About the Book
With a membership of nearly 90 million, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the world’s largest political party. It is also one of the longest ruling parties in the world and has been able to weather huge challenges caused by the deep transformation of Chinese society as well as the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Moreover, in recent years, and especially during the era of General Secretary Xi Jinping, the CCP has centralized its grip over Chinese society. This study is intent on depicting major aspects concerning the CCP’s organizational arrangement and explaining some key concepts in the ideological framework constructed by the CCP leadership over time. it is important to take a new and closer look at how the study of the CCP has evolved in terms of themes, concepts, and areas of research. We do so in the following discussion by exploring nine topics: Party organization, cadre management, nomenklatura, cadre advancement and training, Party ideology, Party reform and adaptation, the Party and business, the Party and corruption, and the Party and the law. The intention is not to develop a new theory on how to understand the Party’s role in Chinese society but, rather, to identify key debates, paradigms, and emerging research directions.
Table of Contents:
The Chinese Communist Party since 1949: Organization, Ideology, and Prospect for Change
Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard and Chen Gang
Abstract
Keywords
1 From Totalitarian Model to Cultural Emperor
2 Party Organization
3 Cadres and Cadre Management
4 Recruitment, Career Advancement, and Training
5 Party Ideology and Propaganda
6 Party Reform and Adaptation
7 Local Party Work
8 Party and Business
9 Party and Corruption
10 The Party and the Law
11 Conclusion
References
About the Author :
Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard is Professor at the Department of International Economics, Government and Business and Director of the China Studies programme at the Copenhagen Business School, teaching courses on comparing societies and economic systems, Asian political economy, and international business and politics with a focus on China. His most recent books include From Accelerated Accumulation to Socialist Market Economy in China: Economic Discourse and Development From 1953 to the Present (2017); Critical Reading on the Chinese Communist Party, 4 vols. (2017); Chinese Politics as Fragmented Authoritarianism: Earthquakes, Energy and Environment (2016); Hainan – State, Society, and Business in a Chinese Province (2009 and 2013); The Chinese Communist Party in Reform (with Zheng Yongnian, 2006); and Kina I Moderne Tid – Samfund, Økonomi, og Politik (Modern China – Society, Economy and Politics (in Danish, 2019).
Professor Brødsgaard has held visiting research appointments in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and the USA. He is, among others, member of the International Advisory Board of the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore; member of the Board of Sino-Danish University Centre for Education and Research; member of the Board of Directors, the Danish-Chinese Business Forum; and a trustee of the Cambridge China Development Trust. He is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Contemporary China, School of Government, Peking University. His current research covers state-Party-business relations in China; the nomenklatura system and cadre management; SOE reform; and the rise of Chinese supermanagers.
He holds a PhD from the Department of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen, having completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Aarhus and his Masters program at the University of Copenhagen. He first visited China as an exchange student in 1978-1979 and continues to visit each year.
Chen Gang is Assistant Director and Senior Research Fellow of the East Asian Institute (EAI), National University of Singapore. Since he joined the EAI in 2007, he has been tracing China’s politics, foreign policy, environmental and energy policies and publishing extensively on these issues. He is the single author of Politics of Renewable Energy in China (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2019), The Politics of Disaster Management in China: Institutions, Interest Groups, and Social Participation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), China’s Climate Policy (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), and Politics of China's Environmental Protection: Problems and Progress (Singapore: World Scientific, 2009). He provides consultancy for the Singapore government on policy issues in East Asia. He is frequently interviewed by media like Voice of America, Bloomberg TV, BBC, Channel NewsAsia and Xinhua News Agency. He sometimes gives lectures at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore, and Singapore Environment Institute. He helps the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy to design the “Public Sector Risk Management” curriculum for MPA students.
