Review: Miscellaneous: (Re)constructing Political Society
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200305800125 |
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| Author | Ana Maria Bejarano |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
sented
by
Andrew
J.
Nathan
in
1973,
which
departed
from the
then
dominant
approach
of
focusing
on
ideological
'line
struggles'
in
the
Communist
party.
Nathan's
factions
were
of
a
specific
sort
-
patron-
client networks
woven
into
what
he
called
the
'trellis'
of
formal
politi-
cal
institutions.
In
Nathan's
view,
even
Mao
was
a
faction
leader.
Nathan
further
argued
that
competition
among
factions
was
moderat-
ed
by
a
'code
of
civility'
that
broke down
only
during
the
Cultural
Revolution,
when
Mao
sought
to
destroy
his
competitors.
Nathan's model
was
attacked from
two
directions.
Lucien
Pye
and
the
late
Tang Tsou
questioned
his
narrow
definition
of
factions,
while
Frederick
Teiwes
proposed
a
'court'
model
in
which
the
key
factor was
the
'core'
leader
-
Mao,
Deng,
or
Jiang
-
not
factions. Tsou
also
rejected
the
idea
of
a
code
of
civility,
maintaining
that
factional
strug-
gles
in
the
People's
Republic
of
China
(PRC),
and
in Chinese
history
generally,
have
been
of
the
'win-all,
lose-all'
type.
Each
of
these
arguments
is
repeated
and
updated
here,
with
Lowell
Dittmer
acting
as
a
kind
of
moderator. He
tries
to
rescue
Nathan's orig-
inal
model
by
widening
its
scope
with the concept
of
'informal poli-
tics,' a
solution
Nathan
himself
rejects.
This
is
a
book
for
specialists.
A
detailed
knowledge
of
PRC
political
history
is
assumed,
and
there
are
formidable
passages
of
dense social
science
lingo,
although
Pye,
Susan
Shirk,
and
the
late
Michel
Oksenberg
all
make
lucid
and
at
times
even
witty
contributions.
Fred
Edwards/Toronto
(RE)CONSTRUCTING
POLITICAL
SOCIETY
Edited
by
Manuel
Antonio
Garret6n
and
Edward
Newman
Tokyo:
United
Nations
University
Press,
2001,
ix,
319pp, us$31.95,
ISBN
92-808-1068-5.
Acknowledged
experts
(most
of
them
political
sociologists
from
the
region)
offer
yet
another
survey
of
the
state
of
democracy
in
Latin
America.
The
first
part
of
the
volume,
'Scenarios
of
democracy
and
transition,'
covers
an
impressive
array
of
cases (14
in
total).
The
crite-
rion
used
to
group
them
is
a
four-fold
typology,
which
differentiates
transitions
from
other
types
of
regime
change.
The
highlight
is
the
chapter on
'Reforms'
by
Laurence
Whitehead,
which combines
rich
empirical material
with
a
novel
theoretical
approach
as
well
as
a
useful
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter2002-2003
233
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