Reviving Legitimacy

This fascinating collection of papers on China's ongoing efforts in reviving legitimacy has approached the issue of legitimacy from both normative and empirical perspectives, and from Western and Chinese perspectives, thus this edited volume offers lessons and insights for and from China, and contributes to the ongoing theoretical debates as well as empirical research on legitimacy in the Chinese context.

The Chinese government has attempted to bolster its legitimacy as a political response to emerging social, cultural, political, economic, environmental challenges and crises experienced during market-oriented reforms and rapid modernization in China. However, contrary to the Western preference for liberal democracy and 'procedural legitimacy,' the Chinese government's attempt at bolstering legitimacy has emphasized performance-based, responsibility-based, morality-based, and ideology-based arguments in order to gain popular support and maintain regime stability. In order to understand and explain political phenomena in China, it is necessary to revisit the concepts, theories, and sources of legitimacy and their applications in the Chinese context. Contributors of this book have approached legitimacy from both normative and empirical perspectives, and from Western and Chinese perspectives, thus this edited volume offers lessons and insights for and from China, and contributes to the ongoing theoretical debates as well as empirical research on legitimacy in the Chinese context.

Chapter 1 Introduction: A Cosmopolitan Moment of Legitimacy and Governance
Part 2 Part I. Legitimacy in Theoretical Perspectives
Chapter 3 Chapter 1. Typological Analysis of Democratic Legitimacy
Chapter 4 Chapter 2. What is Political Legitimacy and How can it be Acquired? Lessons from a Deviant Case
Chapter 5 Chapter 3. International Dimensions of Legitimacy: Reflections on Western Theories and the Chinese Experience
Chapter 6 Chapter 4. "Adaptive Authoritarianism" in Contemporary China: Identifying Zones of Legitimacy Building
Chapter 7 Chapter 5. Re-conceptualizing "Legitimacy" for Studying Village Elections in China
Part 8 Part II. Reviving Legitimacy in China
Chapter 9 Chapter 6. Confucianism as a Legitimizing Ideology
Chapter 10 Chapter 7. Legitimizing Leninism
Chapter 11 Chapter 8. Authoritarian Legitimacy and Legitimation in Contemporary China
Chapter 12 Chapter 9. "Performance Legitimacy" and China's Political Adaptation Strategy
Chapter 13 Chapter 10. Morality, Benevolence, and Responsibility: Regime Legitimacy in China from Past to the Present