[This book] is ultimately trying to say something new about China…[it is] a well-researched book of taxonomy, with comparisons across countries, and across instances of experimentation within countries, that are intended to demonstrate patterns of activities in China that in part bear resemblances to India and to the United State, and that are in combination novel.…a valuable contribution to the field of comparative federalism.
-- Ken Kollman Publius
Stands as a sensible and all-too-rare rebuttal of the widespread assumption among constitutional law scholars that the deep dissimilarities between their usual (Western, liberal and democratic) case studies and China preclude meaningful comparison or learning. On the contrary, it is precisely the magnitude of these differences that enables us to identify fundamental, recurring mechanisms and dynamics that depend little, if at all, on basic constitutional structure and might even be universal. What insights could be more profound?
-- David Law China Quarterly