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China’s Ethical Revolution and Regaining Legitimacy

Reforming the Communist Party through Its Public Servants

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  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Shaoying Zhang

    1. Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai, China

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  2. Derek McGhee

    1. Department of Sociology, Social Policy, Criminology, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

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  • Examines the various components of China's new ethical revolution from the perspectives of insiders
  • Engages in a theoretically, methodologically, and analytically innovative approach to Chinese scholarship
  • Acts as a bridge between Chinese scholars and Western scholars by providing a refreshing new perspective on China’s politics to the English-speaking world

Part of the book series: Politics and Development of Contemporary China (PDCC)

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
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  2. Introduction

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 1-10

  3. The China Dream, History, Religion and Modernization

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 11-44

  4. Comparisons, Paradigms and the Remnant of Division: Our Approach

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 45-64

  5. Discourses of Corruption: The Contest Between Different Authorities

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 65-108

  6. State of Exception: The Examination of Anti-Corruption Practices

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 109-133

  7. The Discourse of Formalism and Bureaucratism: The Contest of Order Within the Party

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 135-172

  8. Discourse of Hedonism and Extravagance: Tension Between the Agency and the Actor

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 173-208

  9. The Mass Line Education Programme

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 209-237

  10. Technologies of the Self

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 239-260

  11. Remnant and Hybridization: The Effects of Governing

    • Shaoying Zhang, Derek McGhee
    Pages 261-290

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 291-320
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines the many ways in which the Communist Party in China is still revolutionary by focusing on how, in recent years, it has attempted to mobilize Party members to become ethical subjects. In the context of the Party’s history of the military revolution, Cultural Revolution and Economic Reform (or economic revolution), the authors argue that under President Xi Jinping the Party has launched an ethical revolution within the Party for the sake of sustaining its legitimacy. This book examines the various combined components of this ethical revolution, including anti-corruption, anti-four undesirable working styles and Mass-Line Education programme from the perspective of the fifty current Communist Party officials. 

Reviews

    “This is a timely project and Zhang and McGhee are well-suited to be doing it. A particularly compelling aspect of their argument is that legitimacy in China is being constructed by re-socializing, and re-making the ethical subjectivity of officials. Rather than identifying illegal activity per se, anti-corruption campaigns aim to induce a particular kind of discipline and morality into the officials. Their focus on subject formation and an ‘ethical revolution’ within the Party offers an excellent intervention into the legitimacy literature.” (Lisa Hoffman, Professor of Urban Studies, University of Washington Tacoma, USA)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai, China

    Shaoying Zhang

  • Department of Sociology, Social Policy, Criminology, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

    Derek McGhee

About the authors

Shaoying Zhang is Associate Professor of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law and a Shanghai Young Eastern Scholar.

 
Derek McGhee is Professor and Head of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at the University of Southampton, UK. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.  



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