Retrofitting Leninism and Re-examining Hawkishness in China with Dimitar Gueorguiev
Description
This week, a show taped live at Syracuse University on September 30 with Associate Professor Dimitar Gueorguiev, author of the excellent Retrofitting Leninism: Participation Without Democracy in China. We discuss his book, his recent paper exploring hawkishness in Chinese public opinion, and his thoughts about the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
1:59 Syracuse University’s MAX 132 class ("the globalization class")
4:10 Dimitar’s background and how he became interested in China
7:44 How the genre of authoritarian resilience took off
14:26 China’s understanding of democracy (whole-process democracy)
17:40 Features of Leninism that have allowed the Chinese Communist Party to survive
21:21 Why China in the 1980s and '90s admired Singaporea's authoritarian PAP
23:37 The idea of the mass line
27:16 China’s sentiment analysis through technology, and using bottom-up information as performance evaluation
34:03 The COVID-19 pandemic and the confirmation bias of the regime-type explanation
37:37 The National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
40:14 Dimitar’s research on hawkishness in China: how he got the data, what drives Chinese hawkishness, and the national security vs. economic lens
51:08 Why those who are dissatisfied with the government lean more hawkish and those who are satisfied with the government lean more dovish
56:30 The upcoming U.S. election: how things may play out under the two different administrations, and understanding Chinese preferences
Recommendations:
Dimitar: The TV series The Expanse (2015-2022)
Kaiser: Anthea Roberts’ Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters; and the documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos (2024)
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