Suchergebnisse

This article argues that the Party retains a tradition of seeking to revitalize its legitimacy through demonstrations of benevolence and glory. The post-2008 Sichuan earthquake provided just such an opportunity to mobilize the discourse of "Party spirit" and display the willingness of cadres to suffer and sacrifice themselves on behalf of the people. In addition to being grist for the propaganda mill, these norms and expectations were implemented in concrete policy directives and work pressures. Local cadres, who were also earthquake survivors, started to suffer from exhaustion, insomnia, and depression. After high-profile suicides by several local cadres, the Party adopted a therapeutic discourse in order to address the psychological needs of individual cadres, though these gentler policies seem doomed to be short-lived. (China J/GIGA)

The May 12th, 2008 Sichuan earthquake was a national trauma in China. The reconstruction provided the Party with an opportunity to display its care for the disaster victims and restore the Party's shaken credibility and socialist legitimacy. Despite initial collective solidarity and firm control over the state apparatus, levers of the economy, and domestic media, the Party did not manage to secure broad public approval of its reconstruction effort in the earthquake zone. This article argues that the reasons for this failure can be traced to the Party's political epistemology. The CCP's general assumptions, governmental rationalities, policy calculations, implementation strategies, and legitimating discourses organized the reconstruction. It wanted to build a model of state power and benevolence, but it did not have the proper tools. Adapted from the source document.

In the aftermath of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, government officials, scholars and outside observers eagerly hoped that the emergency relief and reconstruction process would bring about the emergence of civil society and increase grassroots democratic participation. Contrary to this optimistic assessment, this article contends that the local state used the opportunity of the disaster as an experimental laboratory to implement an array of already existing national development plans. The urgency with which the reconstruction was to be completed and the opportunities to meet national development targets as well as access reconstruction funds were too tempting to resist. However, the ham-fisted Leninist implementation style met with local resistance and has contributed to a significant deterioration in local state-society relations. The fact that many local residents continue to question why, despite the huge resources invested by the state in the reconstruction project, they have yet to see any improvement in their economic and overall living conditions points to a deficit of local participation and a breakdown in political communication and trust. By focusing on the different political economies of disaster reconstruction, this article attempts to illuminate the regime's vision for developing the countryside, rural politics, and state-society relations in China more broadly. Unless the state is able to incorporate local needs into its development plans, it will not win the trust and support of local residents, regardless of the amount of money it invests or the benevolence of its intentions. (China Q/GIGA)

Alain Badiou's (The Century [2007 translation]) revolutionary aspiration for the "emergence of another humanity" is not based on nostalgia for Leninism, but is, rather, a response to the failure of Leninism & a plea to go beyond not only 19th- but 20th-century political forms. Both Lenin's & Mao Zedong's goals for human freedom were crushed by their institutionalization. In China's Cultural Revolution, Mao urged the people to overthrow state, industrial, & educational control, but after they did, their democratic energy was damped & then dominated by the sovereign authority of Mao. The author argues that the contradictions of Maoist politics are a problem of political theology, in that the party-state's claim to "serve the people" implies that the state is a divinity, & its citizens religious communicants. Indeed, his charisma was such that the people believed in the man here called "Saint Mao" & thus did not challenge "his" state. Using Badiou's conceptual framework (Polemics [2006 translation]), this essay analyzes the Chinese Revolution in terms of whether revolutionary politics can be devoid of theology; & whether "emancipatory" projects can "change the human being in what is most profound" if they are not viewed as sacred. S. Stanton