The State of the Field: Political Science and Chinese Political Studies

Abstract

The Journal of Chinese Political Science (JCPS) is publishing a series of special issues, containing retrospective and prospective papers on the state of Chinese political studies, past, present and future. We call upon China scholars worldwide to contribute to these important special issues which will have a significant impact on the intellectual development of the field. Our goal is to disseminate scholarship that can shed light on the ever changing field of Chinese political studies, provide valuable material for scholar teachers and researchers of Chinese politics, and highlight the achievements, problems and issues, and directions of this field. We have witnessed the substantial transformation of China studies, particularly Chinese political studies, in the past 30 years due to changes in China and its rising status in the world as well as changes in our ways of conducting research. As area studies specialists, we are no longer “isolated” from the larger disciplines of Political Science and International Relations (IR) but an integral part of them. A simple survey of the JCPS and other journals reveals that we have applied theories and methods from these larger disciplines to Chinese political studies and that we have sought to meet the standards of scientific research and theoretical relevance in the two disciplines. The scholarship we produce today has advanced far beyond the days of classic Sinology. However, theoretical and methodological approaches in Chinese political studies are very diverse, and substantive issues in various Chinese contexts are being studied from a broader comparative perspective. As Lynn T. White points out in his paper, “Chinese and Asian comparative research can help reverse the methodological narrowness that obscures much actual politics in the world from being studied circumspectly.” Scholars and students in our field still vividly remember texts used in graduate school and innumerable papers published by first rate comparativists such as Sydney Verba, Arendt Lijphart, David Collier, James Mahon, Giovanni Satori, Gary King, David Easton, and many others. All of them have had a great impact on how we J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2009) 14:225–227 DOI 10.1007/s11366-009-9067-5