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Abstract

In 2015, an amendment of the Chinese Legislation Law delegated legislative powers to over 280 major prefectural-level cities, esp. those with districts, nationwide. Municipal People’s Congresses can now enact “local regulations”, as had been confirmed by an amendment to the Chinese Constitution in 2018; Municipal People’s Governments can operate with “local governmental rules”. This decentralisation, enlarging legislative power from 49 “bigger cities” to potentially all prefectural-level cities, has been combined with several restrictions. How are these remarkable reforms motivated in China as a unitary, democratic-centralist, party-led state?

In this talk, I will de- and re-construct the three most common official and scholarly explanations and arguments. I will argue that conflicting trends towards de- and re-centralisation expose tensions between different motivations underpinning the recent reforms discussed here. They show that the Party-State oscillates between central-local functionalism and a fear of centrifugalism, and point to the co-existence of rationality and irrationality in central-local relations.

Speaker biography

Philipp Renninger is a doctoral candidate based at the University of Lucerne (Switzerland). He studied law at the University of Freiburg (Germany), specializing in public, European, and international law. He passed the First State Exam in Law (equivalent to a master’s degree) in 2017. As part of his degree programme, he spent one year studying Chinese language and Chinese law at the University of Nanjing (PR China). Since 2017, Philipp has been reading for a joint PhD (cotutelle de thèse) in law at the Universities of Lucerne and Freiburg, while working as an academic assistant to Professor Sebastian Heselhaus in Lucerne. His doctoral research focuses on Chinese and German administrative and constitutional law, and on the methodology of comparative law. He has also published on ancient Chinese legal thought (Legalism). Philipp has been the recipient of a number of scholarships, including by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SBFI). In 2019, he received a Young Researchers’ Award from the German National Committee of Comparative Law (Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung).

 

About the Human Rights, Development and Global Justice Series

Our series aims to create an open, interdisciplinary academic platform for the discussion of issues related to human rights, development and global justice. Special attention is given to the global south, but not to the exclusion of other places.

We hope to generate exchanges furthering academic insight and creativity, to strengthen the School’s connections with scholars around the world, and to enrich undergraduate and postgraduate teaching curricula among the School’s wide offering of modules related to the jurisprudence of human rights, transnational human rights, and global justice more widely.

The events series is currently convened by Professor Eva Pils. It is supported by funding provided by The Dickson Poon School of Law. For information about other events in the series, please visit the King's College London website

Event details

SW1.18 (First Floor)
Somerset House East Wing
Strand Campus, Strand, London WC2R 2LS