A01=Luyang Zhou
Author_Luyang Zhou
Category=JPFN
Category=NHTV
China
communism
elites
Empire
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Han
ideology
mobilization
nation
nationalism
nationality
nationhood
revolution
Russia
socialism
Soviet Union
Product details
- ISBN 9781526182753
- Weight: 559g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 10 Jun 2025
- Publisher: Manchester University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Most scholars believe that China’s nationality policy, like that of other socialist states, imitated the Soviet nationality model, a system which has been termed an “affirmative action empire.” This book offers two contributions to the literature which run counter to this convention. First, it argues that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union (USSR) were different; while the PRC was aimed to build an ideal-typical nation-state, the USSR was an open union of nation-states that was only temporarily confined to a physical territory. Second, while scholars who have noted this difference attribute it to contextual factors, such as ethnic structure, geopolitical status, and Russia’s intervention into the Chinese Revolution, this book contends that context shaped the Sino-Soviet difference, yet it did not determine it. Rather, there was significant leeway between the implications of the contextual factors, and what the policy-designers ultimately established. This book probes who held agency, and how these individuals bridged this gap.
Luyang Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Zhejiang University
