Ninth Book in NTU & HYI Academic Book Series published

The Harvard-Yenching Institute is pleased to announce that the ninth book in the NTU & HYI Academic Book Series has been published. The monograph, entitled 秩序與混沌──轉型中國的「社會奇蹟」(The Paradox of Order and Chaos: Social Stability in Transition China), is by Yingfang Chen 陳映芳. The book was published in March 2021. Additional information about the publication is available here.

About the book: The past half a century has witnessed China’s profound socioeconomic changes at an accelerated pace since 1990s. In spite of such unprecedented transformations as the drastic shifts in values, the social and geographical mobility of citizens in hundreds of millions, the large-scale urban development, and the increasing social polarization, there has been no fierce conflict between social groups, and the social order is generally well maintained. How can we account for such a China Stability Myth?

This book unfolds the “politico-social stability” of Chinese society during its rapid change since the late 1970s. Different from the analysis provided by macroeconomics or the state institutions approach, this research draws on insights from the society-centered theories and is devoted to “rediscovering the society.” Through a combination of field research, institutional analysis and historiography, this study discovers the “invisible system of society” from the fabrics of social life. Meanwhile, the reality is situated in a historical context to gain insight of the dialectical relationship between chaos and order in a transitioning society. Proposing some important concepts such as “key systems of society”, “politics of transition “, “meta-frame of social transition ” and “the state of liminality”, the author demonstrates how the deep-seated social structure affects the operation of the whole society as well as the change of political and economic situation.

The book series, published by National Taiwan University Press, is a collaboration between the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the College of Liberal Arts of National Taiwan University. The Series publishes scholarly monographs in Chinese which make a major original contribution to the humanities and social sciences. Interdisciplinary studies are especially welcome. Submissions are encouraged from all Chinese-speaking regions and beyond. For more information about the NTU-HYI series, please visit the NTU Press website.