Pub Date : 2024-02-15DOI: 10.1177/00977004241227390
Eddy U
Research on the Cultural Revolution focuses on agents of violence and their intentions, activities, and conflicts but pays little attention to resistance to the resulting aggression and oppression. I show that workers, rebels, Red Guards, and others served as “good Samaritans” who thwarted violence against “class enemies” and assuaged their suffering. I draw on studies of resistance and social interaction by James Scott, Michel de Certeau, Erving Goffman, and others. My analysis focuses on the first two years of the Cultural Revolution, when punishments were decentralized and haphazard. I describe four approaches of resistance—“confrontation,” “playacting,” “direct care,” and “deniable care”—based on the transparency of intention and visibility of the good Samaritan’s act. Such acts of resistance reoriented revolutionary justice from an assault on class enemies to their care and protection and served to contingently reknit social bonds as the Cultural Revolution ripped them apart.
{"title":"“Good Samaritans” and Approaches of Resistance in the Cultural Revolution","authors":"Eddy U","doi":"10.1177/00977004241227390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004241227390","url":null,"abstract":"Research on the Cultural Revolution focuses on agents of violence and their intentions, activities, and conflicts but pays little attention to resistance to the resulting aggression and oppression. I show that workers, rebels, Red Guards, and others served as “good Samaritans” who thwarted violence against “class enemies” and assuaged their suffering. I draw on studies of resistance and social interaction by James Scott, Michel de Certeau, Erving Goffman, and others. My analysis focuses on the first two years of the Cultural Revolution, when punishments were decentralized and haphazard. I describe four approaches of resistance—“confrontation,” “playacting,” “direct care,” and “deniable care”—based on the transparency of intention and visibility of the good Samaritan’s act. Such acts of resistance reoriented revolutionary justice from an assault on class enemies to their care and protection and served to contingently reknit social bonds as the Cultural Revolution ripped them apart.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139835288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-15DOI: 10.1177/00977004241227390
Eddy U
Research on the Cultural Revolution focuses on agents of violence and their intentions, activities, and conflicts but pays little attention to resistance to the resulting aggression and oppression. I show that workers, rebels, Red Guards, and others served as “good Samaritans” who thwarted violence against “class enemies” and assuaged their suffering. I draw on studies of resistance and social interaction by James Scott, Michel de Certeau, Erving Goffman, and others. My analysis focuses on the first two years of the Cultural Revolution, when punishments were decentralized and haphazard. I describe four approaches of resistance—“confrontation,” “playacting,” “direct care,” and “deniable care”—based on the transparency of intention and visibility of the good Samaritan’s act. Such acts of resistance reoriented revolutionary justice from an assault on class enemies to their care and protection and served to contingently reknit social bonds as the Cultural Revolution ripped them apart.
{"title":"“Good Samaritans” and Approaches of Resistance in the Cultural Revolution","authors":"Eddy U","doi":"10.1177/00977004241227390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004241227390","url":null,"abstract":"Research on the Cultural Revolution focuses on agents of violence and their intentions, activities, and conflicts but pays little attention to resistance to the resulting aggression and oppression. I show that workers, rebels, Red Guards, and others served as “good Samaritans” who thwarted violence against “class enemies” and assuaged their suffering. I draw on studies of resistance and social interaction by James Scott, Michel de Certeau, Erving Goffman, and others. My analysis focuses on the first two years of the Cultural Revolution, when punishments were decentralized and haphazard. I describe four approaches of resistance—“confrontation,” “playacting,” “direct care,” and “deniable care”—based on the transparency of intention and visibility of the good Samaritan’s act. Such acts of resistance reoriented revolutionary justice from an assault on class enemies to their care and protection and served to contingently reknit social bonds as the Cultural Revolution ripped them apart.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139775513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-07DOI: 10.1177/00977004231170526
Gavin Healy
As industrial and agricultural production kicked into overdrive during the Great Leap Forward, so too did cinematic production. Factories and agricultural collectives promoted labor models, and the film industry created new cinematic models of heroic production workers. At the same time, valorization of production labor heightened the alienation of workers in the “nonproductive” service sector. To address this situation, service sector work units nominated their own model workers, and the film industry brought tales of service workers to audiences nationwide. Through a close reading of three such films— Fuwuyuan 服务员 (1958), produced during the Great Leap Forward; Manyi bu manyi 满意不满意 (1963), produced just after the Great Leap Forward; and Duan panzi de guniang 端盘子的姑娘 (1981), produced shortly after the implementation of market reforms—this article charts the evolution of cinematic discourse on the value of service work in the economy and society of socialist and early post-socialist China.
{"title":"Fuwuyuan on Film: Cinema, Socialist Education, and Service Labor from the Great Leap Forward to Reform and Opening Up","authors":"Gavin Healy","doi":"10.1177/00977004231170526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004231170526","url":null,"abstract":"As industrial and agricultural production kicked into overdrive during the Great Leap Forward, so too did cinematic production. Factories and agricultural collectives promoted labor models, and the film industry created new cinematic models of heroic production workers. At the same time, valorization of production labor heightened the alienation of workers in the “nonproductive” service sector. To address this situation, service sector work units nominated their own model workers, and the film industry brought tales of service workers to audiences nationwide. Through a close reading of three such films— Fuwuyuan 服务员 (1958), produced during the Great Leap Forward; Manyi bu manyi 满意不满意 (1963), produced just after the Great Leap Forward; and Duan panzi de guniang 端盘子的姑娘 (1981), produced shortly after the implementation of market reforms—this article charts the evolution of cinematic discourse on the value of service work in the economy and society of socialist and early post-socialist China.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139448457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-29DOI: 10.1177/00977004231206177
Jean Christopher Mittelstaedt
This article focuses on the development of “grassroots cultural infrastructure”—namely, “cultural halls” and “cultural stations”—at the county level and below since the Mao Zedong era. Since their formation, the party-state has accorded cultural halls and stations a critical role in propagating policies, educating citizens, and conducting cultural activities. Based on historical gazetteers, Chinese Communist Party histories, government policies, handbooks, and statistical yearbooks, this article shows that frequently changing policy priorities meant cultural halls and stations were wedged in between the demands of the party-state and the people and were ill-equipped to fulfill their role. Mass political campaigns during the Mao era wrought havoc, and commercialization during reform and opening up undermined their relevance. In the mid-2000s, a focus on service provision resulted in higher expectations that were impossible to fulfill. As a remedy, after 2015, cultural infrastructure has been reorganized and increasingly deployed via volunteers and technology. This article therefore sheds light not only on the history of grassroots cultural infrastructure but also its future.
{"title":"Culture for the Masses: Building Grassroots Cultural Infrastructure in China","authors":"Jean Christopher Mittelstaedt","doi":"10.1177/00977004231206177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004231206177","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the development of “grassroots cultural infrastructure”—namely, “cultural halls” and “cultural stations”—at the county level and below since the Mao Zedong era. Since their formation, the party-state has accorded cultural halls and stations a critical role in propagating policies, educating citizens, and conducting cultural activities. Based on historical gazetteers, Chinese Communist Party histories, government policies, handbooks, and statistical yearbooks, this article shows that frequently changing policy priorities meant cultural halls and stations were wedged in between the demands of the party-state and the people and were ill-equipped to fulfill their role. Mass political campaigns during the Mao era wrought havoc, and commercialization during reform and opening up undermined their relevance. In the mid-2000s, a focus on service provision resulted in higher expectations that were impossible to fulfill. As a remedy, after 2015, cultural infrastructure has been reorganized and increasingly deployed via volunteers and technology. This article therefore sheds light not only on the history of grassroots cultural infrastructure but also its future.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139143334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-05DOI: 10.1177/00977004231209992
Kai Yang
In the early Xi Jinping era, Chinese veterans escalated their contention and repeatedly staged cross-regional collective actions, sparking concerns about the internal stability of the governing regime. However, by 2019 veterans’ broad-based mobilizations had largely faded into obscurity, even though local and individual activism persisted. How did the government successfully contain veterans’ mobilization without radicalizing the entire issue group? Drawing on evidence from fieldwork, media accounts, and government documents, this article argues that the regime has embraced a campaign-style stability maintenance approach, defined as the concerted top-down mobilization of all available resources by central authorities to silence designated targets within a defined time frame. This approach differs from the transformative campaigns prevalent in the Mao Zedong era, as its chief purpose is to defend rather than transform the existing sociopolitical and economic order. It also deviates from routine stability-preserving practices, as the intensity of protest suppression, the breadth of targeted subjects, and the speed of conflict resolution have all been markedly escalated. In the post-Mao era, the state adopts this approach when it urgently needs to silence a particular group or preserve stability during sensitive periods. Although this strategy has indeed assisted the regime in managing politically threatening forms of contention, its implementation often comes at the expense of upholding the rule of law. Furthermore, since its primary goal is to swiftly demobilize protests rather than fundamentally redress grievances, the achieved outcomes may lack long-term sustainability.
{"title":"Demobilizing Veterans: Campaign-Style Stability Maintenance in China","authors":"Kai Yang","doi":"10.1177/00977004231209992","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004231209992","url":null,"abstract":"In the early Xi Jinping era, Chinese veterans escalated their contention and repeatedly staged cross-regional collective actions, sparking concerns about the internal stability of the governing regime. However, by 2019 veterans’ broad-based mobilizations had largely faded into obscurity, even though local and individual activism persisted. How did the government successfully contain veterans’ mobilization without radicalizing the entire issue group? Drawing on evidence from fieldwork, media accounts, and government documents, this article argues that the regime has embraced a campaign-style stability maintenance approach, defined as the concerted top-down mobilization of all available resources by central authorities to silence designated targets within a defined time frame. This approach differs from the transformative campaigns prevalent in the Mao Zedong era, as its chief purpose is to defend rather than transform the existing sociopolitical and economic order. It also deviates from routine stability-preserving practices, as the intensity of protest suppression, the breadth of targeted subjects, and the speed of conflict resolution have all been markedly escalated. In the post-Mao era, the state adopts this approach when it urgently needs to silence a particular group or preserve stability during sensitive periods. Although this strategy has indeed assisted the regime in managing politically threatening forms of contention, its implementation often comes at the expense of upholding the rule of law. Furthermore, since its primary goal is to swiftly demobilize protests rather than fundamentally redress grievances, the achieved outcomes may lack long-term sustainability.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138601211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-20DOI: 10.1177/00977004231206341
Ouyang Jing
“Informality” and “semiformality” are the primary characteristics of minimalist governance. The operation of minimalist governance assumes a boundary between state and society and some amount of autonomous space between them at the ground level. Whether in a traditional or modern form, minimalist governance stands in contrast to the formal, hierarchical bureaucracy of the state. Minimalism is a pragmatic approach to governance tailored to local conditions, a form of semiformal or informal government that emphasizes operational effectiveness over elaborate bureaucratic procedures. Since minimalist governance does not rely entirely on the hierarchical power of the state apparatus, this semiformal approach is simple and effective, hence its “minimalist” appearance. The key to solving the problem of formalism at the basic level of government lies in managing the relationship between “a thousand threads above” and “a single needle below.” Autonomy and self-governance must be granted to the basic level of the government so that party committees may fulfill their integrative political functions and their role in minimalist governance. Ultimately, this will allow the “needle” of grassroots organizations to connect with “a thousand threads above” while also penetrating deeply into local society. There is significant practical and theoretical importance in understanding the uniqueness of Chinese-style modernization, and the modernization of rural governance, from the perspective of “social foundations,” but to achieve this Chinese-style modernization we must learn from the West and from China’s own traditional and contemporary experiences.
{"title":"What Is Minimalist Governance?*","authors":"Ouyang Jing","doi":"10.1177/00977004231206341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004231206341","url":null,"abstract":"“Informality” and “semiformality” are the primary characteristics of minimalist governance. The operation of minimalist governance assumes a boundary between state and society and some amount of autonomous space between them at the ground level. Whether in a traditional or modern form, minimalist governance stands in contrast to the formal, hierarchical bureaucracy of the state. Minimalism is a pragmatic approach to governance tailored to local conditions, a form of semiformal or informal government that emphasizes operational effectiveness over elaborate bureaucratic procedures. Since minimalist governance does not rely entirely on the hierarchical power of the state apparatus, this semiformal approach is simple and effective, hence its “minimalist” appearance. The key to solving the problem of formalism at the basic level of government lies in managing the relationship between “a thousand threads above” and “a single needle below.” Autonomy and self-governance must be granted to the basic level of the government so that party committees may fulfill their integrative political functions and their role in minimalist governance. Ultimately, this will allow the “needle” of grassroots organizations to connect with “a thousand threads above” while also penetrating deeply into local society. There is significant practical and theoretical importance in understanding the uniqueness of Chinese-style modernization, and the modernization of rural governance, from the perspective of “social foundations,” but to achieve this Chinese-style modernization we must learn from the West and from China’s own traditional and contemporary experiences.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139259621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-17DOI: 10.1177/00977004231203897
Mark Baker
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, China’s “Northwest Highway” was a major conduit for Soviet equipment to support the war effort against Japan. This article investigates the building and operation of the portion of this new motor route in Gansu province. While the Northwest Highway was a remarkable achievement in long-distance motorized logistics—and later became a lever for Nationalist state-building in the region—it came at a heavy cost in energy and labor and negatively impacted state–society relations. This article uncovers the multiple layers of energy inputs involved in the construction and operation of the highway, from organic human and animal power to the colossal fossil fuel demands of truck transportation. Many of these costs were imposed on civilian society in Gansu through corvée labor and requisitioning. To compound these burdens, this article argues, the Northwest Highway brought few positive spillover effects because of restrictions on civilian road use and the limitations of Gansu’s wider transportation infrastructure.
{"title":"Energy, Labor, and Soviet Aid: China’s Northwest Highway, 1937–1941","authors":"Mark Baker","doi":"10.1177/00977004231203897","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004231203897","url":null,"abstract":"During the Second Sino-Japanese War, China’s “Northwest Highway” was a major conduit for Soviet equipment to support the war effort against Japan. This article investigates the building and operation of the portion of this new motor route in Gansu province. While the Northwest Highway was a remarkable achievement in long-distance motorized logistics—and later became a lever for Nationalist state-building in the region—it came at a heavy cost in energy and labor and negatively impacted state–society relations. This article uncovers the multiple layers of energy inputs involved in the construction and operation of the highway, from organic human and animal power to the colossal fossil fuel demands of truck transportation. Many of these costs were imposed on civilian society in Gansu through corvée labor and requisitioning. To compound these burdens, this article argues, the Northwest Highway brought few positive spillover effects because of restrictions on civilian road use and the limitations of Gansu’s wider transportation infrastructure.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139266372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/00977004221133533
E. Jeffreys, Jian Xu
This article examines the governance of China’s entertainment industries using the concept of “indentured celebrities”—famous people who are obliged to serve as ambassadors for Chinese government advertising and public diplomacy. The article introduces the idea of indentured celebrities in relation to Western sociological understandings of major celebrities as “national power elites,” “powerless elites,” and cosmopolitan “Big Citizens” who use their mediatized star power to exert unelected, “stateless” political influence. It then examines the expansion since the mid-2000s of regulatory controls over China’s entertainment industries. Finally, it explores the “Fan Bingbing tax evasion case,” revealing how online public censure, and the associated potential for government action, can coalesce to discipline celebrity behaviors. We conclude that regulatory frameworks and, to a lesser degree, “supervision by public opinion,” indenture major celebrities to aid the ruling Chinese Communist Party, while undermining any scope to exert nongovernmental political influence as per Western celebrities.
{"title":"Indenturing Celebrity: Governing China’s Entertainment Industries","authors":"E. Jeffreys, Jian Xu","doi":"10.1177/00977004221133533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004221133533","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the governance of China’s entertainment industries using the concept of “indentured celebrities”—famous people who are obliged to serve as ambassadors for Chinese government advertising and public diplomacy. The article introduces the idea of indentured celebrities in relation to Western sociological understandings of major celebrities as “national power elites,” “powerless elites,” and cosmopolitan “Big Citizens” who use their mediatized star power to exert unelected, “stateless” political influence. It then examines the expansion since the mid-2000s of regulatory controls over China’s entertainment industries. Finally, it explores the “Fan Bingbing tax evasion case,” revealing how online public censure, and the associated potential for government action, can coalesce to discipline celebrity behaviors. We conclude that regulatory frameworks and, to a lesser degree, “supervision by public opinion,” indenture major celebrities to aid the ruling Chinese Communist Party, while undermining any scope to exert nongovernmental political influence as per Western celebrities.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47567881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-31DOI: 10.1177/00977004231194700
Philip C. C. Huang
In socialist China today, neoliberal economics has actually come to wield institutionalized hegemonic power in academic evaluations of economic studies, while in neoliberal America, there is ironically considerably more pluralism in the practice of academic evaluations of economic studies. The origins of this state of affairs lie not in just a simple matter of ideology or policy choices, but rather in different tendencies in the operative practices of two different systems of governance. While China leans strongly toward centralized bureaucratism, along with scientism and numericism, the United States leans more toward multicentered pluralistic practices. Regardless, what scholarship needs is pluralistic contention for sustained long-term development.
{"title":"Whither Economics in China? A Comment on Professor Jia Genliang’s “Reflections on Economics Education in China and Suggestions for Its Reform”","authors":"Philip C. C. Huang","doi":"10.1177/00977004231194700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004231194700","url":null,"abstract":"In socialist China today, neoliberal economics has actually come to wield institutionalized hegemonic power in academic evaluations of economic studies, while in neoliberal America, there is ironically considerably more pluralism in the practice of academic evaluations of economic studies. The origins of this state of affairs lie not in just a simple matter of ideology or policy choices, but rather in different tendencies in the operative practices of two different systems of governance. While China leans strongly toward centralized bureaucratism, along with scientism and numericism, the United States leans more toward multicentered pluralistic practices. Regardless, what scholarship needs is pluralistic contention for sustained long-term development.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47309785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-31DOI: 10.1177/00977004231194699
Genliang Jia
Although the current economics education system in universities in China differs from developed Western countries, China has been deliberately emulating the economics education system in the West over the past two decades, a system that has been repeatedly criticized by international movements such as the “post-autistic economics movement” and the “International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics.” This article argues that the dominant position of mainstream Western economics in Chinese higher education contradicts the scientific principles of pluralism and does not align with China’s national conditions and the necessity for the development of a philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics. Based on the proposals put forward by faculty and students involved in the international movement for the reform of economics education over the past twenty-two years, this article recommends reforms to address the major weaknesses of economics education in China. The reforms address ten areas for improvement, including the overall goals of pluralism in economics education, curriculum design, teaching methods, an independent academic evaluation system, faculty development, and the evaluation of academic disciplines. The purpose of these reforms is to destabilize the dominant position of mainstream Western economics in higher education in China and gradually establish a new economics education system with a curriculum based on a plurality of approaches, a variety of critical pedagogies, and a methodology of problem-based learning.
{"title":"Reflections on Economics Education in China and Suggestions for Its Reform","authors":"Genliang Jia","doi":"10.1177/00977004231194699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004231194699","url":null,"abstract":"Although the current economics education system in universities in China differs from developed Western countries, China has been deliberately emulating the economics education system in the West over the past two decades, a system that has been repeatedly criticized by international movements such as the “post-autistic economics movement” and the “International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics.” This article argues that the dominant position of mainstream Western economics in Chinese higher education contradicts the scientific principles of pluralism and does not align with China’s national conditions and the necessity for the development of a philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics. Based on the proposals put forward by faculty and students involved in the international movement for the reform of economics education over the past twenty-two years, this article recommends reforms to address the major weaknesses of economics education in China. The reforms address ten areas for improvement, including the overall goals of pluralism in economics education, curriculum design, teaching methods, an independent academic evaluation system, faculty development, and the evaluation of academic disciplines. The purpose of these reforms is to destabilize the dominant position of mainstream Western economics in higher education in China and gradually establish a new economics education system with a curriculum based on a plurality of approaches, a variety of critical pedagogies, and a methodology of problem-based learning.","PeriodicalId":47030,"journal":{"name":"Modern China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49195725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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