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The Immediate Afterlife: 1955–1970 The Immediate Afterlife: 1955–1970
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Late Mao and Early Reform-era Constitutional Discussions Late Mao and Early Reform-era Constitutional Discussions
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Constitutional Surveys Constitutional Surveys
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China’s Last Constitutional Discussion? China’s Last Constitutional Discussion?
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6 Constitutional Afterlives
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Published:January 2022
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Abstract
This chapter explores the afterlives of the 1954 Constitution. Rather than asking questions about whether the constitution has fulfilled its stated and expected functions, the chapter examines how the constitution, as both text and subject of discussion, has been invoked and used over the years by state officials high and low as well as by ordinary citizens. For some people, the constitution was a target of attack because of its complicity in revolutionary politics; for others, a source of information about politics; not a few used it as a broad platform from which they could complain about politics, jobs, and other problems; there were also those who saw it as an opportunity to comment on political changes. On occasion it was invoked to defend individual interests and collective beliefs and practices. For Chinese Communist Party officials, on the other hand, it was a mechanism to enforce compliance, assuage and cause fear, explain away social problems, offer and deflect criticism, attack and defend critics, get out of political trouble, stir up social tensions, and distribute rewards, among other functions. Few took the constitutional text seriously as an important source of law.
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