Democracy and China

Hu's study represents the first systematic examination of the democratization process in China. It covers traditional, Republican, Maoist, and Dengist China, and uses historical legacies, local forces, the world system, socialist values, and economic development to explain China's difficulty in establishing a democratic system.

This book examines the changing role of nationalism in China in the light of the immense political and economic changes there during the 1990s.

Glassman analyzes the remarkable changes occurring in Chinese society and the steps China has begun to take in moving from state-run economics to free enterprise, and from party dictatorship to electoral democracy. He focuses on the emergence of a modern middle class, and provides a Weberian analysis through such concepts as rationalization, the bureaucratic middle strata, the greater degree of efficiency of capitalism over socialism, the independent power of the state, and charismatic leadership. His methods offer not only an understanding of modern China, but of all nations making the transition to modernity.

From 1997 to 2002 Beatty conducted 128 in-depth interviews with 89 of Hong Kong's political elite in order to examine the prospects for democratization under Chinese rule. He reveals the political attitudes that may foster democratization in the long run, but which may hinder democratic progress in the short term.