The Social Sources of Chinese Power

Abstract

This review essay critically engages Dingxin Zhao's The Confucian-Legalist State. While sympathetic to much of Zhao's book, the essay teases out the wider implications of his project. It identifies four shortcomings and two possible extensions of Zhao's argument, with particular attention on how his book contributes to debates in International Relations.

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Notes on contributors

George Lawson

George Lawson ([email protected]) is associate professor of International Relations at LSE. His books include The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations, with Barry Buzan (Cambridge 2015), The Global 1989: Continuity and Change in World Politics, edited with Chris Armbruster and Michael Cox (Cambridge 2010), and Negotiated Revolutions: The Czech Republic, South Africa and Chile (Ashgate 2005). He is currently completing a book entitled Anatomies of Revolution.