Author: Susan L. Shirk | Journal of Democracy

Susan L. Shirk is research professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, where she chairs the 21st Century China Center. Her books include China: Fragile Superpower (2008). From 1997 to 2000, she served as a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state.

April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2

China in Xi’s “New Era”: The Return to Personalistic Rule

Susan L. Shirk

After Mao, Deng Xiaoping tried to institutionalize collective leadership, but this did not stop Xi Jinping from grasping all the levers of power.