Title: In search of civil society : market reform and social change in contemporary China /
Authors: White, Gordon, 1942-; Shang, Xiaoyuan.; Howell, Jude.
Publisher: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press,
Year: 1996
Subjects: China Social conditions; China Economic conditions; China Economic policy
Abstract: Since 1978, China has pursued sweeping economic changes in an officially sponsored transition from a Stalinist centrally planned economy to a socialist market economy. This book explores the extent to which this experience can be described and understood in terms of the idea of `civil society', defined in sociological terms as the emergence of an autonomous sphere of voluntary associations capable of organizing the interests of emergent socio-economic groups and counterbalancing the hitherto unchallenged dominance of the Marxist-Leninist state.