Jeffrey Kinkley
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804754859
- eISBN:
- 9780804768108
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804754859.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
As China's centrally planned economy and welfare state have given way to a more loosely controlled version of “late socialism,” public concern about economic reform's downside has found expression in ...
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As China's centrally planned economy and welfare state have given way to a more loosely controlled version of “late socialism,” public concern about economic reform's downside has found expression in epic novels about official corruption and its effects. While the media shied away from dealing with these issues, novelists stepped in to fill the void. “Anti-corruption fiction” exploded onto the marketplace and into public consciousness, spawning popular films and television series until a clampdown after 2002 that ended China's first substantial realist fiction since the 1989 Beijing massacre. With frankness and imagination seldom allowed journalists, novelists have depicted the death of China's rust-belt industries, the gap between rich and poor, “social unrest”—i.e., riots—and the questionable new practices of entrenched communist party rulers. This book examines this rebirth of the Chinese political novel and its media adaptations, explaining how the works reflect contemporary Chinese life and how they embody Chinese traditions of social criticism, literary realism, and contemplation of taboo subjects. It investigates such novels and includes excerpts from personal interviews with China's three most famous anti-corruption novelists.Less
As China's centrally planned economy and welfare state have given way to a more loosely controlled version of “late socialism,” public concern about economic reform's downside has found expression in epic novels about official corruption and its effects. While the media shied away from dealing with these issues, novelists stepped in to fill the void. “Anti-corruption fiction” exploded onto the marketplace and into public consciousness, spawning popular films and television series until a clampdown after 2002 that ended China's first substantial realist fiction since the 1989 Beijing massacre. With frankness and imagination seldom allowed journalists, novelists have depicted the death of China's rust-belt industries, the gap between rich and poor, “social unrest”—i.e., riots—and the questionable new practices of entrenched communist party rulers. This book examines this rebirth of the Chinese political novel and its media adaptations, explaining how the works reflect contemporary Chinese life and how they embody Chinese traditions of social criticism, literary realism, and contemplation of taboo subjects. It investigates such novels and includes excerpts from personal interviews with China's three most famous anti-corruption novelists.
Ben Hillman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804789363
- eISBN:
- 9780804791618
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804789363.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
Chapter Four examines the hidden sinews of political power in the local state by examining the role of patronage networks in county and prefecture government. The chapter explains the origin of ...
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Chapter Four examines the hidden sinews of political power in the local state by examining the role of patronage networks in county and prefecture government. The chapter explains the origin of patronage networks in Poshan, tracing the configuration of present-day networks to the early post-Mao years of decentralization and economic reform. While analysts have long been aware of the importance of personalistic ties and informal networks at the elite national level of Chinese politics, this is one of the first studies to systematically examine the origins, structure, and function of patronage networks within the local state. Despite often being seen as a parasite on the formal institutions of state, in a political system characterized by fragmented authority and personal power relations rules, patronage networks play a vital role in bureaucratic coordination and in maintaining order through the informal regulation of political competition.Less
Chapter Four examines the hidden sinews of political power in the local state by examining the role of patronage networks in county and prefecture government. The chapter explains the origin of patronage networks in Poshan, tracing the configuration of present-day networks to the early post-Mao years of decentralization and economic reform. While analysts have long been aware of the importance of personalistic ties and informal networks at the elite national level of Chinese politics, this is one of the first studies to systematically examine the origins, structure, and function of patronage networks within the local state. Despite often being seen as a parasite on the formal institutions of state, in a political system characterized by fragmented authority and personal power relations rules, patronage networks play a vital role in bureaucratic coordination and in maintaining order through the informal regulation of political competition.
