, ed., The China Reader: The Reform Era (New York: Vintage Books, 1999).
7. Roderick MacFarquahar, ed., The Politics of China, 1949-1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
8. Tony Saich, Governance and Politics of China (New York: Palgrave, 2001).

SECTION WISE READING LIST

Section - I

1. David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, ed., Theory and Methods in Political Science (London: Macmillan, 1995).
2. See first two chapters in Harold C. Hinton, An Introduction to Chinese Politics (Newton Abbot: David And Charles, 1973).
   

Section-II

1. Tu Weiming, “The Historical Significance of Confucian Discourse”, The China Quarterly, 1994, pp. 1131-1141.
2. Julia C. Strauss, “The Evolution of Republican Government”, The China Quarterly, no. 150, June1997, pp. 329-351.
3. See first two chapters in June Tuefel Dryer, China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition (London: Macmillan, 1993).
4. Read Part-I in Zhungyuan Fu, Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics (Cambridge: CUP, 1993).

1. Mao Zedong, “The Chinese People Have Stood Up”, September 1949, Selected Works of Mao Zedong Vol. V.1956 and 1966 Constitutions of China.
2. Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China: A History of the People’s Republic (London: Free Press, 1977).
3. Richard C. Thornton, “The Structure of Chinese Politics” World Politics, Vol. XXIV, no. 4, July 1972, pp. 498-517.
4. Richard H. Solomon, Mao’s Revolution and Chinese Political Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).
5. Read Part-II in Zhungyuan Fu, Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics (Cambridge: CUP, 1993).
6. John Bryan Starr, Continuing the Revolution: The Political Thought of Mao (Surrey: Princeton University Press, 1979).

Section-IV. 1

1. Harry Harding, “The Contemporary Study of Chinese Politics: An Introduction”, The China Quarterly, no. 139, Sept.1994, pp. 699-703. See the following three articles by Elizabeth Perry, Avery Goldstein and Peter Moody.
2. John P. Burns, “China’s Governance: Political Reform in a Turbulent Environment”, The China Quarterly, 1990, pp. 481-518.
3. Joseph Fewsmith, “Elite Politics” in Merle Goldman and Roderick MacFarquahar, ed., The Paradox of China’s Post-Mao Reform (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).
4. Steven M. Goldstein, “China in Transition: The Political Foundations of Incremental Reform” The China Quarterly, no. 144, Dec.1995, pp. 1105-1131.
5. Avery Goldstein, “Trends in the Study of Political Elites and Institutions in the PRC”, ” The China Quarterly, no. 144, Dec.1995.

Section-IV. 2

1. Harry Harding, China’s Second Revolution: Reform after Mao (Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Institution, 1988).
2. Christine Wong, “China’s Economy: The Limits of Gradualist Reform” in William A. Joseph, ed., China Briefing (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).
3. See chapter titled “Economics in Command: The Modernization of China” in John Gittings, China Changes Face (1993).
   Section-IV. 3
4. Tony Saich, Workers in A Workers’ State: Urban Workers in the PRC” in David S. Goodman ed., Groups and Politics in the People’s Republic of China (Bristol: University College Cardiff Press, 1984).
5. Read pp. 219-131 in Jurgen Domes, The Government and Politics of the PRC: A Time of Transition (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985).
6. A. G. Walder, “Urban Industrial Workers: Some Observations on the 1980s”, in A. L. Rosenbaum, State and Society in Contemporary China(1992) pp. 103-120.

1. Kevin J. O. Brien and Liangjiang Li, “Accommodating ‘Democracy’ in one Party-State: Introducing Village Elections in China”, The China Quarterly, no. 162, June2000, pp. 465-489.
2. Robert A. Pastor and Qingshan Tan, “The Meaning of China’s Village Elections”, The China Quarterly, no. 162, June2000, pp. 490-512.
3. Melanie Manion, “Chinese Democratization in Perspective: Electorates at the Township Level”, The China Quarterly, no. 163, Sept.2000, pp. 764-782.\
4. Herbert S. Yee and Wang Jintong, “Grassroots Political Participation in Rural China” in David C. B. Teather and Herbert S. Yee eds., China in Transition: Issues and Policies (London: Macmillan, 1999)
5. Huang Shu-min, “Rural China Transition” in William A. Joseph, ed., China Briefing (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).

1. National Minorities Policy and its Practice in China. See http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/index.htm
2. Dru C. Gladney, “Ethnic Identity in China: The New Politics of Difference” in William A. Joseph, ed., China Briefing (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).
3. June Tuefel Dryer, “China’s Minority Nationalities in the Cultural Revolution”, The China Quarterly, July-Sept. 1985, pp.99-109.

1. Craig C. Calhoun, “Science and Democracy, and the Politics of Identity”, in Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Elizabeth J. Perry, Popular Protest and Political Culture in China (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).
2. Merle Goldman, “Politically-Engaged Intellectuals in the Deng-Jiang Era: A Changing Relationship with the Party-State”, The China Quarterly, 1996, pp. 35-52.
3. Avery Goldstein, “Trends in the Study of Political Elites and Intellectuals in the PRC”, The China Quarterly, no. 139, December 1986, pp. 643-651.
4. Zheng Yongnian, Will China Become Democratic?: Elite, Class and Regime Transition (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2004).

1. See Chapter 4 in Lowell Dittmer, China Under Reform (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).
2. Shu-Yun Ma, “The Chinese Discourse on Civil Society”, The China Quarterly, no. 137, 1994, pp. 180-193.
3. Tony Saich, “The Search for Civil Society and Democracy”, Current History, vol. 93, no. 584, Sept. 1994, pp. 260-264.

1. Edward Friedman, “Reinterpreting the Asianization of the World and the Role of the State in the Rise of China”, in David A. Smith, Dorothy J. Solinger and Steven C., Topik, ed., States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy (London: Routledge, 1999).
2. John P. Burns, “The People’s Republic of China at 50: National Political Reform”, The China Quarterly, no. 150, Sept.1999, pp. 580-594.
3. President Jiang Zemin’s Key Note Speech at CCP’s 80th Anniversary.
4. Mary E. Gallagher, “China in 2004: Stability above All”, Asian Survey, vol. 45, no. 1, 2005, pp. 21-32. 

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