The Party and the People

Chinese Politics in the 21st Century

By: Bruce Dickson

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained unrivalled control over the country, persisting even in the face of economic calamity, widespread social upheaval, and violence against its own people. Yet the party does not sustain dominance through repressive tactics alone - it pairs this with surprising responsiveness to the public. The Party and the People explores how this paradox has helped the CCP endure for decades, and how this balance has shifted increasingly toward repression under the rule of President Xi Jinping.

Delving into the tenuous binary of repression and responsivity, Bruce Dickson illuminates numerous questions surrounding the CCP's rule: How does it choose leaders and create policies? When does it allow protests? Will China become democratic? Dickson shows that the party's dual approach lies at the core of its practices - repression when dealing with existential, political threats or challenges to its authority, and responsiveness when confronting localized economic or social unrest. With the CCP's greater reliance on suppression since Xi Jinping's rise to power in 2012, Dickson considers the ways that this tipping of the scales will influence China's future.

©2021 Princeton University Press (P)2021 Tantor

Great Book for Understanding China

The Party and the People is a highly readable and insightful explanation of modern China and the workings of the Chinese Communist Party.

An signal triumph

The author has contributed original analysis and synthesis to the Study Contemporary Sinology.The Narrator is as always as an award winning narrator is breathtaking

Study of Chinese Communist Party from the Western point of view.

I think it is a subjective account which identifies the supposed vulnerabilities and flaws of the Chinese Communist Party, so that the threat to the Western interests in China and the World can be safeguarded by getting rid of the CCP. China has become a major power from the sick man of Asia, under the leadership of CCP, but this book fails to highlight any positive aspect of the CCP.