166-215 Chinese Politics and Society

Note

Available as 166-315 at 3rd-year level.

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Normally 25 points of first-year Politics; students with only 12.5 points in Politics may apply to the 2nd/3rd-year coordinator.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

What were the factors behind the massacre of June 4th 1989? Is the Chinese Communist Party still very much in control? Is the Maoist era just a distant memory or are the scars and recollections of that period still formative in the contemporary life of China? How important is Marxism now? An inter-disciplinary introductory subject to contemporary Chinese politics, history and social life. The subject examines the various isms which have come to influence the Chinese Communist Party. It examines themes which run from Mao to modernisation, and history which runs from Mao to now. On completion of this subject, students will have: an understanding of the forces at play in contemporary Chinese social and political life; an understanding of the necessity of taking theory seriously and develop an understanding of a critique of dominant realist approaches to the area studied; developed the critical faculties so that they are more attuned to the political nuances of various standard texts on Chinese politics.

Assessment

Essay work or equivalent totalling 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• M Meisner, Maos China and After.
• B Brugger and S Regler, Politics, Economy and Society in Contemporary China.