Explaining the persistence of authoritarianism in China: towards a multivariable approach

Abstract

There is no disagreement in the literature on the persistence of China’s authoritarian regime. People differ on the way of explaining the phenomenon. Obviously, the issue is of profound importance in political science and law. In the literature, many scholars pursue a single variable approach, examining the issue from the perspective of resilience, regime inclusion, timing and sequence of using FDI, or national identity. The author argues that any single variable explanation is inadequate despite the coherence or elegance of such theories. Among those who have adopted the multivariable perspective in examining the phenomenon of China’s persistence of authoritarianism, people tend to ignore some of the variables such as modernization, the cultural variable, the geo-political factor, and legitimacy in their analyses. This article has approached the issue by focusing on these four variables to explain China’s persistence of authoritarianism.