The institutional dynamics of China's great transformation

1. Introduction : institutional analysis and China's transformation : issues and concepts / Xiaoming Huang -- 2. China and international institutions / Harry Harding -- 3. Institution formation, imitation, and borrowing : Zhongguancun as a case study on mechanisms of institutional change / Hong Sheng -- 4. Science and technology institutions and performance in China : the semiconductor industry / Keun Lee and Rui Wang -- 5. Power, rights, and interests : a legal and economic analysis of urban housing demolition and relocation in China / Yujun Feng -- 6. China's road to Rechtsstaat : rule of law, constitutional democracy and institutional change / Weisen Li -- 7. China's evolving institutional exclusion : the hukou system and its transformation / Fei-Ling Wang -- 8. China's changing hukou system : institutional objectives, formal arrangements, and informal practices / Jason Young -- 9. State capacity, democratic principles, and constitutional order : modern state-building in post-totalitarian society / Qiang Li -- 10. Institutional accumulation and gradual substitution : the dynamics of developmental democracy in China / Dingping Guo -- 11. Propaganda vs. promotion : the political economy of CCTV / Yong He -- 12. Village elections and the institutionalization of legitimate authority / C.S. Bryan Ho -- 13. Conclusion : the institutional dynamics of China's transformation : what have we learnt? / Xiaoming Huang.

This book examines the role of institutions in China's recent large-scale economic, social and political transformation. The book argues that, although the importance of institutions in China's rapid economic growth and social development over the past 30 years is widely acknowledged, exactly how institutions affect changes in particular national and historical settings is less well understood. Unlike existing literature, it offers perspectives from a variety of disciplines - including law, economics, politics, international relations and communication studies - to consider whether institutions form, evolve and change differently according to their historical or cultural environments and if their utilitarian functions can, and should be, observed, identified and measured in different ways. The book discusses China's political and legal institutions; the international institutions with which China engages; institutions promoting science and technology; media companies; and local institutions including the household registration system. It also examines how institutions themselves have been formed, changed and re-formed over recent decades, and suggests theoretical and methodological adjustments in institutional analysis to allow a fuller understanding of the institutional dynamics of China's transformation.