In Illiberal Law and Development, Susan H. Whiting advances institutional economic theory with original survey and fieldwork data, addressing two puzzles in Chinese political economy: how economic development has occurred despite insecure property rights and weak rule of law and how the Chinese state has maintained political control amid unrest. Whiting answers these questions by focusing on the role of illiberal law in reassigning property rights and redirecting grievances. The book reveals that, in the context of technological change, a legal system that facilitates reassignment of land rights to higher-value uses plays an important and under-theorized role in promoting economic development. This system simultaneously represses conflict and asserts legitimacy. Comparing China to post-Glorious Revolution England and contemporary India, Whiting presents a critical new argument that brings the Chinese case more directly into debates in comparative politics about the role of the state in specifying property rights and maintaining authoritarian rule.

Speaker: Susan H. Whiting is Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington. She is the author of Illiberal Law and Development: Property Rights and Conflict over Land in China (2026) and Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change (2001), both published by Cambridge University Press. Her research on property rights, state capacity, “rule of law,” economic development, and civil society in China has been published in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, China Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, and Voluntas, as well as in edited volumes such as Holding China Together and Trust and Governance, among others. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Yale University. At the University of Washington, she also holds adjunct appointments in the School of Law and the Jackson School of International Studies.  

Directions and Parking >