China's Governmentalities

Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embarked on a programme of ‘reform and openness’ in the late 1970s, Chinese society has undergone a series of dramatic transformations in almost all realms of social, cultural, economic and political life and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has emerged as a global power. China’s post-1978 transition from ‘socialist plan’ to ‘market socialism’ has also been accompanied by significant shifts in how the practice and objects of government are understood and acted upon.

China’s Governmentalities outlines the nature of these shifts, and contributes to emerging studies of governmentality in non-western and non-liberal settings, by showing how neoliberal discourses on governance, development, education, the environment, community, religion, and sexual health, have been raised in other contexts. In doing so, it opens discussions of governmentality to ‘other worlds’ and the glocal politics of the present.

The book will appeal to scholars from a wide range of disciplines interested in the work of Michel Foucault, neo-liberal strategies of governance, and governmental rationalities in contemporary China.

Elaine Jeffreys is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the China Research Centre and Associate Professor in China Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney.

1. Governmentality, Governance and China Elaine Jeffreys and Gary Sigley 2. Passionately Governmental: Maoism and the Structured Intensities of Revolutionary Governmentality Michael Dutton 3. Governing China’s Peasant Migrants: Building Xiaokang Socialism and an Harmonious Society Feng Xu 4. Negotiating Modernity at China’s Periphery: Development and Policy Interventions in Nujiang Prefecture Russell Harwood 5. Building ‘Community’: New Strategies of Governance in Urban China David Bray 6. Governmental Rationalities of Environmental City-Building in Contemporary China Lisa Hoffman 7. ‘Religious Work’: Governing Religion in Reform-Era China Susette Cooke 8. Governing Sexual Health in the People’s Republic of China Elaine Jeffreys and Huang Yingying