NAITO Hiroko

Previous research

To analyze the puzzling resilience of the China’s one-party system under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), my research focuses on the relationship between the CCP and the People’s Court. My research has revealed that the CCP institutionalized the People’s Court system in order to secure the legal means to control the system from within and without, beginning in the late 1970s when the CCP started claiming "Democracy and Legal System". To observe the institutionalization of the People’s Court system, my research examined three cases: the reform of the Politics and Law Committee in the 1980s, the creation and revision of the administrative litigation law, and the creation of the environmental protection law.

Current research projects

Based on the negative correlation between the level of freedom and the level of rule of law under authoritarian regimes, my current research builds on my previous research and investigates what factors do and do not accelerate institutionalization of the judicial system, by performing a subnational comparison in China. In particular, my research aims to analyze the conditions that lead to success or failure in terms of professionalizing judges as well as the centralization of the people’s court system.