University of Washington
Department of Political Science
Autumn 2008
POL S 469/LSJ 469/SISEA 469
Law, Development, and Transition in East Asia
MW 1:30-3:20pm
Johnson 022
Prof. Susan Whiting
45 Gowen Hall
543-9163
swhiting@u.washington.edu
Course Description
Is the rule of law necessary for capitalist economic development? What is the role of law in transitions from
authoritarian government? This course examines the role of law and courts in economic and political change in
the developing world, and this quarter the empirical materials will focus on China in comparative context.
During the first third of the course, we will examine core legal concepts, institutions and actors in the Chinese
context. In the middle section of the course, we will build on this foundation in order to examine specific legal
issues, including the conduct of elections as well as approaches to land, labor, contract, and intellectual property
disputes. The final part of the course will cover major debates in the field of law and development, including
the role of law in promoting economic development; law and human rights; the Asian Values debate; and the
role of foreign aid in promoting the rule of law. I have reserved these debates for the end of the quarter so that
you can bring your knowledge of legal concepts, institutions, actors, and issues to bear on evaluating the
controversies involved.
Course Requirements
Course requirements include regular in-class assignments/quizzes. In-class assignments, quizzes, and
participation account for 72% of the grade, equivalent to 4% per day or 8% per week for the 18 class sessions
laid out under the Schedule of Topics (below). A term paper, accounting for 28% of the total grade is due in
class on Wednesday, December 3. Late papers will be marked down 0.1 point per day. The term paper is not to
exceed 10 double-spaced pages in length for undergraduate students and 15 double-spaced pages for graduate
students. There are three Research Workshops scheduled during class throughout the quarter to help you
complete your term paper on time. I will provide more details on the term paper in class.
Office Hours
Office hours are Tuesdays and Wednesdays 3:45-4:45pm in 45 Gowen Hall.
Course Materials (Available at the University Bookstore, 4326 University Way NE, 206-634-3400)
Required texts:
Randall Peerenboom, China’s Long March Toward the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Course reader.
Course Website
http://faculty.washington.edu/swhiting/pols469
Schedule of Topics and Readings
Week One
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
1. Introduction
“The People's Court: Introducing the Rule of Law in China,” Bruno Sorrent, Director.
Week Two
Monday, September 29, 2008
2. Comparative Law and the Study of Foreign Legal Systems
Paul Bohannan, “Ethnography and Comparison in Legal Antrhopology,” in Laura Nader, ed., Law in Culture
and Society (Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1969), pp. 401-418 (excerpts only).
Max Gluckman, “Concepts in the Comparative Study of Tribal Law,” in ibid, pp. 349-367 (excerpts only).
Thomas B. Stephens, Order and Discipline in China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992), pp. 3-34
(excerpts only).
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
3. Basic Concepts in Chinese Law—Confucianism, Legalism, and Rule of Law
Randall Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law, Chp. 1, pp. 1-6 (pp. 6-22 optional); Chp. 2, pp.
27-49; Chp. 3, pp. 55-71 and 91-102 (falungong case study).
Week Three
Monday, October 6, 2008
4. Institutions: Hierarchy of “Laws,” How Laws are Made, and the Role of People’s Congresses
Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law, Chp. 6, pp. 239-279.
Kevin J. O’Brien, “Chinese People’s Congresses and Legislative Embeddedness,” Comparative Political Studies
Vol. 27, No. 1 (April 1994), pp. 80-109.
For Reference:
Murray Scot Tanner, “How a Bill Becomes a Law in China: Stages and Processes in Lawmaking,” The China
Quarterly No. 141 (March 1995), pp. 39-64.
Murray Scot Tanner, The Politics of Lawmaking in Post-Mao China: Institutions, Processes, and Democratic
Prospects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Michael William Dowdle, “Constructing Citizenship: The NPC as Catalyst for Political Participation,” in Merle
Goldman and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds., Changing Meanings of Citizenship in Modern China (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 330-349.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
5. Institutions: The Role of Courts and Judges
Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law, Chp. 7, pp. 280-330.
Stanley B. Lubman, “Dispute Resolution in China after Deng Xiaoping: Mao and Mediation
Revisited,”Columbia Journal of Asian Law Vol. 11, No.2 (Fall 1997), pp. pp. 229-235 and 272-282
only.
Frank K. Upham, “Song fa xiaxiang: Zhongguo jiceng sifazhidu yanjiu (Book Review),” Yale Law Journal Vol.
114, No. 7 (May 2005), pp. 1675-2020 (excerpts tba).
For reference:
Benjamin L. Liebman, “China’s Courts: Restricted Reform,” China Quarterly Vol. 191 (September 2007), pp.
620-638. (with commentary by Shen Kui).
Qianfan Zhang, “The People’s Court in Transition: The Prospects of the Chinese Judicial Reform,” Journal of
Contemporary China Vol. 12, No. 34 (2003), pp. 69-101.
Mei Ying Gechlik, “Judicial Reform in China: Lessons from Shanghai,” Columbia Journal of Asian Law (--or
use Carnegie version (shorter)
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Hualing Fu, “Putting China’s Judiciary into Perspective: Is It Independent, Competent, and Fair?” in Erik G.
Jensen and Thomas C. Heller, eds., Beyond Common Knowledge: Empirical Approaches to the Rule of
Law ( Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 193-219.
Ting Gong, “Dependent Judiciary and Unaccountable Judges: Judicial Corruption in Contemporary China,” The
China Review Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall 2004), pp. 33-54.
Philip C.C. Huang, “Court Mediation in China, Past and Present,” Modern China Vol. 32, No. 3 (July 2006), pp.
275-314.
Week Four
Monday, October 13, 2008
6. Institutions: The Role of Lawyers
Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law, Chp.8, pp. 343-383.
Ethan Michelson, “The Practice of Law as an Obstacle to Justice: Chinese Lawyers at Work,” Law & Society
Review Vol. 40, No. 1 (March 2006), pp. 1-38.
For Reference:
He Weifang, “China’s Legal Profession: The Nascence and Growing Pains of a Professionalized Legal Class,”
Columbia Journal of Asian Law Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring-Fall 2005), pp. 138-151.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
7. Institutions: The Role of the State: Government Officials, Petitioning, Arbitration, and Administrative
Litigation
Isabelle Thireau and Hua Linshan, “The Moral Universe of Aggrieved Chinese Workers: Workers’ Appeals to
Arbitration Committees and Letters and Visits Offices,” The China Journal No. 50 (July 2003), pp. 83103.
Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, “The Politics of Lodging Complaints in Rural China,” The China Quarterly
No. 143 (September 1995), pp. 756-783.
Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law, Chp. 9, pp. 394-438.
For reference:
Carl Minzer, “Xinfang: Alternative to Formal Chinese Legal Institutions,” Stanford Journal of International
Law 103 (2006).
Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, “Suing the Local State: Administrative Litigation in Rural China,” in
Diamant et al., eds., Engaging the Law in China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 31-53.
Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2006).
Laura M. Luehrmann, “Facing Citizen Complaints in China, 1951-1996,” Asian Survey Vol. 16, No. 12
(October 2003), pp. 845-866.
Xi Chen, “Information, Contention, and Archival Research in the Study of State-Society Relations in China,”
Paper prepared for the Workshop on Sources and Methods in Chinese Politics, University of Michigan,
November 3-5, 2006. See also Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University.
Week Five
Monday, October 20, 2008
8. Institutions: The Role of the Media
Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao, 中国农民调查 (The Life of China’s Peasants: Will the Boat Sink the Water)
transl. Zhu Hong (New York: Perseus Books, 2006), Chp. 2 “The Village Tyrant,” pp. 29-62
Benjamin L. Liebman, “Watchdog or Demagogue? The Media in the Chinese Legal System,” Columbia Law
Review Vol. 105, No. 1 (January 2005), pp. tba.
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
9. Issues: Elections
Robert A. Pastor and Qingshan Tan, “The Meaning of China’s Village Elections,” The China Quarterly No. 162
(June 2000), pp. pp. 490-512
Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, “Accommodating ‘Democracy’ in a One-Party State: Introducing Village
Elections in China, The China Quarterly No. 162 (June 2000), pp. 465-489.
Linda Chao and Ramon H. Myers, “How Elections Promoted Democracy in Taiwan under Martial Law,” The
China Quarterly No. 162 (June 2000), pp. 387-409.
For reference:
Organic Law of Villagers’ Committees, http://www.china.org.cn/english/government/207279.htm
Jamie Horsley, “A Legal Perspective on the Development of Electoral Democracy in China: The Case of
Village Elections,” in C. Stephen Hsu, ed., Understanding China’s Legal System (New York: NYU
Press, 2003), pp.
Week Six
Monday, October 27, 2008
10. Issues: Land
Eva Pils, “Land Disputes, Rights Assertion, and Social Unrest in China: A Case from Sichuan,” Columbia
Journal of Asian Law Vol. 19, No.1 (Spring-Fall 2005), pp. 235-292.
For Reference:
Rural Land Contracting Law, http://www.lawinfochina.com/law/display.asp?id=2433
Zhu Keliang, et al., “The Rural Land Question in China: Analysis and Recommendations Based on a SeventeenProvince Survey,” International Law and Politics Vol. 38 (January 2007), pp. 761-839.
Peter Ho, “Who Owns China’s Land? Policies, Property Rights and Deliberate Institutional Ambiguity,” The
China Quarterly No. 166 (June 2001), pp. 394-421.
Xiaolin Guo, “Land Expropriation and Rural Conflicts in China,” The China Quarterly No. 166 (June 2001),pp.
422-439.
Loren Brandt, et al., “Local Government Behavior and Property Right Formation in Rural China,” Journal of
Institutional and Theoretical Economics Vol. 160, No. 4 (December 2004), pp. 627-662.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
11. Issues: Labor
Ching Kwan Lee, Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2007), Chp.2, pp. 34-65.
Mary E. Gallagher, “Mobilizing the Law in China: ‘Informed Disenchantment’ and the Development of Legal
Consciousness,” Law & Society Review Vol. 40, No. 4 (December 2006), pp. 783-813.
Mary E. Gallagher, “ ‘Use the Law as Your Weapon!’: Institutional Change and Legal Mobilization in China,”
in Diamant et al., eds., Engaging the Law in China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 6777only.
For reference:
Labor Law, Chinese Law & Government Vol. 35, No. 6 (November-December 2002).
Labor Contract Law
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/china_law_prof_blog/files/070629_labor_contract_law_en.pdf
White Paper on Labor and Social Security, http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/20020429/index.htm
Yunqiu Zhang, “Law and Labor in Post-Mao China,” Journal of Contemporary China Vol. 14, No. 4 (August
2005), pp. 525-542.
Virginia Harper Ho, Labor Dispute Resolution in China: Implications for Labor Rights and Legal Reform
(Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies), 2003.
Cooney, Sean. 1996. “The New Taiwan and Its Old Labour Law: Authoritarian Legislation in a Democratised
Society,” Comparative Labor Law Journal 18:1-61. (Available online—LN).
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Anita Chan, “Labor Standards and Human Rights: The Case of Chinese Workers Under Market Socialism,”
Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 20, No. 4 (1998). (Available online).
Anita Chan, “A ‘Race to the Bottom’: Globalisation and China’s Labour Standards,” China Perspectives No. 46
(March-April 2003), pp. 41-49.
David M. Trubek, Jim Mosher, Jeffrey S. Rothstein, “Transnationalism in the Regulation of Labor Relations:
International Regimes and Transnational Advocacy Networks,” Law and Social Inquiry Vol. 25, No. 4
(Fall 2000). (Available online).
Hilary K. Josephs, “Upstairs, Trade Law: Downstairs, Labor Law,” George Washington International Law
Review Vol. 33, No. 3-4 (Spring-Summer 2001), pp. 849-872.
Week Seven
Monday, November 3, 2008
12. Issues: Contracts and Dispute Resolution
Susan H. Whiting, “Contracting and Dispute Resolution among Chinese Firms: The Role of Legal Institutions in
Market Transition,” unpublished manuscript.
Philip C.C. Huang, “Codified Law and Magisterial Ajudication in the Qing,” in Kathryn Bernhardt and Philip
C.C. Huang, eds., Civil Law in Qing and Republican China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994),
pp. 142-186.
Tom Ginsburg and Glenn Hoetker, “The Unreluctant Litigant? An Empirical Analysis of Japan’s Turn to
Litigation,” Journal of Legal Studies Vol. 35 (January 2006), pp. 31-59.
For Reference:
Margaret Y.K. Woo and Yaxin Wang, “Civil Justice in China: An Empirical Study of Courts in Three
Provinces,” American Journal of Comparative Law Vol. 53 (Fall 2005), pp.
Donald Clarke, Peter Murrell, and Susan Whiting, “The Role of Law in China’s Economic Development,” in
Loren Brandt and Thomas Rawski, eds., (New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
Donald C. Clarke, “Power and Politics in the Chinese Court System: The Enforcement of Civil Judgments,”
Columbia Journal of Asian Law Vol. 10, No.1 (Spring 1996). (Available online). (short version in
China Quarterly)
Simon Johnson, John McMillan and Christopher Woodruff, “Courts and Relational Contracts,” Journal of Law,
Economics, and Organization Vo. 18, No. 1, pp. 221John McMillan and Christopher Woodruff, “Dispute Prevention Without Courts in Vietnam,” Journal of Law,
Economics, and Organization Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 637-658.
Jane Winn, “Relational Practices and the Marginalization of Law: Informal Financial Practices of Small
Businesses in Taiwan,” Law and Society Review Vol. 28, No. 2 (1994), pp. 193-232.
Frank Upham, “Speculations on Legal Informality: On Winn’s ‘Relational Practices and the Marginalization of
Law’,” Law and Society Review Vol. 28, No. 2 (1994), pp. 232-.
John Haley, “The Myth of the Reluctant Litigant,” Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer 1978),
pp. 359-390.
Lester Ross, “The Changing Profile of Dispute Resolution in Rural China: The Case of Zouping County,
Shandong,” Stanford Journal of International Law Vol. 26, No. 1 (1990), pp. 15-66. (Available
online—LN and via Gallagher Law Library).
Douglas Guthrie, “The Declining Significance of ‘Guanxi’ in China’s Economic Transition,” China Quarterly
No. 14 (June 1998), pp. 254-.
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Wednesday, November 5, 2008
13. Issues: IPR
Shin-yi Peng, “The WTO Legalistic Approach and East Asia: From the Legal Culture Perspective,” AsianPacific Law and Policy Journal (June 2000).
Andrew C. Mertha, “Chinese Bureaucracies, Foreign Actors, and the Evolution of China’s Anti-Counterfeiting
Enforcement Regime,” in in Diamant et al., eds., Engaging the Law in China (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2005), pp. 161-186.
Mei Y. Gechlik, “Protecting Intellectual Property Rights in Chinese Courts,” Carnegie Papers No. 78 (January
2007), pp. 3-20.
For Reference:
Julia Ya Qin, “Trade, Investment and Beyond: The Impact of WTO Accession on China’s Legal System,” ,”
China Quarterly Vol. 191 (September 2007), pp. 720-741. (with commentary by Huang Dongli).
William Alford, To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense
Pitman B. Potter, “China and the International Legal System: Challenges of Participation,” China Quarterly
Vol. 191 (September 2007), pp. 699-715. (with commentary by James Li Zhaojie).
Week Eight
Monday, November 10, 2008
Research Workshop
Legal Research Guide—China http://lib.law.washington.edu/eald/clr/cres.html
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Research Workshop
Week Nine
Monday, November 17, 2008
14. Issues: Human Rights
Rosemary Foot, Rights Beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China
(Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 1-26 and 251-273.
For Reference:
Kerry Rittich, “Human Rights and Development”, The New Oxford Companion to Law, forthcoming, Oxford
University Press, 2008
White Paper on Human Rights
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200104/09/eng20010409_67254.html
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
15. Debates: Asian Values, Human Rights
Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law, Chp. 11, pp. 513-546.
Bilarhari Kausikan, “Governance That Works,” Journal of Democracy Vol. 8, No. 2 (April 1997), pp. 24-34.
Joseph Chan, “An Alternate View,” Journal of Democracy Vol. 8, No. 2 (April 1997), pp. 35-48.
For Reference:
Bangkok Declaration http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu5/wcbangk.htm
Andrew Nathan, “The Place of Values in Cross-Cultural Studies: The Example of Democracy and China,” in
Paul A. Cohen and Merle Goldman, eds., Ideas Across Cultures (1990), pp. 293-134.
Bilahari Kim Hee P.S. Kausikan, “An East Asian Approach to Human Rights,” Buffalo Journal of International
Law Vol. 2, No. 263 (Winter 1995-96).
Joseph Chan, “The Asian Challenge to Universal Human Rights: A Philosophical Critique,” in James T. H.
Tang, ed., Human Rights and International Relations in the Asia-Pacific Region (Pinter 1995), pp. 2538.
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Daniel A. Bell, “The East Asian Challenge to Human Rights: Reflections on an East West Dialogue,” Human
Rights Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 3 (1996), pp. 641-667.
Michael Davis, “The Price of Rights: Constitutionalism and East Asian Economic Development,” Human
Rights Quarterly Vol. 20, No. 2 (1998), pp. 303-37.
William Theodore De Bary and Tu Weiming, eds., Confucianism and Human Rights (Columbia University
Press, 1998).
Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell, eds., The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge University
Press, 1999).
Michael Jacobsen and Ole Bruun, eds., Human Rights and Asian Values (Curzon, 2000).
Korea Journal, Vol. 42 and preceeding issues on Asian values debate
Randall Peerenboom, “Human Rights and Asian Values: The Limits of Universalism,” China Review
International Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall 2000).
Michael Davis, “Constitutionalism and Political Culture: The Debate over Human Rights and Asian Values,”
Harvard Human Rights Law Journal Vol. 11 (1998), pp. 109-47.
Ronald Dworkin, “Taking Rights Seriously in Beijing,” New York Review of Books Vol. XLIX, No. 14
(September 26, 2002).
Week Ten
Monday, November 24, 2008
16. Debates: Law and Economic Development
Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law, Chp. 10, pp. 450-498.
Philip Keefer and Stephen Knack, “Why Don’t Poor Countries Catch Up? A Cross-National Test of an
Institutional Explanation,” Economic Inquiry (July 1997) Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 590-601.
Tom Ginsburg, “Does Law Matter for Economic Development? Evidence from East Asia,” Law & Society
Review Vol. 34, No. 3 (October 2000), pp. 829-856.
For reference:
Susan H. Whiting, “The Mobilization of Private Investment as a Problem of Trust in Local Governance
Structures,” in Valerie Braithwaite and Margaret Levi, eds., Trust and Governance (Russell Sage,
1998), pp. 167-193.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Research Workshop
Week Eleven
Monday, December 1, 2008
17. Debates: The Law and Development Movement
Thomas Caruthers, “The Rule of Law Revival,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 77, No.2 (March 1998), pp. 95-106.
Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law, Chp. 4, pp. 126-174.
David Trubek, “Law and Development: Then and Now.” American Society of International Law Proceedings
Vol. 90 (1996), pp. 223-228.
For Reference:
Kerry Rittich, "The Future of Law and Development: Second Generation Reforms and the Incorporation of the
Social", David M. Trubek and Alvaro Santos eds., The New Law and Economic Development: A
Critical Appraisal (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Kerry Rittich, “The Law and Development Movement”, The New Oxford Companion to Law, forthcoming,
Oxford University Press, 2008.
Randall Peerenboom and Weitseng Chen, “Developing the Rule of Law,” in pp. 135-159.
Jacques deLisle, “Lex Americana?: United States Legal Assistance, American Legal Models, and Legal Change
in the Post-Communist World and Beyond,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of International
Economic Law Vol. 20, No. 179 (Summer 1999).
Kanishka Jayasuriya, ed., Law, Capitalism, and Power in Asia (Routledge, 1999).
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Randall Peerenboom, ed., Asian Discourses of Rule of Law: Theories and Implementation of Rule of Law in
Twelve Asian Countries, France and the U.S. (New York: Routledge, 2004).
David Trubek and Marc Galanter, “Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Reflections on the Crisis in Law and
Development Studies in the United States,” Wisconsin Law Review (1974), pp. 1062-1102.
David M. Trubek, “Max Weber on Law and the Rise of Capitalism,” Wisconsin Law Review (1972), pp. 720753.
David M. Trubek, “Toward a Social Theory of Law: An Essay on the Study of Law and Development,” The
Yale Law Journal Vol. 82, No.1 (November 1972), pp. 1-50.
Julio Faundez, “Legal Reform in Developing and Transition Countries: Making Haste Slowly,” in Rudolf V.
Van Puymbroeck, ed., Comprehensive Legal and Judicial Development: Toward an Agenda for a Just
and Equitable Society in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2001).
Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth, eds., Global Prescriptions: The Production, Exportation and Importation of
a New Legal Orthodoxy (University of Michigan Press, 2002).
Thomas Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 1999).
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
18. Conclusions
No assigned readings.
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