ABSTRACT
An early study of political documents focused on a specific series of important political documents produced by the Party Central Committee. The process of formulating a central document can be divided into seven steps: initiation, selection of drafters, top-down directives, research and drafting, revision, approval, and dissemination. The formulation of a document may be viewed as a by-product of a political decision by political leaders; deliberately exclude the initiating step as a precondition for the process of documentary formulation. Once there is a decision to formulate a document, the leader(s) who are given the responsibility for this specific job have to select drafters. For an "administrative document," the appropriate administrative department(s) of the party and the government usually takes the role of drafting. In early 1987, China experienced a political shock with the forced resignation of Hu Yaobang, the reform-minded party chief, and with the political campaign against bourgeois liberalism.
