TY - JOUR
T1 - Building Socialist Legality
T2 - Political Order and Institutional Development in the Soviet and Chinese Procuracies
AU - Hanson, Margaret
AU - Thompson-Brusstar, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School Research Grant and by the Institute for Humane Studies Fellowship.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 University of Glasgow.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Why do some attempts to use legal institutions to exert central state control fail, while others succeed? Through a controlled comparison of the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), we analyse the institutionalisation of the procuracy, an agency charged with enforcing central legal directives. We show that institutional design, competition, and political support during critical junctures created a positive feedback for the institutionalisation of the procuracy in the USSR but left it weak in China. These findings contribute to our understanding of institutional development, state-building, and authoritarian legal control.
AB - Why do some attempts to use legal institutions to exert central state control fail, while others succeed? Through a controlled comparison of the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), we analyse the institutionalisation of the procuracy, an agency charged with enforcing central legal directives. We show that institutional design, competition, and political support during critical junctures created a positive feedback for the institutionalisation of the procuracy in the USSR but left it weak in China. These findings contribute to our understanding of institutional development, state-building, and authoritarian legal control.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099363282&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85099363282&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09668136.2020.1854185
DO - 10.1080/09668136.2020.1854185
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85099363282
SN - 0966-8136
VL - 73
SP - 157
EP - 177
JO - Europe - Asia Studies
JF - Europe - Asia Studies
IS - 1
ER -