(8) 18 June | Pekingology, laws, and regulations (B)
Avsnittsöversikt
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What do laws and regulations really tell us?
The government documents with the prominent red stamp are a well-known characteristic of the Chinese political system—so much so that scholar Zhang Xuebo (张学博) coined the term 'governance by document' (文件治国). However, their use remains understudied. Especially the distinction between documents with de jure and de facto force of law is interesting. In this session, we will analyse the different kinds of documents in the Chinese system, and what we can learn from them.
What can we learn from reading the People's Daily?
Pekingology (or China Watching) is the art of studying the Chinese political system from afar. A remnant of the Cold War, recent political shift have made China Watching more important again. In this session we will discuss waht we can learn by reading relevant CPC publications.
- Readings: There are three essential readings this week. Essential reading 1 talks about research on China in the 'New Era'. This paper will be central to today's class. Essential reading 2 is an article on the 'rule of document' in China. The original is in Chinese, so please, if you are able to, read the original text. For everyone else there is a translation available. Essential reading 3 discusses discourse research in China.
- Focus of the week: Politics, state and governance, CCP ideology
- Method of the week: Content analysis, discourse analysis, thematic analysis
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Charles Parton. 'China watching in the "New Era": A guide'. Council on Geostrategy Explainer No. GPE05. Available at: https://www.geostrategy.org.uk/research/china-watching-in-the-new-era-a-guide/.
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Zhang Xuebo (张学博), 'Observations on the history of the rule of document: 1982-2017' (文件治国的历史观察：1982-2017). Academics (学术界) 232, no. 9 (2017): 224-231.
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Annotated translation of Zhang Xuebo's article '文件治国的历史观察：1982—2017' on David Cowhig's Blog. Available at: https://gaodawei.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/2017-zhang-xuebo-observations-on-the-history-of-rule-by-document-1982-2017/.
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Björn Alpermann and Franziska Fröhlich, 'Doing discourse analysis in Chinese studies: Methodological reflections on the basis of studying green consumption and population policy', ASIEN 154/155 (January/April 2020): 111-128.