An entertaining introduction to ancient Chinese thinkers—and what they can teach us about today’s most pressing political questions in China and beyondChina’s most original, diverse, and fascinating political debates took place more than two millennia ago, but they have profoundly shaped Chinese political thinking and practice ever since and, remarkably, their influence on the country’s leaders is only growing today. Yet these timeless debates—which are very likely...

A Financial Times Best Book of the YearAn inside view of Chinese academia and what it reveals about China’s political systemOn January 1, 2017, Daniel Bell was appointed dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University—the first foreign dean of a political science faculty in mainland China’s history. In The Dean of Shandong, Bell chronicles his experiences as what he calls “a minor b...

What is it like to be a Westerner teaching political philosophy in an officially Marxist state? Why do Chinese sex workers sing karaoke with their customers? And why do some Communist Party cadres get promoted if they care for their elderly parents? In this entertaining and illuminating book, one of the few Westerners to teach at a Chinese university draws on his personal experiences to paint an unexpected portrait of a society undergoing faster and more sweeping changes than anywhere else...

How China's political model could prove to be a viable alternative to Western democracyWesterners tend to divide the political world into "good" democracies and “bad” authoritarian regimes. But the Chinese political model does not fit neatly in either category. Over the past three decades, China has evolved a political system that can best be described as “political meritocracy.” The China Model seeks to understand the ideals and the reality of this unique...

A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the politicalAll complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chine...

From China's most influential foreign policy thinker, a vision for a "Beijing Consensus" for international relationsThe rise of China could be the most important political development of the twenty-first century. What will China look like in the future? What should it look like? And what will China's rise mean for the rest of world? This book, written by China's most influential foreign policy thinker, sets out a vision for the coming decades from China's point of ...

This book illustrates how cities possess unique normative identities, referred to as 'ethoses', and how the residents shape and perceive them.The question of identity and which social relations constitute it has been a central topic in philosophy and social science for centuries. While the state played a key role in shaping identity during the 20th century, its influence has waned in recent years due to market pressures, international agreements, migration, and institutions like th...

A lively and personal book that returns the city to political thoughtCities shape the lives and outlooks of billions of people, yet they have been overshadowed in contemporary political thought by nation-states, identity groups, and concepts like justice and freedom. The Spirit of Cities revives the classical idea that a city expresses its own distinctive ethos or values. In the ancient world, Athens was synonymous with democracy and Sparta represented mil...

Is liberal democracy appropriate for East Asia? In this provocative book, Daniel Bell argues for morally legitimate alternatives to Western-style liberal democracy in the region. Beyond Liberal Democracy, which continues the author's influential earlier work, is divided into three parts that correspond to the three main hallmarks of liberal democracy--human rights, democracy, and capitalism. These features have been modified substantially during their transmission to East Asian so...

For much of the twentieth century, Confucianism was condemned by Westerners and East Asians alike as antithetical to modernity. Internationally renowned philosophers, historians, and social scientists argue otherwise in Confucian Political Ethics. They show how classical Confucian theory--with its emphasis on family ties, self-improvement, education, and the social good--is highly relevant to the most pressing dilemmas confronting us today.Drawing upon in-depth, cross-cult...

In The Politics of Affective Relations, editors Daniel Bell and Hahm Chaihark refine our understanding of the East Asian conception of the self by examining how that conception was formulated, reproduced, and utilized throughout history. Sparked by a strong dissatisfaction with the state over many discourses regarding East Asian politics, this volume moves beyond the simplistic exchange of polemics regarding "Asian Values" and reaches a more nuanced understanding of "relationality...

Is liberal democracy a universal ideal? Proponents of "Asian values" argue that it is a distinctive product of the Western experience and that Western powers shouldn't try to push human rights and democracy onto Asian states. Liberal democrats in the West typically counter by questioning the motives of Asian critics, arguing that Asian leaders are merely trying to rationalize human-rights violations and authoritarian rule. In this book--written as a dialogue between an American democrat na...