1st Edition

The Chinese Corporatist State Adaption, Survival and Resistance

Edited By Jennifer Y. J. Hsu, Reza Hasmath Copyright 2013
    176 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    176 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    The modern Chinese state has traditionally affected every major aspect of domestic society. With the growing liberalization of the economy, coupled with increasingly complex social issues, there is a belief that the state is retreating from an array of social problems from health to the environment. Yet, a survey of China’s contemporary political landscape today reveals not only a central state which plays an active role in managing social problems, but also new state actors at the local level which are increasingly seeking to partner with various non-governmental organizations or social associations.

    This book looks at how NGOs, social organizations, business associations, trade unions, and religious associations interact with the state, and explores how social actors have negotiated the influence of the state at both national and local levels. It further examines how a corporatist understanding of state-society relations can be reformulated, as old and new social stakeholders play a greater role in managing contemporary social issues. The book goes on to chart the differences in how the state behaves locally and centrally, and finally discusses the future direction of the corporatist state.

    Drawing on a range of sources from recent fieldwork and the latest data, this timely collection will appeal to students and scholars working in the fields of Chinese politics, Chinese economics and Chinese society.

    Foreword, David Goodman 1. The Changing Faces of State Corporatism, Jennifer Y. J. Hsu and Reza Hasmath 2. Joining Forces to Save the Nation: Corporate Educational Governance in Republican China, Barbara Schulte 3. A Self-Defeating Secret Weapon? The Institutional Limitations of Corporatism on United Front Work, Gerry Groot 4. Collective Wage Bargaining and State-Corporatism in Contemporary China, Xian Huang 5. Keep Business to Business: Associations of Private Enterprise in China, Keming Yang 6. Local State Entrepreneurialism in China: Its Urban Representations, Institutional Foundations and Policy Implications, Lei Wang 7. The State-Religion Relationship in Contemporary China: Corporatism With Hegemony, Carsten T. Vala 8. The Rise and Impact of the Local State on the NGO Sector, Jennifer Y. J. Hsu and Reza Hasmath 9. The Chinese Corporatist State: Lessons Learned for Other Jurisdictions, Jennifer Y. J. Hsu and Reza Hasmath

    Biography

    Jennifer Y.J. Hsu is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Alberta, Canada.

    Reza Hasmath is a Lecturer in Chinese Politics at the University of Oxford, UK.

    The Chinese Corporatist State: Adaptation, Survival and Resistance illuminates the dynamic nature of state and society relations in China. Reviving the corporatist framework, Hsu and Hasmath and all of the authors in the volume, analyze the evolution and spatial devolution of state power in China as well as the forces of both societal resistance and cooptation. The brilliant analysis is contemporary and historical, and the multi-sector case studies highlight the political, socio-cultural and economic consequences of state and society interaction. That the authors so intelligently frame the book in theoretically innovative ways results in one of the most important contributions The Chinese Corporatist State makes to China studies: the volume speaks to and animates broader comparative debates, thus appealing to Sinologists and non-China specialists alike.' - Professor Joseph Wong, Canada Research Chair, and Director, Asian Institute, University of Toronto

    ".. is a great addition to the literature on Chinese corporatism, and will be of great interest to undergraduate and graduate students, China scholars, policy makers, journalists and business leaders who seek alternative interpretations of China’s political development. After all, the embrace of a capitalist free-market economy and the persistence of a one-party rule have not only challenged the Marxist paradigm, but liberal ones as well. The corporatist framework, as the editors claim, can still shed some light on China’s very dynamic and unconventional political development."Journal of Chinese Political Science