Retrofitting Leninism explains, through the lens of China, how open governance and modern information technology come together to sustain a tightly controlled but socially responsive system of authoritarianism. When closed authoritarian regimes reform and open up, they often fail, most eventually breakdown. The People's Republic of China stands as a notable exception. How has the ruling Chinese Communist Party maintained power throughout decades of reform and rapid development? Drawing inspiration from the CCP's Leninist origins, Dimitar Gueorguiev offers a novel and empirically grounded explanation. The key to the CCP's staying power, he argues, is its ability to integrate authoritarian control with social inclusion - a combination that is being facilitated by modern telecommunications technology. Relying on statistical data, media reports, and a series of original opinion polls, Gueorguiev explores how public input feeds into political oversight and policy planning. To unpack how public preferences are acquired, processed, and prioritized, he analyses bottom-up representation and coordination in local Chinese legislatures. Finally, to evaluate the impact of inclusion, he shows that public engagement contributes to both policy stability and public satisfaction. Although public inclusion is instrumental to the CCP's hold on power, Gueorguiev underscores that "inclusive authoritarianism" greatly depends on the voluntary participation of Chinese citizens, which is far from guaranteed. A trenchant exploration of the Leninist model today, Retrofitting Leninism will reshape our understanding of the authoritarian approach to government and its prospects for the future.

About the Author
Dimitar D. Gueorguiev is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Reviews
Retrofitting Leninism presents an instructive and empirically robust view of how authoritarian resilience is managed in China today, and offers several ingenious models of how valuable data can be harvested in highly restrictive and information poor environments by researchers with the insight, skill and patience to do so. * Patricia M. Thornton, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, The China Quarterly *
Retrofitting Leninism is an ambitious and well-crafted book that should be of interest to a wide range of China researchers, from those interested in macro-political developments to those concerned about the mechanisms of policy implementation. * Steven J. Balla, Journal of Chinese Political Science *
the most thoughtful of a number of recent pathbreaking studies that describe the many ways Chinese citizens participate in politics within the limits set by the authoritarian regime * Andrew J. Nathan, Foreign Affairs *
an interesting look at Chinese governance and prospects for the future * Markku Siira, Markku Siira (Blog) *
Dazzling in its theoretical originality and intellectual subtlety, Retrofitting Leninism explains how in China engaging and controlling the public can go hand in hand, thanks to Internet technology. Gueorguiev backs up his arguments with survey data and case studies of the policy process, and enriches them with his graceful writing and his historical and humanistic insights. Stimulating reading for anyone interested in the comparative politics of non-democratic regimes. * Susan L. Shirk, author of China: Fragile Superpower (Oxford) *
Dimitar Gueorguiev brilliantly anticipated a question that would come to dominate the post-pandemic, post-Trump global scene: How did a coercive, censoring Leninist regime equip itself to handle the kind of shock that stunned democracies? In this truly eye-opening book, he details a provocative conclusion: the people themselves, whose participation-without democracy-has become an active ingredient in fortifying Chinese techno-authoritarianism. * Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition, winner of the National Book Award *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197555675
Author Dimitar Gueorguiev
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 386g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 152mm * 18mm