This chapter discloses the functions of the nonprofit sector in non-Western democratic national contexts and argues that a state’s political regime is related to the hierarchy of functions performed by the nonprofit sector in that state. The authors focus on the function of legitimacy and the ways the nonprofit sector performs it in a non-democratic context, with Russia as an example. They construct a theoretical model that explains why nonprofits instead of other organizations fulfill certain functions in nondemocratic regimes. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the model’s relevance to other nondemocratic contexts.

Chapter 6 analyzes firm-level patterns of collective action and finds that law-abiding firms are more likely to experience collective action for interest-based demands. Using the strike map dataset of the China Labour Bulletin, it shows that interest-based protests are less likely to invite state repression, in part because they do not target state authorities. Contrary to the assumption that those protest that ask more than the legal minimum might be more politically threatening than law-based protests, the findings in this chapter demonstrate that interest-based protests rarely breach the physical boundary of individual firms.

The chapter introduces the central arguments and main findings of the book.

This chapter describes the socioeconomic changes in the post-reform era that have contributed to growing labor assertiveness. It contends that the regime’s coercive control of migrant labor in the 1980s and 1990s created the structural conditions for labor assertiveness. As in other authoritarian regimes that faced a similar situation at the critical juncture, such as Brazil, South Africa, and South Korea, China also began to deal with unstable state–labor relations as the era of rapid economic growth comes to an end.

This chapter focuses on the guiding case system, which is distinctive and cannot be simply explained by current case law theories. More specifically, it first explores the distinctiveness of the guiding case system in the specific context of China, as opposed to other types of case law in liberal democracies, then goes on to explain why the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has been able to expand its judicial lawmaking authority in the sense of being able to interpret the law through guiding cases. Furthermore, it illustrates that the Main Points of Adjudication (caipan yaodian), as a part of a guiding case, has essentially become a form of statutory interpretation that enables the SPC to independently perform a legislative function to a certain extent without routine surveillance by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC). This stands in contrast to the previous practice, where the SPC performed the legislative function merely through having it delegated by the NPCSC. It is further suggested that, under China’s authoritarian regime, the effectiveness of the SPC’s lawmaking function through the guiding case system depends largely on the extent to which the courts could be independent in the context of China.

This chapter examines Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s judicial interpretation, which has been formally legalized as a source of law for adjudication, as well as its relationship with various other statutes in China’s legislative system. It points out that the inner logic of China’s legislation with different hierarchical status, as distinct from those of democratically elected parliamentary systems, is determined by the de facto distribution of legislative power within its authoritarian regime, where the SPC has become a significant player in exercising legislative power in a way that has largely evolved beyond its constitutional settings. In particular, it investigates the unique inner logic of SPC’s judicial interpretations, which have become a de facto primary source of law for adjudication in practice.

This chapter explores the unique function and role of judicial documents – a significant form of informal state law, as distinguished from formal statutory laws – in China’s legislative enterprise. In particular, it examines why and how, with no explicit statutory delegation, the judicial lawmaking practice of producing judicial documents has become embedded in the adjudication of China’s courts. It accordingly proposes a twilight theory of China’s judicial documents that explains why the practice of judicial lawmaking through producing documents exists in a twilight zone between legal and illegal and is suitable for China’s politically resilient authoritarian regime. Moreover, it demonstrates how the judicial document can be referred to effectively by judges in adjudication. It further investigates the extent to which the judicial document has enabled the court, under the dual leadership of the superior court and the local Party committee, to efficiently and effectively respond to the subnational diversity and the differences of local politics.

This chapter proposes a theory of legal instrumentalism – contextually, a more explanatory framework than either Marxist or Confucian legal theories – to explain the function and role of law in Chinese society. This kind of instrumentalism, which differs from the debate over this theory in the Anglo-American tradition, is situated in China’s authoritarian regime, where a primary concern is the maintenance of political stability through strengthening authoritarian legality for the ruler. On this premise, economic development, as well as other social goals – such as efficiency of the government – for which the law can undoubtedly be placed in an instrumental position may become a priority in the ruler’s political agenda. When it comes to dispute resolution, the primary matter of concern is not the achievement of the formalist justice of Western tradition via either a formal or informal process but rather the settlement of disputes for which the law primarily plays a facilitative role as a tool, regardless of what strategies it may use. Instrumentalism of this kind, which is suitable for Chinese society both culturally and historically, shows that law is visible and does matter in China, although it cannot be completely understood through the lens of other legal traditions.

This chapter investigates judicial precedents in China’s instrumentalist legal system and finds that judges are generally reluctant to refer to a judicial precedent, including a guiding case, in the process of making a judicial decision. It further reveals that the guiding case system has effectively crystallized a bureaucratic system of judicial precedents with guiding cases at the top of the pyramid. A bureaucratic system of this kind is grounded primarily in the political hierarchy of the courts and a nationwide typical-case-selection movement, in which the lower courts are politically responsible for submitting a certain number of typical cases selected from within their respective jurisdictions to the Supreme People’s Court every year. Finally, it attempts to develop a bureaucratic theory of judicial precedents centred on guiding cases that fits into China’s authoritarian context and that differs substantially from any other type of case law in a liberal context.

This chapter discusses the background, thesis, significance and implications of researching the theme of the sources of Chinese law in both comparative and Chinese legal scholarship. It also identifies the significant components of positive law in China’s legislative system and provides a general overview of China’s legislative system, along with the theoretical claims and interdisciplinary analysis involved in the detailed discussion presented in the following chapters.

Colombia’s Partido Liberal (Liberal Party, PL) and Partido Conservador (Conservative Party, PC) are two of the oldest party organizations in Latin America. They both arose in the middle of the nineteenth century (in 1848 and 1849, respectively), and have participated in almost all national and subnational elections since then. Over their combined 170 years of history, they have managed to adapt and to survive changing conditions, both structural and circumstantial, and to maintain a substantial degree of electoral political power, although this has declined since the early 1990s. Even though both organizations are still able to win votes and elect candidates in popular elections, they do not always do so in a coordinated way. In addition, both parties have lost much of their ability to aggregate collective interests vertically. Therefore, this chapter argues that these organizations merit classifications as diminished subtypes. Taking into account their lack of vertical interest aggregation as well as their minimal degree of horizontal coordination, both the PL and the PC exhibit characteristics of the independent and uncoordinated party types (Luna et al. this volume). Both electoral vehicles still manage to compete in elections with relative success, but without representing a clearly defined electorate.

Chapter 8 studies the record of macroeconomic and financial crises, high inflation episodes, currency collapses, political crises, and collapses of democracy in Latin America and the financial crises and recession episodes in East Asian economies in the period 1970–2015. The chapter focuses on countries – such as Argentina and Venezuela – with high incidence of growth, inflation, and political crises, and also examines the cases of Chile and Mexico. The chapter examines the effects of the East Asian crisis of 1997–98 on Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia (the Asia-5 countries) and compares its impact on China, Vietnam, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The chapter offers a discussion on a wide variety of crisis and stabilization occurrences in a comparative perspective, highlighting economic and political economy factors.