The Chinese Communist Party - Does Ideology Play a Role?, March 30, 2012

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been called a post-communist society, a society in refuge from the ideological constraints of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought. However, for the political elite, ideology matters enough for there to be a nationwide system of party schools, and for components of party promotion to be dependent on ideological performance. What is the function of ideology in the current PRC, how is it articulated, and what role does it play in a society where people behave in ways seemingly indifferent to socialist prescriptions, but in which the political elites’ articulation of social and political goals is still crafted through the language of ideological commitment to Marxism and Socialism with Chinese characteristics?

Dr. Kerry Brown is Head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House, London, where he leads the Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN), funded by the European Commission. He is educated at Cambridge, London and Leeds Universities, and he has worked in Japan, Australia, and the Inner Mongolian region of China. A study of village democracy in China, ‘Ballot Box China’ was published by Zed books in March 2011.He is currently working on a political biography of Hu Jintao to be published in 2012. Dr. Brown’s main interests are the history of ideas in China, China’s political economy, the impact of past 1949 history in China on its current and future development, and the relationships between political and other kinds of elites. He is also interested in China’s international affairs.

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