Paradigm Shift in Chinese Legal Studies

This chapter aims at offering a brief sketch of the changed and ever-changing paradigms in contemporary Chinese legal studies. The authors identify here two general paradigm shifts across the legal scholarship and academia of legal studies in the post-1978 China which are: de-Sovietization and de-Marxization, on the one hand, and legalization of market economy and Westernization of law, on the other. Since legal science is rather a comprehensive area of research which can be further divided into many sub-areas, the authors choose to develop the central theme of paradigm shift around the three broad sub-areas of law that are: legal theory/jurisprudence, public law, and private law. Finally, the authors also advise to adopt a realistic lens to observe and reflect the subtle process of paradigm shift in Chinese legal studies and to closely observe the ongoing development of legal scholarship “with Chinese characteristics” today.