These two books represent major statements about the nature and workings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). For all its centrality in Chinese politics, the CCP as a political institution has been surprisingly understudied. Scholars have focused on elite conflicts over power and policy, on state–society struggles, on local politics, and on when and how China might make a transition to democracy. Few have made the institutional dynamics of the CCP their research topic, especially since the crackdown of 1989, and also because of difficulties in accessing materials and interviews from those at the heart of the party apparatus. I hope that others follow the lead of Bruce J. Dickson and David Shambaugh.

Wealth into Power is a particularly rare kind of scholarship. In 2003, Dickson published Red Capitalists in China, based on a 1999 sample survey, interviews, and documentary research. Remarkably, the book reviewed here resampled the same areas in China and used basically the same questionnaire in 2004 as in 1999. This second set of results obviously allows for temporal comparisons, as well as the opportunity for further interviews and documentary research. (Also remarkably, and it is hoped, setting a precedent, Cambridge University Press, saw merit in allowing Dickson to revisit, in a profound way, a book published five years before.)

Dickson takes issue with those who see the rise of the private sector specifically, and economic development more generally, as preparing the way for political change/democratization in China. But instead of challenging the CCP, he argues that entrepreneurs have become partners with the CCP in promoting development. The private sector has been co-opted and incorporated, and channeled to serve both as a leading sector for development and as an increasingly important pillar of party control. He argues that local CCP and business elites share ever more similar interests, personal ties, and common attitudes. The result, he suggests, is that a decentralized “crony capitalism” is a more likely result of the development of the private sector than is a Chinese bourgeoisie demanding democratization.

Dickson's survey was undertaken in two counties in each of four provinces in China. It was not a random sample, and while the survey was undertaken by the most professionally competent public opinion research organization in China, it was subject to the vagaries of surveys in authoritarian regimes, indeed of surveying, at least in part, agents of that regime itself. Nonetheless, the sum total of the evidence the author marshals is compelling, and is supported by the work of a number of other scholars engaging in research on similar questions. China's private entrepreneurs are not likely to be the promoters of political change in China.

While Dickson's argument is strong, some of the facts he reports seem confusing, or at least they reflect the variable quality of Chinese statistics. Thus, despite the fact that 32.2 percent of all private entrepreneurs (and there were 3.6 million private firms in 2004 [p. 38]) had joined the CCP by 2006 (p. 70), only 894 were allowed to join in 2004 (p. 80). Part of the confusion lies in the fact that large numbers of private firms were privatized state-owned enterprises (25%, p. 59, a particularly implausible number, as there were only about 90,000 state enterprises in the late 1990s), usually taken private by their state cadres who by definition become entrepreneurs, and also in the fact that a number of party members went into private business after their membership. Presumably, as is commonly the case with Chinese statistics, the definition of the statistical category shifts with the concern of those reporting the statistics. In any event, the seeming confusion here does not significantly detract from Dickson's argument.

China's Communist Party concerns how the CCP has examined itself and attempted to refashion itself after the collapse of communism in most of the world and, though he does not discuss this much, after the events of 1989 in China. He argues that through reflection on the experiences of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, party thinkers developed a series of measures, or adaptations, to allow it to survive as a ruling party. His book is organized around various discourses on communist party states (with 30 pages of 181 pages of text devoted to seemingly irrelevant Western discourse), and then CCP discussion of communist and noncommunist party states. From the discussions, he adduces categories of lessons learned, and argues that these were used by the CCP to adapt its ideology and organization so that the party could continue to rule, and “stay alive.”

Shambaugh's book relies heavily on internally circulated evaluations of developments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union produced by the Central Party School and various research institutes, as well as interviews with some very highly placed leaders. The empirical information presented is quite impressive. Yet, it does not really add up in my reading of the book.

While devoting significant attention to what lessons party scholars were drawing from the collapse of communism elsewhere, Shambaugh notes that the atmosphere in China in the 1989–91 period was not “congenial” for critical reflection on dramatic events. Indeed, it was not until 1999 that major reports, books, and documents on the collapse of communism emerged from the party scholars. But he also notes (p. 58) that the editor of the official party newspaper gave a speech on August 30, 1991, that presented the official view on what caused the Soviet coup attempt and the decline of the Soviet Union. As Shambaugh states (p. 59), this speech foreshadowed all subsequent analysis on lessons to be learned. In other words, one might conclude that the party leadership had already drawn up its own lessons on what to do in the summer of 1991, and the party academics would undertake more detailed and comprehensive studies, but they would not fundamentally alter the conclusions and lessons drawn on high. Thus, one is left wondering how relevant the party scholars were. This becomes an important issue for the rest of the book because Shambaugh implies that the analyses of the party scholars had causal impacts on the adaptations carried out by the CCP to stay in power. If the leadership had already drawn its lessons in 1991, the work of the scholars was unlikely to have causal impact.

Moreover, Shambaugh never really defines what he means by adaptation or how one assesses whether a change is a positive or negative adaptation. He documents lots of activities by the CCP as an organization to improve its ability to govern, and his discussion of the system of party schools is particularly informative. But just because there is lots of activity, does this mean that it is working or positive (from the CCP's perspective)? For example, the author argues that from a study of the organizational weakness of the Soviet Communist Party, the CCP designed a series of measures to strengthen its governing capacity, including fighting corruption and improving CCP discipline. But top Chinese leaders had argued since the late 1970s that fighting corruption was a life or death issue for the party, and there have been numerous rounds of anticorruption work. The rates of party members investigated and disciplined do not seem noticeably higher than in earlier rounds. Moreover, Shambaugh concludes in the section on corruption that “despite the difficulties of coming to grips with corruption, the CCP is not sitting idly by while it spreads like an infectious cancer throughout society” (p. 134). This is hardly a ringing endorsement of appropriate lessons learned and effective adaptation by the CCP.

Shambaugh is very good at drawing attention to the range of activities undertaken by the party to adjust its ideology and internal capabilities. But he provides no effective metric of assessment. He is too good and experienced a student of Chinese politics not to know that what happens in practice, what actually gets implemented, matters a great deal. Are policies and ideas designed to strengthen the CCP treated as routine matters by party officials, or are patterns of thought and behavior changed in major ways? Despite his emphasis on the previous 10 years, many of the ideas and policies designed to improve party performance had been tried since the start of the reform period in the late 1970s. The fact that the same issues continue to recur with regard to the party as an institution should make us wary. Therefore, Shambaugh should be held to a higher burden of proof before he can conclude, as he does, that the CCP is “staying alive.” At the same time, his book, like that of his colleague Dickson, is to be commended for seriously addressing a pressing topic that is likely to only grow in significance as China's influence on the world stage increases and its party-state faces a wide array of challenges.