The Withering Away of the State in China?

Abstract

Victor Nee has led a storied career. From his early study on the cultural revolution at Peking University (Nee and Layman 1969) and his ethnographic foray in Chinatown (Nee and Nee 1973), he has generated scores of impressive and influential articles and books on Chinese America and China in particular, but also more general and theoretical studies of ethnicity and immigration as well as economic sociology (e.g., Alba and Nee 2003; Nee and Swedberg 2007). Making a major contribution to one subfield is an accomplishment enough; that he has done so in several distinct ones—and repeatedly to boot—speaks to his intellectual reach and scholarly prowess. Indeed, Nee’s oeuvre may very well constitute a scholarly subfield in and of itself. One therefore waits in eager anticipation for Nee to elucidate China’s recent and ongoing transformation. Very few questions exercise the powers that be more than the ‘‘rise of China.’’ Professional sociologists have of course been privy to tantalizing previews. In a path-breaking article, Nee propounded the ‘‘market transition theory,’’ which conceptualized China’s shift from a system of state redistribution to that of market allocation (Nee 1989). Capitalism From Below, written with the Swedish economist Sonja Opper, is a culmination of his string of articles on Chinese economic change over the past two decades.