Summer Timetable

POL2416Y1F L0101

Undergraduate Course Code: POL431Y1F L0101

Politics and Society in Contemporary China

Themes

This course will explore the dynamics of political change in post-Mao China through an examination of the actors, institutions and processes driving the reform era. We will seek to understand the relationship between marketization, social change and political reform in a Leninist political system, with particular emphasis on the effects of earlier reforms on social structure, and the consequent pressures on China’s relatively rigid Leninist political institutions and norms. We will move beyond a basic modernization perspective in our consideration of institutional legacies from the Maoist era and structural realities of the Chinese state, and how these mediate and channel pressures from both old and new social groups on state leaders.

Texts

TBA

Format and Requirements

5 short reading critiques (40%), class participation (20%) and one research paper (40%).