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Rating: 
Summary: a good job, but unnecessarily chronological
Review: In Organizing China, published in 1980, Harding tells the story of bureaucracy in the Mao era. He frames the story as the evolving response to certain inherent problems of the bureaucratic form. These responses fall into four categories, rationalizing (scientific management), radical (tear it down), external remedial (non-bureaucratic monitors, e.g. free press or mass party), and internal remedial (incorporating non-bureaucratic elements). He finds that although proposals coming from each of these approaches appear at various times (as well as five intermediate combinations), the "center of gravity" to which the Chinese have always returned has been internal remedialism. On the whole, Harding tends to present the organizational debates among leaders as sincere disputes about how best to achieve their goals, or tradeoffs between these goals, and evaluates various policy shifts on that basis. The book takes a narrative approach, chronicling the twists and turns of the party's policy. However, I am not convinced that the narrative was the best format, and suspect Harding made use of it more from habit than necessity. The analytical framework presented in the theoretical introductory and concluding chapters does not really emphasize chronological development. While the book is interesting, I have found later works on organization such as Kenneth Lieberthal's with Oksenberg and with Lampton to be more helpful.
Rating:
Summary: a good job, but unnecessarily chronological
Review: In Organizing China, published in 1980, Harding tells the story of bureaucracy in the Mao era. He frames the story as the evolving response to certain inherent problems of the bureaucratic form. These responses fall into four categories, rationalizing (scientific management), radical (tear it down), external remedial (non-bureaucratic monitors, e.g. free press or mass party), and internal remedial (incorporating non-bureaucratic elements). He finds that although proposals coming from each of these approaches appear at various times (as well as five intermediate combinations), the "center of gravity" to which the Chinese have always returned has been internal remedialism. On the whole, Harding tends to present the organizational debates among leaders as sincere disputes about how best to achieve their goals, or tradeoffs between these goals, and evaluates various policy shifts on that basis. The book takes a narrative approach, chronicling the twists and turns of the party's policy. However, I am not convinced that the narrative was the best format, and suspect Harding made use of it more from habit than necessity. The analytical framework presented in the theoretical introductory and concluding chapters does not really emphasize chronological development. While the book is interesting, I have found later works on organization such as Kenneth Lieberthal's with Oksenberg and with Lampton to be more helpful.
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