8 - Contesting Party Leadership

Summary

Despite the increasing academic interest in how the party exerts control, there has been little research on how individuals or entities resist such control. This article provides an up-to-date ethnographic account of the evolving relationship between homeowners’ associations (HoAs) and the party-state in China. Drawing on interviews and archival research, I find that while the party-state attempts to penetrate the homeowner self-governance institution, homeowners in China have exhibited increasingly direct and effective resistance to the party’s efforts in three ways, including evasion, collective petitions, and legality reviews. My research underscores the potential of homeowners to defend their right to self-governance from party infiltration in today’s increasingly authoritarian China.