This graduate-level course places the autocratic system in China in comparative perspective, and studies its implications for how we understand the construct of state and regime power, state-society relations, and the shape of civil society or there lack of — at theoretical and empirical levels. This is a theory-informed course on authoritarianism that draws on China as an empirical example, in addition to exploring how the Chinese case can contribute to the big theoretical questions that animate the field. Students need not have prior of knowledge of China; some knowledge of how authoritarianism works in the communist or post-communist states or other country contexts might be helpful.