Recent Decline in Chinese Economic Caseload: Exploration of a Surprising Puzzle
China Quarterly, Vol. 190, June 2007
23 Pages Posted: 12 Aug 2009
Date Written: August 11, 2009
Abstract
This article explores why the economic caseloads in China have declined in recent years. Based on data collected at the national, provincial, and local levels, it evaluates four possible explanations - structural changes in dispute resolution, economic development, social transformation, and dysfunctional courts. It suggests that all four hypotheses are plausible to a certain extent, but none of them could provide a single, straightforward, and adequate solution to this puzzle. Structural changes in dispute resolution are unlikely to offer a plausible explanation. The cause for decline must then lie either in the total volume of the disputes generated in the society or in the unwillingness of potential litigants to use the courts. It seems that economic development, social transformation, and court dysfunction all have a role to play, but the degree of each factor’s impact varies across time and region. The hypotheses of economic development and social transformation seem to be more plausible in explaining the rise of the caseloads. With obvious limitations, social transformation and especially court dysfunction are more helpful in explaining the fall. The difficulty of locating an overarching explanation in a way suggests that China’s case might have imposed a challenge on the relationship between caseload change and socio-economic conditions which has conventionally regarded as a settled issue.
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