Pils E (2026)
Publication Type: Authored book
Publication year: 2026
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780191995071
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198888345.003.0019
China’s long history of engagement with the concepts of democracy and human rights has been affected by global debates. It calls for an analysis juxtaposing the perspectives of powerholders with those who confront, oppose and/or compete with them. The analysis presented here suggests that while the possibility of peaceful power transition is an important test that no genuine democracy can fail, democracies also depend on the successful institutionalization of legal accountability for rights violations. A juxtaposition of uses of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ in the official discourses and practices of PRC history—especially from the beginning of ‘Reform and Opening-Up’ under Deng Xiaoping through to Xi Jinping’s ‘whole-process democracy’ on the one hand, and in nonstate actors’ historic struggles for democracy and human rights against the Chinese Party-State on the other—is attempted on this basis.
APA:
Pils, E. (2026). Human Rights and Democracy for All under Heaven in China: Historical Engagements with Two Challenging Principles. Oxford University Press.
MLA:
Pils, Eva. Human Rights and Democracy for All under Heaven in China: Historical Engagements with Two Challenging Principles. Oxford University Press, 2026.
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