The Contemporary Study of Chinese Politics: An Introduction
The three articles which follow provide a review of the development of the study of domestic Chinese politics over the last decade.' The first, by Elizabeth Perry of the University of California at Berkeley, is on statesociety relations. The second, by Avery Goldstein of the University of Pennsylvania, deals with political elites and institutions. The third, by Peter Moody of the University of Notre Dame, addresses the study of political culture. Although the three essays do not claim to provide an exhaustive survey of the analysis of Chinese politics, they do offer a reasonably comprehensive overview of the field in the early 1990s. The articles' first contribution is to identify the substantive issues that have recently concerned political scientists interested in China. According to Elizabeth Perry, the principal question raised in the study of statesociety relations is whether the post-Mao economic and political reforms are producing a significant change in the relative power of state and society in favour of the latter, and the impact of such a development on the Chinese political process. To Peter Moody, the main issue is the degree to which China's political culture is changing as a result of economic reform, partial liberalization, generational change and greater exposure to the outside world and, if so, in what directions. And Avery Goldstein's essay identifies no fewer than three principal lines of inquiry: the transformation of the characteristics of China's political elite as the result of generational change and deliberate restaffing; the ideas, strategies and political resources of an emerging counter-elite of intellectuals and dissidents both inside and outside China; and the decay of China's political institutions as the consequence of uninstitutionalized succession arrangements, unclear lines of authority, a loss of popular legitimacy and endemic corruption. The essays suggest that there is much more consensus on some of these questions than on others. There is no doubt that the Chinese political elite is becoming better educated, more technically competent and more diverse in background. But there is less certainty as to whether these changes are making policy-making more rational or more responsive to societal pressures. Similarly, there is little disagreement on the proposition that China's political institutions are becoming less coherent, less legitimate and less effective, but no consensus on the extent of political