This volume analyzes whether China's thirty years of legal reform have taken root in Chinese society by examining how ordinary citizens are using the legal system in contemporary China. It is an interdisciplinary look at law in action and at legal institutions from the bottom up, that is, beginning with those at the ground level that are using and working in the legal system. It explores the emergent Chinese conception of justice - one that seeks to balance Chinese tradition, socialist legacies and the needs of the global market. Given the political dimension of dispute resolution in creating, settling and changing social norms, this volume contributes to a greater understanding of political and social change in China today and of the process of legal reform generally.
• Interdisciplinary, bringing together law scholars and social scientists working on Chinese legal reforms • Each chapter is a rich empirical case of some aspect of legal reform • Focuses on law-in-action, examining how law is used from the bottom up and how China's legal institutions structure this interaction
Contents
Part I. Legal Development and Institutional Tensions: 1. From mediatory to adjudicatory justice: the limits of civil justice reform in China Fu Hualing and Richard Cullen; 2. Judicial disciplinary systems for incorrectly decided cases: the imperial Chinese heritage lives on Carl Minzner; 3. Proceduralism and rivalry in China's two legal states Douglas B. Grob; 4. Economic development and the development of the legal profession in China Randall Peerenboom; Part II. Pu Fa and the Dissemination of Law in the Chinese Context: 5. The impact of nationalist and Maoist legacies on popular trust in legal institutions Pierre F. Landry; 6. Popular attitudes toward official justice in Beijing and rural China Ethan Michelson and Benjamin Read; 7. Users and non-users: legal experience and its effect on legal consciousness Mary Gallagher and Yuhua Wang; 8. With or without law: the changing meaning of ordinary legal work in China, 1979–2003 Sida Liu; Part III. Law from the Bottom Up: 9. A populist threat to China's courts? Benjamin L. Liebman; 10. Dispute resolution and China's grassroots legal services Fu Yulin; 11. Constitutionalism with Chinese characteristics? Thomas E. Kellogg.
Review
'Complementing the burgeoning scholarship on Chinese law and legal institutions, Woo and Gallagher's book takes on the formidable task of presenting an interdisciplinary inquiry into how contemporary Chinese law and legal institutions work to resolve civil disputes. The result is a well-crafted volume … Woo and Gallagher's book succeeds in its objective by capturing an unprecedented snapshot of Chinese law on the ground, taking the reader inside legal institutions as they work to resolve civil disputes.' Cambridge Law Journal
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