Zhang, Jianwei; Jing, Yijia --- "Legal Pluralism in the Governance of Transitional China" [2007] ELECD 238; in Eger, Thomas; Faure, Michael; Naigen, Zhang (eds), "Economic Analysis of Law in China" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Economic Analysis of Law in China

Editor(s): Eger, Thomas; Faure, Michael; Naigen, Zhang

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847200365

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: Legal Pluralism in the Governance of Transitional China

Author(s): Zhang, Jianwei; Jing, Yijia

Number of pages: 20

Extract:

3. Legal pluralism in the governance of
transitional China
Jianwei Zhang and Yijia Jing

1. INTRODUCTION

In recent years the transitions of Russia and China have attracted serious
attention of scholars in law and economics. While law and economics pro-
vides more than one perspective in studying transition, it is interesting to
apply legal pluralism to the evolution of the governance structure in the
transition. By applying legal pluralism, we can identify many obstacles to
the systematic provision of the rule of law in transitional countries, due to
incomplete laws and inefficient courts, lack of political order and prevalent
distrust of corrupt bureaucrats and law-enforcement agencies. These situ-
ations make laws appear as dummies and will finally challenge the funda-
mental role of the government in the provision of law and order. It is not
rarely that, in some transitional countries, various alternative governance
mechanisms, most of which are non-legal or illegal and are derived from
informal institutions, become popular and compete with the government in
providing, if not destroying, order. Economic transition and growth are
more difficult in these countries. Such experiences, combined with the
experience of relatively successful transitional countries, indicate that the
maintenance of law and order under a situation of incomplete laws needs
a relatively stable and solid political order. To improve the performance of
governance, it is critically important to reach a healthy balance between
multiple governance resources. The absence of a streamlined governance
system may lead to the `outsourcing' of governance authority ...