Chinese Justice

This volume analyzes whether China's thirty years of legal reform have taken root in Chinese society by examining how ordinary citizens are using the legal system in contemporary China. It is an interdisciplinary look at law in action and at legal institutions from the bottom up, that is, beginning with those at the ground level that are using and working in the legal system. It explores the emergent Chinese conception of justice – one that seeks to balance Chinese tradition, socialist legacies, and the needs of the global market. Given the political dimension of dispute resolution in creating, settling, and changing social norms, this volume contributes to a greater understanding of political and social change in China today and of the process of legal reform generally.

Interdisciplinary, bringing together law scholars and social scientists working on Chinese legal reforms
Each chapter is a rich empirical case of some aspect of legal reform
Focuses on law-in-action, examining how law is used from the bottom up and how China's legal institutions structure this interaction

Reviews & endorsements

"China’s efforts to build a legal system in little more than a generation are unprecedented in their scope and speed. In Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China, Mary Gallagher and Margaret Woo bring together a rich array of scholars, from China and the West, and representing law and several social sciences, to try to understand and evaluate this undertaking both the top down and bottom up. It is an impressive work that I think will be essential for anyone wanting not only law and dispute resolution in the PRC, but contemporary China itself."

- William P. Alford
Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law
Director of East Asian Legal Studies
Harvard Law School

'This volume is timely as the 4th plenum of the 18th Party Congress in 2014 established the ‘rule of law’ as its central theme. Clearly the CCP is hoping that by emphasizing the ‘rule of law’, an increasingly volatile and restless society can be stabilized. However, as this excellent volume reveals, the challenges faced by the CCP will be enormous.' Chow Bing Ngeow, Journal of Chinese Political Science

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Product details

Published: February 2013
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781107610620
Length: 432 pages
Dimensions: 229 × 152 × 22 mm
Weight: 0.58kg
Contains: 18 b/w illus. 22 tables
Availability: Available

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Contents

Part I. Legal Development and Institutional Tensions:
1. From mediatory to adjudicatory justice: the limits of civil justice reform in China Fu Hualing and Richard Cullen
2. Judicial disciplinary systems for incorrectly decided cases: the imperial Chinese heritage lives on Carl Minzner
3. Proceduralism and rivalry in China's two legal states Douglas B. Grob
4. Economic development and the development of the legal profession in China Randall Peerenboom
Part II. Pu Fa and the Dissemination of Law in the Chinese Context:
5. The impact of nationalist and Maoist legacies on popular trust in legal institutions Pierre F. Landry
6. Popular attitudes toward official justice in Beijing and rural China Ethan Michelson and Benjamin Read
7. Users and non-users: legal experience and its effect on legal consciousness Mary Gallagher and Yuhua Wang
8. With or without law: the changing meaning of ordinary legal work in China, 1979–2003 Sida Liu
Part III. Law from the Bottom Up:
9. A populist threat to China's courts? Benjamin L. Liebman
10. Dispute resolution and China's grassroots legal services Fu Yulin
11. Constitutionalism with Chinese characteristics? Thomas E. Kellogg.

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Contributors

Fu Hualing, Richard Cullen, Carl Minzner, Douglas B. Grob, Randall Peerenboom, Pierre F. Landry, Ethan Michelson, Benjamin Read, Mary Gallagher, Yuhua Wang, Sida Liu, Benjamin L. Liebman, Fu Yulin, Thomas E. Kellogg

Editors

Margaret Y. K. Woo , Northeastern University, Boston
Margaret Y. K. Woo is Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law and co-director of the law school's program on Human Rights in the Global Economy. She has written and spoken widely on US procedural justice and the issue of Chinese legal reform. She was formerly a Fellow at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College and is a research associate with the East Asian Legal Studies Center of Harvard Law School. Her publications include Litigating in America (2006) and East Asian Law - Universal Norms and Local Cultures (2003).
Mary E. Gallagher , University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Mary E. Gallagher is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, where she is also the director of the Center for Chinese Studies. She is also a faculty associate at the Center for Comparative Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research. Gallagher is the author of Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China (2005) and the forthcoming The Rule of Law in China: If They Build It, Who Will Come? which was funded by the Fulbright Association and the National Science Foundation.

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