Drawing inspiration from the Leninist origins of the People’s Republic of China, in his book Retrofitting Leninism: Participation without Democracy in China (2022) Dimitar Gueorguiev offers a novel explanation for how China's ruling Communist Party (CCP) maintains control despite facing increasingly complex governing challenges. The key to the CCP’s staying power, he argues, is its ability to integrate authoritarian control and mass inclusion—an organizational task now facilitated by technology. Relying on opinion polls, public records, media reporting, and interviews, Gueorguiev shows how public input feeds into political oversight and policy planning that exceeds the expectations of a typical top-down organization. In this book talk, Gueorguiev discussed why the marriage between state control and social inclusion is at risk, with signs of political apathy and public mistrust pointing to an increasingly controlling yet disconnected surveillance state.
This academic seminar was jointly sponsored by the Department of Government and the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University.
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Dimitar Gueorguiev is an associate professor of political science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Gueorguiev is also a fellow at the Wilson China Center and a Public Intellectual with the National Committee on US-China Relations.