Theatre of Power: China's Party Congress and Authoritarian Legitization

When:

October 19, 2015

Time:

03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

Category:

Lecture

Location:

UVic, Sedgewick Building, Room C168

Details:

Presentation by Dr. Guoguang Wu 
CAPI Chair in China and Asia-Pacific Relations and Professor in the Departments of Political Science and History

This seminar provides an analysis of how the Chinese Communist Party Congress operates to elect Party leadership and decide Party policy, and explores why the formal performance of congress meetings, delegate discussions, and non-democratic elections is significant for authoritarian politics more broadly. Taking institutional inconsistency as the central research question, this seminar explores a new theory of ‘mutual contextualization’ to reveal how informal politics and formal institutions interact. Despite the prevalence of informal politics behind the scenes, authoritarian politics in China seeks legitimization through a combination of political manipulation and the ritual mobilization of formal institutions.

This is the first in a series of Research Seminars by CAPI Research Chairs and Associates.

About Dr. Wu

Guoguang Wu joined CAPI in July 2004 as the Chair in China and Asia-Pacific Relations. He is a Professor at the University of Victoria, teaching in both the Departments of Political Science and History. He received his BA from Peking (Beijing) University in China, an MA from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing), and an MA and a PhD in Political Science from Princeton University. His research interests include comparative politics and international relations with an emphasis on East Asia, particularly China, Hong Kong,and Taiwan. Thematically his research interests cover institutional transition from communism, the political economy of globalization, liberalization and democratization, the politics of authoritarian mass media, and foreign-domestic linkages in foreign policy and regional security.

 

Contact:

Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives
250-721-7020
www.uvic.ca/capi