China experiments : from local innovations to national reform /

This stirring and stimulating volume by Florini (Brookings Institution), Lai (China Center for Overseas Social and Philosophical Theories), and Tan (PhD candidate, Harvard Univ.) seeks to explore how a large, complex, and rapidly changing China governs itself. Chapter 2 focuses on the nitty-gritty business of government reform. Chapter 3 deals with innovations aimed at developing electoral capacity and mechanisms within the country. Chapter 4 discusses how local governments are engaging with civil society groups and government-organized nongovernmental organizations. Chapter 5 probes the issue of transparency and how local experiments get scaled up into national regulation. The concluding chapter offers a crosscutting look at all the attempts at political innovation and their implications. The authors believe that Chinese people "will increasingly look to their new leaders to offer a unifying, coherent, and convincing vision of China's future" and that, in addition to the intellectual and political elite, "many outside of these circles are also increasingly demanding a role in writing that future." Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, undergraduate students, graduate students, and research faculty. S. K. Ma California State University, Los Angeles