Contents
1 Introduction: China's Party Congress as the theater of power
2 Institutions manipulated, legitimacy ritualized: a theory of authoritarian legitimization
3 “Meeting for unity and victory”: the political art of running the Party Congress
4 Between political principle and the practice of power: the making and remaking of the Party platform
5 Norms versus operations: the Party Constitution in political configuration
6 Elections as instruments of autocracy: the essence and nuisance of formalistic voting