Ideological Conflict and the Rule of Law in Contemporary China

Samuli Seppänen is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He holds an S. J. D. degree from Harvard Law School and a law degree from Helsinki University, Finland.

• Foreword William P. Alford; Preface and acknowledgments; 1. Introduction: 1.1 A change of perspective; 1.2 A return to ideology; 1.3 Limitations, academic positioning and apologies; 1.4 Structure of the book; 2. Setting the stage: 2.1. Three generations of Chinese legal scholars; 2.2 Historically significant scholarship; 2.3 Conservative socialist reforms; 2.4 The mainstream state of mind; 2.5 Liberal sensibilities; 2.6 The avant-garde point of view; 2.7 New orthodoxies and heterodoxies; 2.8 Conclusion: resisting and affirming the ideological positions; 3. Ideological cynicism meets theoretical skepticism: 3.1 Some realism about ideological realism; 3.2 The life and thought of Luo Gan; 3.3 Luo Gan's speeches through the kaleidoscope of social theory; 3.4 A theoretical smorgasbord; 3.5. Conclusion: knowing how not to know; 4. Useful paradoxes: the conservative socialist ideological position: 4.1 Introduction; 4.2 Between the romanticism of illegality and the romanticism of legality; 4.3 Useful paradoxes; 4.4 Neoconservative reconfigurations; 4.5 Conclusion: paradoxes as entry points for local knowledge; 5. Thick mainstream, thin liberalism and vice versa: 5.1 Introduction; 5.2 All things considered; 5.3 Wang Liming and mainstream strategies; 5.4 Prescriptions of paternalism and autonomy; 5.5 Li Buyun and the ever-thickening rule of law conception; 5.6 Liberalism for an authoritarian state; 5.7 Conclusion: merging the narratives; 6. Avant-garde renewal and nostalgia: 6.1 Introduction; 6.2 Critical avant-garde scholarship; 6.3 New Confucian hybrids; 6.4 Communitarian rule of law; 6.5 The paradoxes of ideological renewal; 6.6 Jiang Shigong and the irrationalist turn; 6.7 Conclusion: a cycle of hope and disillusionment; 7. Conclusions; 7.1 'But nothing falls'?; 7.2 Argumentative strategies; 7.3 Leaps of faith; 7.4 Ideological positions at play: explicating the rural land rights debate; 7.5 Orientalist exotica; Textbook answers to the questions in chapters 1–6; Bibliography; Index.

'Ideological Conflict and the Rule of Law in Contemporary China deserves praise for the empathetic but rigorous manner in which it delves deeply and deftly into the thinking of a bevy of major and quite varied thinkers in [Chinese] law … There is no better critical guide in a western language to the leading figures in early-twenty-first century legal thought in China. That noted, [the book] also deserves praise for the artfulness and candor with which it recognizes and teases out the contradictions and paradoxes that inform the larger project of legal development in the People's Republic of China (PRC) - and with it, attempts therein to articulate an alternative to liberal legality. In this sense, [this book] has made a valuable contribution not only to our understanding of the law and institutions in the PRC more broadly, but also to our thinking about what may (or may not) be possible in law anywhere and, as such, it is an important contribution to legal theory in general, deserving of being studied far beyond the world of contemporary Chinese studies.' William P. Alford, Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School