Signal Left, Turn Right: Central Rhetoric and Local Reform in China
Resource type
Author/contributor
- Huang, Haifeng (Author)
Title
Signal Left, Turn Right: Central Rhetoric and Local Reform in China
Abstract
How have local governments in China been able to break through central policy restrictions in a unitary and authoritarian political system? Why is China's official discourse in the reform era often so conservative and unfavorable to reform? The author argues the two issues are components of a signaling game between China's central government and local officials, in which local officials know that the center may be reformist, but the reformist center imitates the rhetoric of a conservative center to control the pace of local liberalization. The result is a gradualist reform of "signaling left, turning right," with glaring incongruity of speech and actions in the process.
Publication
Political Research Quarterly
Volume
66
Issue
2
Date
2013
Accessed
2018-02-20
Citation
Huang, H. (2013). Signal Left, Turn Right: Central Rhetoric and Local Reform in China. Political Research Quarterly, 66(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912912443874
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