Jul 22 2008
A Decentralized Authoritarian Regime?
Colin said something rather interesting yesterday: it is OK to have an unitary administrative structure and an authoritarian rule, or a decentralized structure and democracy. But China seems to have the wrong combination: a decentralized structure and an authoritarian rule. And this is a fiefdom pattern.
Thoughts: that echoes well with Pei Minxin’s “Trapped Transition”. The book didn’t make sense to me then because he was charging that China has degraded into predatory state. The latter definition sounds too much like Robert Bate’s Africa so I didn’t take it well. But I may need to take a second look at his argument. Particularly now that I have learned more about the local-center tension.
Colin also said something like the early Federalists didn’t care for party politics. Probably should follow up more on the Federalists thought and early American ethos. That also conforms to Confucius’ saying “君子不党”, although I am already a convert of the instituational argument for the party system.