The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with nearly 90 million members, is the largest ruling political party in the world. Its power and influence reach into every corner of state, society and economy in China. Given the CCP's omnipresence, in-depth knowledge of how the CCP is organised and managed and how it will likely evolve is of paramount importance and is a basic prerequisite for understanding China's rise. By bringing together the best scholarship on the CCP, covering areas such as organisation, cadre management, recruitment and training, ideology and propaganda, factions and elites,...

In From Accelerated Accumulation to Socialist Market Economy in China, Kjeld Erik Brodsgaard and Koen Rutten examine China's indigenous economic discourse and its relation to both economic policy-making and the overall trajectory of development from the First Five Year Plan in 1953 to 2016. In so doing, this volume demonstrates that although the form of the current economic system and its theoretical underpinnings bear scant resemblance to those of the planned economy, economic policy-making still relies on the principle of accelerated accumulation, which lay at the heart of the...

With a membership of nearly 90 million, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the world’s largest political party. It is also one of the longest ruling parties in the world and has been able to weather huge challenges caused by the deep transformation of Chinese society as well as the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Moreover, in recent years, and especially during the era of General Secretary Xi Jinping, the CCP has centralized its grip over Chinese society. This study is intent on depicting major aspects concerning the CCP’s organizational...