Sounds and Fury

剛剛看到一本新書訊。作者是密西根大學政治系的年輕教授。他在2002年曾經發表過與本書論旨相關的論文於政治學期刊World Politics上。這本書看來有趣，但不知寫的如何。


Contagious Capitalism:
Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China
Mary Elizabeth Gallagher

One of the core assumptions of recent American foreign policy is that China's post-1978 policy of "reform and openness" will lead to political liberalization. This book challenges that assumption and the general relationship between economic liberalization and democratization. Moreover, it analyzes the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization on Chinese labor politics.

Market reforms and increased integration with the global economy have brought about unprecedented economic growth and social change in China during the last quarter of a century. Contagious Capitalism contends that FDI liberalization played three roles in the process of China's reforms. First, it placed competitive pressure on the state sector to produce more efficiently, thus necessitating new labor practices. Second, it allowed difficult and politically sensitive labor reforms to be extended to other parts of the economy. Third, it caused a reformulation of one of the key ideological debates of reforming socialism: the relative importance of public industry. China's growing integration with the global economy through FDI led to a new focus of debate--away from the public vs. private industry dichotomy and toward a nationalist concern for the fate of Chinese industry.

In comparing China with other Eastern European and Asian economies, two important considerations come into play, the book argues: China's pattern of ownership diversification and China's mode of integration into the global economy. This book relates these two factors to the success of economic change without political liberalization and addresses the way FDI liberalization has affected relations between workers and the ruling Communist Party. Its conclusion: reform and openness in this context resulted in a strengthened Chinese state, a weakened civil society (especially labor), and a delay in political liberalization.

Mary Elizabeth Gallagher is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is also a faculty associate of the Center for Chinese Studies and the Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations.