Speaker:Susan Whiting, University of Washington

In Illiberal Law and Development, Susan H. Whiting advances institutional economic theory with original survey and fieldwork data, addressing two puzzles in Chinese political economy: how economic development has occurred despite insecure property rights and weak rule of law and how the Chinese state has maintained political control amid unrest. Whiting answers these questions by focusing on the role of illiberal law in reassigning property rights and redirecting grievances. The book reveals that, in the context of technological change, a legal system that facilitates reassignment of land rights to higher-value uses plays an important and under-theorized role in promoting economic development. This system simultaneously represses conflict and asserts legitimacy. Comparing China to post-Glorious Revolution England and contemporary India, Whiting presents a critical new argument that brings the Chinese case more directly into debates in comparative politics about the role of the state in specifying property rights and maintaining authoritarian rule. 

Susan H. Whiting (Ph.D. University of Michigan, B.A. Yale University) is Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington. She is the author two books, Illiberal Law and Development and Power and Wealth in Rural China, both published by Cambridge University Press. She specializes in Chinese and comparative politics, with an emphasis on the political economy of development. Her research has been published in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, China Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, and Voluntas, as well as in edited volumes such as Holding China Together and Trust and Governance.

Zoom meeting link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/94120080608