A number of notable changes have taken place since Xi Jinping came to power. Seemingly contradictory developments include: the primacy of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership and the progress of judicial professionalization, the call on morality for behavioural guidance and the emphasis on Socialist Core Values. How can we make sense of the rule of law rhetoric and the primacy of Party leadership under Xi Jinping's administration? What is the relationship between morality and Socialist Core Values? In Law and the Party in China: Ideology and Organisation edited by Rogier Creemers and Susan Trevaskes, a group of distinguished scholars set out to answer these questions. The end goal of this volume is to “bring ideology back in.” Ideology not only (instrumentally) helps frame policy agenda, but fundamentally guides and shapes policymaking. By bringing the ideology back in, we should be able to reconcile the seemingly inconsistent development.

What is ideology, then? In his classic work, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (1966), Schurmann looked at the ideology of organizations, “a systematic set of ideas with action consequences serving the purpose of creating and using organization” (p. 18). The structure of CCP ideology consists of a “theory” or “pure ideology” derived from Marxism and Leninism, which gives Chinese Communists a unified and conscious world view, and a “practical ideology” – “the thought of Mao Zedong” – that provides instrumental guidance to analyse concrete problems and recommend rational action.

Inspired by Schurmann's work, this volume examines how ideology informs the ways that the Party structures and governs itself, the state and society. This volume also updates Schurmann's observation and analysis, first, in terms of the content and origin of the CCP ideology. Section one of the book discusses how the CCP conceives of the nature of law and its position within its policy toolkit. Rogier Creemers (chapter two) substantiates the CCP ideology through three questions: what is the purpose of politics? who should be in charge? and by what method should they govern to achieve that purpose? Answers to these questions suggest that Party ideology constitutes “an important part of the very definition of legality and legitimacy” (p. 33). Ewan Smith (chapter four) takes on the specific idea of “yifa zhiguo” (to govern the nation according to law) and situates it in the temporal development under Xi since 2013. By examining the evolution of the Politburo doctrines on the rule of law, he highlights the instrumental and ephemeral features of Xi's “nativist” vision of “Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics.” Elaborating on the “nativist” element in Xi's yifa zhiguo ideas, Delia Lin and Susan Trevaskes's contribution (chapter five) unpacks the “ideological makeup of yifa zhiguo” against the absolute supremacy of Party leadership. They look at the Confucian and Legalist traditions from which moral values and the law-morality amalgam are made coherent, at least discursively, with the absolute supremacy of Party leadership. Gloria Davies (chapter three) takes a step back and reflects on ideologies that are constructed by the CCP and made sense of in academic discourse. In addition, she contends that ideology is formed not only of historically developed and systematic ideas but also the lived experiences of many in China, including academics, who are subject to explicit ideological requirements and implicitly take ideological perspectives.

In part two, this volume also advances Schurmann's analysis of organizational development. It addresses how CCP ideological principles are manifested in the application of law and organizational design of Party–state relations and social control. Margaret Lewis's (chapter six) “double-helix” description of Party–state relations depicts the bonds between the two and the shifts in their relationships. As the message about the CCP's monopoly of power, as well as the power of Xi Jinping as the core, has become forcefully delivered inside China, the outside world should, Lewis argues, take the Party–state's discourses seriously, in order to push back this “better model” of governance that claims to remedy flaws of multiple-party system and electoral democracy. Ling Li's work (chapter seven) further details the distinctive Party–state relations in China, where the Party is linked to the state but does not supplant it. The ways in which the Party exercises control over the state and their evolution are illustrated by her meticulous study of the development of the Party's disciplinary regime between 1949 and 2017. Samuli Seppänen (chapter eight) turns the focus from state laws to intraparty regulations as the Party strives simultaneously to limit formal legal processes and to regulate Party cadres’ use of power through formal rules. He highlights the tension between a non-legal regulatory system that relies on rationalist bureaucracy and a Marxist-Leninist one-party state that claims authority. As a result, intraparty regulations, like formal state laws, are subject to interpretation and remain insufficient to enforce the Party leaders’ will of disciplining the members. Adam Knight's contribution (chapter nine) ends the volume with a study of China's Social Credit System, as it extends application beyond financial services and reaches into judicial enforcement, accompanied by the re-insertion of a “morality” discourse on chengxin, or honesty and credibility. Constructing and instructing an “exemplary society,” a tradition since imperial China, finds its applications in contemporary Chinese cities that experiment according to local conditions. At the same time, it is elevated to an ideal of chengxin culture promoted under Xi Jinping.

As the book's cover image implies, the dominance of the CCP has an imprint from the past. To identify elements from the past and to understand the rationale of the CCP's toolkit, one needs to take “an internal perspective, (and) to take into account the characteristic architecture of China's Party-state” (cover text). By bringing ideology back in and taking it seriously, we may begin to make sense of the multifront development of the CCP under Xi Jinping. All those who are interested in fundamental questions about what the CCP represents and why it rules the way it does will find reading this collection an enriching journey.