State-society relations and governance are closely related areas of study and have become important topics in the social sciences in the past decades, not only in developed countries but also in the developing world. In China, state-society relations have been changing in the new era of reform and opening, and governance has become a central concern in policy practice and in academia. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, written by scholars from both inside and outside China, the contributors explore the complexity of the changing state-society relationship and the modes and practices of governance in China by combining theoretical exploration and empirical case studies.

The problems of corruption, social injustice, public unrest, disparity in income and regional development, shortage of energy and resources, unemployment, aging population, inadequate social and economic safety network, pollution, etc., are poised to jeopardize political stability and cast a shadow on the moral foundation of economic reform. How to cope with these new problems is a daunting task facing the Chinese leadership and people in the twenty-first century. The new generation of leadership under Hu Jintao has begun to search for solutions and directions. 'Building a harmonious society' based on a 'scientific view of development' has become a new catch phrase in political and academic discourse in China and a newly adopted program by the Chinese government. It is in this context that this edited volume brings together a group of China scholars to discuss the concept and goal of building a harmonious society. This book will be of interest to professors and students of China studies, as well as policy makers and researchers.

The Chinese government has attempted to bolster its legitimacy as a political response to emerging social, cultural, political, economic, environmental challenges and crises experienced during market-oriented reforms and rapid modernization in China. However, contrary to the Western preference for liberal democracy and "procedural legitimacy," the Chinese government's attempt at bolstering legitimacy has emphasized performance-based, responsibility-based, morality-based, and ideology-based arguments in order to gain popular support and maintain regime stability. In order to understand and explain political phenomena in China, it is necessary to revisit the concepts, theories, and sources of legitimacy and their applications in the Chinese context. Contributors of this book have approached legitimacy from both normative and empirical perspectives, and from Western and Chinese perspectives, thus this edited volume offers lessons and insights for and from China, and contributes to the ongoing theoretical debates as well as empirical research on legitimacy in the Chinese context.