Conjunctural China

Keywords: Conjunctural research methodologies, Chinese (state) capitalism, Greater Bay Area
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 07:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 08:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 3

Abstract

The presentation asks what difference it makes to analyze Chinese development ‘conjuncturally’. Conjunctural analysis has gained something of a reputation as a hipster methodology, witnessed mainly in (exemplary) execution, resistant to codification, and perhaps too cool for rules. Somewhat counter-culturally, the presentation seeks to specify some of the principal premises and procedural implications of conjunctural analysis, approached here as a relational methodology designed for the purpose of theoretically informed but deeply contextualized analysis. The discussion is illustrated by, and embedded within, reflections on the problematic of Chinese (state) capitalism, and the idea of a sui generis ‘China model’, controversies around which show little sign of abatement. While conjunctural analysis describes a general orientation and mode of thinking, more than it does a prescriptive methodological approach or formal framework, it is nevertheless associated with a series of rules of thumb that mitigate against recourse to bounded case studies (in spatial or scalar terms), ahistorical or presentist inquiries, and the refinement of one-dimensional models or ideal types. Advocating a series of alternative methodological maneuvers, the presentation will make the case for conjunctural analyses of Chinese capitalism predicated on commitments to, inter alia, robust forms of contextualism, the exploration of anomalous (rather than ‘typical’) situations, and strategies of ‘thick’ theorization.