Illiberal Law and Development: Property Rights and Conflict Over Land in China
In her new book, ‘Illiberal Law and Development: Property Rights and Conflict Over Land in China’ (Cambridge University Press 2026) Susan Whiting, University of Washington Department of Political Science, advances institutional economic theory with original survey and fieldwork data by 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. She 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 offers 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.
Susan Whiting (Ph.D., Michigan; B.A., Yale) is Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she also holds adjunct appointments in the Jackson School of International Studies and the School of Law. She specializes in Chinese and comparative politics, with an emphasis on the political economy of development. Her first book, Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2001. She has published articles and chapters on authoritarianism, “rule of law,” property rights, fiscal reform, and rural development in volumes and journals such as Comparative Political Studies and China Quarterly. She has contributed to studies of governance, fiscal reform, and non-governmental organizations under the auspices of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the Ford Foundation, respectively. Her current research interests include property rights in land, the role of law in authoritarian regimes, as well as the politics of fiscal reform. She teaches courses on comparative politics, Chinese politics, property rights, and authoritarian regimes.