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8 - Disorientation for the New Era

Intraparty Regulations and China’s Changing Party-State Relations

from Part II - Ideology and the Party in Law and Organisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2020

By
Samuli Seppa¨nen
Edited by
Rogier J. E. H. Creemers  and
Susan Trevaskes
Rogier J. E. H. Creemers
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
Susan Trevaskes
Affiliation:
Griffith University, Queensland
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Summary

Samuli Seppänen examines the issue of Chinese Communist Party rules in the organisation of the Party-state and their relationship to the overall rule-of-law system. His focus is on scholarly arguments that centre around how we are to understand ways in which the Party governs itself and society. A curious twist in rule-of-law ideology has emerged: recent institutional reforms developed under the banner of rule of law have coincided with equally prominent efforts to establish a ‘rational’ system of intraparty regulations within the Party. But why continue to promote law-based governance while seemingly working to undermine that governance through the expansion of a Party disciplinary and supervision regime? These moves have prompted some scholars to take on a ‘commonsense’ approach: to assume, following an instrumentalist tradition, that the ‘political’ and the ‘legal’ are not necessarily in tension with each other since they both sit under a system of ‘rule by regulations’. Seppänen problematises the commonsense narrative by describing an alternative way of understanding ‘the political’ in China.

Keywords

Chinese Communist Party (CCP or Party)intrapartyregulationsrule of lawreform
Type
Chapter
Information
Law and the Party in China
Ideology and Organisation
 , pp. 214 - 236
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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