Reform Without Liberalization: China's National People's Congress and the Politics of Institutional Change

By Kevin J. O'Brien

Book Overview

Since its founding in 1954, the National People's Congress of China (NPC) has followed a difficult course of development, a course which has been characterized by periods of limited progress intermingled with periods of stagnation and regression. Political campaigns from the Anti-Rightist Movement (1957-1958) to the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) frustrated the establishment of any consistent policy concerning the appropriate role of the legislature within the one-party, Maoist regime. Mao's death in 1976, however, ushered in a new era of political reform which has included the strengthening of the NPC. In this detailed study of the NPC, Kevin O'Brien examines how the NPC has changed from its founding under Mao through the regime of Deng Xiaoping. He describes the various functions it has served, from the management of intra-elite relations; to the incorporation, and co-optation, of criticisms of regime policies into regime debates; to legislation and supervision of government agencies.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521048206
• ISBN13: 9780521048200
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"