Ten years ago, when I told people I was writing a book on intellectual property in China, they joked that it must be a very short book. Such a response betrays a view which privileges outcomes while ignoring political, economic, social and normative structures and processes. In China, however, the former tend to be rather modest, while the latter are manifold, complex, contradictory, and critical to understanding state institutions and societal dynamics. Rachel Stern, too, focuses on process rather than on outcomes in her illuminating new book, Environmental Litigation in China, which she uses as a wormhole through which to document China's broader legal developments over the past dozen years.
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