The reforms during the 1980s generated a number of unwelcome but inevitable side effects such as official corruption, high unemployment and significant socio-economic inequality. These factors culminated ultimately in the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and throughout China. Since Tiananmen the party has sought to diversify the basis of its legitimacy by adhering more closely to constitutional procedures in decision making and, to a certain extent, by reinventing itself as a conservative nationalist party.
This probing study of post-communist revolution Chinese politics sets out to discover if there is a plausible alternative to the electoral mode or if legitimacy is the exclusive domain of the multi-party system.