High Theory in Chinese Law

The most contested question in the study of Chinese law is also its most enduring one: How should we characterize China’s legal system? In recent years, scholars have advanced numerous theories to explain Chinese law. Some have emphasized legality; others have stressed order; still others have described the system as dual or multi-faceted. This Essay contributes a set of meta-theoretical insights to these discussions. It argues that the preceding debates would benefit from reflecting on the general qualities that make theories good, with special attention to the analytic costs and benefits of different modes of theorizing. It distinguishes between monist theories about legal systems that rely on a single construct and pluralist theories that rely on multiple constructs. Monist theories excel in their economy, coherence, testability, and generativity, as well as in their heuristic and prismatic properties. But they are, as a class, less able to achieve the explanatory breadth and depth of pluralist theories and are more vulnerable to subtler epistemological biases. Pluralist theories, in contrast, tend to explain more but generate less through their attention to nuance and exception. There are analytic payoffs to recognizing these differences—payoffs for the rigor of internal debates, the strengthening of specific arguments, our interpretation of theoretical trends, and our theorizing about legal systems generally, including American law. More prescriptively, these findings lean in favor of theoretical heterogeneity, where modes of theory are keyed to particular purposes and contexts as well as larger disciplinary and political trends.