From The Law and Politics Book Review

Vol. 10 No. 8 (August 2000) p. 509.

RESPONSE BY THE AUTHOR, STANLEY B. LUBMAN, slubman@wenet.net to Amy L. Freedman, REVIEW OF BIRD IN A CAGE: LEGAL REFORM IN CHINA AFTER MAO, by Stanley B. Lubman.

REPLY BY THE REVIEWER, AMY L. FREEDMAN, Department of Government, Franklin and Marshall College, Email: a_freedman@acad.fandm.edu.

RESPONSE BY STANLEY LUBMAN:

I appreciate the favorable review of my book, BIRD IN A CAGE, LEGAL REFORM IN CHINA AFTER MAO by Professor Amy L. Freedman (LPBR, Vol. 10 No. 7 (July 2000) pp. 454-456), and write now to make clear my views on an important methodological point that Professor Freedman raised. She found "problematic" my use of Western legal categories to assess China's legal development, because she thought that no implication ought to be raised that China' legal institutions will become more Westernized, with democratization to follow, as a consequence of economic development.

Her concerns are appropriate, but as it happens I share them, as I tried to make clear in my book. In my discussion of the use of Western legal categories I remind the reader that the concept of the rule of law is contested in the West, and close the book by cautioning against "uncritical judgments based solely on Western development -- or on myths about Western development." (p. 319). Moreover, I cite one author who has argued that China's developmental path will see democracy arise out of economic liberalization, and criticize that view as "excessively optimistic" because it seemed to me more probable that authoritarianism would continue to dominate Chinese political life, with "a great unlikelihood" that a parliamentary democracy might be established (p. 309).

REPLY BY AMY L. FREEDMAN:

BIRD IN A CAGE certainly makes clear that the notion of rule of law is contested both in China and in the West. My criticism about the possibility of China's legal institutions becoming more "Westernized" stems from the overall thesis of the book that as a consequence of economic development legal reforms must also occur. Professor Lubman and I do not disagree about the inherent problem of assuming that democratization will follow economic change, rather, I simply wanted to emphasize that it is entirely possible to have economic liberalization without significant political and judicial reforms. Also, I wanted to emphasize that it is often difficult to differentiate between the extent of reforms that have taken place (or which need to be enacted) and how well they are enforced at the local level.