The Chinese Communist Party's Capacity to Rule: Ideology, Legitimacy and Party Cohesion

This book studies the survival strategies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Examining both the CCP's quest for popular legitimacy and its search for party cohesion, Zeng argues that ideological reform and the institutionalization of power succession are crucial factors in the party's retention of power. China's economic success has created a fundamental dilemma for the CCP: if a communist party does not deliver communism and class victory, why is it there at all? There is a potential contradiction between generating economic success by utilizing quasi-capitalist economic policies on the one hand, and the fact that this is a communist party that supposedly justifies its rule by being the vehicle to deliver a communist society on the other. This contradiction has proved a challenge to the CCP's rule, generating belief crises in Chinese society and ideological battles within the party. This book shows how the CCP has remained in power by continually revising the ideological basis that justifies its rule.