“Stability preservation” (weiwen) has long been an imperative of China’s one-party state. At the same time, China has recently embedded a commitment to the protection of human rights in its constitution. This book examines the multiple and shifting ways in which weiwen impinges on the implementation of human rights. Using case studies, Sarah Biddulph methodically examines the state’s response to labour unrest, medical disputes, and forced housing evictions. As she demonstrates, the state’s reaction can vary from taking steps to ameliorate the underlying causes of the citizens’ grievances to the repression of rights-related protests and the punishment of protestors. The Stability Imperative: Human Rights and Law in China reveals how the systematic failure of the legal system to protect rights coupled with an overemphasis on coercive forms of stability preservation is undermining the authority of law in China and could, ultimately, damage the Communist Party’s leadership.

The Politics of Law and Stability in China examines the nexus between social stability and the law in contemporary China. It explores the impact of Chinese Communist Partyês (CCP) rationales for social stability on legal reforms, criminal justice opera

China's rise to global power status in recent decades has been accompanied by deepening economic relationships with Africa, with the New Silk Road's extension to Sub-Saharan Africa as the latest step, leading to much academic debate about the influence of Chinese business in the continent. However, China's engagement with African states at the political and diplomatic level has received less attention in the literature. This book investigates the impact of Chinese policies on African politics, asking how China deals with political instability in Africa and in turn how Africans perceive China to be helping or hindering political stability. While China officially operates with a foreign policy strategy which conceives of Africa as one integrated monolithic area (with the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) the flagship of inter-continental cooperation), this book highlights the plurality of context-specific interaction patterns between China and African elites, demonstrating how China's role and relevance has differently evolved according to whether African countries are resource-rich and geostrategically important from the Chinese perspective or not. By looking comparatively at a range of different country cases, the book aims to promote a more thorough understanding of how China reacts to political stability and instability, and in which ways the country contributes to domestic political dynamics and stability within African states. China’s New Role in African Politics will be of interest to researchers from across Political Science, International Relations, International Law and Economy, Security Studies, and African and Chinese Studies.

China's management of urbanization is an under-appreciated factor in the regime's longevity. The Chinese Communist Party fears "Latin Americanization" -- the emergence of highly unequal megacities with their attendant slums and social unrest. Such cities threaten the survival of nondemocratic regimes. To combat the threat, many regimes, including China's, favor cities in policymaking. Cities and Stability shows this "urban bias" to be a Faustian Bargain: cities may be stabilized for a time, but the massive in-migration from the countryside that results can generate the conditions for political upheaval. Through its hukou system of internal migration restrictions, China has avoided this dilemma, simultaneously aiding urbanites and keeping farmers in the countryside. The system helped prevent social upheaval even during the Great Recession, when tens of millions of laid-off migrant workers dispersed from coastal cities. Jeremy Wallace's powerful account forces us to rethink the relationship between cities and political stability throughout the developing world.

This report is designed to provide Congress with a perspective on the contemporary political system of China, the only Communist Party-led authoritarian state in the G-20 grouping of major economies. China's Communist Party dominates state and society in China, is committed to maintaining a permanent monopoly on power, and is intolerant of those who question its right to rule. Nonetheless, analysts consider China's political system to be neither monolithic nor rigidly hierarchical. Jockeying among leaders and institutions representing different sets of interests is common at every level of the system.

Contemporary Chinese Politics: Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies considers how new and diverse sources and methods are changing the study of Chinese politics. Contributors spanning three generations in China studies place their distinct qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches in the framework of the discipline and point to challenges or opportunities (or both) of adapting new sources and methods to the study of contemporary China. How can we more effectively use new sources and methods of data collection? How can we better integrate the study of Chinese politics into the discipline of political science, to the betterment of both? This comprehensive methodological survey will be of immense interest to graduate students heading into the field for the first time and experienced scholars looking to keep abreast of the state of the art in the study of Chinese politics.

Civil society groups can strengthen an autocratic state's coercive capacity, helping to suppress dissent and implement far-reaching policies.