ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a review of the state of European studies of contemporary Chinese politics in recent years. European scholars have shown a keen interest in Chinese politics for a long time. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, this interest was partly driven by the growing infl uence of Maoist and more generally leftist ideas among intellectuals and elites. But the dramatic political changes that occurred in China after Mao Zedong’s death and the renewed attraction in Europe for liberal democracy and human rights have restored more traditional factors of interests: China’s economic development, ideological opening, growing diplomatic and strategic power as well as social stability and political future have become again the main drivers of European studies of Chinese politics.
