Date of Award

Spring 2020

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Historical & Political Studies; College of Arts & Sciences

First Advisor

Angela Kachuyevski

Abstract

The traditional view held by development theorists, which tends to be based on Western Liberal Democracies, is that authoritarianism operates in direct opposition to development. This project seeks to reassess the relationship between development and authoritarianism by studying the case of China. China has been under the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1949. Since then, China has seen explosive growth and made progress on the path towards development. This was made possible by modern changes to authoritarianism, such as increased discourse and the launching of development programs, which are collectively referred to as New Authoritarianism. Through New Authoritarianism, China has discovered an alternate path towards the expectations of development theorists. Three different schools of thought inform these expectations: modernization, dependency theory, and a global systems theory. This project first outlines and, through a pattern matching framework, analyzes those expectations, then argues the extent to which China has met them. This analysis reveals that New Authoritarianism has put China on a different path towards an outcome similar to what development theorists would expect, justifying a reevaluation of authoritarianism and development’s relationship.

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Development and Authoritarianism in China

The traditional view held by development theorists, which tends to be based on Western Liberal Democracies, is that authoritarianism operates in direct opposition to development. This project seeks to reassess the relationship between development and authoritarianism by studying the case of China. China has been under the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1949. Since then, China has seen explosive growth and made progress on the path towards development. This was made possible by modern changes to authoritarianism, such as increased discourse and the launching of development programs, which are collectively referred to as New Authoritarianism. Through New Authoritarianism, China has discovered an alternate path towards the expectations of development theorists. Three different schools of thought inform these expectations: modernization, dependency theory, and a global systems theory. This project first outlines and, through a pattern matching framework, analyzes those expectations, then argues the extent to which China has met them. This analysis reveals that New Authoritarianism has put China on a different path towards an outcome similar to what development theorists would expect, justifying a reevaluation of authoritarianism and development’s relationship.