Governance of a Party-state: Modus Operandi of the Chinese Communist Party

Dr. Ling Li, an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in the intersection of law and politics in China and teaching China Studies at the University of Vienna, explores in her book the intrinsic logic of the formal normative system of the Chinese Communist Party as the mode of governance of China’s Party-state. Painstakingly researched, the volume argues that through normalizing its political prerogative, the Party constructs and relies on an integral regulatory system, where politics and law are fused by design, to govern the Party itself, the Party-state relations, and the society through the state. The theory is empirically grounded in an investigation spanning over two decades of judicial decision-making, proliferation of corruption, anticorruption investigation and Politburo power struggles, relying on a copious body of primary sources. The book provides clarity to several empirically salient but conceptually murky features of Chinese politics and law. It also breaks down the sui generis barrier of the Chinese practices and creates a language with which such practices can be communicated in broader comparative contexts.