Order and Prosperity: An Institutionalist Framework for First Questions of Politics

Political order is the essential goal for all political activities. Eliminating wars, violence, hunger and robbery, among others, a basic political order is achieved. On the basis of it, political community would pursue an order that is defined by prosperity. This paper first discuss the concept of political order, and provides an institutionalist conceptual framework for the understanding the forming of political order. Institutions that make political order possible operates at four levels, i.e. value, cogitation, organization, and technique. I then show how the political order of China, generally referred to as socialism with Chinese characteristics, is formed on these four institutional levels, as well as comparing this order to the US order that is called a capitalist liberal democratic order. This framework or theory of political order should help the field move beyond the narrowly focused dichotomy of democracy vs. autocracy.