A Report on 

The 17th Annual Meeting of ACPS

The 17th annual meeting of the Association of Chinese Political Studies (ACPS) was successfully held between June 11-12, 2004 in Beijing in collaboration with Renmin University of China, the Carter Center , and other organizations. The broad theme of the conference is “Political Civilization and Political Modernization in China ,” which has become one of the most challenging topics in the field of China studies. The two-day conference brought together more than 250 scholars on China studies, among whom about 40 were from outside of China . There were 16 panels and about 100 papers presented. Participants explored a wide variety of topics related to the central theme, such as political civilization and reform in China, democratization and rule of law, development and change of NPC system, governance at grassroots, transition of ruling party and democracy within the party, local elections, NGOs and civil society in China, historical reflections on democratic politics in China, political analysis of governance at grassroots, theories and practices of constitutionalism, community construction and urban governance, international comparison of democratic transition, contemporary discourse of political philosophy, political concepts and political civilization, interaction across the Taiwan Straits, reform of political institutions, political culture and institutional change, institutional change and institutional analysis.

At the business meeting of the ACPS during the conference, the Association’s Bylaws were adopted by vote of the members present at the conference, which were aimed at making the organization more institutionalized and more professional. A new ACPS Board of Directors was elected by vote of the members present at the conference: Shiping Hua (president), Sujian Guo (president-elect), Baogang Guo, Christina Mao, Gregory Moore, Ka Zeng, and Baohui Zhang (in alphabetical order). Please check the ACPS website for updates.  The new board of directors decided to hold its 18^th annual meeting at San Francisco State University located in the beautiful coastal city, San Francisco , California , USA , between Saturday-Sunday, July 30-31, 2005. The board would like to thank the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences of SFSU, which has generously agreed to co-host the 2005 ACPS Annual Meeting on its campus. The conference announcement and call for papers will be sent out via email and in the Newsletter to all members. More information will be provided at the Association’s website.