TY - JOUR
T1 - Disorganized popular contention and local institutional building in China
T2 - A case study in Guangdong
AU - Chen, Feng
AU - Kang, Yi
N1 - Funding information:
Feng Chen would like to thank the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and Faculty Research Grants of Hong Kong Baptist University for funding the writing of this article. Yi Kang wishes to thank the Faculty Research Grants of Hong Kong Baptist University for the financial support of this research.
Publisher copyright:
© 2016 Informa UK limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
PY - 2016/7/3
Y1 - 2016/7/3
N2 - Concurring with the approach stressing the role of contentious politics in (re)shaping state institutions, this study explores how disorganized popular contentions configure local institutional building in China. As Chinese citizens are not legally allowed to take organized collective action to express their grievances and demands, popular contentions, despite their common origins, similar claims and identical targets, break out here and there in large numbers without clear organizational shape. This compels the government to build institutions able to map scattered conflicts, detect potential problems and defuse them on a case-by-case basis in a timely fashion. Such a dissipative approach is distinguished, by its purpose, format and mechanism, from two common types of state responses to popular contentions—incorporation and repression—which are typically linked to democracies and authoritarian developing states where popular contentions are often organized in various ways.
AB - Concurring with the approach stressing the role of contentious politics in (re)shaping state institutions, this study explores how disorganized popular contentions configure local institutional building in China. As Chinese citizens are not legally allowed to take organized collective action to express their grievances and demands, popular contentions, despite their common origins, similar claims and identical targets, break out here and there in large numbers without clear organizational shape. This compels the government to build institutions able to map scattered conflicts, detect potential problems and defuse them on a case-by-case basis in a timely fashion. Such a dissipative approach is distinguished, by its purpose, format and mechanism, from two common types of state responses to popular contentions—incorporation and repression—which are typically linked to democracies and authoritarian developing states where popular contentions are often organized in various ways.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84964039944&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10670564.2015.1132959
DO - 10.1080/10670564.2015.1132959
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84964039944
SN - 1067-0564
VL - 25
SP - 596
EP - 612
JO - Journal of Contemporary China
JF - Journal of Contemporary China
IS - 100
ER -