Law, Development, and Transition POLS/SISEA/LSJ 469

Law, Development, and Transition

POLS/SISEA/LSJ 469

Prof. Susan Whiting

Using the Chinese experience to study law, development, and transition

• Law is typically—if unreflectively—studied with reference to a particular system

• Chinese experience– Authoritarian regime• Role of law in supporting or transforming political power

– Post-socialist transition• Role of law in market transition (from plan to market)

– Developing country• Role of law in promoting economic growth

– East Asian country• Role of law in Confucian cultural tradition

Syllabus

Student handout

Presentation sign-up sheet

Introductions: me

Introductions: you

• Name, major, year• Note any field experience w/ Asia, China, and

elsewhere• Note any experience with “the law”• What are your objectives in taking this class?• What do you hope to learn?

1st reading assignment (handout and “heads up”)

• Remove 1st 4 pages from reader• Bohannan, “Ethnography and Comparison in

Legal Anthropology”– Excerpts– Skip: p. 412 (last 2 paragraphs) • SKIP: “As many another social anthropologist might…”

– Start again at: top of p. 417 • “To elucidate the immediate task…”

“The People’s Court”

Watching “The People’s Court” (1)

• Is China implementing “Western-style legal reforms”? Is this true, possible, desirable?

Watching “The People’s Court” (2)

• We see the government and academia promoting expectations of “justice” (among law students, workers, farmers); what are some possible consequences of this (intended, unintended)?

Watching “The People’s Court” (3)

• We are told that half of all court judgments are enforced; is this percentage high or low? By what standard?

Watching “The People’s Court” (4)

• Not even the new property law makes property rights in rural land clear (who is “the village collective”?). Whose interests are served by such ambiguity?

Watching “The People’s Court” (5)

• Note the discussion of the professionalization of the judiciary. There is an on-going debate in China today about whether rural judges should be highly trained legal professionals or people deeply embedded in the community and more attuned to community norms than “law.” Stay tuned!