The Decline of Communism in China: Legitimacy Crisis, 1977 1989

By X.L. Ding

Book Overview

This 1994 book examines the relationship between the Communist political elite and the largely anti-Communist intellectual elite during the decade of reform (1977-89). The author, who was a participant in these events, shows how the Deng Xiaoping regime precipitated a legitimacy crisis by encouraging economic reform while preventing political reform, and how the intellectual elite used this situation to increase its own power. The book also offers a theoretical model to explain how a political resistance movement could gain power in a nation that does not have a well-developed civil society. The concept of 'institutional parasitism' shows that rather than developing separate institutions, the anti-Communist intellectuals occupied state structures from which oppositional activity was carried out. The book will be of interest to both scholars of China and students of comparative Communism.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521026237
• ISBN13: 9780521026239
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"