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Bruce J. Dickson, Political Implications of Red Capitalists in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Dickson, Bruce J. |
| Copyright Year | 2003 |
| Abstract | As the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) shifted its key task from class struggle to economic modernization in 1978, China entered a new era of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. Although there are many definitions of Chinese characteristics in mass media and scholarly works, the most important two features in the period of reform and opening are the CCP’s monopoly on political power and the private entrepreneurs’ rise as economic power. In Red Capitalists in China, Bruce J. Dickson tries to explore the political consequence of economic reform by analyzing the impact of privatization on party building and the CCP’s adaptation to the new environment. It helps to better understand the massive changes that have taken place in Chinese politics and economy during the last decades. The study not only adds fresh material gleaned from author’s interviews and surveys, but also contributes unique perspectives to the academic research on Chinese politics. In comparative politics, the conventional wisdom is that economic development is the prerequisite for political development and democratization. In Chinese political studies, many scholars believed that formation of a private sector and rise of private entrepreneurs would lead, directly or indirectly, through the emergence of civil society, to political change and ultimately to democratization and collapse of the CCP rule just as indicated in Barrington Moore’s famous aphorism ‘no bourgeoisie, no democracy’. However, Bruce Dickson’s research suggests that private entrepreneurs in China have been reluctant to promote democratization. This is because the party has adopted the two-pronged strategy of creating corporatist links between the state and the business sector and co-opting individual entrepreneurs into the CCP. This strategy has been successful so far in pre-empting demands for increased autonomy or citizenship rights. His book represents a new direction in Chinese political studies in which the inherent and unique logic of Chinese politics has been explained. The private entrepreneurs cannot play the role as agents of political change and democratization as in other countries, especially western ones for complex reasons. First, the growth of the private sector in recent years is the product of market-oriented reforms adopted by the CCP and many private entrepreneurs have done their business and become richer under the auspices of party and government officials at all levels. Second, although there are great |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://static.cambridge.org/content/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:article:S1468109903211282/resource/name/S1468109903001282a.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
