Pressures for Political Change and Sources of Regime Continuity in China

Bruce J. Dickson
Bruce J. Dickson

Red Capitalists in China: The

Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change
Wealth into Power: The Communist Party's Embrace of China's
Private Sector
2007 11 30 12 1
Wealth into Power

political changes

1997

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs, Development and Democracy, Foreign Affairs, vol. 84, no.
5(September/October 2005), pp. 77-86.
1

I.

A.
Seymour Martin
Lipset
2

-socio-demographic
3

4
Henry Rowen
2015 7,000 1990
political liberties
5
2020 5
2

Seymour Martin Lipset, Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,
American Political Science Review, vol. 53, no. 1 (March 1959), pp. 69-105; Lipset, The Social Requisites of
Democracy Revisited: 1993 Presidential Address, American Sociological Review, vol. 59, no. 1.(February 1994), pp.
1-22; Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century(Norman, OK:
Oklahoma University Press, 1991); Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and
Political Change in 43 Societies (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997); LarryDiamond, Developing
Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1999).
3
In addition to Lipset, Inglehart, and Diamond, see also Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, Civic Culture: Political
Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963) and Robert A. Dahl,
Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
4
Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, Modernization: Theories and Facts, World Politics, vol. 49, no.
2(January 1997), pp. 155-83; Ross E. Burkhart and Michael A. Lewis-Beck, Comparative Democracy: The
Economic Development Thesis, American Political Science Review, vol. 88, no. 4 (December 1994), pp. 903-910.
5
Henry S. Rowen, The Short March: Chinas Road to Democracy, National Interest, no. 45 (Fall 1996), pp. 61-70,
and The Growth of Freedoms in China, APARC Working Papers, Stanford University, 1991.
2

Shaohua Hu 2011
6 Bruce Gilley 2004
7
Gilley

8
Larry Diamond

9 Ronald InglehartChristian
Welzel

Ronald InglehartChristian Welzel

interpersonal trustmembership in associations
GDPliberal democracy

15-20 2025
10

Adam PrzeworskiFernando Limongi

11 RowenPrzeworski
6000 1998 8000

12
6

Shaohua Hu, Explaining Chinese Democratization (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000).

Bruce Gilley, Chinas Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2004), p. 64.
8
Gilley, Chinas Democratic Future, p. xiii. He is confident this transition will come sooner or later: For the record, I
would be surprised if this change were delayed beyond the year 2020 (p. 98).
9
Diamond, Developing Democracy, p. 265, emphasis added.
10
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development
Sequence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); quote from p. 156.
11
Przeworski and Limongi, Modernization: Theories and Facts; see also Burkhart and Lewis-Beck, Comparative
Democracy: The Economic Development Thesis. A rejoinder by Carles Boix and Susan C. Stokes found a closer fit
between economic growth and political change as predicted by modernization theory, but only for first wave
democracies, that is, European and North American countries that democratized before the 20th century; see
theirEndogenous Democratization, World Politics, vol. 55, no. 4 (July 2003), pp. 517-549.
12
David Zweig, Undemocratic Capitalism: China and the Limits of Economism, The National Interest, no. 56
(Summer 1999), pp. 63-72; David S.G. Goodman, The New Middle Class, in Merle Goldman and Roderick
7

,
, Inglehart,
13
B.

agentsSamuel Huntington

14
Barrington Moore

(vehicles) 15

the landed aristocracy

1950

MacFarquhar, eds., The Paradox of Chinas Post-Mao Reforms (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999);Zhaohui
Hong, Mapping the Evolution and Transformation of the New Private Entrepreneurs in China, Journal of Chinese
Political Science, vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring 2004), pp. 23-42; Mary Elisabeth Gallagher, Contagious Capitalism:
Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Kellee S.
Tsai,Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press,2007).
13
For a thoughtful and wide-ranging assessment of Chinese views towards democracy, see Suzanne Ogden, Inklings
of Democracy in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002)
14
Samuel Huntington (1970, 20; see also Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D.
Stephens,Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
15
Moore, Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern
World(Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), p. 418.
4

16

political activism

17

18
king-makers

19

20

contingent democrats

Eva Bellin

21

16

Leroy Jones and Il Sakong, Government, Business, and Entrepreneurship in Economic Development (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1980); Guillermo ODonnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian
Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986);
Huntington, Third Wave; Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy; Sylvia
Maxwell and Ben Ross Schneider, eds., Business and the State in Developing Countries (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1997); Edmund Terence Gomez, ed., Political Business in East Asia (London: Routledge, 2002).
17
Jones and Sakong, Government, Business, and Entrepreneurship; Maxwell and Schneider, Business and the State in
Developing Countries; Gomez, Political Business in East Asia.
18
Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1995).
19
Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy.
20
Huntington, The Third Wave, pp. 67-68; ODonnell and C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Eva
Bellin, Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor, and Democratization in Late-Developing Countries, World
Politics, vol. 52, no. 2 (January 2000), pp. 175-205.
21
Eva Bellin, Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor, and Democratization in Late-Developing
Countries,World Politics, vol. 52, no. 2 (January 2000), pp. 175-205; quote from p. 181.
5

22

23

Margaret Pearson

24 Kellee Tsai

25
An Chen
(regime change)
26

22

Kristen Parris, Local Initiative and National Reform: The Wenzhou Model of Development, China Quarterly, no.
134 (June 1993), pp. 242-63; Gordon White, Democratization and Economic Reform in China, Australian Journal
of Chinese Affairs, no. 31 (1994), pp. 73-92; Gordon White, Jude Howell, and Shang Xiaoyuan, In Searchof Civil
Society: Market Reform and Social Change in Contemporary China (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1996);
Baogang He, The Democratic Implications of Civil Society in China (New York: St. Martins Press, 1997); Xiaoqin
Guo, State and Society in Chinas Democratic Transition: Confucianism, Leninism, and Economic Development (New
York: London, 2003); Yongnian Zheng, Will China Become Democratic? Elite, Class, and Regime Transition
(Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004).
23
This rationale has been skewered in James Manns The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese
Repression (New York: Viking, 2007).
24
Margaret Pearson, The Janus Face of Business Associations in China: Socialist Corporatism in Foreign
Enterprises, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 31 (January 1994), pp. 25-46. See also Pearson, Chinas
Emerging Business Class: Democracys Harbinger? Current History, vol. 97, no. 620 (September 1998), pp. 268-272.
25
Kellee Tsai, Capitalists without a Class: Political Diversity Among Private Entrepreneurs in China, Comparative
Political Studies, vol. 38, no. 9 (November 2005), p. 1145.
26
Chen, Capitalist Development, Entrepreneurial Class, and Democratization in China, Political Science Quarterly,
vol. 117, no. 3 (Fall 2002), p. 412.
6

27

Joel
Hellman28

trapped transition 29

30

C.

31
32
33 Martin King Whyte
27

Dickson, Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), and Wealth and Power in Contemporary China.
28
Joel S. Hellman, Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions, World Politics,
vol. 50, no. 2 (January 1998), pp. 203-234.
29
Minxin Pei, Chinas Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 2006).
30
A rare alternative perspective is offered in Lu Chunlong, Democratic Values among Chinese People: Analysis of a
Public Opinion Survey, China Perspectives, no. 55 (September-October 2004), pp. 40-48.
31
Larry Diamond, Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation, Journal of Democracy, vol. 5, no. 3
(July 1994), p. 5.
32
Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).
33
Timothy Garton Ash, The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (New York: Vintage, 1990);
Marcia A. Wiegle and Jim Butterfield, Civil Society in Reforming Communist Regimes: The Logic of Emergence,
Comparative Politics, 25 (October 1992), pp. 1-24; Vladimir Tismaneanu, Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from
7

(protodemocratic views) 34
democratic cause35

William
Rowe
36
(Dorothy Solinger)

37

FoleyEdwards

38
Gordon White, Jude Howell(Shang Xiaoyuan)
political dynamic
39
100 Flowers Movement1976 4 anti-Gang
of Four protests1978-79 1989
critical
realmpolitical sphere
Stalin to Havel (New York: The Free Press, 1992).
Martin King Whyte, Urban China: A Civil Society in the Making? in Arthur Lewis Rosenbaum, ed., State and
Society in China: The Consequences of Reform (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992), pp. 79-80.
35
Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., Georgias Rose Revolution, Journal of Democracy, vol. 15, no. 2 (April 2004),
pp.111-24; Adrian Karatnycky, Ukraines Orange Revolution, Foreign Affairs, vol. 84, no. 2 (March-April
2005),pp. 35-52; Henry E. Hale, Democracy or Autocracy on the March? The Colored Revolutions as Normal
Dynamics of Patronal Presidentialism, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol. 39, no 3 (September 2006), pp.
305-29.
36
William T. Rowe, The Problem of >Civil Society in Late Imperial China, Modern China, vol. 19, no. 2 (April
1993), p. 148.
37
Dorothy Solinger, Urban Entrepreneurs and the State: The Merger of State and Society, in Arthur Lewis
Rosenbaum, ed., State and Society in China: The Consequences of Reform (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992).
38
Michael W. Foley and Bob Edwards, The Paradox of Civil Society, Journal of Democracy, vol. 7, no. 3
(July1996), pp. 38-52.
39
Gordon White, Jude Howell, and Shang Xiaoyuan, In Search of Civil Society: Market Reform and Social Change in
Contemporary China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 7.
34

40

non-critical realm

41

good governance 42

43

1989
44

approach
45

40

Yanqi Tong, State, Society, and Political Change in China and Hungary, Comparative Politics, vol. 26, no. 3
(April 1994), pp. 333-353.
41
White, Howell, and Shang, In Search of Civil Society, pp. 7-8.
42
Putnam, Making Democracy Work; Lily Lee Tsai, Accountability Without Democracy: Solidary Groups and Public
Goods Provision in Rural China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
43
Scott Kennedy, The Business of Lobbying in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005).
44
David L. Wank, Private Business, Bureaucracy, and Political Alliance in a Chinese City, Australian Journal of
Chinese Affairs, no. 33 (January 1995), pp.55-71; Margaret M. Pearson, Chinas New Business Elite: The Political
Consequences of Economic Reform (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); He Baogang, Democratic
Implications of Civil Society in China.(New York: St. Martins Press, 1997).
45
Frederic Wakeman, Jr., The Civil Society and Public Sphere Debate: Western Reflections on Chinese Political
Culture, Modern China, vol. 19, no. 2 (April 1993), pp. 108-138; Timothy Brook and B. Michael Frolic, eds., Civil
Society in China (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). Baogang He, Intra-party Democracy: A Revisionist Perspective
from Below, in Kjeld-Erik Brodsgaard and Zheng Yongnian, eds., The Chinese Communist Party in Reform (London:
Routledge, 2006).
9

embeddedness

46

II.

responsive
accountable

strategic cooptation
corporatist-style

1980
1990 2001

47

46

This is the key theme of David Shambaugh, Chinas Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (Berkeley and
Washington, DC: University of California Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2008).
47
The Three Represents refers to the CCPs claim to represent the advanced productive forces (i.e., the urban
economic elites), the most advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people
in China. For further discussion, see my Dilemmas of Party Adaptation: The CCPs Strategies for Survival, in Peter
Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen, eds., State and Society in 21st Century China: Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation
(New York and London: Routledge, 2004).
10

30

2008

1980
2005 GDP 186 1449
0.3 0.48.

11


2002 16

1990

2007 2

( Karl Polanyi)
48
double
movement

49

50

Shaohua Hu 2011
Henry Rowen 2020 Ronald InglehartChristian Welzel 2025
51
48

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (New York: Farrar and
Rinehart, 1944).
49
Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1996.
50
Cheng Li, The New Bipartisanship within the Chinese Communist Party, Orbis, vol. 49, no. 3 (Summer 2005), pp.
387-400; see also Bruce J. Dickson, Beijings Ambivalent Reformers, Current History, vol. 103, no. 674 (September
2004), pp. 249-255.
51
Shaohua Hu, Explaining Chinese Democratization (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000); Henry S. Rowen, The Growth of
Freedoms in China, APARC Working Papers, Stanford University, 1991; Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel,
Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005).
12

Andrew Walder
institutional pillars
52

53 Jack
Goldstone

Goldstone

54

52

Andrew G. Walder, The Decline of Communist Power: Elements of a Theory of Institutional Change, Theory and
Society, vol. 23, no. 2 (April 1994), pp. 297-323; see also his The Quiet Revolution from Within: Economic Reform
as a Source of Political Decline, in Walder, ed., The Waning of the Communist State: Economic Origins of Political
Decline in China and Hungary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
53
Minxin Pei, Chinas Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 2006), pp. 25, 212.
54
Gordon G. Chang, The Coming Collapse of China (New York: Random House, 2001), and Jack A. Goldstone,The
Coming Chinese Collapse, Foreign Policy, no. 99 (Summer 1995), pp. 35-52; see also Yasheng Huangs rejoinder to
Goldstone, Why China Will Not Collapse, pp. 54-68.
13

Andrew Nathan

55

Joseph Fewsmith

56 David
Shambaugh
57

Andrew WalderJean Oi
suboptimal solutions

''58
55

Andrew Nathan, Authoritarian Resilience, Journal of Democracy, vol. 14, no. 1 (January 2003), p. 16.
Joseph Fewsmith, China Under Hu Jintao, China Leadership Monitor, no. 15 (Spring 2005). His other writings in
CLM and elsewhere stress the theme that the CCP is sponsoring political reforms at various levels in order to
strengthen the party, not usher in democratization.
57
David Shambaugh, Chinas Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2007).
58
Andrew G. Walder and Jean C. Oi, Property Rights in the Chinese Economy: Contours of the Process of
56

14


democratic opening59

political equilibrium

60

20
61 Gilley

62

Change, in Oi and Walder, eds., Property Rights and Economic Reform in China (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1999).
59
Timur Kuran, Now out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989, World
Politics, vol. 44, no. 1 (October 1991), pp. 7-48.
60
For more on these points, see Dickson, The Future of the Chinese Communist Party.
61
Walder, The Party Elite and Chinas Trajectory of Change, in Kjeld-Erik Brodsgaard and Zheng Yongnian, eds.,
The Chinese Communist Party in Reform (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 28.
62
Nathan, Authoritarian Resilience, p. 16. For a general view of this scenario, not limited to China, see Bueno de
Mesquita and Downs, Development and Democracy.
15