China’s Ethical Revolution and Regaining Legitimacy

"This is a timely project and Zhang and McGhee are well-suited to be doing it. A particularly compelling aspect of their argument is that legitimacy in China is being constructed by re-socializing, and re-making the ethical subjectivity of officials. Rather than identifying illegal activity per se, anti-corruption campaigns aim to induce a particular kind of discipline and morality into the officials. Their focus on subject formation and an 'ethical revolution' within the Party offers an excellent intervention into the legitimacy literature." (Lisa Hoffman, Professor of Urban Studies, University of Washington Tacoma, USA)

In the context of the Party’s history of the military revolution, Cultural Revolution and Economic Reform (or economic revolution), the authors argue that under President Xi Jinping the Party has launched an ethical revolution within the Party for the sake of sustaining its legitimacy.This book examines the many ways in which the Communist Party in China is still revolutionary by focusing on how, in recent years, it has attempted to mobilize Party members to become ethical subjects. In the context of the Party’s history of the military revolution, Cultural Revolution and Economic Reform (or economic revolution), the authors argue that under President Xi Jinping the Party has launched an ethical revolution within the Party for the sake of sustaining its legitimacy. This book examines the various combined components of this ethical revolution, including anti-corruption, anti-four undesirable working styles and Mass-Line Education programme from the perspective of the fifty current Communist Party officials.