Governing and Ruling: The Political Logic of Taxation in China

by Changdong Zhang

Overview

Rapid social economic changes, the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, or even economic liberalization can lead to political instability and the collapse of authoritarian regimes. Despite experiencing all of these unprecedented changes in the past forty years, China under the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership has so far successfully transformed and improved both its governance capacity and its ruling capacity. Governing and Ruling: The Political Logic of Taxation in China addresses this regime resilience puzzle by examining the political logic of its taxation system, especially the ways in which taxation helps China handle three governance problems: maneuvering social control, improving agent discipline, and eliciting cooperation. Changdong Zhang argues that a taxation system plays an important role in sustaining authoritarian rule, in China and elsewhere, by combining co-optation and repression functions. The book collects valuable firsthand and secondhand data; studies China’s taxation system, intergovernmental fiscal relationships, composition of fiscal revenue sources, and tax administration; and discusses how each dimension influences the three governance problems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472129409
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	10/27/2021
Series:	China Understandings Today
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	344
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Changdong Zhang is Associate Professor of Political Science, Peking University.

Table of Contents

List of Tables    

List of Figures    

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgement

Introduction    

Chapter 1.    A Fiscal Sociological Theory of Regime Resilience    

Chapter 2.    Tax State Transition    

Chapter 3.    Fiscal Decentralization, Bureaucratization and Economic Growth    

Chapter 4.    Explaining Regional Variation    of Governance Quality

Chapter 5.    Representation through Taxation?    

Chapter 6.    Forbearance and Rule by Fear    

Chapter 7.    Conclusion and Theoretical Implications        

Bibliography

 

What People are Saying About This

Dan Slater

“We know far too little about how taxation actually works in authoritarian regimes in general, and in China in particular. Drawing on an impressive range of theoretical literature and multiple types of evidence, Changdong Zhang argues that taxation poses a host of political and economic dilemmas to China’s long-ruling CCP. His emphasis on revenue instruments that social scientists all too often ignore, such as indirect taxes and state-owned enterprises, produces sophisticated new insights into how taxation shapes authoritarian governance.”
—Dan Slater, University of Michigan

Thomas Pepinsky

“Governing and Ruling provides a much-needed analysis of taxation and regime maintenance in contemporary China. Drawing extensively on the literature in political science and economic sociology on taxation, this book offers a fresh analysis of how taxation shapes the CCP’s strategy of rule that makes important contributions both to Chinese political studies and to the comparative literature on the political economy of regime survival.”
—Thomas Pepinsky, Cornell University

Monica Prasad

“Does taxation lead to representation? Not necessarily, argues Changdong Zhang. Zhang identifies various mechanisms through which taxation affects the stability of the Chinese state, the most interesting of which is the suggestion that raising taxes to a level so high that taxpayers must evade them can produce fear and quiescence rather than criticism of the party. This book should launch a new research tradition on understanding the relations between fiscal sociology and authoritarian politics.”
—Monica Prasad, Northwestern University

Yongshun Cai

“This groundbreaking study provides a stimulating account of regime resilience in contemporary China by focusing on the relationship between state institutions and revenue collection. Changdong Zhang convincingly demonstrates how institutional arrangements combine to enable the Chinese Party-state to balance between revenue extraction and economic growth and social stability. This well-researched and analytically provocative work is a major contribution to the literature on authoritarian politics.”
—Yongshun Cai, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Editorial Reviews

“We know far too little about how taxation actually works in authoritarian regimes in general, and in China in particular. Drawing on an impressive range of theoretical literature and multiple types of evidence, Changdong Zhang argues that taxation poses a host of political and economic dilemmas to China’s long-ruling CCP. His emphasis on revenue instruments that social scientists all too often ignore, such as indirect taxes and state-owned enterprises, produces sophisticated new insights into how taxation shapes authoritarian governance.”

—Dan Slater, University of Michigan

— Dan Slater

From the Publisher