Institutional Genes: Totalitarianism in China

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RockSinCity
Published
Speaker: Professor Chenggang Xu (Stanford University)
Event Date: 30 October 2023
Chair: Professor Steve Tsang, Director, SOAS China Institute

In this talk, Professor Chenggang Xu characterises the contemporary fundamental institution of China as Regionally Decentralized Totalitarianism (RDT).

This system has its roots in the imported Soviet communist totalitarian system and the Chinese imperial system, as well as its evolution since the inception of the People's Republic of China (PRC) era. To analyse China's institutional evolution more comprehensively, Professor Xu introduces an analytical concept, "institutional genes."

These are self-reproducing basic structures of key institutional elements such as power structures, resource allocation mechanisms, and prevailing social beliefs. His goal is to explain why China's institutions have evolved in the way that we have observed, and to predict how they will continue to evolve in the future.

About the speaker:
Chenggang Xu is a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions and Visiting Fellow at Hoover Institution of Stanford University; and a research fellow of the CEPR (Center for Economic Policy Research).

Over the past three decades, prior to his current roles, he has held teaching positions at the University of Hong Kong, LSE and Tsinghua. His research focuses on political economics, institutional economics and Chinese political economics. He obtained PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 1991.
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