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The Dictator's Dilemma: The Chinese Communist Party's Strategy for Survival
Many observers predicted the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party following the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, and again following the serial collapse of communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain. Their prediction, however, never proved true. Despite minor setbacks, China has experienced explosive economic growth and relative political stability ever since 1989.
In The Dictator's Dilemma , eminent China scholar Bruce Dickson provides a comprehensive explanation for regime's continued survival and prosperity. Dickson contends that the popular media narrative of the party's impending implosion ignores some basic facts. The regime's policies may generate resentment and protest, but the CCP still enjoys a surprisingly high level of popular support. Nor is the party is not cut off from the people it governs. It consults with a wide range of specialists, stakeholders, and members of the general public in a selective yet extensive manner. Further, it tolerates and even encourages a growing and diverse civil society, even while restricting access to it. Today, the majority of Chinese people see the regime as increasingly democratic even though it does not allow political competition and its leaders are not accountable to the electorate. In short, while the Chinese people may prefer change, they prefer that it occurs within the existing political framework.
In reaching this conclusion, Dickson draws upon original public opinion surveys, interviews, and published materials to explain why there is so much popular support for the regime. This basic stability is a familiar story to China specialists, but not to those whose knowledge of contemporary China is limited to the popular media. The Dictator's Dilemma , an engaging synthesis of how the CCP rules and its future prospects, will enlighten both audiences, and will be essential for anyone interested in understanding China's increasing importance in world politics.
In The Dictator's Dilemma , eminent China scholar Bruce Dickson provides a comprehensive explanation for regime's continued survival and prosperity. Dickson contends that the popular media narrative of the party's impending implosion ignores some basic facts. The regime's policies may generate resentment and protest, but the CCP still enjoys a surprisingly high level of popular support. Nor is the party is not cut off from the people it governs. It consults with a wide range of specialists, stakeholders, and members of the general public in a selective yet extensive manner. Further, it tolerates and even encourages a growing and diverse civil society, even while restricting access to it. Today, the majority of Chinese people see the regime as increasingly democratic even though it does not allow political competition and its leaders are not accountable to the electorate. In short, while the Chinese people may prefer change, they prefer that it occurs within the existing political framework.
In reaching this conclusion, Dickson draws upon original public opinion surveys, interviews, and published materials to explain why there is so much popular support for the regime. This basic stability is a familiar story to China specialists, but not to those whose knowledge of contemporary China is limited to the popular media. The Dictator's Dilemma , an engaging synthesis of how the CCP rules and its future prospects, will enlighten both audiences, and will be essential for anyone interested in understanding China's increasing importance in world politics.
366 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 2, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 3, 2017
It isn't every day that an academic book is a "page turner," but I couldn't put this book down. Great examples of surveys of Chinese citizens on what they think of democracy, internet, and other aspects of their society. If you want to learn more about China without all the rhetoric, this is a good place to start.
November 15, 2020
Still worth reading, although inevitably a bit dated (published in 2016--I have been reading this off and on for most of the past 4 years myself), this book examines whether there is a real chance of China's developing into a political "democracy", as so many westerners hopefully maintained in the past. In a few words, Dickson says nothing is inevitable about it. As demonstrated in the Party's response to Tiananmen Square, the Party sees no reason for it to cede its political monopoly. However, it is doing so not purely based on repression, suppression, and tight control over its media, internet and education system. Rather, Dickson shows, the Party has known it has had to extend the Party's membership to include the well-educated and ambitious--a far cry from Mao's "farmer, soldier and worker" cohorts only vintage Cultural Revolution. Instead, it seeks legitimacy in "serving the people", consulting/listening and even allowing non-political civil society to develop (more than 500,000 NGOs in China help on education, disaster relief, health and various other practical help needed). Not only has the standard of living of the ordinary (and upper class) Chinese gone up rapidly since Teng Hsiao Ping, but also the freedom to travel, to take jobs throughout China (although the hukou system is still not entirely gone), and even to have more than one child. Dickson shows that as long as the expectations of the ordinary Han Chinese (we leave out the Tibetans or Uigurs) are of an improving life with the feeling that overall the Party is working to improve the health standards, safety of food, amount of pollution, and education system--all not wonderful but improving--the Party can (barring exogenous events) count on staying in power.
Not all is well, however. In particular, Xi's campaign against corruption showed both that significant numbers of Party elite were corrupt, as well as that Xi has likely prosecuted mainly his political enemies (Bo Xi Lai et al). Although the press is strongly controlled and the internet effectively a Chinese intranet, the details of corruption trials would lead at least thinking Chinese to the conclusion that the Party membership is well placed to individual profit seeking behavior. 1 in 5 respondents (!) to polls taken admitted they needed to bribe Party officials, with a direct inverse correlation to their happiness with the regime. Further, Dickson's book was published before the tension increased between China and the US under Trump--and really even Europe. Slower growth, defaults on One Belt One Road loans, and international wariness as a result of Xi's actions in creating the South China Sea artificial islands, cracking down on Hong Kong's previously quasi-autonomous state, and the increasingly apparent human rights' violations of the Uighur minority population, and even the Wuhan originated COVID virus did not make it to the book--and one would have thought that the standing of the increasingly autocratic Mr Xi would not altogether have profited from these developments.
However, and I think Dickson does a pretty good job especially trying to generalize away from China to other non-democratic countries--it seems clear that many people are happy with a government that seems to care for the ordinary citizen and makes visible progress along those lines. Many people also want stability, and the developments of Russia, the Arab Spring, and even the political mess in the USA can not unambiguously be considered to be a pure blessing. Hungary, Vietnam, the Philippines, Turkey, et al are seeing what happens with the introduction of western democracy--or at least the "free press", voting on competing political parties, and the instability coming from social media driven interest groups like antifa in Portland--all reported in China Daily and other Chinese state-owned media--would not seem to make western democracy an obviously preferred system of government for the ordinary Chinese citizen.
I was in China in 2013 when Xi was "elected" --my friend George, who runs our fund in Chengdu--watched as eagerly as do we in the US as the Politburo's members marched over a little bridge in the convention hall to deliver their votes. While the election was a foregone result, the ORDER in which the senior members walked over the bridge was of great excitement--as according to George, it signified the relative priorities of the new government, as well as who was considered among the more powerful in a subsidiary role. I realized his analysis was not that different from mine and that he felt as if his desires and interests in the next phase of the Party's rule were also being taken into consideration and weighed against those of his fellow citizens.
Dickson makes clear that while very different from western democracy, China's party cannot ignore popular sentiment. They can try to manipulate, control and repress-- but at the end of the day, to implement policy they need support and some level of consensus. While the autocratic Xi and his lieutenants have great tools at their disposal to do what they want, they cannot ignore the need to take their citizens' preferences into account, or what the narrative is which is discussed on the ground--their treatment of Bo Xilai is one case in point.
Rather, we see that all forms of government are imperfect--and that if large portions of the population of ANY country see their system as unrepresentative, corrupt and not caring about them--the politicians in power need to be aware. Nor is any one leader able to ignore a larger system behind him--Dickson notes the quick fall from power of Zhao Ziyang, general secretary of the Party, when he favored (against Teng), the democracy wall and the protests of the many wanting more democracy in 1989--culminating with the massacre of Tiananmen Square.
Although the book has copious footnotes and is somewhat repetitive, Dickson hints at the broader political philosophical implications of what is at first a narrow exposition of the Chinese Communist Party's dilemma. But in his discussion of "preference falsification", for example--where people responding to opinion polls tend to hide their true opinions out of fear that the political powers that be, as well as of the importance of people "trusting" their government providing for equitable policies treating all similarly (and not just the elite)--Dickson seems to demonstrate that his book is not an academic exercise.
Not all is well, however. In particular, Xi's campaign against corruption showed both that significant numbers of Party elite were corrupt, as well as that Xi has likely prosecuted mainly his political enemies (Bo Xi Lai et al). Although the press is strongly controlled and the internet effectively a Chinese intranet, the details of corruption trials would lead at least thinking Chinese to the conclusion that the Party membership is well placed to individual profit seeking behavior. 1 in 5 respondents (!) to polls taken admitted they needed to bribe Party officials, with a direct inverse correlation to their happiness with the regime. Further, Dickson's book was published before the tension increased between China and the US under Trump--and really even Europe. Slower growth, defaults on One Belt One Road loans, and international wariness as a result of Xi's actions in creating the South China Sea artificial islands, cracking down on Hong Kong's previously quasi-autonomous state, and the increasingly apparent human rights' violations of the Uighur minority population, and even the Wuhan originated COVID virus did not make it to the book--and one would have thought that the standing of the increasingly autocratic Mr Xi would not altogether have profited from these developments.
However, and I think Dickson does a pretty good job especially trying to generalize away from China to other non-democratic countries--it seems clear that many people are happy with a government that seems to care for the ordinary citizen and makes visible progress along those lines. Many people also want stability, and the developments of Russia, the Arab Spring, and even the political mess in the USA can not unambiguously be considered to be a pure blessing. Hungary, Vietnam, the Philippines, Turkey, et al are seeing what happens with the introduction of western democracy--or at least the "free press", voting on competing political parties, and the instability coming from social media driven interest groups like antifa in Portland--all reported in China Daily and other Chinese state-owned media--would not seem to make western democracy an obviously preferred system of government for the ordinary Chinese citizen.
I was in China in 2013 when Xi was "elected" --my friend George, who runs our fund in Chengdu--watched as eagerly as do we in the US as the Politburo's members marched over a little bridge in the convention hall to deliver their votes. While the election was a foregone result, the ORDER in which the senior members walked over the bridge was of great excitement--as according to George, it signified the relative priorities of the new government, as well as who was considered among the more powerful in a subsidiary role. I realized his analysis was not that different from mine and that he felt as if his desires and interests in the next phase of the Party's rule were also being taken into consideration and weighed against those of his fellow citizens.
Dickson makes clear that while very different from western democracy, China's party cannot ignore popular sentiment. They can try to manipulate, control and repress-- but at the end of the day, to implement policy they need support and some level of consensus. While the autocratic Xi and his lieutenants have great tools at their disposal to do what they want, they cannot ignore the need to take their citizens' preferences into account, or what the narrative is which is discussed on the ground--their treatment of Bo Xilai is one case in point.
Rather, we see that all forms of government are imperfect--and that if large portions of the population of ANY country see their system as unrepresentative, corrupt and not caring about them--the politicians in power need to be aware. Nor is any one leader able to ignore a larger system behind him--Dickson notes the quick fall from power of Zhao Ziyang, general secretary of the Party, when he favored (against Teng), the democracy wall and the protests of the many wanting more democracy in 1989--culminating with the massacre of Tiananmen Square.
Although the book has copious footnotes and is somewhat repetitive, Dickson hints at the broader political philosophical implications of what is at first a narrow exposition of the Chinese Communist Party's dilemma. But in his discussion of "preference falsification", for example--where people responding to opinion polls tend to hide their true opinions out of fear that the political powers that be, as well as of the importance of people "trusting" their government providing for equitable policies treating all similarly (and not just the elite)--Dickson seems to demonstrate that his book is not an academic exercise.
December 14, 2016
Political science books tend to leave me flat, and this one is no different. Perhaps a three star review is a bit low, but - well, that was my reaction. Maybe this is a time when the star rating tells you more about the reviewer than what's being reviewed.
Getting to the book -- Dickson's looking at how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) retains its support. Ultimately, a series of studies causes Dickson to question several bits of conventional wisdom from the West about China, namely: 1) the CCP's legitimacy comes from the economy's performance (really, though, I didn't see him refute this one very much), 2) the CCP's power comes just from its ability to repress, 3) the CCP is incapable of change, 4) China lacks a civil society, and 5) people have lost trust in their leaders and are impatient for change. Those are five bits of conventional wisdom that Dickson think are, at the very least, badly overblown.
While the economy aids their legitimacy, the regime uses other tactics, including local reforms, provicing public goods, nationalism, Confucianism, and co-opting opponents when possible.
He notes that many Chinese view democracy differently than the west does. While we see democracy as about multiparty elections, Chinese are more likely to see it as about providing fairness and justice. Most of al, it's about a government being by and for the people - which is open to interpretation as to how a government does that. The CCP's longtime official slogan of "serve the people" helps them out. The government has spent more on health services since SARS.
Even though they are the one party in charge, they do consult with people and try to work with groups at times. They'll allow for experimentation at the local level. (Oddly enough, throughout the book Dickson presents evidence that people are more upset at local government than national government. There's a consistent local legitimacy gap). They still use the mass line in China to build up support. Mao has been deemphasized and traditional Confucian values used more. Nationalism has becomes more notable, such as the 1999 embassy bombing in ex-Yugoslavia, and in protests in 2012 over the East China Sea.
They do allow for space for civil society. (There are even NIMBY protests in China). NGOs have gone up from 100,000 in 2001 to a half-million by 2012.
Yes, repression does exist. It's done selectively. The CCP tries to control info - such as China's "Great Firewall" on the internet. It's gone up since 2008. The party is concerned over a religious revival going on, especially among Catholics (the party feuds with the Vatican over who nominates bishops). The household registration (hukou) system is a point of contention for many (especially China's quarter BILLION internal migrants), as was the One Child Policy.
Warning signs for the regime includes corruption. It hurts the people's trust and support. Crackdowns are often more symbolic than real. The youth are less likely to be supportive than older ones - but the charts I saw didn't seem like it was a drastic difference.
Dickson also points out that people assume a non-CCP China would be a happy democratic state, but that is not the only alternative. He notes that recent years have seen the rise of supposedly democratically elected strongmen, like Putin or Hugo Chavez. Russia is hardly a positive tale for a big power becoming a post-communist state. It could disintregate - especially regions pusing for more autonomy and even independence. Many see the CCP as the bulwark of order and stability.
Yeah, there is some good info in here.
Getting to the book -- Dickson's looking at how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) retains its support. Ultimately, a series of studies causes Dickson to question several bits of conventional wisdom from the West about China, namely: 1) the CCP's legitimacy comes from the economy's performance (really, though, I didn't see him refute this one very much), 2) the CCP's power comes just from its ability to repress, 3) the CCP is incapable of change, 4) China lacks a civil society, and 5) people have lost trust in their leaders and are impatient for change. Those are five bits of conventional wisdom that Dickson think are, at the very least, badly overblown.
While the economy aids their legitimacy, the regime uses other tactics, including local reforms, provicing public goods, nationalism, Confucianism, and co-opting opponents when possible.
He notes that many Chinese view democracy differently than the west does. While we see democracy as about multiparty elections, Chinese are more likely to see it as about providing fairness and justice. Most of al, it's about a government being by and for the people - which is open to interpretation as to how a government does that. The CCP's longtime official slogan of "serve the people" helps them out. The government has spent more on health services since SARS.
Even though they are the one party in charge, they do consult with people and try to work with groups at times. They'll allow for experimentation at the local level. (Oddly enough, throughout the book Dickson presents evidence that people are more upset at local government than national government. There's a consistent local legitimacy gap). They still use the mass line in China to build up support. Mao has been deemphasized and traditional Confucian values used more. Nationalism has becomes more notable, such as the 1999 embassy bombing in ex-Yugoslavia, and in protests in 2012 over the East China Sea.
They do allow for space for civil society. (There are even NIMBY protests in China). NGOs have gone up from 100,000 in 2001 to a half-million by 2012.
Yes, repression does exist. It's done selectively. The CCP tries to control info - such as China's "Great Firewall" on the internet. It's gone up since 2008. The party is concerned over a religious revival going on, especially among Catholics (the party feuds with the Vatican over who nominates bishops). The household registration (hukou) system is a point of contention for many (especially China's quarter BILLION internal migrants), as was the One Child Policy.
Warning signs for the regime includes corruption. It hurts the people's trust and support. Crackdowns are often more symbolic than real. The youth are less likely to be supportive than older ones - but the charts I saw didn't seem like it was a drastic difference.
Dickson also points out that people assume a non-CCP China would be a happy democratic state, but that is not the only alternative. He notes that recent years have seen the rise of supposedly democratically elected strongmen, like Putin or Hugo Chavez. Russia is hardly a positive tale for a big power becoming a post-communist state. It could disintregate - especially regions pusing for more autonomy and even independence. Many see the CCP as the bulwark of order and stability.
Yeah, there is some good info in here.
September 15, 2020
1. Chinese support of regime is based on pocketbook factors not broad economic measures. This makes sense because...
2. ... perception of democracy is different in China than Western countries. Top rated interpretation is that the "state works for the people", more of an ends-based measure than process/institutions centered. Also briefly touches on liberal democracy (system that generates growth) vs. social democracy (system that strives towards equality). Which means that...
3. ... To citizens, the country is becoming more democratic. "Outsiders" who might otherwise incite revolts are ostracized, critical civil society is suppressed. In any case, revolutions rarely result in change when overthrowing an authoritarian leader, usually being overtaken again by a strong head.
2. ... perception of democracy is different in China than Western countries. Top rated interpretation is that the "state works for the people", more of an ends-based measure than process/institutions centered. Also briefly touches on liberal democracy (system that generates growth) vs. social democracy (system that strives towards equality). Which means that...
3. ... To citizens, the country is becoming more democratic. "Outsiders" who might otherwise incite revolts are ostracized, critical civil society is suppressed. In any case, revolutions rarely result in change when overthrowing an authoritarian leader, usually being overtaken again by a strong head.
January 5, 2021
An absolute must-read for anyone who wants to fully understand the complex and fraying US-China relationship. This book provides an understanding of the challenges facing the CCP and how the party approaches them and the party's mindset. It's a fascinating look at a country that while outwardly is projecting strength has many problems and fissures below the surface.
January 11, 2018
My bad. I picked up this book because I read Bruce Dickinson. I find out it's just another dull academic paper pusher who doesn't get totalitarian regimes, or that the polls are just another form of popular entertainment. And the irony: his ignorance does not stop him from getting an excellent pay, and even traveling on other people's money. Chapter 4. He explains with the pathos only an ignorant can deal how the goal of the Communist Party is to stay in power. Not for one second does he realize that the party IS the power. The same way he does not understand the Chinese, the same way he brings the imaginary political system on which he was trained when much younger and less corrupt and he just tinkers a bit with the model.
April 14, 2021
Good scholarly work on the CCP and the current political situation in China. Some sections are very engaging, though others are painfully redundant. Could have been significantly shorter and gotten the message across equally as well.
October 26, 2018
I wonder what will the author say in 2017.
An extra star for the book being banned on Douban.com (the Chinese version of GoodReads)
An extra star for the book being banned on Douban.com (the Chinese version of GoodReads)
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews