Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

China, Law, and Development

Project description

A comparative look at the ‘China model’ of law and development

The coronavirus pandemic has rerouted global supply chains, suspended international labour, and affected state alliances. These changes have incited debates about good governance regarding economic wellbeing, public health, security, and freedom. China has emerged as a champion of globalisation and provides public goods to the developing world. The EU-funded CLD project focuses on the role of law in China’s version of transnational governance. China appears to both build on existing legal infrastructures (courts, contracts, and private law systems) and innovating alternatives, for example, in development finance and dispute resolution. This multi-disciplinary project generates empirical data about China’s approach to building order and assesses its impact on emerging economies.

Objective

The world is in the midst of a sea change in approaches to development. The rise of nationalist politics in the U.S. U.K. and Europe have questioned commitments to global governance at the same time that China has emerged as a champion of globalization, a turn of geo-political events that would have been unfathomable ten years ago. Through its own multi-lateral institutions, China is setting a new agenda for development from Europe to Oceania. China’s approach differs from Anglo/Euro/American approaches to “law and development” (LD). Whereas LD orthodoxy has sought to improve legal institutions in poor states, Chinese do not foster rule of law abroad. Instead, Chinese view law as one set of rules, among others, to facilitate economic transactions and not to foster democratization. This distinction has sparked a global debate about the so-called “China model” as an alternative to LD. Yet there is little empirical data with which to assess the means and ends of China’s expanded footprint, a question with long-term implications for much of the developing world. This project addresses that problem by proposing that even if Chinese cross-border development does not operate through transparent rules, it nonetheless has its own notion of order. The project adopts a multi-sited, mixed method, and interdisciplinary approach—at the intersection of comparative law, developmental studies, and legal anthropology—to understand the nature of China’s order. The project has two objectives:
1. To establish the conceptual bases for the study of China’s approach to law and development by developing the first systematic study of the impacts of Chinese investment on the legal systems of developing economies.
2. To experiment with a comparative research design to theorize how China’s approach suggests a type of order that extends through a conjuncture of regional and local processes and manifests itself differently in diverse contexts.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-STG - Starting Grant

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2018-STG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 499 381,00
Address
WELLINGTON SQUARE UNIVERSITY OFFICES
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom

See on map

Region
South East (England) Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Oxfordshire
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 499 381,00

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0