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Since the victory of 1949 revolution the incumbency of the Chinese Communist Party has been characterized by an almost relentless struggle to legitimize its monopoly on political power. During the Mao era, attempts to derive legitimacy focused primarily on mass participation in political affairs, a blend of Marxist and nationalist ideology and the charismatic authority of Mao Zedong which was reinforced by a widely propagated cult of personality. The dramatic failure of the Cultural Revolution forced the post-Mao leadership to discard these discredited paradigms of legitimacy and move towards an almost exclusively performance based concept founded on market economic reform. Whilst this went some way towards resurrecting the popularity of the CCP, the reforms during the 1980s spawned a number of unwelcome but inevitable side effects such as official corruption, high unemployment and significant socio-economic inequality. These (and other) factors detracted from the party's legitimacy and culminated ultimately in the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and throughout China. Since Tiananmen the party has sought to diversify the basis of its legitimacy by adhering more closely to constitutional procedures in decision making and to a certain extent reinventing itself as a conservative nationalist party. This probing study of post communist revolution Chinese politics sets out to discover if there is a plausible alternative to the electoral mode or if legitimacy is the exclusive domain of the multi party system.

Legitimacy of governments --- Authoritarianism --- One party systems --- Légitimité des gouvernements --- Autoritarisme --- Parti unique --- Zhongguo gong chan dang. --- China --- Chine --- Politics and government --- Politique et gouvernement --- History --- Zhongguo gong chan dang --- S06/0220 --- China: Politics and government--People's Republic: general --- Légitimité des gouvernements --- Governments, Legitimacy of --- Legitimacy (Constitutional law) --- Consensus (Social sciences) --- Revolutions --- Sovereignty --- State, The --- General will --- Political stability --- Regime change --- Political science --- Authority --- Zhong guo gong chan dang --- Chung-kuo kung chʻan tang --- Chūgoku Kyōsantō --- Chungguk Kongsandang --- 中国共产党 --- 中國共產黨 --- КПК --- KPK --- Komunistická strana Číny --- Komunistička partija Kine --- Communist Party of China --- Chinese Communist Party --- Communist Party (China) --- Gong chan dang (China) --- 共产党 (China) --- Коммунистическая партия Китая --- Kommunisticheskai︠a︡ partii︠a︡ Kitai︠a︡ --- Shina Kyōsantō --- Китайска комунистическа партия --- Kitaĭska komunisticheska partii︠a︡ --- Partido Comunista de China --- PCCh --- Parti communiste chinois --- CCP --- Partito comunista cinese --- KPCh --- Kommunistische Partei Chinas --- К.П.К. --- K.P.K. --- CPC --- C.C.P. --- Partia Komuniste të Kinës --- Đảng cộng sản Trung quốc --- Zhong gong --- 中共 --- Pcc --- P.C. Chino --- ХКН --- KhKN --- Хятадын Коммунист нам --- Khi︠a︡tadyn Kommunist nam --- One-party systems