China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead

Abstract

China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead. By Bruce Gilley. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 320p. 20.00 paper.Much of the scholarship on democratization in China falls into roughly two camps. Some argue that democracy in China is or will be a bottom-up process. Others aver that it will be an elite-driven top-down phenomenon. Bruce Gilley is firmly in the second camp. He argues that democratization is likely to occur as China's more moderate and liberal leaders recognize, in the face of “a multiple metastatic dysfunction,” the tenuous hold they have on China and move toward democratization as a means of minimizing their losses.