Political Reliability and the Chinese Bar Exam

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12001
Date01 December 2016
Published date01 December 2016
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 43, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 2016
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 506±33
Political Reliability and the Chinese Bar Exam
Rachel E. Stern*
This article uses the case of contemporary China to explore an under-
studied type of political socialization: the bar exam. Content analysis
of 3,996 exam questions from 2002±2014 shows a turning point in the
mid-2000s, when the test became explicitly political. The newly
political exam is now a site of political learning where tomorrow's
lawyers, judges, and prosecutors perform loyalty by exchanging
politically correct answers for points. Viewed from this perspective, the
Chinese bar exam has much in common with demands for public
displays of correct behaviour in other authoritarian states. This adds a
fresh, political layer to our understanding of whose interests bar exams
serve, and why they take the form they do.
Part of China's effort to construct a well-functioning legal system is official
ambivalence toward the legal profession. On one hand, trained experts are
indispensible for any system that aims to resolve disputes, ease economic
growth, and preserve social harmony. On the other hand, however, the
leadership is watchful. Across centuries and continents, legal professionals
have often banded together to demand civil rights, including freedom of
speech, association, and belief.
1
How, then, to cultivate loyalty among
lawyers, judges, and legal scholars short of resorting to force, threats or
506
*Berkeley Law, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, 2240 Piedmont
Avenue, Berkeley, California, 94704, United States of America
rstern@law.berkeley.edu
Thanks to Mengyu Dong, Cindy Wen Xin Liu, Kristen Sangren, and Lizzie Shan for
research assistance. This article benefited from feedback from Donald Clarke, David
Law, Jon Hassid, and Ethan Michelson, as well as from discussion with audiences at
Berkeley Law, Brown University, George Washington University, and the University of
Washington.
1 On political activism by the legal profession, see T. Halliday and L. Karpik (eds.),
Lawyers and the Rise of Western Political Liberalism: Europe and North America
from the Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries (1997), and T. Halliday et al., Fighting
for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political
Liberalism (2007).
ß2016 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2016 Cardiff University Law School
bribes? A key part of the Chinese approach is cultivating a state-led vision of
what it means to be a politically correct legal practitioner.
This article uses the Chinese bar exam as a window onto the Chinese
strain of authoritarian professionalism. Though socio-legal scholars have
long known that legal education shapes the worldview of legal profes-
sionals,
2
and can reinforce an authoritarian status quo,
3
less attention has
been paid to how bar exams transmit political values and promote a state-
sanctioned version of prof essional identity. In Chin a, these political
overtones became particularly easy to see in 2007 when questions on
socialist rule of law and the correct role of the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) were added to the bar exam. Although Chinese scholars tend to
dismiss these explicitly political questions as a minor, normal part of a long
test, they send a signal to aspiring judges, lawyers, and prosecutors that the
legal profession is not exempt from the rules of the game that apply
elsewhere in society. Political content is also poised to increase in import-
ance after changes slated to take effect by 2017 raise the number of points
devoted to two highly political topics, socialist rule of law and the
constitution.
4
Clearly, the authorities are recommitting to the idea of a bar
exam capable of cultivating a legal profession both knowledgeable and
politically reliable.
For aspiring legal professionals, this article argues that Chinese bar exam
is a place where socially shared understandings of politically correct beha-
viour are refined and practiced. The exam calls on test-takers to demonstrate
political loyalty in exchange for points and, in so doing, to navigate the gap
between personal beliefs and public expression. This political learning takes
place during the fevered run-up to the exam as well as on exam day itself.
Weeks of studying allow test-takers to brush up on correct bywords and,
during this time, teachers and classmates spread the message that political
questions are easy points that can be won with little effort. Viewed from this
perspective, China's bar exam has much in common with other demands for
performances of political loyalty. Like parades demonstrating support for
President Asad in 1990s Syria,
5
or a Communist slogan placed in the
507
2 E. Mertz, The Language of Law School: Learning to `Think like a Lawyer' (2007).
3 L. Hilbink, Judges beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from
Chile (2007).
4 Xinhua News Agency, `Guanyu Wanshan Guojia Tongyi Falu
ÈZhiye Zige Zhidu de
Yijian Yinfa' [Opinion on Improving the National Unified Legal Profession
Qualification System Published], 20 December 2015, at .
See, also, Office of the Central Committee of the CCP and Office of the State
Council, `Yinfa Guanyu Wanshan Guojia Tongyi Falu
ÈZhiye Zige Zhidu de Yijian de
Tongzhi' [Notice of Publishing Opinion on Improving the National Unified Legal
Profession Qualification System], 30 September 2015, at .
5 L. Wedeen, Ambigu ities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in
Contemporary Syria (1999).
ß2016 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2016 Cardiff University Law School

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