Routledge International Handbooks. London; New York: Routledge, 2013. xxi, 326 pp. (Tables, figures.) US$300.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-85743-636-5.
This is an excellent handbook that makes a unique contribution to the market of books on China’s government and domestic politics. It provides brief, but comprehensive overviews on a wide range of important topics; its 23 chapters include virtually every subject that might be covered in an undergraduate Chinese politics course. The volume’s strength also comes from the involvement of contributors that include some of the top names in China studies, and hail from a wide range of places (the United Kingdom, Australia, China, the United States, Canada, Singapore, and Hong Kong) and disciplines (political science, sociology, the geosciences, law, management, and economics). Altogether, the book is a valuable resource for students and instructors looking for concise and generally clear and accessible accounts of the many facets of China’s political system. In addition, scholars may find it to be useful as a reference work that synthesizes most of the scholarly literature on the various topics covered therein. Yet, as a handbook, the volume is not designed to break new scholarly ground, and China specialists should not expect to learn anything new from its pages.
The text is divided into four sections. The first looks at “organizational principles,” and includes chapters on the structure and history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Chinese Communist state, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The second section focuses on “policy areas,” including economics, justice, health and social policy, education and culture, internal security, and defense and foreign policy. Section 3 examines various “political processes,” with chapters on political representation, political participation, political opposition, center-local relations, and nationalism. The final section covers “contemporary issues,” such as social change and inequality, corruption, human rights, the environment, social unrest, separatism, resource shortages, media and the internet, and globalization and individualism.
The volume’s main focus is China’s post-Mao or Reform era, but most chapters also discuss the Maoist era to some degree, and some also include sections on the Imperial era. Each chapter is quite short—about ten pages—which means that a great deal of material must be covered in a short space. Some chapters do this quite well (in particular, those by Blasko, Bo, Economy, Saich, Tang/Shen, Wedeman, and Weatherley), while others feel too brief and are chopped up into very small sections that are not always adequately connected (e.g., those by Guthrie and He). The chapters also vary in the degree to which their content and prose is engaging and accessible to a non-specialist audience. Some (e.g., those by Guthie, Li, and Reny/Hurst) are not well-pitched for undergraduate students and/or non-specialists. These read more like literature reviews or condensed scholarly journal articles, and refer to theories that may not be familiar to general readers. While not a problem for specialists, because of the short length of each chapter, broader academic theories related to the chapter’s specific topic cannot be discussed in enough detail for the general reader to fully comprehend.
The editor (Ogden) provides a very brief preface and conclusion (roughly five pages each) that attempt to connect the chapters to one another. As with all edited volumes, achieving coherence is a difficult and often elusive task. In this case, a number of different themes are presented, but they are somewhat vague and not clearly linked. Ogden states that the book’s central theme is increasing codependency, complexity and interconnectedness within China’s political system. Other themes mentioned in the preface and/or conclusion are China’s scale, its (re)becoming a great power, history/memory as crucial factors in understanding China, the ongoing search by China’s political elites for internal stability and security, and the longevity, resilience and adaptability of the CCP. These are all interesting and important themes, but they do not cohere in a clear over-arching argument. Further, there is no real attempt on the part of the authors to include transitions or explicit linkages across chapters. One could also quibble with some small points regarding the book’s organization; for example, it is not clear how “nationalism” can be considered a “political process,” and the chapters on the “environment” and “resource shortages” could easily be merged.
But these are quite minor issues, and they do not materially detract from the volume’s fulfillment of its central aim: to serve as a handbook that provides a comprehensive overview of Chinese politics and governance. I do not know of a book that better fulfills this goal. The chapters cover topics that are important and timely, and they generally do an admirable job of synthesizing a great deal of information in a small number of pages. As such, the volume provides an instructor of a course on Chinese politics with a smorgasbord of concise, clear, engaging and accessible chapters from which to select for student reading materials and lecture supplements. I intend to utilize a number of the chapters in my own course, and I have no doubt that my students will benefit as a result.
Teresa Wright
California State University, Long Beach, USA
pp. 309-311